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THE MEMOIRS
OF
COUNT CARLO GOZZI

VOLUME THE FIRST




_PUBLISHERS' NOTE._

_Five hundred and twenty copies of this book printed for England,
and two hundred and sixty for America. Type distributed. Each
copy numbered._

_No._ 606

[Illustration: Carlo Gozzi]




THE MEMOIRS OF
COUNT CARLO GOZZI

TRANSLATED INTO ENGLISH
BY
JOHN ADDINGTON SYMONDS

With Essays on Italian Impromptu Comedy, Gozzi's Life,
The Dramatic Fables, and Pietro Longhi

BY THE TRANSLATOR

_WITH PORTRAIT AND SIX ORIGINAL ETCHINGS_
BY ADOLPHE LALAUZE

_ALSO ELEVEN SUBJECTS ILLUSTRATING ITALIAN COMEDY BY MAURICE SAND
ENGRAVED ON COPPER BY A. MANCEAU, AND  BY HAND_

IN TWO VOLUMES
VOLUME THE FIRST

NEW YORK
SCRIBNER & WELFORD
743 & 745 BROADWAY
MDCCCXC




LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS.

_VOLUME THE FIRST._

The Etchings designed and etched by AD. LALAUZE. The Masks, illustrating
the Italian Commedia dell'Arte, by MAURICE SAND, engraved by A. MANCEAU,
and  by hand.

I. PORTRAIT OF CARLO GOZZI (_etching_)                  _Frontispiece_

                                                                 PAGE

II. THE ITALIAN COMMEDIA DELL'ARTE, OR IMPROMPTU COMEDY            25

III. COLOMBINA (1683)                                              48

IV. TARTAGLIA (1620)                                               96

V. BRIGHELLA (1570)                                               128

VI. IL DOTTORE (1653)                                             160

VII. SCARAMOUCH (1645)                                            192

VIII. THE FRANCISCAN FRIAR ON THE GALLEY (_etching_)              216

IX. IL CAPITANO (1668)                                            256




PREFACE.


After the appearance of my work on Benvenuto Cellini, Mr. J. C. Nimmo
proposed that I should undertake a translation of Count Carlo Gozzi's
_Memorie Inutili_.

The suggestion that such a book might be of interest to the English
public emanated originally, I believe, from Mr. E. Hutchings of
Manchester, in a letter addressed to the _Academy_.[1]

To this gentleman my warmest thanks are due, not only for starting the
idea, which I have carried out, but also for the interest he has shown
in my work during its progress, and for the assistance he has liberally
rendered by the loan of rare books.

I entertained the proposal with some doubt. What I already knew about
Carlo Gozzi amounted to little; and it seemed to me improbable that the
world would willingly have left his Memoirs in oblivion if they
possessed solid qualities.

At the same time, the little that I did know of Gozzi roused my
curiosity. The picturesque aspects of Venetian decadence allured my
fancy. I foresaw that I should have to handle the attractive subject of
Italian impromptu comedy. Finally, it so happens that autobiographies
have always exerted a peculiar fascination for my mind. I rate them
highly as historical and psychological documents. The smallest fragment
of a genuine autobiography seems to me valuable for the student of past
epochs.

I had strong inducements, therefore, to undertake the proposed task.

The first thing to do was to procure a copy of the Memoirs, which exist
only in one edition of three volumes. Mr. Hutchings placed the first two
volumes of the book at my disposal; but the third was missing. It had
been purloined while its owner was stationed in one of the South
American cities. Mr. Nimmo and I waited through four months, making
continued applications to the best European dealers in old books, before
a complete copy was at last disinterred from a Venetian library.

The extraordinary rarity of the _Memorie_ stimulated my growing
interest. After making a preliminary study of the text, I perceived that
this was no common specimen of self-portraiture. In some respects it
seemed to me to be a masterpiece. I felt no doubt that it possessed both
psychological and historical value. A man of a very marked type stood
forth from those pages. He was, moreover, the Venetian representative of
a well-defined social and literary period. This period corresponded
pretty closely with that of our own Samuel Johnson, Fielding, Goldsmith,
Reynolds, David Hume. It was the period which ended with the earthquake
of the French Revolution, the signs of which catastrophe were felt more
ominously in Italy than in our own land. At the same time I recognised
salient qualities of healthy moral sense, of analytical acumen, of
vigorous intelligence, and of caustic humour in the author, mingled with
literary merit of no ordinary kind, vivid transcripts from contemporary
life, dramatic narration, incisive sketches of character, original
reflections on society.

According to my own standard in such matters, Gozzi's Memoirs ranked as
an important document for the study of Italy in the last century.

But was the book worth translating? Would it not suffice to leave the
few existing copies in their obscurity, and to indicate their value for
historians by composing a critical treatise on the author and his times?

My own predilection for autobiographies, and my sense of their utility,
caused me to reject this alternative. I decided to translate, and to
illustrate my translation by tolerably copious original essays.

While engaged upon the work, I have not, however, felt always quite at
ease. It has recurred to my mind that many readers of these volumes will
exclaim: "An English version of Gozzi's self-styled 'useless memoirs'
cannot fail to be twice as useless as the original!" Not all people
share that partiality for autobiographies which in me amounts almost to
a passion.

Besides, I had to face other difficulties. The three chapters which
contain the narratives of Gozzi's love-adventures could not be omitted.
They are too valuable for the light they throw upon his age, and too
important in the man's estimate of his own character. Their suppression
would have been unfair to Gozzi, and would have shorn his Memoirs of
some brilliant bits of local colour. Nevertheless, I knew that the
frankness and the cynical humour of these episodes are out of tune with
modern taste. Much is pardoned by the virtue of our age to classics--to
Plato or Cellini--which would not be excused in a writer of inferior
eminence. But Gozzi is no classic. The fact of his neglect by his own
nation proves that overwhelmingly. Why drag him from deserved oblivion
if these love-stories are indispensable to the rehabilitating process?

My answer to this perplexing query was that the debated passages are
good in literature, true to nature, sound in moral feeling. Their
candour is the candour of a cleanly heart, resolved to bare its secret
by an effort of self-portraiture. Gozzi describes passions common to
that age, and ours, and every age; but he also shows how a determined
character, upright and honourable, can free itself from the
entanglements of natural frailty. The lesson may be somewhat harsh, but
it is salutary. Gozzi has written no single word unworthy of a man of
principle--nothing which is calculated to make vice alluring. Only one--

    "Who winks, and shuts his apprehension up
     From common sense of what men were and are,
     Who would not know what men must be:"--

only such an one can take exception to the narratives of Gozzi's
love-adventures.

Reasoning thus, I determined to include the love-tales in my
translation, having already decided that no translation could be given
to the world without them, and that the book was worthy of
resuscitation. But I felt myself justified in removing those passages
and phrases which might have caused offence to some of my readers.

To translate Gozzi with the minute attention to his style which I
bestowed upon Cellini would have been unpractical. I should even have
inflicted an injury upon my author. It is in many respects an annoying
style; redundant, unequal, diffuse; bearing the stamp of garrulous
senility and imperfect (though copious) command of language.

To condense and manipulate the Memoirs at my own free will, following
the plan of Paul de Musset's abridgement, seemed to me unscrupulous,
even if I abstained from that amusing writer's deliberate
mystifications.

I resolved to convert the larger portion of the book into equivalent
English, allowing myself the license of curtailing certain passages, and
rearranging the order of some chapters. All cases of important
condensation or omission have been indicated in my notes. My account of
the Memoirs and the causes which led to their publication (Introduction,
Part i.) sufficiently explains my right to transpose material from one
place to another. Readers of the Introduction will perceive how
carelessly and accidentally, to serve occasion, the original and unique
edition was put together. It is due in part, I think, to Gozzi's
indifference and haste of compilation that so curious a specimen of
autobiography fell into almost absolute oblivion.

We have only one edition of the _Memorie_, that of Palese, under the
date Venezia, 1797. Therefore nothing need be said upon the topic of
bibliography. I may, however, mention that the few copies of this rare
book which have fallen under my inspection present some features of
difference, indicating the random way in which the sheets were made up
for publication.

Among English critics of distinction, one only, so far as I am aware,
has mentioned Gozzi's Memoirs. That is Vernon Lee, in her _Studies of
the Eighteenth Century in Italy_. But Vernon Lee knew the book only
through Paul de Musset's "perversion." Accordingly, what she has to say
about the man is less valuable than the vivid, if not always accurate,
account she gives of his _Fiabe_.

The volumes I am now presenting to the public claim at least one
merit--that of dealing with a hitherto almost untouched document of
historical and literary importance.

I flatter myself that readers will be found to appreciate the brilliant,
though prolix and desultory, portraiture of life in Venice during the
last century which these "useless memoirs" offer to their imagination.

Finally, I wish here to record my mature opinion about Carlo Gozzi's
character for veracity and general uprightness. I think that I have been
hardly just, and certainly not generous, to Gozzi in the Introduction
and the notes appended to my version. Wishing to avoid the _lues
biographica_, I assumed a somewhat too purely critical attitude while
writing. Careful perusal of the proofs makes me feel that the truth
would not have suffered had I entirely suppressed some suspicions and
concealed some personal want of sympathy with the man. Allowing for his
peculiar and occasionally repellent character--the character of an
"original" and a confirmed old bachelor--Gozzi seems to me now to have
been as honest and open-hearted as a gentleman should be.

    JOHN ADDINGTON SYMONDS.

AM HOF, DAVOS PLATZ,

_March 25, 1889_.




_BOOKS USED AND REFERRED TO IN THIS WORK._


     1. CARLO GOZZI. "Memorie Inutili." 3 vols. Venice. 1797.

     2. CARLO GOZZI. "Opere." 10 vols. Venice. Colombani and other
     publishers. 1772-1791.

     3. ERNESTO MASI. "Le Fiabe di Carlo Gozzi." 2 vols. Bologna.
     Zanichelli. 1885.

     4. PIER ANTONIO GRATAROL. "Narrazione Apologetica." 2 vols.
     Venezia. Gatti. 1797.

     5. PAUL DE MUSSET. "Memoires de Charles Gozzi." Paris. Charpentier.
     1848.

     6. GIOV. BATT. MAGRINI. "Carlo Gozzi e le Fiabe." Cremona.
     Feraboli. 1876. The same work, second edition: "I Tempi la Vita e
     gli Scritti di Carlo Gozzi." Benevento. De Gennaro. 1883.

     7. MICHELE SCHERILLO. "La Commedia dell' Arte in Italia." Torino.
     Loescher. 1884.

     8. ADOLFO BARTOLI. "Scenari Inediti della Commedia dell' Arte."
     Firenze. Sansone. 1880.

     9. ALFONSE ROYER. "Carlo Gozzi, Theatre Fiabesque." Paris. Michel
     Levy. 1865.

     10. CARLO GOLDONI. "Memoires." 3 vols. Paris. Veuve Duchesne. 1787.

     11. FERDINANDO GALANTI. "Carlo Goldoni e Venezia nel Secolo xviii."
     Padova. Samin. 1882.

     12. P. G. MOLMENTI. "Carlo Goldoni." Venezia. Ongania. 1880.

     13. VERNON LEE. "Studies of the Eighteenth Century in Italy."
     London. Satchell. 1880.

     14. MAURICE SAND. "Masques et Bouffons." 2 vols. Paris. A. Levy
     1862.

     15. S. ROMANIN. "Storia Documentata di Venezia." Vols. vii.-ix.
     Venezia. Naratovitch. 1860.

     16. GIUSEPPE BOERIO. "Dizionario del Dialetto Veneziano." Venezia.
     Cocchini. 1856.

     17. PHILARETE CHASLES. "Etudes sur l'Espagne, etc." ("D'un Theatre
     Espagnol-Venitien au xviii^{me.} Siecle et de Charles Gozzi").
     Paris. Amyot. 1847.

     18. N. TOMMASEO. "Storia Civile nella Letteraria." Roma, Torino,
     Firenze. E Loescher. 1872.

     19. EUGENIO CAMERINI. "I Precursori del Goldoni." Milano. Sonzogno.
     1872.

     20. "Memoires de Jacques Casanova de Seingalt, ecrites par
     lui-meme. Bruxelles. Rozet. 1876.




THE MEMOIRS

OF

COUNT CARLO GOZZI





INTRODUCTION.




PART I.

_CARLO GOZZI AND PIERO ANTONIO GRATAROL._

     1. The ancestry and social standing of Count Carlo Gozzi--His
     collision with Piero Antonio Gratarol, Secretary to the Venetian
     Collegio--How this quarrel led to the composition of Gozzi's
     Memoirs--Their importance as a document for the social history of
     Venice in the eighteenth century.--2. The interweaving of this
     episode in Gozzi's Life with his literary warfare against Goldoni,
     which culminated in the production of his ten dramatic fables.--3.
     Sketch of Gratarol's life, and his relation to Andrea and Caterina
     Tron--Gozzi's _liaison_ with the actress Teodora Ricci--Gozzi's
     comedy, _Le Droghe d'Amore_--Turned by Mme. Tron into a satire upon
     Gratarol--Gratarol flies from Venice to Stockholm, is proscribed by
     the Republic, and loses all his fortune--His _Narrazione
     Apologetica_--Gozzi takes up the pen in self-defence--The
     Inquisitors of State forbid the publication of his autobiographical
     polemic--Gratarol's death in Madagascar--Circumstances which
     induced Gozzi in 1797, after the fall of the Republic of St. Mark,
     to complete and publish his Memoirs.--4. Gozzi's literary style and
     personal character--The false conception of the man and his work
     which has been diffused by Paul de Musset.


I.

In the year 1797 there appeared at Venice a book entitled _Memorie
inutili della vita di Carlo Gozzi, scritte da lui medesimo e pubblicate
per umilta_, "Useless Memoirs of the Life of Carlo Gozzi, written by
himself and published from motives of humility." Its author, though he
bore the title of Count, and belonged to an honourable family in
Venice, was not of patrician descent. That is to say, none of his lineal
ancestors had acquired the right of voting in the Grand Council or of
holding the highest offices of state. They ranked with the citizens of
the Republic, who took no direct part in the government, but who were
permitted to discharge important functions as secretaries of several
departments and as ambassadors of the second class. By his mother he
drew half of his blood from one of the oldest and proudest of Venetian
noble families, the Tiepolos. Thus, socially, if not politically, birth
placed him almost on a level with the best Venetian aristocracy.

In the year 1797 he was seventy-seven; and although he had been a man of
some mark in his early days, the public had lost sight of him for the
last seventeen years. His reputation depended upon a large number of
dramatic pieces, satirical poems, and prose compositions, mostly of a
controversial kind. Two main episodes in his literary life conferred a
slightly dubious notoriety upon his name. The first of these was the
long and bitter war he waged against the two playwrights, Chiari and
Goldoni, between the years 1756 and 1762. The other was an unfortunate
series of events which brought him into collision with a certain Pier
Antonio Gratarol in 1777. Gratarol, like his adversary, was a Venetian
citizen, allied by descent to the great patrician family of Contarini.
Unlike Gozzi, he early embarked on a political career, was one of the
secretaries of the Collegio, and looked forward to the highest
appointments which were open to a man of his rank. The collision with
Count Gozzi, which I shall have to describe with some minuteness, ended
in Gratarol's voluntary exile from Venice, the confiscation of his
property by the State, and a public scandal of sufficient importance to
attract the attention of serious historians.[2] Had it not been for this
tragi-comic episode in his past life, Gozzi would never have written his
Memoirs; and had the memory of the scandal not been revived some years
after Gratarol's death, when the old Republic of S. Mark had fallen in
the crash of the French Revolution, he would never have published them.

This autobiography is distinctly an apologetical work, a portrait drawn
by Gozzi in self-defence, and intended to vindicate himself from the
aspersions cast by Gratarol upon his character. Its main object is to
set forth in the fairest light his own conduct during the unlucky
collision to which I have alluded. Yet though so limited in aim, the
interest which it possesses for us at the present time, is far wider
than belongs to that unhappy squabble, long since buried in oblivion.
Gozzi's conception of an _Apologia pro vita sua_ was a comprehensive
one. He resolved to reveal his character under all its aspects, from
his childhood until the date 1777, dealing now with matters of general
importance, now with the private affairs of his home, touching upon the
literature of his age, discussing fashions, criticising philosophy,
entering into minute particulars regarding theatres and actors,
describing his love-affairs with a frankness worthy of Rousseau, and
painting a series of lively portraits in which a large variety of
individuals from all classes are presented to our notice. The result is
that his autobiography, although in the strictest sense of that term an
occasional production, forms one of the most valuable documents we
possess for a study of Venetian society during the decadence of the
Republic. Gozzi was gifted with a penetrative and observant mind, strong
sense of humour, and a power of brilliant description. On the faults of
his style and the defects of his character, I shall speak hereafter. At
present it is enough to indicate the importance of the Memoirs as
furnishing a vivid picture of Venetian life in the eighteenth century.
Venice, at that period, was fortunate in autobiographers. She possessed
Goldoni and Casanova as well as Gozzi, not to mention smaller folk like
Da Ponte, the poet of Mozart's _Don Giovanni_. But when we compare the
three life-records of Goldoni, Casanova, and Gozzi, by far the deepest
historical interest, in my opinion, belongs to the last. Casanova's
Memoirs are almost excluded from general use by the nature of their
predominant pre-occupation. Moreover, they deal but partially with
Venice, and only with limited aspects of its social life. Goldoni's,
though more humane, and in all that concerns tone impeccable, turn too
exclusively upon the history of his dramatic works to be of great
importance as an historical document. Moreover, the scene is laid in
several provinces of Italy and transferred before its close to France.
Gozzi, on the contrary, never quits the soil of Venice. Except when he
served as a soldier for three years in the Venetian province of
Dalmatia, he does not appear to have travelled further than to Pordenone
on one side and to Padua on the other. Of strong aristocratic instincts,
but condemned to comparative poverty by the reckless expenditure of his
parents and grandparents, Gozzi enjoyed opportunities of studying the
society of Venice from several points of view. His enthusiasm for
literature and partiality for professional actors brought him acquainted
with the scholars and the Bohemians of that epoch. His management of the
encumbered estates of his family introduced him to advocates,
solicitors, brokers, Jews, tenants, and all manner of strange people.
His birth made him the companion of patricians. His military service
involved him in the wild pleasures and perils of scapegrace lads upon a
foreign soil. Consequently, the records of a life so varied in
experience, while strictly confined within the narrow circuit of
Venetian society, could not fail to be rich in details for the student.
It may be regretted that Gozzi chose to write in a didactic spirit. We
could willingly have exchanged his long-winded excursions into the
sphere of moral philosophy for a few more graphic sketches in the style
of his Dalmatian adventures.


II.

This biographical and historical interest, far more than Gozzi's quarrel
with Goldoni or his collision with Gratarol, is the reason why I thought
it worth while to translate a book which has become excessively rare in
the original. Nothing can be duller or more contemptible, to my mind,
than the chronicle of literary quarrels. The Goldoni-Gozzi episode would
be devoid of permanent attraction were it not for the curious light
thrown by it upon the obscure subject of impromptu comedy, and for the
ten extraordinary _Fiabe Teatrali_ from Gozzi's pen to which it gave
rise. Again, the Gratarol-Gozzi episode, as we shall presently see, is
almost humiliating in the pettiness of its details, and painful through
its tragic termination.

The Memoirs contain a full and tolerably accurate account of the
Gratarol incident. Yet I cannot dispense with a summary of this affair,
based upon a comparison of Gozzi's story with that of Gratarol in his
_Narrazione Apologetica_. The extreme importance of the event in the
lives of both men, and the fact that it constitutes the subject of
Gozzi's autobiography in quite as serious a sense as that in which the
Persian war forms the subject of Herodotus' history, render this
unavoidable.


III.

Pier Antonio Gratarol was a young man between thirty and forty in the
year 1776. He had grown up with an ample fortune and without a father's
control; had imbibed French ways of thinking and French customs; had
married, and after marriage had separated from his wife.[3] He
represented that class of intellectual and political Liberals whom
Gozzi, with his Conservative prejudices, regarded as dangerous to the
well-being of the State. He was an open libertine in his relations with
women, and did not strive to conceal those principles of personal
liberty which the _philosophes_ were spreading throughout Europe. At the
same time he represented a family which had served the Republic in
distinguished offices for many generations; he possessed excellent
abilities, and had every reason to expect a brilliant future. There was
nothing in his conduct or in his domestic circumstances to distinguish
him unfavourably from a multitude of gay livers and free-thinkers in the
corrupt Venice of that epoch. He had recently become eligible for the
post of ambassador at a foreign Court; and was already nominated as
Resident in Naples. This nomination required, however, to be confirmed
by the Grand Council; and circumstances, which need not be enlarged
upon, rendered the grant of money for his embassy a matter of debate.[4]
Unfortunately, Gratarol was a person of vain, imperious temper, puffed
up with the sense of his own merits, and incapable of correcting his
antipathies. His French tendencies--political, moral, social,
literary--fashionable for the most part--prejudiced the minds of
influential people in the highest departments of the government against
him. Finally, he had made an implacable enemy of a great lady, who at
that time exercised almost dictatorial control over the councils of the
State. This was Caterina Dolfin Tron, the wife of Andrea Tron,
Procuratore di San Marco, whose immense influence in the Council of Ten,
the Consulta, and the Senate enabled him to do what he liked with the
Grand Council.[5] Caterina's husband was popularly known as _Il
Padrone_, or the Master of Venice, and he doted on her with a blind
affection. She was a woman of brilliant parts, imbued, like Gratarol,
with advanced French notions, meddlesome in public matters, aspiring to
manage the politics of Venice and to dictate laws to society from her
own reception-rooms. Gratarol began by paying her wise attentions; but
for some reason unknown to us, he had lately dropped his courtship and
indulged in satirical comments upon Caterina's private conduct. She
vowed to effect his ruin, and circumstances enabled her to do so.

Gozzi, meanwhile, had for the last five years or so assumed the position
of titular protector to a married actress called Teodora Ricci. He does
his best to persuade us that the _liaison_ was one of friendship; but it
is clear that, upon whatever footing he stood toward the Ricci, he felt
a real affection for this woman. For her he composed the dramatic works
of his second or Spanish manner. He attended her in public, introduced
her to the houses of his friends, and stood godfather to her second
child. We are, in fact, met here by an obscurity not unlike that which
involves the more famous connection of Congreve with Mrs. Bracegirdle.
Gratarol, pursuing the usual course of his amours, made the Ricci's
acquaintance, became her lover, compromised her reputation, and wounded
Gozzi so deeply in his sense of honour, that he broke off familiar
relations with the actress.

Such was the position of affairs when Gozzi, who wrote assiduously for
the theatre, produced a drama modelled on a Spanish piece by Tirso da
Molina. It was called _Le Droghe d'Amore_, and contained a minor part,
which might well have passed either for a sketch of manners or for a
personal satire on Gratarol. Gozzi vehemently and persistently denied
that he had any intention of caricaturing his rival on the stage; and if
we trust what he relates about the composition of the play in question,
it is hardly possible that he can have had Gratarol in view when he
designed it. At the same time, we are bound to concede that the
offensive part of Don Adone fitted nicely on to Gratarol. Mme. Ricci,
smarting under Gozzi's withdrawal from her intimacy, took for granted
that a satire was intended. This woman's hysterical imagination turned a
mere _jeu d'esprit_ of her old friend into a formidable weapon of
attack against her new lover. Through her dangerous interference it
became an instrument, in the hands of other parties, to annoy Gozzi and
to overwhelm Gratarol. She began by poisoning the latter's mind with
gossiping insinuations. Gratarol's fretful vanity and sense of
self-importance made him boil with fury at the thought of being put upon
the stage. He moved heaven and earth to get the play suspended;
imprudently, as it turned out, because this step brought him face to
face with his real enemy, Mme. Tron. The manager of the theatre, to whom
Gozzi had given his comedy, took the manuscript at once to that lady.
This unscrupulous person now saw her opportunity for inflicting
vengeance upon Gratarol. She induced the manager to redistribute the
parts so that the _role_ of Don Adone should be assigned to an actor who
resembled Gratarol. She taught this man how to imitate Gratarol's dress
and gestures, and turned what may in fact have been an innocent
production of Gozzi's pen into a satire of the most insulting pungency.
At that point the _Droghe d'Amore_ passed out of the control of those
whom it privately concerned.

After this, Gratarol, driven mad by wounded self-conceit, floundered
from one imprudence into another. He applied to the highest tribunal of
the State, and laid an information against Gozzi. Whether the
Inquisitors did not choose to cancel the license already granted for
the _Droghe d'Amore_, or whether they were influenced by Mme. Tron, does
not greatly signify. At any rate, the comedy continued to be acted.
Gratarol grew more and more irritated, uttered indignant invectives
against the tyrants of the State, and displayed a spirit of
insubordination which was perilous in Venice. Mme. Tron followed up her
advantage, and caused his appointment to the embassy at Naples to be
suspended. Thereupon Gratarol made up his mind to quit Venice. He knew
that this act would expose himself to outlawry and his family to ruin. A
civil servant of the Republic had no legal right to sever himself from
his engagements without permission. The mere fact of doing so caused him
to be treated as a contumacious rebel. But instead of assuming an
indifferent attitude, instead of biding his time in patience and letting
the storm blow over--which it certainly would have done, since a popular
reaction had already begun to operate in his favour--he departed for
Padua on the 11th of September 1777, proceeded to Ceneda, crossed the
frontier on the 25th, travelled to Munich, thence to Brunswick, and
finally to Stockholm, where he arrived in March. Meanwhile a
proclamation was issued against him at Venice. This curious document is
a relic from the savage days of the Middle Ages.[6] It set a price upon
his head, offered rewards to any one who should bring him alive to
Venice or should prove his assassination, cancelled all contracts made
by him during twelve months before the date of December 22, 1777,
confiscated his property during his lifetime, and ordered the whole of
it to be sold by public auction. The latter portions of the ban were
carried into effect. Everything which belonged to Gratarol was sold by
the Avogadori;[7] and what seems really scandalous in this transaction
is that his furniture and jewels passed into the possession of an
Avogadore, Zorzi Angaran, while his landed estates fell to the share of
the Avvocato fiscale dell' Avogaderia, Galante, at the ridiculously low
sum of 2000 ducats.[8] Even his wife, who possessed a dowry of 25,000
ducats, had to institute long and costly lawsuits for the recovery of
what belonged to her and formed no part of the outlaw's estate.

Caterina Dolfin Tron, aided by her victim's rashness and impatience, had
succeeded in her plan to ruin him. But a retribution awaited this lady
in the form of an eloquent invective hurled by Gratarol against his
enemies from Stockholm. The so-called _Narrazione Apologetica_ was
printed there in 1779, and soon found its way to Venice. It contained a
detailed account of the events which had induced him to take flight,
arraigned his powerful enemies in terms of the bitterest sarcasm,
exposed their private foibles, and flashed a sharp light upon the
political corruption of the decadent Republic. Gozzi, of course, came in
for his share of abuse;[9] but Gratarol's most telling shafts were
directed against Mme. Tron and the patrician ring which tyrannised over
Venice. It is believed that the scandal of this pamphlet was one reason
why Andrea Tron failed to be elected Doge in 1779.

On perusing Gratarol's _Narrazione Apologetica_, Count Carlo Gozzi
determined to clear his own character and to lay his version of the
story before the public. With this view he composed a lengthy _Epistola
Confutatoria_, taking up each of Gratarol's points in detail, and
discussing his arguments with a strange mixture of acuteness, fury, and
contemptuous severity. He also conceived the notion of writing his
Memoirs, in order that the whole tenor of his life might be clearly
understood.[10] The Confutation and the larger part of the Memoirs were
finished in 1780. But the Government decided that Gratarol's scandalous
pamphlet should be left unanswered. No Venetian pen was allowed to
notice it;[11] and Gozzi received information that the Inquisitors of
State would take the matter up if he attempted to show further fight.
The authorities acted with prudence in this matter. Nobody but Gozzi had
anything to gain by his refutation of Gratarol. With regard to the
corruption of Venice, the despotism of a few leading patricians, and the
back-stairs influence of Mme. Tron, Gratarol had only told the truth. He
had told it indeed emphatically, bitterly, and probably with some
exaggeration. Yet, unhappily, it was the truth. No amount of
apologetical rhetoric could have broken down his arguments. A public
discussion would have disturbed the public mind, and many dark secrets
and dirty jobs must certainly have come to light.

Gozzi had to choose between the _piombi_ or the sacrifice of his already
finished manuscripts. Of course he did not hesitate. Both Confutation
and Memoirs were thrown at once aside; and they might even now have
been lying in some neglected corner of his ancient mansion had it not
been for the events which have to be related.

Gratarol never returned to Venice. From Sweden he passed to England,
where he was hospitably received and befriended by members of our
aristocracy. Failing, however, to get any appointment in London, he
crossed to North America, travelled southwards to Brazil, and again left
that country in the train of some political adventurers. The party were
betrayed and robbed by the captain of their vessel, and cast ashore upon
the coast of Madagascar. Here Gratarol perished miserably in October
1785. His English friends sent information of this event to the Venetian
Government; but the evidence was judged insufficient, and the
restitution of his estates to two female cousins, who were his only
heirs, was refused until the fall of the Republic. When that took place,
Gratarol's friends immediately republished the _Narrazione Apologetica_
at Venice, and appealed to General Bonaparte for justice. This was in
1797.

Gozzi, who had now nothing to fear from Inquisitors of State, and whose
reputation was again exposed to calumny, took his manuscripts from their
drawer, dusted them, and placed them in the hands of a publisher. In the
month of July 1797 he issued a manifesto to the Venetian public,
proclaiming his intention.[12] "Availing myself of the beneficent
freedom now permitted to the press, I have drawn my manuscript from the
tomb in which it has lain during the past seventeen years." He refers to
the recent republication of Gratarol's _Narrazione_, and declares that
this alone has forced him to resuscitate the memory of bygone quarrels
and offences. At the same time he pays a high tribute to Gratarol's
work. "This book, which appeared at Stockholm in 1779, and which I had
forgotten, without however forgetting the unjust tricks and jobs by
which its truly pitiable author was overwhelmed with ruin, contains a
great number of indubitable truths, and it is only to be regretted that
he dictated it under the influence of blind anger and venomous
resentment, instead of philosophic calm."

It appears that at this time Gozzi did not intend to publish his
_Epistola Confutatoria_, written in 1780, and certainly dictated under
the influence of anger as hot, hatred as fierce, and resentment as
venomous as any which inspired his adversary. Indeed, it may here be
observed that Gratarol, though he calls Gozzi a hypocrite, a huckster,
an impostor, and so forth, is more measured in his language than the
latter. Yet, while Gozzi was passing the sheets of his Memoirs through
the press,[13] Gratarol's friends issued another book entitled _Last
Notices regarding Pietro Antonio Gratarol, with documents relating to
his death_. In this they expressed a hope that Gozzi would not proceed
with the publication announced by his manifesto, and incautiously
printed a document alluding to Gozzi in the following by no means
flattering terms: "the infernal hypocrisy of a satirical liar."[14]
Furthermore, upon the 29th of August, having obtained a decree for the
restitution of Gratarol's property to his cousins, they published this
edict together with a preface, signed Widiman,[15] in which they had the
folly to rake up the whole tedious story of Gratarol's wrongs again.
Once more Gozzi was annoyed with well-worn phrases like the following:
"The persecuting furies of a haughty woman, the talent and the passion
of a very famous author, made him (Gratarol), to the horror of all
right-minded people, become the object of scorn and ridicule upon a
public theatre prostituted to the uses of a vile and infamous buffoon."
This was more than Gozzi could stand. Firmly holding to the opinion that
it was only Gratarol's folly and Mme. Tron's vindictiveness which had
caused the scandal of _Le Droghe d'Amore_, he now resolved to publish
everything which could establish the truth of his own story. Therefore
he incorporated the _Epistola Confutatoria_ in the third volume of the
Memoirs, and printed the notorious comedy for the first time at the end
of the book. Meantime he invited Gratarol's friends to inspect the MS.
of this play, which he declared to be the sole and original autograph,
in order that they might convince themselves that his statements
regarding its composition were accurate. Having now made up his mind to
supplement the two parts of his book with a third, he carried down his
Memoirs to the date of March 1798, when they came to a sudden
termination. All three volumes bear the date 1797; but their pagination
and some other trifling matters lead me to believe that the first two
were printed in that year, the third in the following spring.


IV.

The circumstances under which Gozzi's _Memorie_ were produced
sufficiently account for their peculiar form, or rather formlessness. He
wrote hurriedly, with a polemical object in view, and paid no attention
to style. This he confesses in the manifesto.[16] "I have not striven to
express myself with the exactitude, the raciness, and the elegances of
our language." As a literary performance, this autobiography is
remarkably unequal, a thing of rags and patches, some of which are of
fine silk or velvet, others of rough sackcloth. Their main defect as
regards composition is prolixity. Gozzi does not know when to stop, and
he uses three phrases where one would have sufficed. He is also very
incoherent, spinning interminable periodic sentences, which sometimes do
not hang together grammatically or logically. While insisting so
magisterially upon the purity of Italian diction, he indulges in uncouth
Lombardisms, and slips at times into Venetian dialect. We must remember
that he grew up practically without education. He acquired his
knowledge, cultivated his taste, and formed his style by reading without
discrimination and by writing without fixed purpose. This accounts for
the digressive, irregular, improvisatory manner of his prose. It has its
own merits, however, of vehemence, a copious vocabulary, dramatic vigour
in narration, and occasionally graphic descriptions.

It may be asked why he called his Memoirs "useless." Partly no doubt out
of an ironical self-consciousness, which marked his peculiar species of
humour; but partly also as a slap in the face to his readers. He tells
them candidly in one of his prefaces that he considers the moral
reflections with which the book is filled to be both sound and valuable,
but that the false science of the age is certain to render them of no
effect.[17] In like manner, when he asserts that the Memoirs were
published out of humility, this is partly true and partly false. Gozzi
piqued himself on being what I may call a Stoic-Democritean philosopher.
It was his pride to bear everything with endurance and to laugh at
everything, himself and his own concerns included, with contemptuous
indulgence. Yet he deserved the stinging epigram which Goldoni uttered
on his character: "A smile upon his lips and venom in his heart." His
light-heartedness and risibility were often assumed to hide bitter
resentment or boiling indignation. No man had less of genuine humility
than Gozzi, or more of the "pride which apes humility." _Umilta_ upon
his title-page has much the same effect as _Umilta_ in huge Gothic
letters beneath the coronets and crests of the Borromeo family above
their haughty palace-portals. As a single instance, I might select the
supercilious condescension with which he invariably treats his friends
the actors. They are _canaille_, to be consorted with by a gentleman
merely for amusement. His repeated boast that he gave his literary work
away, and his sneers at his brother Gasparo for making money, do not
savour of a really humble spirit. At the bottom of all he says about his
foolhardiness in Dalmatia there lurks a proud self-satisfaction.

To what extent was he truthful? That is a difficult question to answer.
I believe that in the main he tried to be, and was, veracious throughout
the Memoirs; but that he considered a certain economy of statement, a
certain evasion of direct facts, and a certain forensic chicanery to be
permissible in openly controversial composition. This renders his
account of the Gratarol episode somewhat suspicious, particularly when
we remember that he was writing with the _Narrazione Apologetica_ before
his eyes. It is clear that he wished to conceal his real age, that he
falsified the date of his departure for Dalmatia, and that he somewhat
misstated the nature of his intimacy with Mme. Tron. In each of these
cases it was his object to put himself in as favourable a light as
possible face to face with Gratarol, first by making it appear that he
was ten years or so younger than his actual age when he began the
liaison with Mme. Ricci, and secondly by slurring over the fact of a
partial collusion with Gratarol's deadly enemy. It would take up too
much space to expand the arguments by which I have arrived at these
conclusions; but the notes to my translation will make each point clear
in its proper place.

On the whole, Gozzi strikes me as rather inclined to the vices of too
open speech and cynicism than to those of dissimulation and hypocrisy.
He can hardly have been a lovable man. His language about his mother
proves that. She treated him ill, it is true, and gave him but a scanty
share of her maternal kindness. Yet this does not justify the freezing
sarcasms with which he refers to her. They are no doubt humorous, but
their humour is of a savage kind. Toward the rest of his family he
behaved with fairness, candour, and uprightness. He devoted himself to
the task of repairing their ruined fortunes, and discharged the duties
of solicitor and estate-agent for all of them through a long series of
years. He bore their bad tempers and frivolities with good-humoured
contempt, and did not even resent being satirised by Gasparo in a comedy
upon the public stage of Venice. Gasparo, his weak but genial elder
brother, he truly loved, although, with characteristic acidity, he
always lets us understand what a poor creature he was. Women had not the
privilege of being highly appreciated by Gozzi. He treats them in all
his writings as inferior creatures, and exposes their frailties with
ruthless severity. Either he only knew the worst side of the fair sex,
or was incapable of seeing the best. To men he shows himself more just
and sympathetic. Though he made but few intimate friends, these remained
firmly attached to him till death.

We must divest our minds of the false conception of Gozzi's character
with which Paul de Musset hoaxed the French critics and Vernon Lee. He
was no dramatic dreamer and abstract visionary, but a keen hard-headed
man of business, caustic in speech and stubborn in act, adhering
tenaciously to his opinions and his rights, acidly and sardonically
humorous, eccentric, but fully aware of his eccentricities, and apt to
use them as the material of burlesque humour. Nobody would have laughed
more loudly at De Musset's fancy picture of his fairy-haunted palace
than Gozzi would have done, or have more keenly relished the joke of
turning his practical self into a sprite-tormented idealist.[18]

The Memoirs lie now before English readers, and Carlo Gozzi will be
known to them for the first time--certainly for the first time as he
really was. It is not necessary, therefore, to spin out this
introduction. Otherwise, it would have been interesting to compare the
portraits painted of themselves by those four eminent Italian
contemporaries--Goldoni, Gozzi, Casanova, and Alfieri. Four characters
more diverse in quality, and more admirably placed upon the literary
canvas, could hardly, I think, be found in any other nation or in any
other century.

[Illustration: THE

ITALIAN COMMEDIA DELL' ARTE, OR IMPROMPTU COMEDY]




Part II.

_THE ITALIAN COMMEDIA DELL' ARTE OR IMPROMPTU COMEDY._

     1. A brief sketch of the origins of written comedy during the
     Italian Renaissance--Its dependence upon Latin models.--2. Further
     description of the so-called _Commedia Erudita_.--3. Emergence of
     dialectical literature in Italy during the period of the Catholic
     reaction--Improvised comedy begins to supersede the written drama
     of the Renaissance.--4. Farces at Naples and Florence--The Sienese
     company of I Rozzi--The Paduan Beolco--The four principal
     masks--Pantalone, Il Dottore, Arlecchino, Brighella.--5. Relation
     of modern impromptu comedy to the old Latin comedy of mimes and
     exodia--the Osci Ludi, Fescennini Verses, Satura, &c.--In what
     sense the modern masks are descended from those antique
     elements--Infusion of fixed characters adopted from the plays of
     Plautus and Terence.--6. Lombard, Neapolitan, Florentine
     ingredients in the _Commedia dell' Arte_--Lasca's carnival song of
     the Zanni and Magnifichi about the year 1550.--7. A review of the
     principal masks and their subordinate species, as these were
     finally developed--Modifications introduced into the masks, or
     fixed parts, of the _Commedia dell' Arte_, by men of genius who
     supported them.--8. The plots and subjects of improvised
     comedies--Buffoonery and indecency.--9. Description of the scenari
     or plays in outline which were acted impromptu by the comic
     companies--Method of concerting a comedy and distributing its
     parts--The function of the Capo Comico.--10. Qualifications of a
     good impromptu comedian--Stock repertories, commonplaces, speeches
     to be introduced on set occasions, soliloquies, &c.--The Lazzi or
     sallies of buffoonery and byeplay--Tendency to degeneration in this
     improvisatory art of comedy.--11. European celebrity of the Italian
     comedians--In Paris, Spain, Portugal, London--References to
     Italian companies in England during the sixteenth century.--12. The
     decadence of the _Commedia dell' Arte_--Moral and artistic germs of
     dissolution--Goldoni's severe criticism--Garzoni's description of
     strolling actors, and their association with quacks, mountebanks,
     and clowns.


I.

The history of the Italian theatre is closely connected with the history
of the Classical Revival.[19] The literary drama--as distinguished from
performances by tumblers, mimes, and masquers, from sacred plays and
from plebeian farces--began with the representation of Latin tragedies
and comedies. At the close of the fifteenth century it was usual to
crown courtly festivals with scenic recitations of favourite pieces by
Terence and Plautus. Rome vied with Florence, Venice with Naples,
Ferrara with Urbino, in the magnificence of these spectacles. At a time
when humanistic erudition formed the main preoccupation of society, and
when to be illiterate was unfashionable, princes and great prelates
afforded their guests the refined amusement of seeing the _Menoechmi_
or _Amphitryon_, the _Eunuchus_ or _Miles Gloriosus_, on their private
stages. At the same time, obeying the decorative instinct of the
Renaissance, they set these jewels of classical antiquity in arabesques
of the richest and most fantastic workmanship. Allegorical masques,
dances with musical accompaniment and pantomimic interludes, were
interposed between each of the five acts, enhancing the simplicity of
the Roman plays and gratifying the vulgar by an appeal to their senses.
These hybrid spectacles, eminently characteristic of Italian taste in
the age which produced them, contained the germs of several dramatic
species, afterwards known as the _Commedia Erudita_, the pastoral play,
the ballet, and the opera. Meanwhile Italian literature, stimulated and
powerfully influenced by humanism, acquired independence; and the
comedies of Plautus and Terence were translated and performed in the
vernacular. During the last years of the fifteenth century these
translations began to take the place of the originals upon the temporary
stages of princely patrons. As yet there were no public theatres.

Such, briefly sketched, was the origin of Italian comedy; and the
specific character of the _Commedia Erudita_, or written comedy of the
sixteenth century, may be ascribed to the peculiar conditions out of
which it grew. The genius of men like Ariosto, Machiavelli, and Aretino
never wholly freed the form they handled from subservience to Latin
models. It remained, in spite of their close imitation of contemporary
life and their audacious realism, a sub-species of that dramatic art
which the Romans adapted to their uses from the new comedy of the Attic
stage.


II.

The first attempts at national Italian comedy were the _Calandra_ of
Bibbiena and Ariosto's _Cassaria_. The former appeared at Urbino between
1503 and 1508; the latter, in its earlier prose form, at Ferrara in
1508. During the next fifty years a large number of comedies were
produced by a great variety of authors. Men of letters like Machiavelli,
Cecchi, Dolce, and Il Lasca, men of fashion like Lorenzino de'Medici,
philosophers like Bruno, free lances of the pen like Aretino and Doni,
artisans like Gelli, devoted themselves to this species of composition.
The type remained fixed, although some notable exceptions, especially in
the case of Aretino's plays, arrest attention. Taking the intrigue of
Latin comedy for their ground material, these playwrights adapted it to
conditions of Italian society. The avaricious father, the cunning
courtesan, the parasite, the slave merchant, the swaggering soldier, the
young spendthrift in love with a virgin of unknown parentage, the astute
serving-man, the faithless wife, the pedant, the cynical priest or
friar, the vicious old man in his dotage, the reckless adventurer, the
pirate, the country-girl exposed to the corruptions of the town; such
are the stock characters of this dramatic hybrid. Everywhere we find the
plots of Terence or of Plautus interwoven with a Novella in the style
of Boccaccio. As in Latin comedy, the knot is frequently loosed by
unexpected discoveries of lost relatives; and the magnificent realism
with which contemporary manners are depicted, clashes too often with the
stiff and antiquated _ossatura_, or dramatic mechanism, to which the
authors felt themselves obliged by fashion to adhere. From hints in
prologues and prefaces we are able to discern that playwrights chafed
against these traditional limitations of the _Commedia Erudita_.

Aretino, as I have just observed, broke the fetters of convention, and
presented scenes of pure Italian life; but his plays were too hastily
composed or ill-constructed to start a new style. The originality of
Machiavelli in his _Mandragora_ was not of the sort to encourage a
departure from the beaten track. Like many other masterpieces of Italian
art, the _Mandragora_ stands forth by itself, a sole inimitable monument
of genius; peculiar and personal; accomplished by one single act of
vigorous expression. Before a really national species of written comedy
emerged into distinctness from the _Commedia Erudita_, the literary
impulse of the Renaissance began to decline, and the Italians in the
middle of the sixteenth century entered upon that new phase of
intellectual evolution which is marked by the Tridentine Council and the
subsequent metamorphosis of Catholicism.


III.

One prominent feature of this transitional epoch was the reappearance of
popular forms of art and literature in Italy. The Italian provinces had
retained their local characteristics with undiminished vitality through
centuries of civic conflict and the dominance of humanistic culture. Now
that this culture was decaying, each district and each city contributed
some novelty of its own local vintage. Things which had been overgrown
and screened by scholarship put forth their native vigour. A rich jungle
of dialectical poetry sprouted from long-hidden roots. Men of birth and
breeding began to pique themselves upon the use of their provincial
language. A polite public, tired perhaps of too much polish, yielded to
the charm of realism. The habits of the peasantry and artisans were
transmitted to writing by educated pens. Scenic representations of a
simple character, which had formed the delight of villagers from time
immemorial, claimed the attention of learned coteries. Farces and
morris-dances became fashionable. The buffoons and mimes and masquers,
against whom the Church had fulminated in the Middle Ages, and whom the
scholars of the Revival looked down upon with condescending indulgence,
now lifted up their heads. Suddenly, by an imperceptible process of
development, which it is impossible to trace in all its stages, Italy
found herself in possession of what looked like a novel type of comedy.
This improvised comedy, or _Commedia dell' Arte_, as we must henceforth
call it, was not really new.[20] On the contrary, the elements out of
which it sprang were among the oldest, most vital, most national
possessions of the race. Yet it was due to the peculiar conditions of
the last years of the Renaissance, to the reaction against exhausted
forms of artificial literature, and to the fresh interest in dialects,
that this hitherto neglected plaything of the proletariate assumed a
rare and bizarre shape of beauty. The Italians, still capable of
exquisite artistic creation, had just now lost their liking for the
_Commedia Erudita_. Public theatres were beginning to be built. These
naturally introduced a more popular tone into the drama. Spectacles were
adapted to the taste of a mixed audience. Improvised comedy succeeded to
the heritage of written comedy. This younger daughter of Thalia invested
the motley characters and masks of her invention with the cast-off
mantle of her elder sister. She entered the sphere of the fine arts by
continuing the tradition of Italian comedy upon an altered system, and
with novel elements of humour.

To talk of younger and elder with reference to these two types of comedy
involves some confusion of ideas. Nothing is more significant of Italy
than the antiquity and complexity of all the forms of art which
flourished there. The _Commedia Erudita_, as we have seen, was derived
from Latin, and through Latin from Athenian sources. The _Commedia dell'
Arte_ had an even longer pedigree than this. In a powerfully mimetic
race like the Italians, the rudiments out of which it was constructed
were, as we shall see, indigenous. Before Rome rose upon the Tiber, the
comedy of masks and improvisation had, in some shape or other, amused
the people. The fall of the Empire, the formation of the Christian
polity, the centuries of the Middle Ages, the culture of the
Renaissance, did not extirpate it. Though we know but little of its
history during that long period, there is every reason to believe that
the elements which gave it individuality survived all changes. To this
topic I shall have to return. For the present, it is enough to point out
that the blending of the vulgar improvised comedy of vintage festivals
and market-places with what remained of polite written comedy after the
middle of the sixteenth century, determined the _Commedia dell' Arte_,
considered as a specific and strongly marked type of dramatic art. In
this sense, and in this sense only, it may be denominated the younger
sister of the _Commedia Erudita_.


IV.

Farces formed a popular species of entertainment all through the years
of the Renaissance. At Naples they had the name of _Coviole_, at
Florence of _Farse_. The playwright Cecchi has left us several specimens
of the written _Farsa_, together with a general description of the type,
which proves it to have been not unlike the earliest of our own romantic
plays.[21] A company formed itself at Siena, called I Rozzi, for the
representation of rustic farces. Composed of artisans and mechanics,
this company acquired such celebrity that Leo X. invited them in 1517 to
the Vatican; and their influence must be reckoned in the evolution of
the new Italian drama. A Paduan actor and playwright also deserves
mention here. Angelo Beolco, born in 1502, made himself known upon the
stage as Il Ruzzante, or the Frolic. He wrote rustic comedies with
simple plots, distinguished by their realistic humour and their strong
incisive pathos; and created the ideal character of the peasant or Il
Villano. Beolco formed a school in the Venetian provinces, and died in
1542.[22]

Such are some of the traces we possess of a dramatic type in growth,
which, after the middle of the sixteenth century, obtained predominance
in Italy. It is not possible, however, for the critical historian to
explain the several steps whereby the _Commedia dell' Arte_ arrived at
maturity. Like Harlequin, bounding from the sides and capering before
the footlights, this new species makes a sudden apparition. We find it
in full energy, possessing the public theatres and claiming the
attention of all classes, at the close of the cinque cento. Described
briefly, this comedy trusted to the improvisatory talent of trained
actors and made use of masks. Companies were formed under the direction
of a _Capocomico_, who took his name from one of the masks. Their stock
in trade was a collection of plays in outline, _scenari_ or _plats_ (to
use an old English phrase),[23] which the troupe studied under the
direction of their leader. The development of the intrigue by dialogue
and action was left to the native wit of the several players, and the
performance varied according to the personal qualities of the members
who composed the company. The masks or fixed characters were derived
from all provinces of Italy, and represented types peculiar to each
district.[24] Venice contributed Pantalone; Bologna lent the Dottore;
Bergamo supplied the two Zanni--Arlecchino and Brighella; Naples gave
Pulcinella, Tartaglia, and the Captain. Tuscany made up the characters
of the comedy with the soubrette and lovers. These Tuscan personages
were unmasked and spoke Florentine Italian.[25] The masks reproduced
their native dialects.[26] Like Harlequin in his coat of many colours,
the _Commedia dell' Arte_ wore motley. Displacing the literary drama,
which reduced contemporary life in Italy to the conventional standard of
classical Rome or Athens, this new drama brought into salience local
oddities and notes of provincial eccentricity. The masks were permanent;
yet they admitted of genial handling, since these parts in the comedy
were rarely written, and every fresh sustainer of a mask had the
opportunity of impressing his own individuality upon the type he
represented.[27] In this way, as will soon appear, each mask multiplied
and made a hundred. Plasticity and adaptability were the essential
qualities of a dramatic species which relied on improvisation, and had
only the unwritten code of immemorial tradition.


V.

At this point it is necessary to inquire into the relation between the
modern Italian _Commedia dell' Arte_ and the old Italian comedy of mimes
and _exodia_. Much has been written, with meagre and dubious results,
about the origins of the Latin drama. One thing, however, appears
certain, after shaking the dust from ponderous tomes of erudition. The
Romans, like the modern Italians, had their _Commedia Erudita_ and
_Commedia dell' Arte_. Of the two species, in classical times as
afterwards, the _Commedia dell' Arte_ was indigenous and popular, the
_Commedia Erudita_ derived and literary. The latter, whether it affected
Greek manners, as in the so-called _Fabula palliata_, or Roman manners,
as in the so-called _Fabula togata_, remained in the hands of scholarly
authors and serious actors (_histriones_). The former had its natural
origin in popular habits, and only at a comparatively late period
submitted to regular artistic treatment. It was represented by masked
buffoons, _Sanniones_, _Planipedes_, _Stupidi_, and so forth. We hear of
_Osci ludi_ and _Fescennini versus_, the former pointing to Campania and
the vintage, the latter to Etruria and village sports.[28] The _Satura_,
which seems to have been an offshoot from the _Fescennina_, corresponded
pretty closely to what we now call farce, and eventually developed into
the _exodia_ or _hors d'oeuvre_ of the later Roman theatre.[29] Out of
these indigenous elements, but with special relation to the _Osci ludi_,
grew a literary form of comedy which obtained the name of _Atellana_. It
is supposed to have originated in the Oscan city of Atella, close to
Acerra, Pulcinella's birthplace. In all these native forms of drama,
dialects were spoken and masks were used; and this is a main point of
connection between them and the modern Italian _Commedia dell' Arte_.
Another feature in common is the rank realism and open obscenity which
marked the humours of both species.

Among the ancient Roman masks four types are known to us by
name--_Maccus_, a Protean fool or Harlequin; _Bucco_, a garrulous clown
or blockhead; _Pappus_, a miserly, amorous, befooled old man;
_Dossenus_, a moralising charlatan. We also hear of the _Stupidus_ and
_Morio, Manducus_, a notable glutton, and the _Sanniones_, so called
possibly from their grin.

Further familiarity with the modern _Commedia dell' Arte_ will make it
clear how tempting it is to conjecture a direct transmission of these
Roman masks from ancient to modern times. Maccus and Bucco bear a strong
resemblance to the two Zanni. The very word Zanni seems to suggest
Sanniones; although it is probably derived from the Bergamasque name for
a varlet--Jack; Zanni being a contraction of Giovanni. Pappus looks
uncommonly like Pantalone, and Dossenus like the Dottore. The _Stupidus_
has an air of our clown or Mezzettino or Il Villano. Manducus might be
any glutton with a huge pair of champing jaws. Yet nothing could be more
uncritical than to assume that the Italian masks of the sixteenth
century A.D. boasted an uninterrupted descent from the Roman masks of
the fifth century B.C. That assumption closes our eyes to a far more
interesting aspect of the phenomenon. The fact seems to be that ancient
and modern Italy possessed the same mimetic faculty and used it in the
same fashion. The peasants of modern Tuscany indulged in their
Fescennine jibes, stained themselves with wine-lees, and jumped through
bonfires, like their most remote ancestors.[30] The grape-gatherers of
modern Nola and Capua ridiculed their neighbours with obscene jests, and
pranked themselves in travesty, like the earliest Oscans or the first
colonists from Hellas.[31] Out of the same persistent habits emerged the
same kind of native drama; and just as the Atellanae of ancient Rome
eventually brought the comedy of the proletariate upon the public stage
in cities, so at the close of the sixteenth century the _Commedia dell'
Arte_ worked up the rudiments of popular farce and satire into a new
form which delighted Europe for two hundred years.

Many details derived from the _Commedia Erudita_ rendered the
resemblance between the modern improvised drama and the vernacular
comedy of ancient Rome superficially striking. The conventional
characters of Plautus and Terence, the _senex_, the _servus_, the
_meretrix_, the _mango_, the _ancilla_, the _miles gloriosus_, and the
_parasitus_ reappeared. In truth, this peculiar and highly complex
hybrid combined strains of manifold varieties. Upon the wild and native
briar, which in former times produced the _Osci ludi_, _Fescennini
versus_, and _Satura_, and which went on living its own natural life
beneath the drums and tramplings of so many conquests, was now grafted
the cultivated rose of the _Commedia Erudita_. This, in its turn,
contained elements of the _Fabula palliata and togata_. The result was a
species eminently characteristic of sixteenth-century Italy, and similar
to the Atellan farces of the Romans.


VI.

The _Commedia dell' Arte_ yields, upon analysis, three chief component
factors. The four leading masks, Arlecchino and Brighella, Pantalone and
Il Dottore, came respectively from Bergamo, Venice, and Bologna. These
were the contribution of Northern Italy. Pulcinella, Tartaglia,
Coviello, and the Captain came from Naples. They were subsidiary
characters of great importance, contributed by the South. The lovers,
_primo amoroso_ and _prima amorosa_, upon whose adventures the intrigue
turned, and the _Servetta_, came from Tuscany, or rather from the
tradition of written comedy, which adhered to the literary Italian
tongue. If priority in time is to be sought for any of these factors, we
must look to Lombardy. The four masks which were indispensable to this
dramatic species, and which survived all its vicissitudes, had an
undoubted Lombardo-Venetian origin. The Neapolitan masks were
superadded, and the Tuscan intrigue formed little more than a
conventional framework for the humours of the fixed characters. Scarcity
of documents makes it impossible to speak with absolute authority on any
of these points; yet we have good reason to credit the tradition which
connects the origin of the _Commedia dell' Arte_ with Northern Italy.

A carnival song, composed by Anton-Francesco Grazzini, called Il Lasca,
at Florence some time before the year 1559, throws light upon the
subject.[32] It is entitled "Canto di Zanni e Magnifichi." The Magnifico
corresponded to Pantalone; and I need not repeat that the Zanni were
best known as Arlecchino and Brighella. Lasca makes it clear in this
poem that the Lombard masks were strangers to Tuscany, and that they
performed comedies upon a public stage:[33]

    "_Facendo il Bergamasco e il Veneziano,_
        _N'andiamo in ogni parte,_
        _E'l recitar commedie e la nostra arte._"

He also shows how the buffoon parts in these plays were interwoven with
the intrigue of the regular drama:

    "E Zanni tutti siamo,
     Recitatori eccellenti e perfetti;
     Gli altri strioni eletti,
     Amanti, Donne, Romiti e Soldati,
     Alla stanza per guardia son restati."

Furthermore, he lets us know that acting was combined with dancing and
mountebank performances, and drops the information that women in
Florence were not allowed to attend the theatres where Zanni played:

    "Commedie nuove abbiam composte in guisa
        Che quando recitar le sentirete,
        Morrete delle risa,
        Tanto son belle, giocose, e facete;
        E dopo ancor vedrete
        Una danza ballar sopra la scena,
        Di varj e nuovi giuochi tutta piena."

It is therefore obvious that, at the middle of the sixteenth century,
the _Commedia dell' Arte_ had already taken shape and earned popularity.
The companies who introduced it into Tuscany were recognised as hailing
from Bergamo and Venice. Before another fifty years had passed away,
this species absorbed the attention of Italy, adopted elements from
every district, and settled down into a definite form of comedy, which
lasted until the period of Goldoni's reform of the stage. It culminated
about the middle of the seventeenth century, and maintained a high
degree of excellence during the first half of the eighteenth. But when
Goldoni attacked it, and Gozzi rose in its defence, the type was already
on the wane. Depending, as any kind of improvised drama must necessarily
do, upon the personal talents of successive actors, the _Commedia dell'
Arte_ died of inanition when theatrical genius was diverted into other
channels.[34] Originality of humour then yielded to conventional
buffoonery. The masks became more and more stereotyped, more and more
insipid. Were it not for Gozzi's _Fiabe_, we should hardly be able to
form a conception of the part they actually played for two centuries in
Europe.


VII.

Let us watch the carnival procession of the masks defile before us. We
may imagine that they are crossing the stage of a theatre, while we sit
idle in our stalls. First comes Pantalone, the worthy Venetian merchant,
good-hearted, shrewd, and canny, yet preserving a certain child-like
simplicity, which long acquaintance with the world has not
contaminated. His full title is Pantalone de'Bisognosi. Sometimes he is
called Il Magnifico, sometimes Babilonio; and old tradition gives a
singular derivation for his name of Pantalone. Instead of having
anything to do with the Saint called Pantaleone, he ought really to be
known as Piantaleone, or Plant-the-lion. In fact, he is one of those
patriotic _cittadini_ who, partly out of zeal for S. Mark and partly
with a view to commerce, were reputed to hoist flags with the Venetian
lion waving to the breeze on every rock and barren headland of Levantine
waters.[35] Pantalone wears a black mantle, woollen cap, short trousers,
socks and slippers of bright red. A black domino conceals half of his
face. He is sometimes a bachelor, but more frequently a widower with one
daughter, who engrosses all his time and care. Easy-going indulgence for
the foibles of his neighbours, combined with homely mother-wit, is the
fundamental note of his character. But as time goes on, he degenerates,
dotes, yields to senile vices. At last he becomes the shuffling
slippered Pantaloon of our Christmas pantomimes.[36]

After Pantaloon walks the Doctor in his Bologna gown; a hideous black
mask covers his whole face, smudged with red patches, like skin-disease
or wine-stains, on the cheeks. He is Graziano, Baloardo Graziano, or
Prudentio, and has a kind of bastard brother called the Dottor Balanzon
Lombardo. Boasting his D.C.L. or M.D. or LL.D. degree from the august
University, Graziano makes a vast parade of learning. _Bononia docet_ is
always on his lips or in his thoughts; yet he cannot open his mouth
without letting fall some palpable absurdity. Law jargon, quibbles,
quiddities, preposterous syllogisms, fragments of distorted Latin,
misapplied quotations from the Pandects, mingle with metaphysics,
astrology, and physical chimaeras about the spheres and elements and
humours, in his talk. He is a walking caricature of learning, and the
low stupid cunning of his nature contrasts with the vain pomp he makes
of erudition. To sustain this mask with spirit taxed the genius of a
comedian. He had to keep a voluminous repertory of pedantic lumber
always ready, to blunder with wit and pun in paradoxes, seasoning the
whole with broad Bolognese dialect and plebeian phrases.

Pantalone and the Doctor were only half-masks; that is to say, they held
something in common with the stationary characters of written comedy,
and took a decided part in the action of the play. As the _Commedia
dell' Arte_ coalesced with the _Commedia Erudita_, they approached more
and more nearly to the type of the _senes_ in Latin comedy. The present
generation has seen them both in Rossini's _Barbiere di Siviglia_.

Next come the two Zanni. These are thorough-going masks; twin-brothers
from the country-side of Bergamo, strongly contrasted in their
characters, yet holding certain points in common.[37] First comes
Arlecchino, the eldest and most typical of Italian masks, and the one
who has preserved its outlines to the present day. His party-,
tight-fitting suit reproduces the rags and patches of a rustic servant.
On his head is a little round cap, with a tuft made out of a hare's or
rabbit's scut. He is always on the move, light-headed, gluttonous, gay,
pliable, credulous, ingenuously naive and silly. The glittering
ubiquitous Harlequin of our pantomimes transforms him into a mute
ballet-dancer; but when the type was created, Arlecchino spoke and
amused the audience as much by his absurdities and uncouth jokes as by
his perpetual mobility.

Time would fail to tell of the infinite modifications which this type
assumed under the hands of successive able actors. Truffaldino, the
delight of Venice, Zaccagnino, Trivellino, Mestolino, Bagattino,
Guazzetto, Stoppino, Burattino, and the idiotic Mezzettino, were all
descended from this parent stock.

Side by side with Arlecchino goes his more astute and knavish brother
Brighella. He is also Bergamasque of the purest breed. But he holds
something from the Davus and Geta of Latin comedy. He is the roguish,
clever, cowardly, pimping servant of the young spendthrift, who helps
his master to deceive his father and seduce his neighbour's wife or
daughter. Brighella wears a loose white shirt trimmed with green, and
wide white trousers. On his head is a conical hat, plumed with red
feathers, which yields place in course of time to the white cap of our
clowns. His mask is brown, cut off above the upper lip, over which a
pair of short moustachios bristle. Like Arlecchino, Brighella gave birth
to a great variety of assimilated types. Unscrupulous Pedrolino,
Beltramo, Bagolino, Frontino, Sganarello, Mascarillo, Figaro, Finocchio,
Fantino, Gradellino, Traccagnino are his more or less legitimate
offspring. He enters French comedy under the names of Scapin,
Sganarelle, and Frontin. He creates a character of opera with Figaro.
Unlike Arlecchino, who becomes at last a silent ballet-dancer, Brighella
grows more vocal and distinct as time advances, until, in the plays of
Moliere and Beaumarchais, he is hardly distinguishable from a _servus_
of Latin comedy modernised. Indeed, just as Pantalone and Il Dottore
approximate to the _senes_, so Arlecchino and Brighella shade off into
the _servi_; and all their countless progeny are variations on the theme
of stupid or roguish varlets.

The four main masks, with their attendant groups of subordinates, have
passed before us; but a multitude whom no man can number and no words
can describe press on from behind. Perhaps the first place should be
given to the _Servetta_. Her names are legion. Colombina, the sweetheart
of Arlecchino and Pulcinella, Rosetta, Florentine Pasquella, Argentina,
Diamantina, Venetian Smeraldina, Saporita, Carmosina; under all her
titles, and with every shade of character ascribed to her by the free
handling of successive actresses, she remains the sprightly, witty,
shifty pendant to the Zanni.[38] Not a true mask, however; for the
Servetta wears her own face and form, only assuming the costume and
dialect of the region she prefers to hail from. Like her lover
Arlecchino, Colombina underwent a long series of transformations before
she became the fairy-like being who flits behind the footlights of our
theatres on winter evenings. And, like Brighella, written comedy blended
her with the fixed characters of drama under the name of the soubrette.
Susanna in the _Nozze di Figaro_ is a familiar example of Colombina in
her latest dramatic development.

[Illustration: COLOMBINA (1683)

_Illustrating the Italian Commedia dell' Arte, or Impromptu Comedy_]

The _Servette_ in their many- _Contadina_ dresses have
passed by. Close upon their heels press forward a chattering grimacing
group from Naples. Pulcinella leads the way, for he must still keep
Colombina in sight. In him, far more than in Arlecchino, the genius of a
nation lives incarnate; and this he partly owes to a poor artisan of
Naples, Francesco Cerlone, who fixed the type with inimitable humour in
the last century.[39] Pulcinella has had whole volumes written on his
pedigree. Some authors find him depicted on the walls of Pompeii; others
trace him in statuettes and masks of antiquity. The one point which
seems to be certain is, that he made his appearance on the public stage
toward the end of the sixteenth century, wearing the white shirt and
breeches of a rustic from Acerra. His black mask, long nose, humpback,
protruding stomach, dagger and truncheon, were later additions. Whatever
connection there may be between Pulcinella and the masks of classical
antiquity--and I have already attempted to show how I think that
connection ought to be conceived[40]--he was, at his debut, regarded as
the type of a Campanian villager, established at Naples in the quality
of servant. Pulcinella is thus the Southern analogue of Bergamasque
Brighella and Arlecchino. Gradually he absorbed the humours of the
Neapolitan proletariate, and became the burlesque mirror of their
manners and ways of thinking. Time's whirligig has made him the hero of
our puppet-shows, and he enjoys cosmopolitan celebrity under the name of
Punch.

Coviello goes along with him, a Calabrian mask, which was sustained with
applause by Salvator Rosa at Rome. He belongs to the buffoon class, and
is distinguished by his mandoline and ballad-singing. After him walks
Tartaglia, afflicted with an incurable stammer, which renders his
magisterial airs and graces ludicrous. Tartaglia has something in him of
the Doctor; but this part lent itself to great varieties of treatment.
We shall see what play Gozzi made with it.

But now our ears are deafened with a clash of arms, rumbling of drums,
pistol-shots, and shouted execrations. A fantastic extravagant troop of
soldiers march upon the stage. At their head goes the swaggering
Capitano. He is a Spaniard, armed to the teeth, loaded with outlandish
weapons, twirling huge moustachios, frowning, swearing, boasting,
quarrelling, thieving, wenching, and shrinking into corners when he
meets a man of courage. Sometimes he affects the melancholy grandeur of
Don Quixote. Sometimes he leans to the garrulity of Bobadil. Sometimes
he assumes the serious ferocity of a brigand chief or the haughty
punctiliousness of a hidalgo. Still he remains at bottom the caricature
of professional soldiers, as they plagued and infested Italy under the
Spanish domination. His language soars into the wildest hyperboles and
euphuisms. He cannot speak without new-coined oaths and frothy metaphors
and vaunts that shake heaven, earth, and sea. But the slightest trial of
his valour breaks the bubble, and he cringes like a whipped hound.

The Capitano talked a mixture of Neapolitan and Spanish. His part, which
required to be sustained at a high pitch of burlesque upon a single note
of bragging insolence, was not unfrequently written, and none of these
fixed characters assumed more stereotyped outlines. The _Miles
Gloriosus_ of Latin comedy reappeared in him, and helped to mould the
modern type. The ramifications of this character were innumerable. A
celebrated actor, Francesco Andreini (born at Pistoja in 1548), helped
to create its form. He called himself "Capitan Spavento da Valle
Inferna." Then followed Ariararche, Diacatolicon, Leucopigo and
Melampigo (white and black buttocks), Coccodrillo, Matamoros,
Scaramuccia (created by Tiberio Fiorelli of Naples), Fracassa,
Rinoceronte, Giangiurgolo, Bombardon, Meo Squaquara, Spezzaferro,
Terremoto. The list might be prolonged until the page was filled. Every
variety of the burlesque son of Mars, from a delicate Adonis to a
fire-eater, obtained impersonation from one or other able sustainer of
the part. And a host of minor bastard braggarts, like the Trasteverine
Meo Patacco, perpetuated the fun long after the great Capitano had
quitted the public stage. Some of these types survive in literature.
Scaramouche is known to us, and Gautier has immortalised Fracasse.

In the rabble which follows this noisy band of warriors we discern
several buffoons of the long-robed tribe--Neapolitan Pancrazio,
Biscegliese, and Cucuzzietto, Sienese Cassandro and Roman
Cassandrino--who have more or less affinity with the Dottore. Il Pedante
walks apart, and attracts attention by his Maccaronic Latin and
eccentric morals. He has the poems of Fidenzio Glottogrysio in his
hands, which he presses on the attention of a smooth-chinned pupil.[41]
Don Fastidio distinguishes himself from the vulgar herd by his enormous
nose, and lantern jaws, and long lean figure, and preposterous citations
from the law reports of Naples. Cavicchio tells silly tales and sings
his Norcian songs. Il Desavedo burlesques the "dude" of Parma, and
Narcisino plays the "masher" of Bologna to the life. Burattino comes
upon the stage in a score of disguises, now gardener, now shopkeeper,
now valet, always the fool and knave combined, impostor and imposed
on.[42] The Notajo, with huge spectacles upon his nose and swan's quill
stuck behind his spreading ears, murmuring a nasal drawl, and tripping
himself up at every step in his long skirts, leads up the rear.
Rope-dancers, ballerini, Pasquarielli, Pierrots, conclude the show,
dancing and pirouetting after their more vocal comrades.

It is impossible, in a sketch like this, to do justice to the manifold
and motley crowd of the Italian masks. Even Callot, whose burin has
bequeathed to us so many salient portraits of the types he saw in
action, leaves the imagination cold. As I have remarked above, the
_Commedia dell' Arte_ combined fixity of outline in the masks with
illimitable plasticity in the details communicated by the genius and
personality of their sustainers. The mask, the traditional character,
was something which a comedian assumed; but he dealt with it as he found
it suited to his physical and mental qualities. Each distinguished actor
re-created the part he represented. The improvised extempore rule of the
game allowed him boundless license. Therefore, while the masks
persisted, they varied with the men who wore them. Arlecchino became
Truffaldino in the hands of Antonio Sacchi. The Capitano appeared as
Scaramuccia in the person of Tiberio Fiorelli. Parts crossed and
intercrossed. Pulcinella borrowed something from Arlecchino; Brighella
patched himself with rags from Coviello's wardrobe. The dialect and
local humours of South Italy were engrafted on types conventionalised
in Lombard provinces. Tuscany took them up, and added her own biting
wit. As in a kaleidoscope, the constituent fragments of the changeful
whole assumed shapes and forms of infinite variety by clever shifting of
each particle. Each company established for the performance of this
comedy gave a fresh nuance to the combinations which the show permitted.
In each district it adopted a new local colour. The mask was recognised;
the man who wore it was expected to remodel it upon himself. Folk came
to the theatres, less to see the masks, than to see how an Andreini or a
D'Arbes or a Costantini or a Riccoboni would sustain them. We who have
lost the men, and lost well-nigh the memory of their performance, cannot
hope to reconstruct the comedy in its entirety. Histrionic art always
and everywhere suffers from the ephemeral conditions under which it has
to be externalised. But this disadvantage is crushing in the case of an
art which was left to the spontaneous creativeness of its great
representatives.


VIII.

Intrigue of a simple kind formed the staple of these improvised
comedies. Anything like refined studies of character or the development
of calculated motives was rendered impossible by the conditions under
which they were presented to the public. An artist pleased or displeased
by the exhibition of his personality in masquerade, and his creation of
a shade of difference for some known type. The plot, whether borrowed
from the written drama, from Latin plays, or from the gossip of the
market-place, was always of an amorous complexion. Fathers, lovers,
guardians, varlets, priests, and panders played their parts in it. The
action proceeded by means of disguises, sleeping-potions, changelings,
pirates, sudden recognitions of lost relatives, phantoms, demoniacal
possessions, burlesque exorcisms, shipwrecks, sacks of cities, bandits,
kidnapped children. It is singular in what a narrow circle the machinery
revolves. Unlike our own Romantic drama, the _Commedia dell' Arte_ made
but few excursions into the regions of history, fable, mythology, and
fancy. Its scene was an Italian piazza; and though we hear of thrilling
adventures by land and sea, in forest and on fell, these are only used
to loose a knot or to elucidate the transformation of some personage. We
ought not to marvel at the limitations of this drama. They are explained
by that close connection, on which I have already insisted, between the
_Commedia dell' Arte_ and the _Commedia Erudita_. The new comedy
supplied little but its masks; and these masks, as we have seen, were
types of bourgeois and rustic characters, capable of infinite
modification within prescribed boundaries. The end in view was not the
delectation of the audience by a scenic drama, but the caricature and
travesty of life as it appeared to every one. That caricature, executed
with inexhaustible finesse and piquant sallies of fresh personality,
accommodated itself to the antiquated framework of plots as old as
Plautus.

If the _Commedia dell' Arte_ lacked fancy and invention in its
ground-themes, this defect was compensated by audacious realism and
Gargantuan humour. The indecency of these plays cannot be described. Men
and women appeared naked on the stage. Unmentionable vices were boldly
paraded. Buffoonery of the vilest description enhanced the finest
strokes of burlesque sarcasm. Actors who created types which made the
spirit of a nation live in effigy, condescended to tricks unworthy of a
Yahoo. We have to accept the species, not as a branch of the legitimate
drama, but as a carnival masquerade, in which humanity ran riot, jeering
at its own indignities and foibles.


IX.

The stock in trade of an acting company consisted of some scores of
plots in outline. Gozzi, writing in the eighteenth century, calculates
that there may have been from three hundred to four hundred dramatic
situations.[43] We possess a certain number of these scenari, as they
were technically called Flaminio Scala published a collection of fifty
in his _Teatro delle Favole Rappresentative_ (Venetia, 1611). The titles
of about one hundred others survive from the archives of Basilio
Locatelli and Domenico Biancolelli, incorporated in eighteenth-century
histories of the Italian stage. The records of the theatres where
Italians played at Paris supply titles of another set, and a few have
been disinterred from miscellaneous sources. Quite recently a complete
collection of well-formed _scenari_ was given to the press by Signor
Adolfo Bartoli from a Magliabecchian MS. of the last century.[44] It
contains twenty-two pieces.

Comparative study of these _scenari_ shows that the whole comedy was
planned out, divided into acts and scenes, the parts of the several
personages described in prose, their entrances and exits indicated, and
what they had to do laid down in detail. The execution was left to the
actors; and it is difficult to form a correct conception of the acted
play from the dry bones of its _ossatura._ "Only one thing afflicts me,"
said our Marston in the preface to his _Malcontent_: "to think that
scenes invented merely to be spoken, should be inforcively published to
be read." And again, in his preface to the _Fawne_, "Comedies are writ
to be spoken, not read; remember the life of these things consists in
action." If that was true of pieces composed in dialogue by an English
playwright of the Elizabethan age, how far more true is it of the
skeletons of comedies, which avowedly owed their force and spirit to
extemporaneous talent! Reading them, we feel that we are viewing the
machine of stakes and irons which a sculptor sets up before he begins to
mould the figure of an athlete or a goddess in plastic clay.[45]

The _scenario_, like the _plat_ described for us by Malone and Collier,
was hung up behind the stage. Every actor referred to it while the play
went forward, refreshing his memory with what he had to represent, and
attending to his entrances. But before the curtain lifted a previous
process had been gone through. This was called _Concertare il soggetto_.
The company met in their green-room. What followed may be told in the
words of a seventeenth-century writer on the technique of the _Commedia
dell' Arte_.[46] "The Choregus, who rules and guides the troupe by his
ability and experience, has to plan the subject, to show how the action
shall be conducted, the dialogues concluded, and new sallies of wit or
humour introduced. It is not merely his business to read the plot aloud,
but also to set forth the personages with their names and qualities, to
explain the drama, describe localities, and suggest extemporaneous
additions. For instance, he shall begin by saying: 'The comedy we have
to represent is so-and-so; the personages such-and-such; the houses are
on this side and on that.' Then he will unfold the argument. He will
impress upon his comrades the necessity of bearing well in mind the
place where they are supposed to be, the names of people and the
business they are engaged in, so that they shall not confound Rome with
Naples, or say that they have come from Spain when they are bound from
Germany. A father must not forget his son's name, nor a lover his
lady's. It is also most important that the houses in which the action
has to take place should be accurately known. To knock at the wrong
door, or to take refuge in the home of your enemy, would spoil all.
Afterwards, the planner of the subject must indicate occasions suited to
the sallies of the several characters. 'Here a piece of buffoonery is
right. A metaphor, or sarcasm, or hyperbole, or innuendo, would make a
good effect there.' In fact, he has to show each actor how to play his
part to best advantage in the circumstances of the piece. Then he must
look to preventing inconvenient entrances and exits, providing that the
stage be not left empty, and indicating proper ways of bringing scenes
to their conclusion. After the Choregus has read this lecture to the
troupe, they will meet and sketch the comedy in outline. Then they have
the opportunity of bringing their own talents forward, and combining new
effects. Yet, at such rehearsals, they must all be mindful to maintain
the outlines of the subject, not to exceed their roles, nor yet to trust
their recollection of similar plays performed under different
conditions. The piece has each time to be produced afresh by the
concerted action of the players who will bring it on the boards."

The Choregus was usually the _Capocomico_ or the first actor and manager
of the company. He impressed his comrades with a certain unity of tone,
brought out the talents of promising comedians, enlarged one part,
curtailed another, and squared the piece to be performed with the
capacities he could control. "When a new play has to be given," says
another writer on this subject,[47] "the first actor calls the troupe
together in the morning. He reads them out the plot, and explains every
detail of the intrigue. In short, he acts the whole piece before them,
points out to each player what his special business requires, indicates
the customary sallies of wit and traits of humour, and shows how the
several parts and talents of the actors can be best combined into a
striking work of scenic art."


X.

More than natural cleverness and native humour went to the making of a
good comedian. To begin with, he had to be a man of sense, tact, and
obliging disposition. "When we speak of a good comedian in the Italian
style," says Gherardi,[48] "we mean a man of solid parts, who depends on
imagination more than memory in his performance, and composes everything
he says upon the spot; he is one who knows how to play up to his
companions on the stage, combining his words and gestures so well with
theirs that he responds at a touch to their hints, and who is so ready
with a repartee or movement that the audience believes the scene to have
been concerted beforehand." In truth, fertility of fancy, quickness of
intelligence, a brain well stocked with varied learning, facility of
utterance, command of language, and imperturbable presence of mind, were
required in a first-rate improvisatory actor. When he undertook to
sustain one of the masks, he had first of all to live himself into the
character. If, for instance, he chose the Dottore, nothing might escape
his lips upon the stage out of harmony with that character, nothing
which could remind the audience that anybody but a pedant from Bologna
was speaking. His every gesture had to contribute to the same effect.
The second nature of his part had so to supersede his own instincts,
that no sudden accidents, the maladroitness of a comrade, an unexpected
turn in the dialogue, or any of the inconveniences to which
unpremeditated acting was liable, should throw him off his guard.

It was further necessary that he should stock his mind with what the
actors called the _doti_ of a play, and with a repertory of what they
called _generici._[49] The _doti_ or dowry of a comedy consisted of
soliloquies, narratives, dissertations, and studied passages of
rhetoric, which were not left to improvisation. These existed in
manuscript, or were composed for the occasion. They had to be used at
decisive points of the action, and formed fixed pegs on which to hang
the dialogue. The _generici_ or common-places were sententious maxims,
descriptions, outpourings of emotion, humorous and fanciful diatribes,
declarations of passion, love-laments, ravings, reproaches, declamatory
outbursts, which could be employed _ad libitum_ whenever the situation
rendered them appropriate. Each mask had its own stock of common topics,
suited to the personage who used them. A consummate artist displayed his
ability by improving on these, introducing fresh points and features,
and adapting them to his own conception of the part. They had to become
incorporated with the ideal self he represented, and not to betray their
origin in study. The tradition of the drama and the daily practice of
rehearsing together made each member of a company know when such
premeditated pieces were to be expected. They did not therefore break
the general style of the performance. Habit enabled the actors to lead
up to them and pass away from them upon the stream of impromptu
dialogue.

Another highly important branch of the art was what were called the
_lazzi_. "We give the name of _lazzi_," says Riccoboni in his history of
the theatre, "to those sallies and bits of by-play with which Harlequin
and the other masks interrupt a scene in progress--it may be by
demonstrations of astonishment or fright, or by humorous extravagances
alien to the matter in hand--after which, however, the action has to be
renewed upon its previous lines." It was precisely in these _lazzi_ that
a comic actor displayed his personal originality to best advantage; but
it required great tact and sense of the dramatic situation to render
them natural, appropriate, and to keep them within bound and measure.

We have now seen what was expected of a first-rate artist, and
understand to what extent the _Commedia dell' Arte_ depended upon study
and premeditation. Long familiarity with their own repertory
undoubtedly reduced the improvisatory element to a minimum in the case
of troupes who were accustomed to play together for years. Yet they
strove to gain novelty by inventing fresh situations, giving unexpected
turns to dialogue, and varying their action on successive nights. The
best companies were those in whose hands a hackneyed comedy was always
plastic, and who kept their improvisatory powers in exercise.

The defect of the art was that it tended to become stereotyped. The
Zanni repeated their jokes. The Dottore used the same malapropisms over
and over again. The _primo amoroso_ served up the _crambe decies
repetita_ of his monologues. The _lazzi_ degenerated into unmeaning
horse-play and buffooneries, which had nothing to do with the action of
the piece. Nature was forgotten. Every actor over-played his part,
ranted, raged, turned caricature into burlesque, spoke in and out of
season, exaggerated his gestures, diction, gait, and declamation, until
a pack of madmen seemed to have run wild upon the stage. To control
these tendencies towards a false and artificial style of presentation,
which formed the inherent vice of improvisatory acting, was the duty of
an able Capocomico. It could only be done by forcing the members of the
troupe to study and reflect on what they had to represent, by compelling
them to subordinate their several parts to the general effect, and by
raising the tone of their intelligence. Thus there was the greatest
difference between a well-conducted company, intent on the perfection of
their art, and a wandering rabble, satisfied with appealing to the
lowest instincts of the proletariate. The value of these remarks will be
apparent after reading what Gozzi has to say about Antonio Sacchi's
company and the causes of its dissolution.


XI.

There is no doubt that during their flourishing period the companies of
the _Commedia dell' Arte_ afforded the rarest amusement, not only to the
vulgar, but also to refined and cultivated audiences throughout Europe.
They were especially appreciated at Paris. From the year 1572, when the
_Confidenti_ and _Gelosi_ made their first appearance, to the close of
the eighteenth century, Italian troupes at the Hotel de Bourbon, the
Hotel de Bourgogne, the Palais Royal, and the Opera Comique, formed the
delight of the French court and the Parisian public. Under various
names, _Uniti_, _Fedeli_, _Barbieri's_, _Bianchi's_, and Cardinal
Mazarin's men, actors who had learned their trade in Italy continued to
seek larger profits and a wider audience in that capital. "The way in
which Italian comedians compose, study, and represent their plays," says
a French critic in the year 1716,[50] "is quite beyond the powers of
language to describe. I might venture to call it inconceivable; with
such a wealth of new and agreeable sallies and of unpremeditated
dialogue do they adorn their scenes." Many anecdotes regarding these
Italian players in their French homes have been transmitted to us, with
detailed descriptions of their qualities. I will confine myself to two
extracts.[51] One is taken from Constantini's Life of Tiberio Fiorelli
(1608-1694), the famous Scaramouche. "He was one of the most perfect
mimes who have appeared in these last centuries. I call him mime
advisedly, because he played his part by action more than speaking.
Scaramouche was not satisfied with making what he represented
intelligible by speech; he translated everything into movements of his
face and body, adapting his gestures to his words and his words to his
gestures with incomparable art. Everything became vocal in this man, his
feet, his hands, his head; the slightest attitude he took had meaning
and significance." Gherardi adds that "he could keep an audience in fits
of laughter for a long quarter of an hour without uttering a word. A
great prince, who saw him act at Rome, uttered these words,
'_Scaramuccia does not talk, and yet he says everything_,' and at the
end of the performance presented him with his coach and six horses." Of
Tommaso Vicentini, called Il Tommasino, who made his debut at Paris as
Harlequin in 1716, we read: "His suppleness, his natural gaiety, his
graceful airs of rustic simplicity, made him a first-rate Harlequin. But
nature had also made him an excellent actor in the more extended sense
of that phrase. True, naive, original, pathetic, amid the laughter he
excited by his buffooneries, a single trait, a single reflection which
became a sentiment by his manner of expressing it, drew tears from the
audience, and surprised the author of the piece no less than the public,
and that too in spite of the mask, which seemed intended to inspire as
much fear as merriment. Often, when one had begun to laugh at his way of
simulating grief or pain, one finished by being melted with the
tenderness of the emotion which came from the bottom of his heart."

Italian companies delighted the court of Spain during the reign of
Philip II., and were welcomed in Portugal. We find them in Bavaria, at
Dresden, and in other parts of Germany. Nor were they entirely unknown
in England. Collier, in his "History of the English Drama," speaks of a
certain Drousiano, who played with his troupe in London during the
winter of 1577-78.[52] This was probably Drusiano Martelli. The
extempore plays of the Italians are mentioned by Whetstone, Kyd, Jonson,
and Brome; and it seems probable that the plat-comedies, ascribed to
the famous fools Tarleton and Wilson, were modelled on Italian _Commedie
a Soggetto_. Kyd, in the _Spanish Tragedy_, shows that the method of
studying an improvised play was well understood. Hieronymo, who wishes
to have a certain subject mounted in a hurry, says to his confidant--

    "The Italian tragedians were so sharp of wit,
     That in one hour's meditation
     They would perform anything in action."

Lorenzo replies--

                "I have seen the like
    In Paris, among the French tragedians."

The full history of Italian companies in foreign lands still remains to
be written; but I have said enough in this place to prove their wide
popularity.

In its native country, the _Commedia dell' Arte_ was long regarded as
the special glory and the unique product of Italian dramatic genius.
Gozzi, though he wrote as its apologist, only expressed common opinion
when he said:[53] "I reckon improvised comedy among the particular
distinctions of our nation. I look upon it as quite a different species
from the written and premeditated drama; nor have I the shameless
audacity to stigmatise with the title of an ignorant rabble those noble
and cultivated persons whom I see with my own eyes following and
enjoying a play of this description. I esteem the able comedians who
sustain the masks, far higher than those improvisatory poets, who,
without uttering anything to the purpose, excite astonishment in crowds
of gaping listeners."


XII.

This essay would be incomplete if I failed to describe the decadence of
the _Commedia dell' Arte_, and the various inconveniences which attended
its performance by incompetent or wilfully scurrilous actors. Without
such a sequel to the history of its development, Goldoni's reform of the
theatre, and Gozzi's energetic attempts to sustain the old style by
works of a peculiar and hybrid character, will not be intelligible.

In its higher manifestations, this comedy, as we have seen, allied
itself to fine art by singularly delicate links of connection. More than
in other kinds of drama, where actors make themselves the mouthpieces of
poets whose creations they incarnate, the performers of improvised
comedy had to be complete and finished works of living art in their own
persons. So long as they were conscious of their mission, and earnestly
aspired to the highest points within the range and scope of their
achievement, they supplied a scenic travesty of actual life unequalled
for its freshness and its truth to nature--sparkling with salient
traits of character, seasoned with mirthful sarcasm, and pungent by its
satire of contemporary manners. But the roots of this unique and
singular species of the drama were grounded in a deep sub-soil of vulgar
instincts and dishonest proclivities. It clung to the tradition of
mountebanks and mimes, acrobats and jongleurs, circus-clowns and
rope-dancers. The rare flower of racy humour and refined parody, which
fascinated Paris in the age of Louis XIV., sprang from a stock
discredited and outcast through fifteen centuries of Christian teaching.
The Church in council and in synod had anathematised the ancestors of
Andreini and Fiorelli, Sacchi and Darbes. Burial with the sanctities of
religion was forbidden them, as it is forbidden to suicides. They were
reckoned among the enemies of social order and civil discipline. The
State, in its sumptuary laws, forbade their entrance into decent houses,
relegating them to dark corners of the city, where they lurked with
thieves and prostitutes. Saintly pastors of the flock, like Carlo
Borrommeo, carried on a crusade against these corruptors of public
morals.[54] Even in Venice, the city of their adoption--the sea-Sodom,
as Byron called it, of carnival licentiousness, the mart of pleasure for
all Europe, the modern Corinth--an Inquisitor of State scourged them
with these words of stinging reprobation:[55] "Bear in mind, you
actors, that you are folk beneath the ban of blessed God's almighty
hatred, and that the prince allows you only as pasture for the common
people, who take pleasure in your ribaldries." With such a record of
contempt and disesteem and outlawry, the _Commedia dell' Arte_ was
always sinking back into the slime from which it rose. Unhappily, the
same eyes which delighted in its glory during the years when genius shed
brilliant lustre on its noblest representatives, had only to look on
this side or on that, and a crowd of shameless merry-andrews, the scum
and dregs of the histrionic profession, made the evidences of its
inherent immorality only too apparent.

I have already touched upon the scurrilities and obscenities which were
common in improvised comedy. To enlarge upon the topic is not necessary.
Everybody can perceive that a drama relying in great part upon
buffoonery, restrained by no obligation to literary precedents,
dependent on the favour of mixed audiences, among whom women scarcely
showed their faces, and varying at each performance with the whims and
humours of masked actors, who were _ex hypothesi_ beyond the pale of
social decency, may have allowed itself licenses which were well-nigh
intolerable.

I have already described the tendencies toward exaggerative emphasis,
stilted declamation, ill-concerted action, impertinent extravaganza, and
wearisome repetition of exhausted motives, to which the species was
peculiarly liable. There is no need to expand those observations. They
justify the severe remarks of Goldoni in the preface to his theatrical
works, which, as these have a direct bearing upon the subject of my next
essay, I will summarise here:[56]--"The comic theatre of Italy for more
than a century past had so degenerated that it became a disgusting
object for general abhorrence. You saw nothing on public stages but
indecent harlequinades, dirty and scandalous intrigue, foul jests,
immodest loves. Plots were badly constructed, and worse carried out in
action, without order, without propriety of manners. If translations of
French or Spanish pieces were given, the improvisatory comedians
mutilated and deformed them beyond recognition. The same fate befell the
plays of Plautus and Terence, and of our elder Italian dramatists.
People of culture, nay, the common folk, cried out against these
miserable travesties. Every one was wearied with the insipidities and
conventionalities of an art upon the wane. You knew what Harlequin or
Pantaloon was going to say before he opened his lips."

Readers of Gozzi's Memoirs, to which these pages serve as a prolusion,
have means of judging, on the testimony of a very partial critic and
avowedly Quixotical defender of the old _Commedia dell' Arte_, to what
extent the system of the theatre in Italy was faulty. Students of
Casanova's Memoirs will remember the dark picture of the actress whom he
met at Ancona, with her epicene brood of children and of changelings
exposed to indiscriminate contamination.[57] The lighter pages of
Goldoni's Memoirs reveal a spectacle less revolting, but far from
edifying, of a comic troupe in its passage from one Italian capital to
another.[58] Leaving these accessible sources of information regarding
the social status of the dramatic profession in Italy untouched, I will
close this chapter with some extracts from a well-nigh forgotten
book--Garzoni's _Piazza Universale_. One of the most frequent charges
brought against the acting companies was that they dressed their women
up in men's clothes, and sent them about the public squares of cities to
attract the rabble. "No sooner have they made their entrance," says
Garzoni, "than the drum beats to let all the world know that the players
are arrived. The first lady of the troupe, decked out like a man, with a
sword in her right hand, goes round, inviting the folk to a comedy or
tragedy or pastoral in the precincts of the Pellegrino.[59] The
populace, inquisitive by nature and eager for any new thing, hurries to
take places. Paying their pennies down, they crowd into a hall, where a
temporary stage has been erected, the scenes scrawled with charcoal as
chance and want of sense will have it. An orchestra of tongs and bones,
like the braying of asses or the caterwauling of cats in February,
performs the overture. Then comes a prologue in the manner of a
quack-doctor's oration to his gulls. The piece opens; you behold a
Magnifico, who is not worth the quarter of a farthing; a Zanni, who
straddles like a goose; a Gratiano, who squirts his words out from a
clyster-pipe; a lover, who acts like a narcotic on the senses of his
neighbours; a Spanish captain, with nothing but a couple of musty oaths
in his whole repertory; a stupid and foul-mouthed bawd; a pedant, who
trips up in Tuscan phrases at each turn; a Burattino, whose whole humour
consists in taking off and putting on his greasy cap; a prima donna, who
goes yawning, drawling, twaddling through her mumbled part, with eyes
well open to the chance of selling her overblown charms in quite another
market than the theatre. The show is seasoned with loathsome
buffooneries and interludes which ought to send their performers to the
galleys." Enlarging on this theme, Garzoni proceeds as follows: "These
profane comedians pervert the noble use of their ancient art by
presenting nothing which is not openly disreputable and scandalous. The
filth which falls continually from their lips infects themselves and
their profession with the foulest infamy. They are less civil than
donkeys in their action, no better than pimps and ruffians in their
gestures, equal to public prostitutes in their immodesty of speech.
Knavery and lewdness inspire all their motions. In everything they stink
of impudicity and villainy. When occasions offer for veiling grossness
under a cloak of decorum, they do not take these, but pique themselves
on bringing beastliness to sight by barefaced bawdry and undisguised
indecency."

One of the degradations to which these comedians willingly submitted was
that of playing jackals to quack-doctors on the squares of the Italian
cities. Goldoni in his Memoirs[60] speaks of a certain Buonafede Vitali
who "maintained at his own cost a troupe of actors. It was their
business to collect the money thrown to them in pocket-handkerchiefs,
and to return the handkerchiefs filled with pots of ointment and boxes
of pills to the purchasers, after which they performed plays in three
acts with a certain kind of pomp under the light of wax candles." In
order to form a conception of the scenes which were enacted on an
Italian piazza crowded with charlatans, mountebanks and players, we must
have recourse again to Garzoni. It is almost impossible to understand
or to reproduce his language at the present day. Sarcastic sallies,
which were doubtless piquant in their time, but to which the key has now
been lost, abundance of ephemeral slang and racy innuendo, allusions to
forgotten people and obsolete customs, topical jests, the coarsest
Lombard patois seasoned with the salt of euphuistic rhetoric, all
combine to render his motley descriptions untranslatable. Garzoni and
writers of his class still lack the pains which Casaubon bestowed on
Athenaeus, and perhaps their matter is not worthy of such vast
expenditure of industry. Yet the pith may be seized; and following our
garrulous cicerone, we stroll out on the piazza. "In one corner of it
you will see our swaggering Fortunato and his boon companion Fritata
spinning yarns, and keeping the whole populace agape into the night with
stories, songs, improvisations, dialogues; quarrelling, making-up, dying
of laughter, coming to blows again, bustling about their stage, settling
the dispute by fisticuffs and violent language, and lastly handing round
the cap to reap the harvest of the pennies they have earned. In another
corner, Burattino sets up his bray of brass. You would think that the
hangman had got hold of you, to hear him yell into your ears. He carries
a scavenger's bag and a common sailor's cap, and screams until the whole
world gathers around him. The people crowd, the groundlings jostle, men
of quality press forward to the platform. When the burlesque prologue
comes to a conclusion, Burattino's master puts in his appearance. It is
our old friend the Doctor, with his Bolognese jargon, long-winded
citations, insipid tomfooleries, and absurd pretensions to omniscience.
The droning of this arrant humbug drives as many of the audience away as
the zany's merry pranks and roguish whiskers and apish tricks have drawn
together. Meanwhile the curtains of the booth open, and the Tuscan comes
forth with his tumbling girl. He begins some silly story in the
Florentine tongue, during which the girl draws her circle and puts
herself in position, straddling with arms and legs abroad, flinging her
body backwards to pick up a piece of money with her mouth from two
crossed swords, and tickling the greasy varlets of the market-place by
the exhibition of her lascivious graces. Not far away, you may see the
Milanese quack, dressed like a noble gentleman, velvet cap on head and
white Guelf feathers waving to the wind. He is telling his man Gradello
some story of his hapless love. The groom cuts indecent jokes and gibes
in the background; then swaggers forward, twirls his moustachios, vows
to uphold his master's cause against all rivals, and bristles like an
enraged bloodhound; but, on a sudden, feigning to see foemen near, he
drops his arms, knocks his knees together, befouls his breeches on the
stage, and lets himself be soundly drubbed. When that interlude is
over, Gradello acts another part. He is a blind man squalling out a
ditty, and thrumming on a puppy in his lap instead of a theorbo. The
climax of all this buffoonery is a panegyric of some famous pills, which
lasts an hour or two, and leaves the charlatan wrangling over cents and
farthings with his swiftly dwindling audience. Toward evening the crowd
of quacks and blind musicians and acrobats thicken. Here is Zan della
Vigna with his performing monkey; there Catullo and his guitar; in
another corner the Mantuan merry-andrew, dressed up like a zany, Zottino
singing an ode to the pox, and the pretty Sicilian rope-dancer.
Tamburino spins eggs on a stick; the Neapolitan capers about with
brimming bowls of water on his pate; and Maestro Paolo da Arezzo makes
his solemn entry with a waving banner, on which you see St. Paul,
holding a huge falchion in one hand, while the rest of the field is
painted over with twining hissing serpents. The mountebank clears his
throat and relates his fabulous pedigree. St. Paul was his great
ancestor, and ever since that accident upon the island of Malta, all the
family have possessed miraculous powers over the snaky tribe. Hereupon
boxes are opened, and horrid vipers, water-snakes, and adders are drawn
forth to the terror of the bystanders. 'Do not be afraid,' continues
Maestro Paolo; 'I have delivered your fields and woods from these
plagues and their poison.' The trembling country-lads creep up and buy a
box of powders from the condescending hands of the impostor. After the
sight of all those asps and crocodiles, stuffed basilisks, tarantulas,
and Indian armadilloes, there is not one of them would venture out into
the country lanes without a prophylactic. Meanwhile, Settecervelli has
laid his mantle on the pavement, and is making his little bitch go
through her tricks, bark at the worst-dressed fellow in the circle, howl
at the name of the Grand Turk, dance for joy in honour of her master's
sweetheart, and carry round the cap for pennies in her mouth. The
Parmesan is not to be outdone by these performances; he has his
nanny-goat, whose antics are at least as sight-worthy as the puppy's.
The Turkish athlete climbs the campanile, lets his brawny chest be
hammered like an anvil, dislodges a stout pillar by the strength of his
huge arms and shoulders, and wins a bag of coppers heavy enough to pay
his expenses to the holy town of Mecca. The baptized Jew wails in a
lamentable tone of voice, _goi, goi, badanai, badanai_, till he has
attracted a crowd round him; then he tells the romance of his conversion
to the true faith, which leaves a strong impression on our mind that if
he has become a sincere Christian, which is more than doubtful, he has
certainly not lost the arts of an accomplished cheat. Soon the whole
piazza is swarming with folk of this sort; pills and powders, for all
the ills that flesh is heir to, are being hawked about; men are eating
fire, and swallowing tow, and pulling yards of twine from their
throats, and washing their faces in molten lead, and finding cards in
the pockets of their unsuspecting neighbours; every conceivable article,
which ingenuity can force on the attention of simpletons, is flirted in
one's face, and vaunted with a deafening din by hoarse and squeaking
salesmen."

Garzoni has carried us somewhat astray from the main subject of this
essay. Yet it is not amiss to have gained a full conception of the
medium out of which the _Commedia dell' Arte_ emerged, and into which it
always tended to relapse, as well as of the various low and ignoble
branches of industry with which the players were associated.




Part III.

     _GOZZI'S DRAMATIC FABLES, OR FIABE TEATRALI; TOGETHER WITH A BRIEF
     HISTORY OF HIS QUARREL WITH GOLDONI AND CHIARI._

     1. Venice in the last century--The Liberals and
     Conservatives--Invasion of French theories in politics, philosophy,
     and social manners--Prevalence of French taste in
     literature--Conservative resistance to this revolutionary state of
     things.--2. Carlo Goldoni and Carlo Gozzi--Popularity of French
     sentimental dramas--The Academy of the Granelleschi founded in 1747
     by literary Conservatives, to restore a taste for pure Italian
     style, and to promote the study of the Tuscan classics--Carlo Gozzi
     belongs to this Academy, and becomes one of its chief
     supporters--Goldoni, and the qualities of his genius--His
     perception that nature has to be closely followed in the drama.--3.
     A sketch of Goldoni's career, and of the steps whereby he became a
     professional playwright--Settles at Venice in 1747 as poet to
     Medebac's company--Goldoni's Venetian comedies, comedies in the
     French manner, melodramas--Goldoni's rivalry with the Abbe
     Chiari--Chiari's bombastic pseudo-Pindaric style--Martellian
     verses.--4. Indignation of the Granelleschi with both Goldoni and
     Chiari--Carlo Gozzi confounds them in one common hatred as
     corruptors of the language--His particular dislike for Goldoni, who
     had declared war against the _Commedia dell' Arte_, of which Gozzi
     professed himself the champion--Publication of Gozzi's satirical
     poem _La Tartana degli Influssi_ in 1756--Return of Sacchi's
     company of impromptu comedians to Venice in that year--Vigorous
     warfare carried on by the Granelleschi against both Goldoni and
     Chiari during the next four years--Gozzi first shows his dramatic
     faculty in a severe Aristophanic satire upon Goldoni, entitled _Il
     Teatro Comico_--Chiari makes up his differences with Goldoni, and
     both playwrights now join forces against their conservative
     antagonists--Chiari defies the Granelleschi to produce a
     comedy--Goldoni appeals from their criticisms to the public, who
     idolise him--Gozzi determines to write a satirical play upon a
     nursery-tale, which shall prove no less popular than Goldoni's
     comedies--The _Amore delle Tre Melarancie_ appears in January
     1761--The true character of Carlo Gozzi's dramatic fables--It is a
     mistake to suppose that he was actuated by spontaneous Romantic
     genius--His affinity with the elder Tuscan burlesque poets--His
     wish to rehabilitate the Comedy of Masks--His conservative and
     didactic spirit.--5. A translation of Gozzi's own account of _The
     Love of the Three Oranges_, important in the history of the
     _Commedia dell' Arte_, and illustrative of the way in which Gozzi
     handled his fabulous material.--6. Success of _L'Amore delle Tre
     Melarancie_--Production and dates of the remaining nine dramatic
     _Fiabe_.--7. Gozzi's method of writing, and employment of the Four
     Masks and the Servetta--Interweaving of the comic element with the
     fairy-tale--Gozzi does not rise to the height of imaginative
     poetry.--8. His satire, humour, feeling for poetic situations--His
     conservative philosophy of life.--9. Sources of the _Fiabe_--The
     artistic superiority of _L'Amore delle Tre Melarancie_.--10.
     Analysis of _L'Augellino Belverde_.--11. Gozzi's temporary
     success--Goldoni retires to Paris, and Chiari to Brescia--Posterity
     has reversed the verdict of contemporary Venice--Fate of the
     _Fiabe_--Vicissitudes of Gozzi's fame in Italy, Germany,
     France--Paul de Musset's condensed abstract of the Memoirs, and
     their distorted picture of Carlo Gozzi.


I.

About the middle of the eighteenth century, Venetian society was divided
into two main parties, representing what we should now call Liberal and
Conservative principles in politics and thought. The Liberals were
imbued with French philosophical ideas, French fashions, and French
phrases. The boldest of them, men like Angelo Querini, Carlo Contarini,
Giorgio Pisani, openly aimed at remodelling the constitution. They aired
new-fangled theories of government, based upon the Social Contract and
the Rights of Man, within ear-shot of the terrible Inquisition of State.
Some of them went in consequence to end their days in the dungeons of
Cattaro or Verona. These patricians created a body of restless
opposition in the Grand Council, agitated the bourgeoisie and
proletariate with the expectation of impending changes, and succeeded in
effecting some salutary but superficial reforms. Outside the sphere of
politics, that spirit of innovation which in France was silently but
surely working toward the Revolution, made itself felt among the
educated classes. The University of Padua, while preserving external
forms of mediaevalism in its discipline and teaching, fermented with the
physical hypotheses of modern science. The deism of the Encyclopaedists
and Voltaire came into vogue. Sentimentalism, thinly cloaking a desire
for liberty and license, ruled in morals. Rousseau's speculations and
the humanitarian utopias of the _philosophes_ disturbed the old
foundations on which social institutions rested. The word _prejudice_
was upon the lips of everybody, to indicate the restraining influences
of public order in the state and of ethics in the family. These new
ideas permeated society and saturated literature. In the drawing-rooms
of great ladies, the clubs and coffee-houses of the gentry, the
theatres, concert-rooms, and little houses, where men and women
congregated, French books were discussed, French fashions were
affected, the French language was engrafted on the old Venetian dialect.
Frivolous butterflies of pleasure in that great mart of the world's
amusement assumed fine airs of philosophy and science. Wide-sweeping and
far-reaching theories, which called in question the whole groundwork of
man's previous beliefs, were freely ventilated by chatterers, who caught
their jargon from flippant manuals of science and popular essays, poured
forth by thousands from the press of Paris. Unhealthy novels spread
subversive moral doctrines flavoured with a spice of philanthropic
sentiment. It was considered _rococo_ to admire the old Italian
classics. Staunch Liberals paraded their independence of precedent and
prejudice by adopting a masquerade style which set the traditions of the
language at defiance.

All this indicated a deep and irresistible fermentation in society. The
great catastrophe of the eighteenth century was preparing. The stage of
Europe was being made ready for that transformation-scene which opened a
new era. But few could foresee the inevitable future; few could
distinguish what was wholesome progress from the delirious or
somnambulistic ravings of the moment. Therefore the Conservatives clung
fast to their prejudices and precedents; to established forms of
government, the national religion, the traditional customs of civil and
domestic life. To superficial observers it appeared that these men held
the strongest cards. Yet even rigid Conservatives were bound to admit
that there was something ominously rotten in the state of Venice. Her
commerce dwindled year by year. Her provinces were ill-administered, and
yielded less and less to the exchequer. Social demarcations disappeared
in the luxury and corruption which invaded all classes. Pauperism
assumed appalling dimensions. In the decay of industries and
manufactures thousands of workpeople were thrown famished upon public
charity. The ranks of the Barnabotti, or impoverished nobles, who
claimed state support, swelled, grew clamorous in the Grand Council,
gave signs of insubordination, and contaminated the fountain-head of
government by their venality. Meanwhile, the old machinery of the
constitution had fallen into the hands of a close oligarchy or
commission of a few powerful patricians. These corruptors of the State
pulled wires, bought votes, and manipulated the College and the Senate
to secure their own ends in the Consiglio Grande. The more far-sighted
among the Conservatives felt the necessity of temporising. Influenced by
the all-pervasive spirit of the age, but not prepared to join the
Liberal forces, they compromised, tampered with institutions, and tried
by stopping leaks to keep the deep sea out. This was the attitude of men
like Marco Foscarini, Alvise Emo, and Paolo Renier.

Apart from politics, the Conservatives stood on firmer ground. There is
no doubt that the so-called philosophy of the eighteenth century, both
in its principles and in its consequences, offered points of patent
weakness to hostile criticism. It was subversive without being
reconstructive. Its foundations were sentimental and fanciful rather
than logical and reasoned. Hazy in the minds of its projectors, it was
almost universally misunderstood by the multitude which it illuded.
Immorality was encouraged; not that any speculative system is inherently
immoral, but that the confused postulates regarding personal liberty,
the right of private judgment in matters of conduct, the light of
Nature, and the tyranny of custom and prejudice, from which this
philosophy started, enabled foolish or ill-minded people to hide their
vices and caprices beneath the specious mask of systematic thinking.
Again, the literature which sprang into existence under the predominance
of such theories, was in some respects pernicious, and in many points of
view ridiculous. The Conservatives had a definite course before them
when they determined to vindicate the purity of Italian diction, to
maintain the traditions of a glorious past in art, and to expose the
foibles of the Liberal school of thinkers and of writers.


II.

This brings me to the proper subject of the present chapter, which is
the conflict of Liberalism with Conservatism in the theatre at Venice.
The two protagonists are Carlo Goldoni and Carlo Gozzi, both Venetians,
and both of nearly the same age. Goldoni was born in 1707, Gozzi in
1720. Gozzi entered the lists against Goldoni in 1756, when the latter
had been working for the Venetian stage since 1748, and when he had
already turned the heads of the public by his brilliant dramatic
novelties.

The old _Commedia dell' Arte_, as we have seen, had sunk into
decrepitude. It was not merely that the type itself was exhausted,
though subsequent circumstances proved this to be the case. What was
more important is, that the popular taste veered round against it. Under
the prevailing dominance of French fashions, a style of drama, hitherto
unknown to the Italians, came into vogue. The so-called _Comedie
Larmoyante_, or pathetic comedy (of which Nivelle de la Chaussee, a
now-forgotten archimage of middle-class sentimentalities and
sensibilities, is the reputed inventor), caught the ear of Europe. The
Pere la Chaussee, to adopt an epigram of Piron's, preached every evening
from his pulpit in a score of theatres through Europe. The titles of his
most famous plays, _Melanide_, _La Gouvernante_, _Prejuge a la Mode_,
_L'Ecole des Meres_, remind us of the revolution in the drama which
converted the public stage from a place of amusement into a platform for
the dissemination of political or social sentiments. Saurin's
_Beverley_, Mercier's _Deserteur_ and _L'Indigent_, De Falbaire's
_Honnete Criminel_, Voltaire's _Ecossaise_, Diderot's _Pere de Famille_,
carried on La Chaussee's tradition. Regarding their popularity at
Venice, enough is related in the verbose and bilious diatribes prefixed
by Gozzi to his dramatic works. Among plays of this description, an
adaptation of our _George Barnwell_--much in the style of Thackeray's
parody upon Lord Lytton's novels--attracted great attention by the
pathos with which a nephew murdering his uncle from the highest motives
was exalted to the rank of hero. The Conservatives not unjustly
protested against the contamination of public morals by the false
sentiment of these tearful dramas. The perversion of taste by low
domestic arguments and clumsy realism, which had nothing real but its
vulgarity, seemed to them no less a sin.

They were particularly sensitive, moreover, upon the point of language,
diction, style. Translations and adaptations of French plays confirmed
the growing carelessness of authors. Gallicisms were so fashionable that
a stage-hack allowed himself all license in that direction. The jargon
of science introduced unheard-of phrases, which would have made the
fathers of the Della-Cruscan Academy shudder in their tombs. Moreover,
the prevalent affectation of independence and the fashionable revolt
against prejudice led ignorant scribblers to plume themselves upon their
solecisms and plebeian lapses into dialect.

With the main object, therefore, of maintaining a standard of propriety
in style, and with the secondary object of opposing theatrical
innovations, the Venetian Conservatives (in literature) founded their
Academy de'Granelleschi. It came into existence about 1747; and I need
not enlarge upon its constitution, except to say that it was an academy
of the good old Tory type, like the _Gelati_, _Sonnacchiosi_,
_Storditi_, and so many scores of literary clubs with absurd names and
trivial customs, whose members wasted their time over pedantic studies,
and occasionally issued a piece of solid work among their otherwise
ephemeral transactions. A sufficient account of this Academy is given in
Gozzi's Memoirs. Its importance at the present moment is that out of
this little camp Carlo Gozzi marched like David to attack the Goliath of
Philistinism, Carlo Goldoni.

It is difficult to speak adequately and fairly of Goldoni. In making
this man, Nature cast her glove down in the face of criticism, and
defied analysis. He possessed indubitable genius; what is more, his
genius obeyed generous enthusiasms, unselfish aims, pure-hearted
sentiments. He perceived instinctively and correctly that a new age was
dawning for the literature of Europe. He devoted his life to creating a
comic drama adequate to the intellectual dignity of his nation. Goldoni
was a good man, a modest man, a man complete in all the social virtues.
But he was not a great man. And his genius, that innovatory force of
his, that infinite adaptability, that inexhaustible scenic faculty which
he possessed, that intuition into the necessity of change, was, after
all, a genius of thin and threadbare quality. Can we point to a single
masterpiece produced by Goldoni? After allowing the sediment to settle
down of his prolific works and various experiments, can we select any
one play which bears the stamp of the supreme master? I think not. I
shrink from placing Goldoni, as a peer, in the company of Shakespeare,
Moliere, Calderon, and Schiller. But, while saying this, it is
impossible to deny his actual achievement. It is impossible not to
recognise the honest motives which prompted him to copy Nature's book.
That was his great discovery; and that keeps the memory of Goldoni ever
green among us. He saw that Nature had to be loved and studied and
followed by the artist. He discerned this luminous point in a period
befogged by prejudice, tradition, pedantry, conventionality,
subservience to antiquated humours and insurgent eccentricities. It was
not Goldoni's fault that birth and fortune denied him those higher
capacities and favourable openings which might have made his art-work
monumental. His genial, shifty, pliable, and yet persistent personality
was forced to humour obstacles and to fawn on circumstance. As an
inevitable consequence, his productions are mediocre and unsatisfactory.
Mediocrity of talent and of character is stamped upon his plays, and
self-revealed in his good-humoured Memoirs. But what confounds
criticism is that this mediocrity in the man and his equipment was
combined with undeniable originality. His genius, though not of the
purest water, was genuine. He had a correct perception of the
requirements of his age, a clear intuition into the practical
possibilities of the dramatic art he handled, and a vivid consciousness
of the ground-principle that no artist can afford to lose sight of
reality in practice. What would Goldoni not have been, we say, after
summing up the survey of his qualities, had he been gifted with a finer
fibre, a wider range of knowledge, a deeper philosophy, a more robust
temper, a poetic talent equal to the task of externalising his just
perceptions in forms of meditated art? As it is, he presents the curious
spectacle of a man born to inaugurate a new epoch, but without the
faculty to impose his own ideal successfully upon his contemporaries.
The general public acclaimed him, and understood his aims. But the
aristocrats of literature were able to inflict telling blows in their
fight against him. We, who stand aloof, when all the dust of that
conflict has subsided, see that Goldoni really won the day. It is only
to be regretted that a champion of such small dimensions, soft heart,
and feeble sinews, was commissioned to effect the revolution.


III.

Goldoni's instinct led him by an irresistible bias to the stage. He
vainly attempted to form himself for the more lucrative profession of
the law. During his youth he studied at a college in Pavia, but was
expelled for giving free vent to his literary propensities in satire. He
practised as an advocate at the Venetian bar, practised at Pisa in the
same capacity, acted as Genoese Consul at Venice. Still though he
courted Themis, his real predilections drew him toward Thalia. The first
piece which revealed his leading talent was a comedy in outline; _Il
Gondoliere Veneziano_, represented at Milan in 1733. In the next year he
produced a painfully bad tragedy at Verona entitled _Belisario_. Several
pieces of a mixed character, between comedy and tragedy, followed. Yet
he had not taken to the theatre as a profession; and it was not until
the year 1746, when he joined the comic company of Medebac, at Leghorn,
in the capacity of their paid playwright, that he entered definitely
upon the career of author for the stage.

During the years when Goldoni was thus wavering between law and
literature, he attempted many kinds of dramatic composition--operettas
for music, tragedies, tragi-comedies, farces, _scenari_ for improvised
comedies, and comedies of which the dialogue was partly written. His
facile talent adapted itself to every style in turn. All this while he
recognised that his strength lay neither in the direction of poetry nor
in that of serious drama. Nature had bestowed on him a genius for
comedy; and he felt born to educate Italian taste in that species. We
have already seen how deeply he deplored the degeneration of the
_Commedia dell' Arte_; and yet some of his pieces had been performed by
the best improvisatory actors then alive, Sacchi the famous Truffaldino,
and Darbes the no less celebrated Pantalone.

While scribbling Harlequinades, Goldoni never lost sight of the reform
he had long meditated; and this was to substitute written comedies of
character, in the style of Moliere and the ancients, for the old
comedies _all' improvviso_. But he saw the necessity of proceeding
cautiously. On the one hand, he had to consider the adherents of the
elder style. On the other hand, he was forced to humour the comedians,
who were jealous of changes which increased their dependence upon
professional playwrights.[61] Accordingly, he advanced with
circumspection. In the _Momolo Cortesan_, which he composed for the
Pantalone of Sacchi's company (a certain Golinetti), only the leading
part was written. The rest was left to improvisation. Nevertheless,
this piece was constructed on different principles from those which
governed the _Commedia dell' Arte_. It aimed at being a comedy of
character; and thus Goldoni hoped by gradual steps to wean his actors
from their bad old ways. Copying his mistress Nature, he saw that
nothing could be done _per saltum_. It was necessary to prepare
transitions, and to pass through the development of imperfect species to
the exhibition of the type he had in view. This seems to have been the
principle on which he acted. But Goldoni was so pliable and easy-going,
so apt to take the cue from casual suggestions offered to his versatile
ability, that he frequently lost sight of this leading principle. His
Muse wore Harlequin's robe of many colours, and assumed the mask while
waiting to effect the meditated revolution. This indecision at the
commencement of his career exposed him to Gozzi's piratical attacks, and
exercised, I think, a prejudicial influence over his subsequent career
as playwright. But it was not in the character of the man to act
otherwise. He could not divest himself of ready sympathy, fluency, and
genial adaptability to the circumstances in which he was placed from
time to time. Some natures are destined to achieve their ends by
condescension. Goldoni's was essentially a nature of this kind. And the
fact remains that, amid all his excursions into regions alien from his
purpose, he kept one aim in view and finally achieved it. What survives
of solid in his work, is the select series of plays produced upon the
lines of the reform he calculated.

It was at Pisa in 1746 that the _Capocomico_ Medebac induced Goldoni to
join his troupe. The proposal was that a theatre at Venice should be
hired for five or six years, and that Goldoni should dedicate his whole
talents to the composition of plays. Sufficiently good pecuniary offers
were made; for it seems that each comedy was paid at the rate of thirty
sequins, or about L12 sterling. Goldoni accepted. Then travelling with
his new partners by the road through Modena, he reached Venice in July
1747. His first venture, with a play called _Tognetto_ or _Tonino bela
grazia_, was a failure. A couple of pathetic pieces which followed, won
more favour with the public. Darbes, whom Goldoni learned to appreciate
and use with excellent effect, seconded his efforts admirably; and in
1748 circumstances seemed propitious for attempting the long-cherished
scheme of a revolution in the theatre. Accordingly he wrote the _Vedova
Scaltra_, which is distinctly a comedy of character. It was performed
during the carnival season of 1749, and was received with intelligent
sympathy by the Venetians. This induced Goldoni to pursue the course he
had begun. _La Putta Onorata_ obtained a similar success, and met with
emphatic approval from the gondolier class, whose sentiments and manners
had been studied in its composition. Goldoni's novelties had by this
time roused the jealousy of rivals and the opposition of Conservatives.
A parody of the _Vedova Scaltra_ appeared at the theatre of S. Samuele.
This was clever enough, and scurrilous enough, to attract attention.
Goldoni received a check in mid-career, which became serious when the
Carnival of 1749 closed with the total failure of a new piece from his
pen, _L'Erede Fortunata_. Upon this occasion, stung to the quick, and
piqued in his self-esteem, with the sense of his own inexhaustible and
facile forces rendering the hazard light, Goldoni publicly declared his
intention of producing sixteen new comedies within the next twelve
calendar months.

He kept his promise, but at a considerable cost both to his position as
playwright and his health. With the general public, the man's
indomitable pluck, his good-humour, and the variety of subjects treated
in his famous sixteen plays, created an indescribable enthusiasm. The
end of the Carnival, 1750, brought well-earned laurels to Goldoni,
together with the good-will of the fickle multitude. But unforgiving
enemies, the supporters of the old drama, the literary purists, and the
Conservatives who could not stomach sentimental comedies, were watching
him with Argus eyes. In the heat of volcanic combustion, he had thrown
up cinders and rubbish along with several felicitous and brilliant works
of art. The worst of his performances were remembered and scored up
against him by critics like Carlo Gozzi. The best were confounded
in one plausible condemnation.

[Illustration: TARTAGLIA (1620)

_Illustrating the Italian Commedia dell' Arte, or Impromptu Comedy_]

From this point forward for the next six years Goldoni met with no
formidable opposition, except from a rival playwright. The man in
question was the Abbe Chiari, a relic of the seventeenth century,
pompous and bombastic in style, a blatant member of the Arcadian
Academy, a bastard brother of Pindar in the matter of mixed metaphors
and wild Icarian flights, a prolific scribbler of melodramatic pieces in
rhymed Martellian verses,[62] and, after all his qualifications are
summed up, a mere pretentious windbag. Chiari caught the public ear.
Venice divided itself into factions for Chiari and Goldoni. On a smaller
scale, the Bononcini and Handel conflicts of London, the Gluck and
Piccini riots of Paris, were repeated. The most damaging feature of this
contest for Goldoni, was that Chiari, less gifted with originality,
aped each of his new inventions. Against Goldoni's _Pamela Nubile_
Chiari brought out a _Pamela Maritata_, against his _Avventuriere
Onorato_ an _Avventuriere alla Moda_, against his _Padre per Amore_ an
_Inganno Amoroso_, against his _Moliere_ a _Moliere marito geloso_,
against his _Terenzio_ a _Plauto_, against his _Sposa Persiana_ a
_Schiava Chinese_, against his _Filosofo Inglese_ a _Filosofo
Veneziano_, against his _Scozzese_ a _Bella Pellegrina_. In spite of
their mutual hostility, this game of battledore and shuttlecock between
Chiari and Goldoni enabled the literary Conservatives to regard both
playwrights as flying under one flag. But before the Granelleschi opened
fire in earnest, Venetian society continued for five years to be pretty
equally divided in its sympathies. The best judges sided with Goldoni,
while Chiari's glaring faults, which passed for brilliant qualities with
the vulgar, won him numerous admirers. Carlo Gozzi has described this
state of contention:[63]

      "I partigiani ogni giorno crescevano,
    Chi vuole _Originale_ et chi _Saccheggio_;
    Tutto il paese a romore mettevano,
    Sicche la cosa non e da motteggio.
    Nelle case i fratelli contendevano,
    Le mogli co' mariti facean peggio,
    In ogni loco acerba e la tenzone,
    Tutto e scompiglio, tutto e dissensione."


IV.

The Granelleschi, in their zeal for sound literature, were justly
enraged against the ranting, arrogant, bombastic Chiari. Although the
more discreet Academicians, men like Gasparo Gozzi, recognised Goldoni's
merits, they resented his slovenly and slipshod style. Carlo Gozzi, less
tolerant and far more satirical than his elder brother, confounded both
poets in a common loathing. This was obviously unfair to Goldoni, who,
whatever his faults of diction may have been, ranked immeasurably higher
than the Abbe. But Goldoni was guilty of an unpardonable sin in Gozzi's
eyes. He had declared war against the _Commedia dell' Arte_, for which
Gozzi entertained the partiality of one who was himself an excellent
impromptu actor. The other reasons of this bitter hatred are
sufficiently explained in those chapters of the Memoirs which describe
the beginning of his career as playwright.

At last Gozzi thought the time had come for striking a decisive
blow.[64] The Granelleschi professed sincere admiration for an obscure
burlesque Florentine poet of the fifteenth century called Burchiello.
Taking some of this man's enigmatical sentences for prophecies, Gozzi
compiled a sort of comic almanac, in which the various woes impending
over Venice in the year 1756 were described. It was entitled _La Tartana
degl' Influssi per l'anno bisestile_ 1756,[65] and was modelled upon an
almanac for country-folk, published at Treviso under the name of a
certain Schieson.[66] For each quarter of the year a _capitolo_ in
_terza rima_ was written, and a prophecy in octave stanzas was dedicated
to each month. Although the _Tartana_ contained satires upon society in
general, a considerable part was directed specially against Chiari and
Goldoni. The introductory address to the readers strikes the keynote.
The month of February deals with comedies, the month of November with
Martellian verses, and the month of December invokes the speedy return
of Sacchi and his company of masks from Portugal. Finally, in the sonnet
addressed to the bookseller at the end of the book, the two poets are
mentioned by name. Gozzi declared himself an implacable enemy of the
plays in vogue, an opponent of rhymed verses imitating the French
Alexandrine measure, and a zealous adherent of the old _Commedia dell'
Arte_. The prophecy with regard to Sacchi's company was speedily
fulfilled; for the earthquake of Lisbon happening in 1755, they were
obliged to quit the scene of that lugubrious disaster. Soon after their
return to Venice, Gozzi appears to have courted their friendship. This
we gather from the _Canto Ditirambico de'Partigiani del Sacchi
Truffaldino_ which he published in 1761.[67]

Irritated by the _Tartana degli Influssi_, Goldoni, who usually kept
silence under literary attacks, took up the pen and wrote as
follows:[68]--

    "Ho veduta stampata una Tartana
        Piena di versi rancidi sciapiti,
        Versi da spaventare una befana,
     Versi dal saggio imitator conditi
        Con sale acuto della maladicenza,
        Piena di falsi sentimenti arditi;
     Ma conceder si puo questa licenza
        A chi in collera va colla fortuna,
        Che per lui non ha molta compiacenza.
     Chi dice mal senza ragione alcuna,
        Chi non prova gli assunti e gli argomenti,
        Fa come il can che abbaia alla luna."

I have transcribed these verses for several reasons; first, that my
readers may judge for themselves of Goldoni's poetical style; secondly,
because the last six lines profoundly irritated Gozzi; and thirdly,
because they engaged him in the production of his first semi-dramatic
pasquinade upon their author.

We need not describe the battle of sonnets, squibs, and pamphlets which
raged after the appearance of Gozzi's _Tartana_. The Granelleschi were
now committed to crush their antagonists; and they spared no pains to do
so. Men of birth and parts condescended to the filthiest ribaldry and
the most savage personalities. On the whole, it must be allowed that the
Granelleschi displayed superior wit and style. Gozzi, in particular,
showed real powers for burlesque satire in his _Marfisa Bizzarra_; and
some of his occasional pieces are composed with a terseness and
directness worthy of the classical age of Florentine literature. Goldoni
replied from time to time, but feebly. In a poem entitled _La Tavola
Rotonda_, he described his formidable antagonist as:[69]

    "Un Lombardo che affetta esser cruscante
     Col riso in bocca e col veleno in petto."

This seems to me a fair, if somewhat pungent, description of Carlo
Gozzi, who, in spite of his theoretical purism, rarely succeeded in
writing with correctness or distinction, and who veiled a really caustic
temper under the mask of Democritean philosophy. Touching upon the
charges brought against himself of being neither a scholar nor a poet,
Goldoni admits their truth with frankness:[70]

    "Pur troppo io so che buon scrittor non sono
     E che ai fonti miglior non ho bevuto;
     Qual mi detta il mio stil scrivo e ragiono,
     E talor per fortuna ho anch' io piaciuto;
     Ma guai a me se il fiorentin frullone
     A sceverare i scritti miei si pone."

Strong in the unwavering appreciation of the public, and confident in
his own powers, Goldoni could afford to make this concession to his
antagonist. But it argued a generous and modest mind, different in
quality from Gozzi's.

Meanwhile Gozzi took up the glove of defiance thrown down by Goldoni in
his _Tavola Rotonda_. A sonnet referring to that poem contains these
lines:[71]

                  "Ma accio s'abbia a decidere
    S'io dissi il ver, sto facendo un comento,
    Che provera l'assunto e l'argomento."

This _Comento_ led Gozzi eventually to the production of his _Fiabe_.
But a step or two remained to be taken before Gozzi resolved to meet
Goldoni on his own ground, the theatre.

He began by circulating a satirical piece entitled _Il Teatro Comico
all' Osteria del Pellegrino tra le mani degli Accademici Granelleschi_,
or "The Comic Theatre at the Inn of the Pilgrim, rough-handled by the
Granelleschi." Gozzi's Memoirs contain a sufficient description of this
satire, which still exists in MS. at the Marcian Library. They also
explain why he withdrew it from publication at the request of his friend
Farsetti and Goldoni's patron Count Widman. Therefore it is not
necessary to discuss it here in detail: yet the meaning of the title may
be pointed out. Goldoni had already produced a comedy, called _Il Teatro
Comico_, setting forth his views regarding the reform of the drama.[72]
Gozzi, alluding to this play, undertakes to expose the faults of
Goldoni's own theatrical writings. The satire is conceived in the broad
spirit of Aristophanic or Rabelaisian humour, and is really a
masterpiece in its kind. We feel for the first time that Gozzi has found
his proper sphere by the breadth of handling, the free play of humour,
and the precision of touch, which reveal an inborn dramatic faculty. The
unmasking of the vociferous four-faced monster which caricatured
Goldoni, is eminently fit for scenical effect. While reading, we seem to
be present at a new act in Jonson's _Poetaster_. The four mouths of the
four-faced mask represent the four kinds of dramas written by
Goldoni--his early harlequinades and _scenari_, his domestic comedy of
the pathetic species, his heroic and Oriental melodramas, and his
transcripts from Venetian life. A fifth mouth, the mouth in the belly,
_la veridica bocca dell' epa_, as Gozzi terms it, utters Goldoni's
personal aims and views, as Gozzi chose brutally to interpret them. This
truthful witness confesses that all the four mouths of the masked head
were subservient to its carnal needs. _Quis expedivit psittaco suum_
[Greek: chaire]?... _Magister artis ingenique largitor, Venter negatas
artifex sequi voces._ "Who taught the parrot his word of welcome? That
master of art and liberal dispenser of genius, the belly." That motto
from the prologue to Persius' book of satires might be inscribed on the
title-page of Gozzi's pasquinade. The blow inflicted, in a literal and
metaphorical sense, below the belt, was unworthy of a gentleman. It
betrayed Gozzi's critical insensibility to Goldoni's actual merits. It
exhibited his aristocratic contempt for professional literature,
combined with his comedian's readiness to take advantage of a powerful
opponent. But it also revealed a literary athlete capable of striking
home, and whose method of attack was certain to be formidable.

Goldoni bowed beneath the storm, and used his influence to withhold the
sanguinary satire from further publicity. At this point Gozzi showed the
courtesy which might have been expected from a man of his quality. He
dropped the point of his weapon at his antagonist's request, and
prepared himself to meet the playwright on his own ground. In fairness
to Gozzi, it is necessary to observe that this resolution indicated no
small amount of chivalry and courage. Goldoni was the idol of the
public. He kept continually pointing to the concourse which crowded the
Venetian theatres when a new piece from his pen was advertised. Gozzi
was unpractised in play-writing, a man in his fortieth year, and the
dramatic card on which he staked his luck might well be considered
hazardous. What that card was we shall presently discover.

Chiari, involved in the same warfare with the Granelleschi, had hitherto
preserved a discreet silence. Now he defied them to produce a play.
Gasparo Gozzi answered with a sonnet, which betrays his personal leaning
toward Goldoni. Then Chiari resolved to make common cause with his old
rival on the stage. This shows how the dropping fire of the Academicians
had told upon their opponents. The Abbe addressed Goldoni as _degnissimo
comico vate, poeta amico_, most worthy master of comedy, my good poet
friend. Goldoni reciprocated the compliment with _vate sublime, vate
immortale_, sublime, immortal bard. Not without a touch of concealed
irony, he compared himself to Chiari in this lyric flight:[73]

    "Si, tu sei l'aquila,
          Io la formica;
          Tu voli all' apice
          Senza fatica,
          Mia Musa ai cardini
          Salir non sa."

We trace in these verses Goldoni's perfect clarity of vision regarding
his own powers, and his good-humoured indulgence of other people's
foibles. He recognised the practical advantage of an alliance with
Chiari. At the same time he disclaimed all honours for himself, and
gently ridiculed his new ally's pretensions.

Chiari had defied the Granelleschi to produce a comedy. Goldoni had
taken up his stand upon the popularity of his own plays. Carlo Gozzi
conceived the bold idea of writing a fantastic drama upon the old lines
of the _Commedia dell' Arte_, which should fill the theatre of his
adoption and restore Sacchi's company to favour. If he succeeded, both
Chiari and Goldoni would be hit with the same stone. This was the real
origin of the celebrated _Fiabe Teatrali_. But before engaging in the
attempt, Gozzi looked about for a suitable subject. Nothing, he
calculated, would floor his antagonists more thoroughly than the
exhibition of a dramatised nursery tale by impromptu actors. Therefore,
in the spirit of a burlesque duellist, in the true spirit of Don
Quixote, he composed his _Amore delle Tre Melarancie_.

These facts about the genesis of Gozzi's _Fiabe_ need to be insisted on,
since French and German critics have distorted the truth. They regard
Gozzi as a romantic playwright, gifted with innate genius for a peculiar
species of dramatic art. According to this theory, the _Fiabe_ were
produced in order to manifest an ideal existing in their author's brain.
Minute attention to Gozzi's Memoirs, his explanatory Essays (Opere,
vols. i. and iv.), and the preface appended to each _Fiaba_, shows, on
the contrary, that he began to write the _Fiabe_ with the simple object
of answering a certain challenge in the most humorous way he could
devise. He continued them with a didactic purpose. His keen sagacity and
profound knowledge of the Venetian public led him possibly to anticipate
success. Yet he knew that the attempt was perilous; and he made it,
without obeying preconceived principles, without yielding to any
imperative instinct, but solely with the view of giving Chiari and
Goldoni a sound thrashing.

If it is worth while studying Gozzi and the _Fiabe_ at all, this point
has so much importance that I may be permitted to resume the history of
his literary conflict with the two poets. Gozzi opened fire with the
_Tartana_ in 1756. Goldoni retorted that he had only made himself
ridiculous; unless he proved both his assumption and his argument, he
was nothing better than a dog barking at the moon. Gozzi then declared
that he was already engaged in the production of a commentary. This
circulated in MS. under the form of a satire called the _Teatro Comico_.
Meanwhile Goldoni parried all attacks by pointing to his popularity, and
Chiari openly defied the Granelleschi to write a comedy, instead of
condemning the plays in vogue. Finally Gozzi, who had become intimately
acquainted with the actors in Sacchi's company, resolved to write a
_scenario_, which should rehabilitate the _Commedia dell' Arte_, parody
both Chiari and Goldoni, attract the public in crowds, and prove that a
mere fairy tale, treated with romantic gusto, was capable of arousing no
less interest than the works of professional playwrights following
new-fangled models. The _Amore delle Tre Melarancie_, produced at the
end of January in 1761, rather more than four years after the appearance
of the _Tartana_, was the result.

It is mistaken to suppose that Gozzi was animated by the enthusiasm of a
literary innovator. The _Fiabe_, in spite of their fantastic form, were
the work of an aristocratical Conservative, bent on striking a shrewd
blow for the _Commedia dell' Arte_, which he considered to be the
special glory of the Italian race. In this respect, we might call Gozzi
the Venetian Aristophanes.[74] The _Fiabe_ were his "Clouds," and
"Birds," and "Wasps." Goldoni and Chiari were his Euripides and Agathon;
perverters of the good old comedy by vulgar realism, false pathos, and
meretricious rhetoric. Rousseau, Voltaire, Helvetius, the French
_philosophes_, were his Socrates and Sophists. His art was the
expression, not of creative instinct evoking a new type of drama merely
for its beauty and romance, but of a militant, sarcastic mind, imbued
with the ironical literature of the sixteenth century. Gozzi had little
in common with Shakespeare. Truffaldino is no twin-brother of King
Lear's fool, nor is Brighella cousin to the grave-digger in _Hamlet_.
These personages belong to the family of masks, whose pedigree dates
from immemorial antiquity in Italy. The element of fable, as Gozzi
repeatedly informs us, was first adopted by him out of sheer bravado to
maintain a certain thesis, viz., that whole nations could be made to
laugh and cry over puerilities, when handled with the judgment of a
master. Gozzi's true ancestors in art were the Florentine burlesque
poets, notably Luigi Pulci. The blending of magic, phantasy, broad
comedy and serious tragic interest in the _Fiabe_ allies them to the
_Morgante Maggiore_ far more closely than to Marlowe's _Doctor
Faustus_. In them, therefore, we observe the curious literary phenomenon
of what at first sight appears to be spontaneous romantic art, but what
is really the result of satirical and didactic intention. The preface to
_L'Augellino Belverde_, in which Gozzi takes leave of the _Fiabe_,
clearly explains the case.[75] "I addressed myself to the task of
arousing great popular enthusiasm by a _tour de force_ of fancy; and at
the same time I wished to cut short the series of my dramatic pieces,
from which I derived no profit, and the burden of producing which was
beginning to weigh heavily upon me. Besides, it seemed to me that I had
fully achieved the end I had proposed to myself from the outset, in the
indulgence of the purest capricious and poetical punctilio." _Punctilio_
was the parent of the _Fiabe_.

At this point I shall introduce a translation of _L'Amore delle Tre
Melarancie_. There are several reasons for doing so. First, although it
only exists For us in the _compte rendu_ of the author, and is therefore
a description rather than a literal _scenario_, a very good idea can be
gained from it of the directions given by a poet to extempore actors.
Secondly, it shows the four Venetian masks, Pantalone, Tartaglia,
Truffaldino, and Brighella, in action, together with the _servetta_
Smeraldina. Thirdly, it is interesting for the light thrown upon Gozzi's
controversy with the two poets in the critical observations he has
interspersed. These I shall enclose in brackets, so that the _scenario_
of the play may be distinguished from extraneous matter.


V.

A REFLECTIVE ANALYSIS

OF THE FABLE ENTITLED

THE LOVE OF THE THREE ORANGES.

_A Dramatic Representation divided into Three Acts._[76]


PROLOGUE.

(_A boy comes forward and makes this announcement._)

    Your faithful servants, the old company
    Of players, feel sore shent and full of shame;
    Behind the scenes they stand with downcast eye
    And hang-dog faces, dreading words of blame;
    They blush to hear the folk say: "We are dry!
    Each year those fellows feed us with the same
    Musty old comedies that stink of mould!
    We will not be insulted, laughed at, sold!"
      I swear by all the elements to you,
    Kind public, that to win your love once more,
    They'd let their teeth be drawn, and eyeballs too!
    They sent me to say this--nay, do not roar,
    Restrain your wrath, sweet gentle audience, do;
    Lend me your ears three minutes, I implore;
    When I have spoken what I'm sent to say,
    Deal with me as you list, I won't cry nay!
      We've lost all sense and knowledge how to please
    The public on our scenes, in this mad age.
    The plays that took last year now seem to freeze;
    And something quite brand-new is all the rage.
    The wheel of taste and fashion, as one sees,
    Moves with a wind no prophet can presage;
    We only know that when the world's agog,
    Our throats are moist and stomachs filled with prog.
      Taste rules this year that all the modern plays
    Should be crammed full with intrigue, strange events,
    Fresh characters, adventures that amaze,
    Wild, thrilling, unexpected incidents;--
    Dumbfounded by these laws, we stand at gaze,
    Huddling together timorous in our tents;
    And yet because we must have bread to eat,
    We've come with our old wares your wrath to meet.
      I know not, gentle listener, who it is
    Hath rendered us unfit to charm your ear:
    To us who once enjoyed your courtesies,
    So many and so sweet, it seems most queer.
    Is Poetry perchance to blame for this?
    Well, well; all things are doomed to disappear;
    Mortals must learn to bear and bide their fate;
    Yet, ah! your hatred is a scourge too great!
      For our part, we'll leave nothing new untried;
    We'll don the poet's singing-robes and bays,
    If this may give us back your grace denied;
    Nay, we _are_ poets in these latter days!
    Our breeches shall be sold and ink supplied,
    Our coats we'll change for paper to write plays;
    And if we've got no genius, well, what's that?
    So long as you are pleased, all's right, that's flat.
      Our purpose 'tis with new-pranked comedies,
    Fine things, ne'er seen before, to fill our stage.
    Don't ask when, where, and how we met with these,
    Or who inscribed the pure Phoebean page;
    After fine weather when the deluges
    Of rain descend, _Lo, new rain!_ cries the sage;
    Yet though he thinks it new rain, 'tis quite plain
    That rain is nought but water, water rain.
      Not all things keep one course through endless time.
    What's up to-day, to-morrow shall be down.
    Your great-great-grandsire's garment Mode, the mime,
    Steals from his picture-frame to deck the town.
    'Tis taste, opinion, gusto make sublime,
    Make beautiful, what tickles prince and clown;
    And we can swear upon the book our plays
    Have ne'er appeared in these or other days.
      We've plots and arguments to turn old folk
    Back to their infancy and nurse's arms;
    Parents who kindly bear their children's yoke
    Will bring the babes to listen to our charms;
    High solemn geniuses we daren't invoke,
    Nor will their absence cause us great alarms;
    Why should we snuff at pence? Whether they scent
    Of ignorance or learning, we're content.
      On strange and unexpected circumstance
    You shall sup full to-night; on wonders wild,
    Whereof you may have heard or read perchance,
    Yet never seen by woman, man, or child;
    Beasts, birds, and house-doors shall your ears entrance
    With verses by crowned poet's labour filed;
    And if Martellian verses they shall prove,
    These _must_ compel your plaudits and your love!
      Your servants wait, impatient to begin;
    But first I'd like the story to rehearse;
    Ah me! I quake and tremble in my skin--
    You're sure to hiss me or do something worse!
    _The Love of the Three Oranges!_--I'm in,
    And don't repent the plunge, although you curse.
    Imagine then, my darlings, heart's desires,
    You're sitting with your granddams round your fires.

[The touch of satire in this prologue, directed against poets who were
trying to trample down Sacchi's company of improvisatory players, is
too obvious, and my intention of supporting the latter by introducing
the series of my dramatised nursery-tales upon the theatre is too
evident, to call for detailed commentary. In the choice of my first
fable, which I took from the commonest among the stories told to
children, and in the base alloy of the dialogues, the action, and the
characters, which are obviously degraded of set purpose, I wanted to
ridicule _Il Campiello_, _Le Massere_, _Le Baruffe Chiozzotte_, and many
other plebeian and very trivial pieces by Signor Goldoni.]


FIRST ACT.

Silvio, King of Diamonds,[77] the monarch of an imaginary realm, whose
habit exactly imitated that of his majesty upon the playing cards,
confided to Pantalone the deep distress caused to his royal mind by the
misfortune of his sole son and heir, Tartaglia. The Crown-Prince had
been subject, for the last ten years, to an incurable malady. The first
physicians diagnosed the case as hopeless hypochondria, and gave their
patient up. The King wept bitterly. Pantalone, sending doctors to the
devil with his sarcasms, suggested that the admirable secrets of certain
charlatans, at that time famous, might be tried. The King protested that
all such means had been employed with no result. Pantalone, letting his
fancy play upon the hidden causes of the malady, asked his liege in
secret, so as not to be overheard by the royal bodyguard, whether his
Majesty had perhaps contracted something in his younger days, which,
being communicated to the constitution of the Prince, might still be
extirpated by the exhibition of mercury. The King, assuming an air of
stately seriousness, replied that he had been invariably faithful to his
consort's bed. Pantalone then submitted that the Prince might be
concealing, out of a befitting sense of shame, the consequence of boyish
peccadilloes. His Majesty assured him seriously that his own paternal
inspection of the patient excluded that hypothesis; the young man's
illness was solely due to hypochondria of a grave and malignant nature;
the physicians declared that, unless he could be made to laugh, he must
sink slowly into his grave; a smile upon his face would be the
favourable sign of convalescence. That was too good to be expected. To
this he added that the prospect of his own decrepitude, the sight of his
son and heir upon a death-bed, the inevitable succession to the crown of
his niece Clarice, a young woman of strange temper, bizarre fancies, and
cruel passions, caused him the deepest affliction. Thereupon he began to
bewail the future misery of his subjects, broke down into a flood of
tears, and quite forgot the dignity of his high station. Pantalone
consoled him, urged on his attention the propriety of restoring the
court to merriment and gladness, if all depended on Prince Tartaglia's
recovering the power of laughter. Let festivities, games, masquerades,
and spectacles be set on foot. Let Truffaldino, well approved for making
people laugh and chasing the blue-devils from their brains, be summoned
to the Prince's service. The Prince had shown some inclination for
Truffaldino's society. He might succeed in bringing smiles again upon
the royal features. The remedy could but be tried, and possibly a cure
might ensue. The King allowed himself to be convinced, and began to plan
arrangements.

To these persons entered Leandro, Knave of Diamonds,[78] and first
Minister of the realm. He too was dressed like his figure on a pack of
cards. Pantalone, aside, expressed his suspicion of some treachery on
the part of Leandro. The King commanded festivities, games, and Bacchic
entertainments, adding that whoever made the Prince laugh should receive
a noble prize. Leandro tried to dissuade his Majesty, and urged that
such remedies were likely to prejudice the sick man's health. The King
repeated his orders and retired. Pantalone rejoiced. Aside, to the
audience, he explained that Leandro was certainly planning the Prince's
death. Then he followed the King. Leandro remained stubborn, muttered
that he detected some opposition to his wishes, but from what quarter he
could not guess.

To him appeared the Princess Clarice, niece of the King. There was never
seen upon the stage a princess of so wild, irascible, and determined a
character as this Clarice. [I have to thank Signer Chiari for furnishing
me with abundant models for such caricatures in his dramatic works.] She
had settled with Leandro to marry him, and raise him to the throne, upon
the death of her cousin. Accordingly she burst into reproaches against
her lover for his coldness. Were they to wait until Tartaglia died of a
disease so slow as hypochondria? Leandro excused himself with
circumspection. Fata Morgana, he said, his powerful protectress, had
given him certain charms in Martellian verses, which were to be
administered to Tartaglia in wafers. These would certainly work his
destruction by sure if tardy means. [This was introduced to criticise
the plays of Chiari and Goldoni, whose Martellian verses bored every one
to death by their monotony of rhyme.] Now Fata Morgana was hostile to
the King of Diamonds, having lost much of her treasure on his card. She
loved the Knave of Diamonds, because he had brought her luck in play.
She dwelt in a lake, not far from the city. Smeraldina, a Moorish woman,
who performed the _servetta_ in this scenic parody, acted as
intermediary between Leandro and Morgana. Clarice fumed with fury at
hearing the slow means appointed for Tartaglia's death. Leandro
confessed that he entertained some doubts about the efficacy of
Martellian verses to secure a happy dispatch. He was uneasy, too, at
the unexplained appearance of Truffaldino at court, a very facetious
fellow; and if Tartaglia laughed, his cure was certain. Clarice's rage
boiled over; she had seen Truffaldino, and the mere sight of him was
certain to make anybody laugh. [In this dialogue my readers will detect
a defence of the mirth-making comedy of the masks as against the
melancholy drama in verse of the poets in vogue.] Meanwhile, Leandro had
seat Brighella, his servant, to Smeraldina, to learn the explanation of
Truffaldino's appearance, and to demand assistance from Morgana.

Brighella entered; and with much show of secrecy related that
Truffaldino had been sent to court by a certain wizard Celio, Morgana's
enemy, and the King of Diamonds' friend, for reasons exactly opposite to
those which had incensed Morgana against him. Truffaldino, he continued,
was an antidote to the morbific influences of Martellian verses; he had
come to protect the King, the Prince, and all the people from the
infection of those melancholic charms.

[It may be pointed out that the hostility between Fata Morgana and Celio
the wizard symbolised the warfare carried on between Goldoni and Chiari.
Fata Morgana was a caricature of Chiari, and Celio of Goldoni.]

Brighella's news threw Clarice and Leandro into consternation. They laid
their heads together how to kill Truffaldino by some secret device.
Clarice suggested arsenic or a blunderbuss. Leandro was for trying
Martellian verses in wafers, or opium. Clarice objected that there was
not much to choose between Martellian verses and opium, and that
Truffaldino had the stomach to digest such trifles. Brighella added that
Morgana, informed of the festivities designed for the Prince's recovery,
meant to appear and neutralise the action of his salutiferous laughter
by a curse which should quickly send him to the tomb. Clarice retired.
Leandro and Brighella went to superintend the preparation of the shows.

The next scene disclosed the chamber of the sick Prince. He was attired
in the most laughable caricature of an invalid's costume. Reclining in
an ample lounging-chair, Tartaglia leaned against a table, piled with
medicine-bottles, ointments, spittoons, and other furniture appropriate
to his melancholy condition. With a weak and quavering voice he lamented
his misfortunes, the various treatments he had tried with no success,
and the extraordinary symptoms of his incurable malady. The eminent
actor, who sustained this scene alone, kept the audience in one roar of
laughter by his exquisite burlesque and natural drollery. Then
Truffaldino entered, and tried to make the patient laugh. The extempore
performance of this duet by two of the best comic players of our day
afforded excellent mirth. The Prince looked on approvingly while
Truffaldino exhibited his pranks. But nothing could bring a smile upon
his lips. He insisted upon returning to his illness, and asking
Truffaldino's advice. Truffaldino entered into a labyrinth of
physiological and medical arguments, highly humorous and spiced with
satire. He smelt the Prince's breath, and swore that it stank of a
surfeit of undigested Martellian verses. The Prince coughed, and asked
to spit. Truffaldino brought him the vessel, examined the expectoration,
and found in it a mass of rancid rotten rhymes. This scene lasted above
a quarter of an hour, to the continual amusement of the audience.
Instruments of music were then heard, announcing the festivities in the
great court of the palace. Truffaldino wanted to conduct the Prince to a
balcony from which he could survey them. Tartaglia protested that this
was impossible. Truffaldino, in a rage, threw all the medicines, cups,
and ointments out of window, while the Prince squealed and wept like a
baby. At last Truffaldino carried him off by main force, howling as
though he was being massacred, and bore him on his shoulders to enjoy
the show.

The third scene was laid in the courtyard of the palace. Leandro
entered, and declared that he had carried out the King's commands; the
people, plunged in grief, but eager to refresh their spirits, were all
masked; he had taken precautions to make many persons assume lugubrious
disguises, in order to augment the Prince's melancholy; the hour had
sounded for unbarring the court-gates to the populace.

Morgana then entered, in the travesty of a ridiculous old woman. Leandro
expressed his astonishment that such an object should have obtained
entrance before the gates were opened. Morgana discovered herself, and
said she had come in that disguise to work the Prince's swift
destruction. Leandro thanked her, and styled her the Queen of
Hypochondria. Morgana drew to one side, and the gates were thrown wide.

On a terraced balcony, in front of the spectators, sat the King, and
Prince Tartaglia, muffled in furred pelisse, Clarice, Pantalone, the
guards, and afterwards Leandro. The spectacles and games were precisely
such as are related in the fairy story. The people flocked in. There was
a tournament, directed by Truffaldino, who arranged burlesque encounters
for the knights. At every turn, he addressed himself to the balcony,
inquiring of his majesty if the Prince had laughed. The Prince only shed
tears, complaining that the air hurt him, and the noise made his head
ache. He entreated his royal sire to send him back to his warm bed.

There were two fountains, one of which ran with oil, the other with
wine. Round these the rabble hustled, disputing with vulgar and plebeian
violence. But nothing moved the Prince to laughter. Then Morgana hobbled
out to fill her cruse with oil. Truffaldino assailed the hag with a
variety of insults, and finally sent her sprawling with her legs in air.
[These trivialities, taken from the trivial story-book, amused the
audience by their novelty quite as much as the _Massere_, _Campielli_,
_Baruffe Chiozzotte_, and all the other trivial pieces of Goldoni.] On
seeing the old woman's fall, Tartaglia burst into a long sonorous peal
of laughter. Truffaldino gained the prize. The people, relieved of their
anxiety about the Prince's health, laughed uncontrollably. All the court
was glad. Only Leandro and Clarice showed wry faces.

Morgana, raising herself from the ground in a spasm of fury, abused the
Prince, and hurled the following awful malediction in the true style of
Chiari at his devoted head:[79]

  "Open thine ears, barbarian! let my voice assail thy heart!
   Nor wall nor mountain stay the sound my words of doom impart.
   As riving thunderbolts descend and split the solid rock,
   So may my curses split thy breast with their tremendous shock.
   As boats against a running tide the tug triumphant tows,
   So let my malediction strong still lead thee by the nose.
   Oh awful curse! oh direful doom! To hear it is to die,
   Like quadrupeds within the sea, or fish on flowers that lie!
   I call on Pluto, gloomy god, to Pindar winged I pray,
   That thou with the Three Oranges may'st fall in love to-day.
   Threats, tears, entreaties now are nought, leaves shaken by the breeze;
   Haste to the horrible acquist of the Three Oranges!"

Morgana disappeared. The Prince suddenly conceived a firm and resolute
enthusiasm for the love of the Three Oranges. He was led away amid the
confusion and consternation of the court.

What nonsense! What a mortification for the two poets! The first act of
the fable ended at this point with a loud and universal clapping of
hands.


ACT THE SECOND.

In one of the Prince's apartments, Pantalone, beside himself with
despair, describes the terrible effect of the hag's malediction on
Tartaglia. Nothing could be done to calm him down. He had asked his
father for a pair of iron shoes, to walk the world over, and discover
the fatal Oranges. The King had commanded Pantalone, under pain of the
Prince's displeasure, to find him such a pair. The matter was one of the
most pressing urgency. [This motive suited the theatre, and conveyed a
sprightly satire on the dramatic motives then in vogue.]

Pantalone retired, and the Prince entered with Truffaldino. Tartaglia
expressed impatience at this long delay in bringing him the iron shoes.
Truffaldino asked a number of absurd questions. Tartaglia declared his
intention of going to find the Three Oranges, which, as he heard from
his grandmother, were two thousand miles away, in the power of Creonta,
a gigantic witch. Then he called for his armour, and bade Truffaldino
array himself in mail, for he meant him to be his squire. A scene of
excellent buffoonery followed between these highly comical personages,
both of them fitting on corslets, helmets, and huge long swords, with
burlesque military ardour.

Enter the King, Pantalone, and guards. One of the latter carries a pair
of iron shoes upon a salver. This scene was executed by the four
principal performers with a gravity which made it doubly ridiculous. In
a tone of high tragedy and theatrical majesty the father dissuaded his
son from this perilous adventure. He entreated, threatened, relapsed
into pathos. The Prince, like a man possessed, insisted. His
hypochondria was sure to return, unless he was allowed to set forth. At
last he burst into coarse threats against his father. The King stood
rooted to the ground with amazement and grief. Then he reflected that
this want of filial respect in Tartaglia arose from the bad example of
the new comedies. [In one of Chiari's comedies a son had drawn his sword
to kill his father. Instances of the same description abounded in the
dramas of that day, which I wished to censure.] Nothing would silence
the Prince, till Truffaldino shod him with the iron shoes. The scene
ended with a quartet in dramatic verse, of blubberings, farewells, sighs
and sobs. Tartaglia and Truffaldino took their leave. The King fell
fainting on a sofa, and Pantalone called aloud for aromatic vinegar.

Clarice, Leandro, and Brighella came hurrying upon the stage, rebuking
Pantalone for the clamour he was raising. Pantalone replied that, with a
King in a fainting fit, a Prince gone off on the dangerous adventure of
the Oranges, it was only natural to kick up a row. Brighella answered
that such matters were mere twaddle, like the new comedies, which turned
everything topsy-turvy without reason. The King meanwhile recovered his
senses, and fell to raving in true tragic style. He bewept his son for
dead; ordered the whole court to wear mourning; and shut himself up in a
little cabinet, to end his days under the weight of this crushing
affliction. Pantalone, vowing that he would share the King's
lamentations, collect their mingled tears in one pocket-handkerchief,
and bequeath to coming bards the argument for interminable episodes in
Martellian verse, withdrew in the train of his liege.

Clarice, Leandro, Brighella gave way to their gladness, and extolled
Morgana to the skies. Whimsical Clarice then insisted on coming to
conditions before she raised Leandro to the throne. In time of war she
was to command the armies. Even if she suffered a defeat, she was sure
to subdue the victor by her charms; when he was drowned in love, and
lulled by her blandishments, she meant to stick a knife into his paunch.
[This was a side hit at Chiari's _Attila_.] Clarice further reserved to
herself the right of distributing court-offices. Brighella, as the
reward of his services, begged to be appointed Master of the King's
Revels. The three personages now disputed upon the choice of different
theatrical diversions. Clarice voted for tragic dramas, with personages
who should throw themselves out of windows and off towers, without
breaking their necks, and such-like miraculous accidents (_id est_, the
plays of Chiari). Leandro preferred comedies of character (_id est_,
Goldoni's plays). Brighella recommended the _Commedia dell' Arte_, as
very fit to yield the public innocent amusement. Clarice and Leandro
flew into a rage. What did they want with stupid buffooneries, rancid
relics of antiquity, unseemly in this enlightened age? Brighella then
began a pathetic speech, commiserating Sacchi's company, without
mentioning it by name, but making his meaning plain enough. He deplored
the misfortunes of an honourable troupe, who had done good service in
their day, but were now downtrodden, and forced to behold the affections
of the public they adored, and whom they had for many years amused,
withdrawn from them. He retired with the applause of that public, who
thoroughly understood the real drift of his discourse.

The next scene opened in a wilderness. Celio the wizard was discovered
drawing circles. As the protector of Prince Tartaglia, he summoned
Farfarello, a devil, to his aid. Farfarello appeared, and with a
formidable voice uttered these Martellian lines:

    "Hullo! who calls? who drags me forth from earth's drear centre dark?
     A wizard real art thou, or wizard of the stage, thou spark?
     If only of the stage thou art, I need not tell thee then
     That devils, wizards, sprites, are out of fashion among men."

[Allusion was here made to the two poets, who wanted to abolish the
masks, magicians, and fiends in writings for the stage.] Celio answered
in prose that he was a real wizard. Farfarello continued:

    "Well, be thou what thou wilt; yet if thou of the stage may be,
     At least thou might'st respond in verse Martellian to me."

Celio swore at the devil, and told him that he meant to go on talking
prose. Then he inquired whether Truffaldino, whom he had sent to the
court of the King of Diamonds, had done any good, and whether Tartaglia
had been obliged to laugh, and had lost his hypochondria. The devil
answered:

    "He laughed; recovered health; but then, Morgana, thy great foe,
     With malediction spoiled thy pains, and wrought a double woe.
     With fury winged and breathless he, both burning cheeks on fire,
     Is after the Three Oranges, inflamed with fierce desire.
     With Truffaldin the Prince is sped; Morgana sends a sprite
     To wait upon the pair and blow them forward in their flight.
     A thousand miles the men have gone, and soon they will descend,
     Here by Creonta's fort, half-dead, at their long journey's end."

[Illustration: BRIGHELLA (1570)

_Illustrating the Italian Commedia dell'Arte, or Impromptu Comedy_]

The devil disappeared. Celio monologised against his mortal foe Morgana,
explaining the great perils of Tartaglia and Truffaldino when they
should arrive at the castle of Creonta on the quest of the fatal
Oranges. Then he retired to make the necessary preparations for saving
two persons of high merit and great social utility.

[Celio, who stood for Goldoni in this piece of nonsense, ought not to
have protected Tartaglia and Truffaldino. I admit the error, which
deserves to be condemned, if a mere dramatic sketch of such a trivial
kind comes within the scope of criticism. At that time Chiari and
Goldoni were enemies and rivals. I wanted Morgana and Celio to
caricature their opposite dramatic styles; and I did not care to protect
myself against censure by multiplying personages more than needful.]

Tartaglia and Truffaldino entered armed, and proceeding at a tremendous
pace. They had a devil with a pair of bellows following behind, and
blowing their backsides to make them skim along the ground. The devil
ceased to blow and disappeared. They sprawled on the grass at the sudden
cessation of the favouring gale.

[I am under infinite obligations to Signor Chiari for this burlesque
conception, which produced a very excellent effect upon the stage. In
his dramas, drawn from the AEneid, Chiari made the Trojans perform long
journeys within the space of a single action, and without the assistance
of my devil and his bellows. This writer, though he pedantically
insulted everybody else who broke the rules, allowed himself singular
privileges. In his tragedy of _Ezelino_, after the tyrant's downfall, a
captain is sent to beleaguer Treviso, and reduce Ezelino's garrison.
This takes place in one scene. In the next scene the same captain
returns victorious, having ridden more than thirty miles, captured the
town, and butchered the tyrant's troops. He delivers a rhetorical
oration, ascribing this miracle to the matchless spirit of his horse!
Tartaglia and Truffaldino had to perform a journey of two thousand
miles, and my device of the devil with the bellows explained their
exploit better than Chiari's charger.]

The two comedians rose from the ground, half-stunned and astonished at
the mighty wind which wafted them. Their geographical description of the
countries, mountains, rivers, and oceans they had passed, was crammed
with burlesque absurdities. Tartaglia concluded that the Three Oranges
must be nigh at hand. Truffaldino, feeling tired and hungry, asked the
Prince whether he had brought a good stock of cash or bills. Tartaglia
spurned such low considerations and idle questions. Spying a castle on a
hill, and judging it to be Creonta's, he set manfully forward, while
Truffaldino trudged behind in the hope of finding food.

Meanwhile Celio entered, and sought in vain to dissuade the Prince from
his perilous adventure. He described insuperable obstacles fraught with
danger on the way. They were exactly the same as are told to children in
the story-book; but Celio enlarged upon them with wide rolling eyes,
and magnified the molehills into mountains. There was an iron gate
rusted with time, a famished dog, a well-rope rotten with damp, a
baker's wife, who, having no broom, was forced to sweep the oven out
with her own dugs. The Prince, unterrified by these appalling objects,
determined to assail the castle. Celio, seeing his mind made up, gave
him a magic ointment to smear the bolt of the gate, a loaf to throw the
dog, and a bundle of brooms to give the baker's wife. The rope he bade
them hang out in the sun to dry. Then he added that, if by lucky chance
they should acquire the Oranges, they were to leave the castle at once,
and be mindful to open none of the Oranges except in the immediate
neighbourhood of some fountain. Finally, he promised, if they escaped
the perils of their theft, to send the same devil with the bellows, to
blow them home again. Then he recommended them to Heaven and left them.
Tartaglia and Truffaldino, carrying the articles provided by Celio, went
forward on their journey.

Here a tent was lowered, which represented the pavilion of the King of
Diamonds.--What an irregularity!--Nay, what misapplied criticism!--Two
short scenes followed, one between Smeraldina and Brighella, rejoicing
over the loss of Tartaglia; the other with Morgana, who bade Brighella
inform Clarice and Leandro that Celio was assisting the Prince. This she
had learned from the devil Draghinazzo. Then she bade Smeraldina follow
her to the lake, where Tartaglia and Truffaldino would certainly arrive
if they escaped Creonta's clutches. Some new snare might then be devised
to entrap them. The parley broke up in confusion.

The next scene disclosed a courtyard in Creonta's castle. [I was able to
observe, upon the opening of this scene, with the grossly absurd objects
it contained, what an immense power the marvellous exerts over the human
mind. A gate constructed with an iron grating, a famished dog which
howled and roamed around, a well with a coil of rope beside it, a
baker's wife who swept her oven with two enormously long breasts, kept
the whole theatre in silent wonder and attention quite as effectually as
the most thrilling scenes in the works of our two poets.] Outside the
grating appeared Tartaglia and Truffaldino, engaged in smearing the
bolt; and lo! the portal swung upon its hinges. Great miracle! They
passed in. The dog barked and leapt upon them. They threw him the bread
and he was still. Great portent! Truffaldino, trembling with fright,
then hung the cord up to dry, and gave the baker's wife her brooms,
while the Prince entered the castle and came out again, capering for joy
and holding the three enormous Oranges he had seized.

The moving accidents of this scene did not end so suddenly. The sky
darkened, the earth quaked, and loud claps of thunder were heard.
Tartaglia handed the Oranges to Truffaldino, who kept trembling like an
aspen leaf. Then there issued from the castle an awful voice, which was
Creonta's own. She spoke as the story-book dictates:

    "O baker's wife, O baker's wife, abide not my just ire!
     Take those two fellows by the feet, and cast them in the fire."

The baker's wife, following the fable with equal fidelity, replied thus:

    "Not I! How many months have passed, how many months and years,
     While with my milk-white breasts I sweep, and waste my life in tears!
     Thou, cruel dame, a single broom ne'er gav'st me at my need;
     These brought a bundle; let them go in peace; I will not heed."

Creonta cried:

    "O rope, O rope! hang up the knaves!"

And the rope, still observing the text, answered:

                            "Hard heart! hast thou forgot
    Those many years, those many months, thou left'st me here to rot?
    By thee was I abandoned long in damp to waste away;
    These stretched me to the sun; let them go forth in peace, I say."

Creonta howled aloud:

    "Dog, faithful watch-dog! rend and tear those wretches limb from limb."

The dog retorted:

    "Nay, why, Creonta, should I rend poor fellows at thy whim?
     So many years, so many months, I've served thee without food;
     These filled my belly full; thy cries shall not control my mood."

Creonta, again:

    "Portal of iron, close! Grind yon base knaves and thieves to dust!"

And the gate:

    "Cruel Creonta! vainly now your threats on me are thrust!
     So many years, so many months, in rust and woe to pine,
     You left me here; they oiled my bolts; no ingrate's heart is mine."

It was very funny to see Tartaglia's and Truffaldino's mock astonishment
at the fine flow of the poet's eloquence. They stood dumbfounded to hear
bakers' wives, and ropes, and dogs, and gates talking in Martellian
verse. Then they thanked those courteous objects for the kindness shown
them.

The audience were hugely delighted with these puerilities, and I confess
that I joined heartily in their laughter, half-ashamed the while at
being forced to relish a pack of infantile absurdities, which took me
back to the days of my babyhood.

The giantess Creonta now appeared upon the stage. She was of towering
stature, and attired in a vast sweeping _andrienne_. Tartaglia and
Truffaldino fled before her horrible aspect. Then she gave vent to her
despair in Martellian verses, not forgetting to invoke Pindar, whom
Signor Chiari treated complacently as his own twin-brother:

    "Woe to you, faithless servants! Woe, false rope and dog and gate!
     Base baker's wife, I curse thee too! Ye traitors found too late!
     Alas! Sweet Oranges! Ah me! Who stole you unaware?
     Dear Oranges, my hope, my soul, my love, my life, my care!
     Woe's me! I burst with bitter rage; there's boiling in my breast
     Chaos, the Elements, the Sun, the Rainbow, and the rest!
     I scarce can stand against it all: O Jove, the Thunderer, send
     Thy lightnings on my pate, and me down to the slippers rend!
     Help to me! Ho! Who helps me? Fiends! Who lifts me from this world?--
     A friendly thunderbolt descends! I burn, I'm soothed, I'm hurled."

[These last verses were no bad parody of both Chiari's sentiments and
style of writing.] A thunderbolt fell and reduced the giantess to ashes.
Here ended the second act, which had been followed with more marked
applause than the first. My bold experiment began to seem less culpable
than it had done at the commencement.


ACT THE THIRD.

The first scene opened near Fata Morgana's lake. There was a great tree
visible and underneath it a large stone seat. Several rocks and boulders
were strewn about the meadow. Smeraldina, who talked the jargon of an
Italianised Turk, was standing at the brink of the lake impatiently
awaiting the fairy's orders, and calling out. Morgana rose from the
surface, and began to relate a journey she had made to hell, where she
learned that Tartaglia and Truffaldino, victorious in their achievement
of the Three Oranges, were coming by the help of Celio and the devil
with the bellows. Smeraldina soundly abused the fairy for her want of
skill in magic. Morgana bade her spare her breath. Owing to precautions
she had taken, Truffaldino would reach the spot where they were
standing, separately from the Prince. Thirst and hunger, sent by
wizard's arts, should annoy him; and since the Oranges were in his
custody, great catastrophes would take place. Then she consigned two
bedevilled pins to Smeraldina, adding that she would see a fair girl
sitting on the stone beneath the tree. She was to contrive to fix one of
these needles in the girl's hair, whereupon the latter would become a
dove, and Smeraldina was to take her place upon the stone. Tartaglia
should marry her and make her Queen. During the night, while sleeping
with her husband, she was to fix the other needle in his hair, whereupon
he would become a beast, and the throne would be left vacant for Clarice
and Leandro. The Moorish woman raised some difficulties, which Morgana
easily disposed of. Then, observing Truffaldino approaching with the
infernal blast behind him, they withdrew to mature their plans.

Truffaldino entered, carrying the Three Oranges in a wallet. The devil
with the bellows disappeared, and Truffaldino related how the Prince had
tripped up a little while back, and that he must wait for him. He seated
himself. Intolerable thirst and hunger tormented him. At last he
resolved to eat one of the Oranges. But conscience stung him; he
declaimed in tragic style; then, driven mad by thirst, made up his mind
to risk the sacrifice. After all, he reflected, the damage could be made
good with two farthings. So he proceeded to cut open an Orange. Oh,
what a surprise! There issued from its rind a girl clothed in white,
who, following the text of the story-book, spoke immediately:

    "Give me to drink! I'm fainting! Ah! I'm dying! Quick, my dear!
     Of thirst I'm dying! Oh, poor me! Quick, cruel man! Death's here!"

She fell upon the earth oppressed with mortal languor. Truffaldino, who
had forgotten Celio's directions about opening the Oranges within reach
of water, being besides a fool by nature, and not noticing the lake in
his distraction, thought he could not do better than to slice another of
the Oranges and quench the dying girl's thirst with the juice of that.
Accordingly, he went, like a donkey, and sliced another Orange, out of
which there appeared a second lovely female, exclaiming:

    "Woe's me! Of thirst I'm dying! Ho! Give me to drink! I rave!
     Cruel! I die of thirst! Ah God! 'Twill kill me! Lord! oh save!"

She sank down exhausted like the other. Truffaldino flung himself about
in fits of desperation. He roared, screamed, leapt like a maniac, while
one of the girls spoke as follows, in an expiring voice:

    "Hard destiny! Of thirst to die! I'm dying! I am dead!"

Then she breathed her last, and the other continued:

    "I'm dying! Barbarous stars! Ah me! Who'll soothe my burning head?"

Then she too breathed her last. Truffaldino wept abundantly, and
murmured over them words of impassioned tenderness. He decided to cut
the third Orange in the hope of saving both girls alive. While he was
upon the point of doing this, Tartaglia entered in a rage and stopped
him. Truffaldino took to his heels and left the Orange lying on the
grass.

The stupor of this grotesque Prince, the inimitable reflections he
poured forth over the rinds of the two Oranges and the dead bodies of
the girls, soar beyond the powers of language. The masked actors of our
_Commedia dell' Arte_, in situations like this, invent scenes so droll
and yet of such exquisite grace, with gestures, movements, and _lazzi_
so delightful, that no pen can reproduce their effect, and no poet could
surpass them.

After a long and ridiculous soliloquy, Tartaglia caught sight of two
country bumpkins passing by, ordered the corpses to be decently buried,
and bade the fellows carry them away. Then the Prince turned to gaze
upon the third Orange. To his utter amazement it had swelled to a
portentous size, and was as large now as the biggest pumpkin. Seeing the
lake at hand, and bearing Celio's injunctions in mind, he thought the
place convenient for cutting the fruit open. This he did with his long
sword; and there stepped forth a tall and lovely damsel, attired in
robes of white, who fulfilled the conditions of her part in the
story-book by speaking as follows:

    "Who drew me from my living core? Ah God! Of thirst I die!
     Give me to drink at once, or else vain tears you'll shed for aye!"

The Prince understood upon the spot the meaning of Celio's precepts. But
he was embarrassed to find any vessel capable of holding water. The case
did not admit of ceremony. So he unbuckled one of his iron shoes, ran to
the lake, filled it with water, and making a thousand excuses for the
improvised cup, presented it to the fair damsel, who slaked her thirst,
and stood up in full vigour, thanking him for his timely assistance.

She said that she was the daughter of Concul, king of the Antipodes;
Creonta, by enchantment, had enclosed her, together with her two
sisters, in the rinds of three Oranges, for reasons which were as
probable as the circumstance itself. A scene of comical love-making
followed, at the close of which Tartaglia promised to make her his wife.
The capital was close at hand. The Princess had no decent clothes to
wear. The Prince bade her take a seat upon the stone beneath the tree,
while he went off to fetch costly raiment and summon the whole Court to
attend her. That settled, they parted with sighs.

Smeraldina, astounded by what she had been witness to, now entered. She
saw the form of the fair maid reflected in the lake. Of course she
proceeded to do everything dictated for the Moorish woman in the
story-tale. She dropped her Italianate Turkish. Morgana had put a Tuscan
devil into her tongue. Thus armed, she defied all the poets to speak
with more complete correctness. Advancing to the young Princess, whose
name was Ninetta, she began to coax and flatter, offered to arrange her
hair, came to close quarters and betrayed her. One of the magic pins was
promptly stuck in the girl's head. Ninetta took the form of a dove and
flew away. Smeraldina seated herself upon the stone and waited for the
Court.

These miraculous occurrences, together with the childish simplicity of
the successive scenes, and the burlesque humour of the action, kept the
audience, instructed as they had been by their grandmothers and nurses
in the days of babyhood, upon the tenter-hooks of curiosity. They
followed the plot with serious attention, and took the profoundest
interest in watching each step in the development upon the stage of such
a trifle.

Then, to the music of a march, the King of Diamonds entered, with the
Prince, Leandro, Clarice, Pantalone, Brighella, and the Court. On
beholding Smeraldina in the place of the bride whom he had come to fetch
away, Tartaglia flew into the wildest astonishment and fury. Smeraldina,
so altered by Morgana's artifice that no one recognised her, swore she
was the Princess Ninetta. Tartaglia continued to make a burlesque
exhibition of his misery. Leandro, Clarice, and Brighella, suspecting
the real source of the mystery, rejoiced among themselves. The King of
Diamonds gravely and majestically enjoined upon his son the duty of
keeping his princely word and marrying the Moor. The Prince submitted
with a wry face and new demonstrations of comical grief. Then the band
struck up, and the procession filed away to celebrate the marriage in
the palace.

Truffaldino meanwhile remained behind in the royal kitchen, to the
charge of which Tartaglia had appointed him, after condoning his
mistakes about the Oranges. He was preparing the nuptial banquet, when a
new scene opened, which is perhaps the boldest in this jocose parody.

[The rival partisans of Chiari and Goldoni, who were present in the
theatre, and saw that a strong stroke of satire was about to fall, did
their best to excite the indignation of the audience, and to stir up a
commotion. They did not succeed, however. I have already said that Celio
represented Goldoni, and Morgana Chiari. The former of these gentlemen
had served his apprenticeship at the Venetian bar, and his style smacked
of forensic idioms. Chiari plumed himself upon his sublime pindaric
flights of poetry; but I may submit, with all respect, that there never
was a tumid and irrational author of the seventeenth century who
surpassed him in extravagant conceits and bombast.

Well, Celio and Morgana, animated by mutual hostility, met together in
this scene, which I will transcribe literally, just as the dialogue was
spoken. I must first remind my readers that parodies miss their mark
unless they are surcharged; and, keeping this in view, I beg them to
look with indulgence upon a caprice, which was begotten by jesting
humour, without any animosity against two worthy individuals.]

   CELIO (_entering with vehemence, to Morgana_). "Wicked enchantress!
   I have discovered all your base deceits. But Pluto will assist me.
   Infamous beldame, accursed witch!"

   MORGANA. "What do you mean, you charlatan of a wizard? Do not
   provoke me. I will give you a rebuff in Martellian verses, which
   shall make you die foaming."

   C. "To me, rash witch? You shall get tit for tat from me. I defy
   you in Martellian verse. Here's at you![80]

  "It shall be always held a vain injurious assault,
   Fraudulent, without proper grounds, in justice real at fault;
   To wit these, and whatever else, malignant, fury-fraught
   Spells by Morgana cast, with all etceteras basely wrought:
   And as these premises declare, what bane may hence ensue
   Is cancelled, quashed, estopped, made void, condemned by order due."

   M. "Oh, the bad verses! Come on, you twopenny-halfpenny magician!

  "First shall the glorious rays of gold which beam from Phoebus' breast
   Be turned to lumps of vulgar lead, and East become the West;
   First shall the darkling moon on high, her silver beams so bright
   Change with the glimmering stars, and lose the empire of the night;
   The murmuring streams that purling roll along their crystal bed,
   With Pegasus aloft shall fly, and on the clouds be spread;
   But thou, base slave of Pluto's power, shall never have the force
   To scorn the sails and rudder of my pinnace in her course."

   C. "O fustian fairy, blown out like a bladder!

  "On the main paragraph I'll win the verdict in this suit,
   Which by the first preamble shall be made to bear its fruit:
   Princess Ninetta, changed by you into a dove, shall be
   Reconstituted in her rights and due estate by me:
   And through the second paragraph, which follows from the first,
   Clarice and Leandro shall sink into want accursed;
   While Smeraldina, who can claim no hearing from the court,
   By mere endorsement shall be burned, to give the people sport."

   M. "Oh, the stupid, stupid versifier! Listen to me, now. See if I
   don't terrify you.

  "On flying plumes soars Icarus, and climbs the heaven with pride,
   Treads on the clouds, then stoops, rash youth, and skims along the tide.
   O'er Pelion piled, see Ossa frown, Olympus on her back;
   This wrought the Titans, impious brood, to work high heaven wrack.
   But Icarus erelong must sink, and drown in salt sea-spume;
   Jove's bolt will hurl the Titans bold in ashes to their tomb.
   Clarice shall ascend the throne, false Mage, in thy despite;
   Tartaglia, like Actaeon, mock the antlered deer in flight."

   C. (_aside_). "She is trying to beat me down with poetical bombast.
   If she thinks to shut me up in that way she is quite mistaken.

  "I will not leave one plea unturned without demurrers sound,
   And 'gainst your swelling lies will file a protest firm and round."

   M. "The realm of Diamonds avoid! Let lawful monarchs reign!"

  (_Taking her departure._)

   C. (_crying after her_). "And I'll claim costs, stay execution,
   file my bills again."

  (_Here Celio went in._)

The last scene was laid in the royal kitchen. Never did mortal eyes
behold a more miserable king's kitchen than this. The remainder of the
performance followed the old story-book precisely; nevertheless, the
spectators watched it with sustained attention. The parody turned upon
some trivialities of detail and some basenesses of character in dramas
written by the two poets. Excessive poverty, dramatic impropriety, and
meanness gave the satire point.

Truffaldino appeared spitting a joint. He related how, there being no
turnjack in the kitchen, he was obliged to watch the revolutions of the
spit himself. While thus engaged, a dove alighted on the window-sill,
and a conversation took place between him and the bird. The dove had
said: "Good morning, cook of the kitchen." He had replied: "Good
morning, white dove." She continued: "I pray to Heaven that you may fall
asleep, that the roast may burn, so that the Moor, that ugly mug, may
not be able to eat." A mighty slumber overcame him; he fell asleep, and
the roast was burned to cinders. This accident happened twice. In a
precious hurry he set the third joint before the fire. Then the dove
reappeared, and the conversation was repeated. Again the mighty slumber
overcame his senses. Truffaldino, honest fellow, did all he could to
keep awake. His _lazzi_ were in the highest degree facetious. But he
could not resist the spell, began to nod, and the flames reduced the
third roast to ashes.

You must ask the audience why and wherefore this scene afforded
exquisite amusement.

Pantalone entered scolding, woke up Truffaldino; said that the King was
in a fury; soup, boiled meat, and liver had been eaten, but the roast
had not appeared at table. [All honour to a poet's daring! This outdid
the lowness of Goldoni's squabbles about a brace of pumpkins in his
_Chiozzotte_.] Truffaldino told the strange occurrence with the dove.
Pantalone dismissed it as an idle story. But the dove at this point
reappeared and repeated her ominous speech. Truffaldino was on the point
of going off into a doze when Pantalone roused him, and they both gave
chase to the dove, which flew fluttering about the kitchen.

The attempts to catch the dove, made by these facetious personages,
amused the audience above measure. At last they caught it, placed it on
a table, and began to stroke its feathers. Then they detected the
enchanted pin stuck into a knot upon its head. Truffaldino drew the pin
forth, and behold the bird was transformed into the Princess Ninetta!

A scene of stupors and astonishments. His Majesty the King of Diamonds
arrived; pompously, with sceptre in hand, he rebuked Truffaldino for the
non-appearance of the roast-meat at his royal table, whereby he had been
put to shame before illustrious guests. The Prince followed, and
recognised his lost Ninetta. Joy bereft him of his wits. Ninetta related
what had befallen her; the King remained lost in amazement. Then the
Moor and the rest of the Court came crowding into the kitchen, to find
their monarch. He, with an air of haughty dignity, bade the princely
couple retire into the scullery. He chose the hearth for his throne, and
took his seat there with majestic sternness. The courtiers assembled
round him; and as it happens in the story-book, the King now performed
his part of ultimate adjudicator. What, he inquired, would be proper
punishments for the several parties incriminated in these occurrences?
Various opinions were offered. Then the King in his fury condemned
Smeraldina to the flames. Celio appeared. He unmasked the hidden
culpability of Clarice, Leandro, and Brighella. They were sentenced to
cruel banishment. The two Princes were finally summoned from the
scullery, and universal gladness crowned the termination of this high
act of justice.

Celio warned Truffaldino that it was his most solemn duty to keep
Martellian verses, those inventions of the devil, out of all dishes
served up at the royal table. His function was to make his sovereigns
laugh.

The play wound up with that marriage festival which all children know by
heart--the banquet of preserved radishes, skinned mice, stewed cats, and
so forth. And inasmuch as the journalists were wont in those days to
blow their trumpets of applause over every new work which appeared from
Signor Goldoni's pen, we concluded with an epilogue, in which the
spectators were besought to use all their influence with these
journalists, in order that a crumb of eulogy might be bestowed upon our
rigmarole of mystical absurdities.

It was not my fault that a courteous public called for the repetition of
this fantastic parody on many successive evenings. The theatre was
crowded, and Sacchi's company began to breathe again after their long
discouragement.


VI.

Such is Gozzi's own account of his first acted fable.

The public had been invited to sit as umpires in the controversy between
him and their two favourite playwrights. They had been requested to
suspend their judgment before finally pronouncing sentence against the
_Commedia dell' Arte_. The result of the experiment was a decided
triumph for the author of the _Three Oranges_, for Sacchi's company, and
for the Granelleschi. But, what was more important, Gozzi, at the
commencement of his forty-first year, now discovered himself to be
possessed of dramatic ability in no common degree, and of a peculiar
kind. The success of the _Three Oranges_ suggested the notion that use
might be made of fairy tales, not only for maintaining the impromptu
style of Italian Comedy, and amusing the public with piquant novelties,
but also for conveying moral lessons under the form of allegory, and
mingling tragic pathos with the humours of the masks. Accordingly Gozzi
composed a succession of similar pieces, gradually suppressing the
burlesque elements, enlarging the sphere of didactic satire, pathos, and
dramatic action, relying less upon the mechanical attractions of
transformation scenes and _lazzi_, writing the principal parts in full,
and versifying a considerable portion of the dialogue.

_Il Corvo_ was produced at Milan in the summer of 1761, and at Venice in
October 1761. _Il Re Cervo_ appeared in January 1762; _Turandot_ perhaps
in the same month; _La Donna Serpente_ in October 1762; _Zobeide_ in
November 1763; _I Pitocchi Fortunati_ in November 1764; _Il Mostro
Turchino_ in December of the same year; _L'Augellino Belverde_ in
January 1765; _Zeim, Re de'Geni_ in November 1765. These, with _L'Amore
delle Tre Melarancie_, form the ten _Fiabe._ After the production of
_Zeim_, Gozzi judged that the vein had been worked out, and turned his
attention to adaptations of Spanish dramas for the stage.

The occasional origin of the _Fiabe_, on which I have already insisted,
accounts for their want of plastic unity, their jumble of oddly
contrasted ingredients. They were not the spontaneous outgrowth of
artistic genius seeking to fuse the real and the fantastic in an ideal
world of the imagination; but monsters begotten by an accident, which
the creative originality of a highly-gifted intellect turned to
excellent account. Gozzi's predilection for burlesque, his satirical
propensity and fondness for moralising on the foibles of his age, found
easy vent in the peculiar form he had discovered by a lucky chance. But
these motives were not subordinated to the higher coherence of
imaginative poetry. His fancy, command of dramatic situations,
intuition into character, rhetorical eloquence, and inexhaustible
inventiveness expatiated in the region of caprice and wonder. Yet we do
not feel that he has succeeded in harmonising these divers elements with
the spiritual instinct of an Aristophanes or a Shakespeare. Probably he
did not seek to do so. The numerous reflections on the _Fiabe_, which
are scattered up and down his works, prove that art for art's sake was
far from being the leading consideration in their production. They
remained with him pastimes, which had partly a practical, partly a
didactic purpose--convenient vehicles for indulging his literary bias
and airing his ethical opinions--serviceable ammunition in the battle
against men whom he regarded as impostors and pretenders--excellent
means of putting money into the purses of his proteges, the actors, and
of keeping himself in favour with his friends, the actresses. To the
last they retained something of the _punctilio_, which, as he says,
inspired him at the outset.


VII.

In all his _Fiabe Gozzi_ employed the four Masks and the Servetta,
Smeraldina.[81] He not unfrequently wrote the whole part of a mask, so
that nothing remained for impromptu acting but "gag" and _lazzi_.
Truffaldino's role, however, was invariably left to improvisation;
perhaps in compliment to Sacchi's talents and his prominent position.
The other masks were dealt with as Gozzi thought best. When the dialogue
acquired dramatic or satirical importance, he wrote it out for them. On
ordinary occasions he intrusted the whole or a considerable portion of
each scene to their extempore ability, only indicating the movement of
the plot in a _scenario_. The parts of the masks were treated in dialect
and prose. The serious actors, who had to sustain the scheme of the
fable, as lovers, magicians, queens, fairies, good and evil spirits,
spoke in Tuscan blank verse, occasionally heightened by the use of
Martellian rhymed couplets at thrilling moments of the action. Thus it
will be seen that the text of Gozzi's plays offers every condition of
dramatic utterance, from mere stage-directions, through carefully
dictated prose, up to rhetorical soliloquies and dialogues in verse of
several descriptions. His dexterity as a playwright is shown in the tact
with which he employed these various resources.

The handling of the five fixed characters is masterly throughout.
Whether Gozzi writes their lines or only indicates a theme for their
impromptu declamation, he shows himself in perfect sympathy with an
intelligent and practised group of actors. The humour of the man comes
out to best advantage in this department. His language is most
idiomatic and spontaneous here. Here too we find his raciest characters.
Powerfully conceived and boldly projected, each comic personage breathes
and moves with vivid realism. Study of the Masks, as Gozzi treated them,
makes us feel what a wonderful thing of plastic beauty the _Commedia
dell' Arte_ must have been. Here, in a work of carefully considered
literary art, we have its long tradition and its manifold capacities
preserved for us. Reading a _Fiaba_ is like opening a bottle of rare old
wine. The bouquet of the fragrant vintage exhales into the chamber, and
we taste the bloom of bygone summers. But the very conditions under
which Gozzi exhibited this side of his dramatic mastery render
translation impossible. In a translation the colours of the dialects are
lost. The gradations of style, passing from a laconically worded
_scenario_ through half-dialogue into elaborated scenes, are bound to
disappear. Tuned to a foreign language, our inward eye and ear fail to
reconstruct the _lazzi_, which rendered this part of the drama humorous.
That is why Schiller's _Turandot_ is inferior to Gozzi's; and yet, when
Schiller selected this piece for the German stage, he showed a right
artistic instinct. It is the one in which the fable predominates, and
can best be separated from the humours of the Masks.

I dare not enlarge here upon the variety of shades and complexions given
to the five fixed types of character, according as the plot demanded
more or less of serious action from the several personages. This inquiry
would be interesting, since it reveals their singular elasticity beneath
a master's touch. It must, however, be left to amateurs of curiosities
in art. The development of the subject in detail implies previous
acquaintance with the ten _Fiabe_, and would involve a lengthy
dissertation. Some general points may, nevertheless, be indicated.

Pantalone retains marked psychological outlines under all his
transformations. He is the good-humoured, honourable, simple-hearted
Venetian of the middle class, advanced in years, Polonius-like, with
stores of worldly wisdom, strong natural affections, and healthy moral
impulses. Gozzi has drawn the character in a favourable light, purging
away those baser associations which gathered round it during two
centuries of the _Commedia dell' Arte_. His Pantalone recalls the
Cortesani, described in a chapter of the Memoirs; but a touch of
senility has been added, which lends comic weakness to the type.

Tartaglia stammers, and preserves something of the knave in his
composition, burnished with Neapolitan abandonment to appetite and
brazen disregard for moral rectitude. This general conception of the
character explains the transformation of Tartaglia, in the _Three
Oranges_, into the Tartaglia of the _Augellino Belverde_.

Brighella is an intriguing, self-interested individuality, trying to
turn the world round his fingers, and not succeeding, or succeeding only
by some lucky accident. He frequently assumes the form of a simpleton
befooled by his short-sighted cunning.

Truffaldino blossoms before us as an ubiquitous and chameleon-like
creature of caprice and humour; the liberal, carnal, careless
boon-companion; the genial rogue and witty fool; bred in the kitchen;
uttering words of wisdom from his belly rather than his brains; pliable,
fit for all occasions; a prodigious coward; trusty in his own degree;
taking the mould of fate and circumstance, adapting himself to external
conditions; understanding nothing of the higher sentiments and awful
destinies which rule the drama; but turning up at its conclusion with a
rogue's own luck in the place he started from, and on which his heart is
set, the larder. He runs like an inexpressibly comic thread of staring
scarlet through the warp and woof of Gozzi's many- loom. The
most serious use made of him is when, in the _Augellino Belverde_, for
purposes of pungent parody, Gozzi invests him with the vizard of a
Machiavellian egotist. At the close of that supremely caustic scene,
Truffaldino drops his disguise, and willingly assumes the role of a
domestic buffoon. Our author's trenchant irony, that "smile on the lips
with venom in the heart," of which Goldoni wrote so lucidly, that touch
of bitterness which renders him akin to Swift, was displayed by a stroke
of genius here. Truffaldino, the whelp whose antics dispelled
melancholy, becomes for once in Gozzi's hands a stick wherewith to beat
the dog of modern science.

Smeraldina, under her numerous manifestations, maintains the lineaments
of vulgar womanhood. Sometimes a good mother or nurse, sometimes a
shifty waiting-woman, sometimes a blustering amazon, sometimes a bad
wife or would-be virgin, she never soars into the regions of ideality,
and mates eventually with Truffaldino, if she escapes from being burned
for blundering atrocities upon the road to commonplace felicity.

With these fixed characters, which form the most delightful ingredients
of the _Fiabe_, Gozzi interweaves a fairy-tale, abounding in magic,
flights of capricious fancy, marvels, transformations, perilous
adventures. There is always a conflict of beneficent and malignant
supernatural powers, ending in the triumph of good over evil, the reward
of innocence, and the punishment of crime. There is a fate to which the
heroes and heroines are subject, and which can only be overcome by
protracted trials, by patience through dark years, by sustained
endurance, terrible struggles, and faith in supernatural protectors.
Thus the texture of the _Fiabe_ is similar to that of our pantomimes,
except that in the former the fairy-tale and the harlequinade are
interwoven instead of being disconnected.

The fairy-tale is always treated in a serious spirit. The didactic
allegory, on which the author set such store, and which he regarded as
the main purpose of his art, finds expression here. The fairy-tale is
romantic, pathetic, heroic, sometimes acutely tragic. Gozzi interests
himself in the creatures of fantastic fiction, and forces them to utter
tones which vibrate in our entrails. Some scenes, written under the high
pressure of dramatic oestrum, stir tears by their poignancy, by the
accents of grief and anguish on the lips of _fantoccini._ It is a
singular species of art, soaring by spasms and short gasps to dramatic
sublimity, casting flashes of electric light on human nature in the garb
of puppets, then passing away by abrupt transitions into mechanical
improbabilities and burlesque absurdities--an art for marionettes rather
than living actors, yet withal so vivid that able representation on the
stage might translate it to our senses as an allegory of the masquerade
world in which man lives:--

                        "We are such stuff
    As dreams are made of, and our little life
    Is rounded with a sleep."

The Masks take part in the action, generally as subordinate personages,
sometimes as persons of the first rank, never as mere accessories to
move laughter, nor as a stationary chorus. In this way the comic element
is ingeniously connected with the tragic and didactic. This sounds like
a contradiction of what I have said above, about the want of plastic
unity in Gozzi's work. Yet the two apparently contradictory statements
are true together. Gozzi interweaves the wires of humour and romance
with remarkable skill. But he does not fuse them into one poetic
substance. He fails to create an ideal world in which both tragedy and
comedy are necessary to the spiritual order, as are the systole and
diastole of the heart to an organised being. Though interlaced, they
stand apart, each upon its own clearly defined basis. You pass from the
one sphere to the other, and have sudden shocks communicated to your
sensibility. There is a lack of atmosphere in the wonderfully brilliant
and exciting picture, an absence of spontaneous transition from this
mood to that, a suggestion that the playwright's sympathies have been
touched to diverse issues by divers portions of his task. Very probably,
the atmosphere, which I have indicated as wanting in the _Fiabe_, may
have been communicated by the interaction of the members of Sacchi's
troupe upon the stage at Venice. But this is only tantamount to
admitting that Gozzi understood the theatre. It does not prove that he
was a dramatic poet in the highest sense of that term. Had he been this,
we should have submitted to his magic wand while reading him. That is
precisely what we wish to do, and cannot always actually do. His _Fiabe_
remain stupendous sketches in a style of audacious and suggestive
originality. They are not the inevitable products of creative genius,
fusing and informing--the children of imagination, "dead things with
inbreathed sense able to pierce."

Had Gozzi been a great spontaneous poet, or a consummate artist, this
invention of the dramatised _Fiaba_ might have become one of the rarest
triumphs of artistic fancy. It is difficult to state precisely what his
work misses for the achievement of complete success. Perhaps we shall
arrive at a conclusion best by inquiry into points of style and details
of execution.


VIII.

By singular irony of accident, the author of the _Fiabe_, though he
dealt so much in the fantastic, the marvellous, and the pathetic, was
far more a humorist and satirist than a poet in the truer sense. Of
sublime imagery, lyrical sweetness or intensity, verbal melody and
felicity of phrase, there is next to nothing in his plays. The style,
except in the parts written for the Masks, is coarse and slovenly, the
versification hasty, the language diffuse, commonplace, and often
incorrect. Yet we everywhere discern a lively sense of poetical
situations and the power of rendering them dramatically. The resources
of Gozzi's inventive faculty seem inexhaustible; and our imagination is
excited by the energy with which he forces the creations of his
capricious fancy on our intelligence. The passionate volcanic talent of
the man almost compensates for his lack of the finer qualities of
genius.

What he wants is not the power of poetical conception, but the power of
poetical projection; and the defects of his work seem due to the partly
contemptuous, partly didactic, mood in which he undertook them. It would
be difficult to surpass the pathos of Jennaro's devotion to his brother
in _Il Corvo_, or the dramatic intensity of Armilla's self-sacrifice at
the conclusion of that play. _Turandot_ is conceived throughout
poetically. The melancholy high-strung passion of Prince Calaf passes
through it like a thread of silver. In the _Re Cervo_, Angela has equal
beauty. Her love of the man in the king, and her discernment of her real
husband under his transformation into the person of a decrepit beggar,
are humanly and allegorically touching. Cherestani, the Persian fairy,
who loves a mortal in spite of the doom attending her devotion, is
admirably presented at the opening of _La Donna Serpente_. The
subterranean labyrinth of lost women, degraded to monstrous shapes by
their tyrannical seducer, in _Zobeide_, merits comparison with one of
the _bolge_ in Dante's Hell. Its horror is almost appalling. The love of
Barbarina for her brother in _L'Augellino Belverde_, which melts the
stony hardness of the girl's heart, and changes her from a vain
worldling to a woman capable of facing any danger, is no less romantic
than Jennaro's love in _Il Corvo_. The picture of Pantalone and his
daughter Sarche, in _Zeim Re de' Genj_, passing their quiet life aloof
from cities on the borders of an enchanted forest, touches our
imagination with something of the charm we find in _Cymbeline_. _Il
Mostro Turchino_ is romantically passionate and highly-wrought. It seems
to call for music, such music as Mozart invented for the _Zauberfloete_.
Or, since Gozzi had little in common with the gracious spirit of Mozart,
we might wish that this wild fable had fallen into the hands of Verdi.
The composer of _Aida_ would have given it the wings of immortality.
Gulindi, by the way, in this last fable, is a terrible portrait of the
Messalina-Potiphar's-wife.

In selecting these passages for emphatic praise, I wish to call
attention to the power and beauty of Gozzi's conception. Not as finished
literature, but as the raw material of dramatic presentation, are they
admirable. They need the life of action, the adjuncts of scenery, the
illusion of the stage. And for this reason it seems to me that, by means
of prudent adaptation, the _Fiabe_ might furnish excellent _libretti_ to
composers of opera. This is a hint to musicians of the school of
Wagner--to that rare dramatic genius, Boito! Could the Masks be revived,
and their burlesque parts be spoken on the stage, while orchestra and
song were reserved for the serious elements of the fable, I feel
convinced that a new and fascinating work of art might still be evolved
from such pieces as _La Donna Serpente_ and _Il Mostro Turchino_.[82]

[Illustration: IL DOTTORE (1653)

_Illustrating the Italian Commedia dell'Arte, or Impromptu Comedy_]

But this is a digression, which has for its object to indicate the
region in which Gozzi's chief merit as a playwright seems to me to lie.
The satire, which forms so prominent a feature in the _Fiabe_, impairs
their artistic harmony. So far as this is literary (in the _Tre
Melarancie_, _Il Corvo_, and elsewhere), it has lost its interest at the
present day. So far as it is philosophical and didactic (as in
_L'Augellino Belverde_ and _Zeim_), it tends to break the unity of
effect by the author's over-earnestness. So far as it is purely ethical,
as in _Zobeide_, Gozzi loads his palette with colours too sinister and
sombre. Perhaps, the political touches of satire in _I Pitocchi
Fortunati_ are the lightest and most genially used. Gozzi, as we have
seen already, was a confirmed conservative. An optimist as regarded the
institutions, religion, and social manners of the past, he was a bitter
pessimist in all that concerned the changes going on around him. The new
literature, the new philosophy, the new luxury, the new libertinism,
which seemed to be flooding Italy from France, were the objects of his
hatred and abhorrence. Calmon, in the _Augellino Belverde_, expresses
Gozzi's personal convictions and beliefs in their fullest extent.
But the following speech may be extracted from _Zeim Re de Genj_ as
a fair summary of his social stoicism.[83] A Princess of Balsora, who
has been brought up by one of the capricious tricks of fortune as a
slave is speaking:

    "Who am I? That I know not. An old man,
     With snows upon his beard, in snow-white robes
     Attired, of serious and austere aspect,
     Reared me beneath a humble cottage roof.
     He told me that one day upon the bank
     Of foaming Tigris, wrapped in swaddling-clothes,
     He found me; peradventure by my kin
     Abandoned, the cast fruit of shame and scorn.
     This good man taught me I was born to serve,
     To suffer, to endure; and that I ought
     To bow beneath the will of supreme Heaven.
     'Providence, holy, in her ways unknown,'
     He said, 'rules all things: in the scale ordained
     Of human beings great folk have their seat;
     And so, by steps descending through all ranks,
     Down to the lowest folk, men live and work
     Subordinate. Ah! do not be seduced,
     (He often warned me) by sophistic sages,
     Who bent on malice paint of liberty
     False lures for mortals, your own place to quit,
     The order due designed by Heaven for man!
     These sophists breed confusion, anarchy,
     Duty neglected at the cost of peace;
     They stir up murders, thefts, impieties,
     And glut with blood the shambles of the state.
     Daughter, respect the great, love them, endure
     What in they lot seems bitter, woo content,
     And stifle that snake envy in thy breast!
     In the just eyes of Heaven a great man's acts,
     Rightly performed, have no superior merit
     To those of servants rightly done; the road
     Toward immortality lies open unto kings
     And children of the people; 'tis all one.
     Only the soul that suffers and is strong,
     Finds happiness.' So spake the firm old man;
     And firmly, in his strength of soul unshaken,
     He sold me slave; so I account me blessed,
     As you shall trust me for a faithful slave."


IX.

Gozzi drew the subjects of his _Fiabe_ from divers sources. The chief of
these was a book of Neapolitan fairy-tales called _Il Pentamerone del
Cavalier Giovan Battista Basile, ovvero lo Cunto de li Cunti_. This
collection enjoyed great vogue in Italy during the seventeenth and
eighteenth centuries, and is still worthy of attentive study by lovers
of comparative folklore. Some of the motives of the _Fiabe_ have been
traced to the _Posilipeata di Massillo Repone_, the _Biblioteca dei
Genj_, the _Gabinetto delle Fate_, the _Arabian Nights_, and those
Persian and Chinese stories which were fashionable a hundred and fifty
years ago. It was Gozzi's habit to interweave several tales in one
action; and this renders researches into the texture of his dramatic
fables difficult. But the inquiry is not one of great importance, and
may well be dismissed until the star of Gozzi shall reascend the
heavens, if time's whirligig should ever bring about this revenge.

_L'Amore delle Tre Melarancie_ is both the simplest in construction and
also the most artistically perfect of the ten _Fiabe._ In it alone the
fairy-tale and the Masks are brought into complete harmony. No serious
note breaks the burlesque style of the piece, while a sustained parody
of Chiari's and Goldoni's mannerisms lends it the interest of satire. As
he advanced, Gozzi gradually changed the form of his original invention.
That fusion of fairy-tale and impromptu comedy in subordination to
literary satire, which distinguishes the _Tre Melarancie_, was never
repeated in his subsequent performances. The fable, with its romance,
pathos, passion, adventure, magic marvels, and fantastic
transformations, began to detach itself against the comedy. Both formed
essential factors in Gozzi's later work; but the links between them
became more and more mechanical. Satire, in like manner, did not
disappear; but this was either used occasionally and by accident, or
else it absorbed the whole allegory. The three ingredients, which had
been so genially combined in the first piece, were now disengaged and
treated separately. The sunny light of sportive humour, which bathed
that wonder-world of fabulous absurdity, darkened as the clouds of
didactic purpose gathered. The fairy-tale acquired an inappropriate
gravity. Becoming aware of his dramatic talent, Gozzi assumed the tone
of tragedy. He treated the loves and hatreds, the trials and triumphs,
the vices and virtues, the heroism and the baseness, of his puppets
seriously. Nevertheless, he preserved the preposterous accidents of the
fable. On those enchantments, whimsical oracles of fate, metamorphoses,
talking statues, monsters, good and wicked genii, he was of course
unable to bestow the same reality as on his human characters. Yet,
having carried the latter out of the sphere of burlesque, he had to
maintain a tone of realism with the former. But he could not wield the
Prospero's wand of imaginative insight which brings the supernatural and
the incredible within the range of actualities. Thus the marvellous
elements of the fable remained stiff and artificial beside the natural
pathos and passion of humanity.

Having recapitulated the chief features of the _Fiabe_ in their later
form, I will now analyse _L'Augellino Belverde._


X.

Many years have elapsed since Tartaglia married Ninetta. His father is
dead, and he has fallen under the malignant influence of the
Queen-Mother, Tartagliona. She persuades him that Ninetta has given
birth to a pair of puppies, male and female, whereas the twins are
really a fine boy and girl, called Renzo and Barbarina. Ninetta is
condemned to be buried alive; and Pantalone, Tartaglia's minister,
receives commission to drown the supposed puppies. Instead of executing
these orders, Pantalone sews the children up in oil-cloth, and sets them
floating down a river. They are found and rescued by Smeraldina, a woman
of good heart, who is married to the dissolute and worthless
Truffaldino, a pork-butcher. When the play opens, eighteen years are
supposed to have elapsed since the burial of Ninetta. All this while she
has been kept alive by the Beautiful Green Bird, who is the King of
Terradombra, condemned to take this form by magic arts. The Green Bird
also has become the lover of Barbarina. Meanwhile Tartagliona is being
courted by Brighella, who now appears in the character of a burlesque
poet and seer. His pindaric prophecies and exaggerated flights of
passion, alternating with the lowest language of the proletariate,
afford excellent opportunities for caricature.

Renzo and Barbarina, growing up in the house of the pork-butcher, have
improved their minds by assiduous reading of French philosophical
treatises sold for waste paper. This education has persuaded them that
all human actions and affections proceed from self-love, and that it is
the duty of rational beings to preserve a cold impartiality, indifferent
to emotions, regardless of comfort and vain pleasures, governed only by
the dictates of the reason. Accident reveals to them that Smeraldina is
not their mother, and that they are nameless foundlings. They determine
to go forth alone, and seek their fortunes in the world. The scene in
which they take leave of their kindly warm-hearted foster-mother is
excellent. Gozzi has painted a pair of consummate prigs, whose natural
instincts have been perverted by a false theory of life, and who have
learned to call that reason which is really inhumanity. They tell
Smeraldina that her unselfish charity to the foundling infants was a
form of self-love, and that her continued attention to them for the last
eighteen years had no higher motive.

Having quitted Smeraldina, with the loftiest airs of condescension, they
set forth upon their travels. Getting lost in the wilderness, it begins
to dawn upon them that self-love is one of the cardinal facts of human
nature, to which even the most philosophical characters, when threatened
with death by cold and famine, are subject. In the midst of these
reflections, they are terrified with an earthquake and sudden darkness.
A statue appears walking toward them, who informs them that he too was
once a miserable philosopher, who petrified his own humanity and that of
others by perverse principles analogous to those which have infected
them. Consequently, he was doomed to be a statue, lying lifeless and
inert among the rubbish of neglected things, until one of Renzo's and
Barbarina's ancestors rescued him from filth and set him up in a garden
of the city. This benefit he now means to repay by watching over the
twins. First of all, he ardently desires to save them from the
petrifaction which awaits all souls made frigid by a false philosophy.
Next, he tells them that, though he knows the secret of their parentage,
he may not reveal it. They have a dreadful doom impending over them; and
their eventual happiness can only be secured by the assistance of the
Green Bird. His own name in the world was Calmon; and he has now become
the King of Images:[84]--

                        "Molti viventi
    Sono forse piu statue, ch'io non sono.
    Tu proverai qual forza abbia una statua,
    E come simulacro un uom diventi."

Then Calmon gives the twins a stone. They are to return to the city, and
Barbarina is to throw the stone down before the royal palace. They will
immediately become rich. In any great disaster, let them call on Calmon.

In this way Gozzi allegorises his own prejudice against the cold and
shallow theories of society, which were infiltrating Italy from France.

The second act reveals Tartaglia. He is the victim of remorse, haunted
by the memory of Ninetta, whom he buried alive in a hole beneath the
scullery-sink. There is the floor on which she used to walk. There is
the kitchen where she fluttered in the form of a dove. "O spirit of
Ninetta, where art thou?" Tartaglia preserves the burlesque note of his
Mask. Only one friend remains to him, his old henchman Truffaldino; but
Truffaldino has become a pork-butcher, and forgotten him. Truffaldino at
this juncture appears. He too gives himself philosophical airs, without
concealing his gross appetites and greedy love of self. Tartaglia kicks
him out of doors, and then passes to a scene of vituperation against his
wicked mother, Tartagliona, the Queen of Tarocchi,[85] who has been the
cause of all his misery. Tartagliona shows the worst side of her coarse
malignant nature in the ensuing altercation, and departs vowing
vengeance.

Her only consolation is that she is beloved by Brighella, the most
famous poet of the age:[86]--

                      "Non mancano
    In me vezzi, e lusinghe, ond' al mio fianco
    Fedel sia sempre. Ah, non vorrei, che alfine
    Le mie finezze a lui, negli altri amanti
    Destasser gelosia."

A new scene introduces Renzo and Barbarina. They have returned to the
city, and are standing in front of the palace. Renzo begs his sister to
throw the magic stone. Barbarina reminds him that if they become rich,
all will be over with their philosophy. At last he persuades her to
throw it, and she does so, bidding herself be mindful that a wretched
pebble is the source of her future magnificence. In a moment a gorgeous
palace rises, fronting the royal dwelling. Renzo's and Barbarina's rags
are exchanged for splendid raiment. Moorish servants issue from the
great gates with torches, and welcome their princely masters.

No sooner have the twins taken up their abode in this magic palace, than
they begin to act like _parvenus_ and _nouveaux riches._ Every folly,
vanity, and false desire enters their heads. Their philosophy is
forgotten. Brighella, in his character of seer, divines, meanwhile, that
their presence threatens danger to the person of Tartagliona. He
therefore endeavours to persuade the Queen to make her will in his
favour. She very sensibly refuses, and bids him do all in his power to
prolong the life of one whom he adores. He is obliged to meet her
wishes, and divulges a plan whereby the twins shall be destroyed. The
fairy Serpentina, he reminds her, owns apples which sing, and golden
water which plays and dances. The adventure of stealing these magical
objects involves the greatest peril. Certainly Barbarina will be ruined
if she longs to have them. Accordingly, when she appears at the window
of her palace, Tartagliona from the opposite balcony is to repeat these
rhymes:[87]--

    "Voi siete bella assai; ma piu bella sareste,
     S'un de'pomi, che cantano, in una mano areste.

            *       *       *       *       *

     Figlia voi siete bella; ma piu bella sareste,
     S'acqua, che suona e balla, nell'altra mano areste."

The scene now changes to the interior of the palace of the twins.
Barbarina is contemplating her charms in the looking-glass, when
Smeraldina suddenly enters, full of affection. She has heard of the good
fortune of her foundlings, and forgetting their recent ill-treatment of
her, has come to congratulate them. Barbarina exclaims against her
rudeness, calls the servants, throws a purse of gold at her
foster-mother, and bids her depart. Smeraldina, who cannot stifle her
affection for the ungrateful girl, changes tone, and humbly asks to be
allowed to stay and serve her. Barbarina, much to her own surprise,
feels touched by this display of feeling, and magnanimously allows the
good woman to remain as a menial. Smeraldina's soliloquy at the end of
the scene reveals her sound sense no less than her warm heart:[88]

    "Questa e quella filosofa, che andava
     Ieri per legna al bosco, ed oggi! ... basta ...
     Seco volea restar, perche l'adoro,
     E seco resto alfin; del tacer poi
     Ci proveremo; ma non sara nulla.
     Non la conosco piu. Quanta superbia!
     Che diavol l'ha arrichita in questa forma?
     Io non vorrei, che questa frasconcella ...
     Forse qualche milord ... ma sapro tutto."

     {_Entra._

Next we have Renzo. He has fallen desperately in love with a beautiful
statue which he found in the garden of the palace. Truffaldino enters,
frankly confesses that he has come to live at ease with his quondam
foster-child, professes himself a true sage, and expounds the cynical
philosophy of interested motives. Renzo cannot resist laughing at the
knave's candour, but is not yet disposed to bear his insolence.
Truffaldino sees that he must alter his tone. So he begins to whine and
flatter. Renzo is softened, and consents to keep him as a buffoon. His
cynicism and his hyperbolical adulation will serve to make the hours
pass pleasantly.

Tartaglia and Pantalone appear upon the royal balcony. Barbarina enters
on the other side, and Tartaglia falls head over ears in love with her
at first sight. The scene is carried out with much burlesque humour,
until Tartagliona and Brighella join the group below. Tartagliona utters
the magic verses, and Barbarina becomes madly bent upon the apples which
sing and the water which plays and dances. Renzo, touched by his
sister's despair, agrees to attempt the adventure; but before he goes,
he gives her a dagger. So long as this is bright, he will be alive. If
it drops blood, that is a sign that her brother has died in the attempt.

A scene between Ninetta in her living tomb and the Green Bird who brings
her food, is here interpolated, in order to prepare the audience for
what ensues.

Renzo and Truffaldino arrive at Serpentina's garden, and fail in their
adventure. Then Renzo calls on Calmon, who appears, and summons a band
of statues--the female figure on the fountain at Treviso and the Moors
of the Campo de'Mori at Venice[89]--to his aid. By their assistance a
singing apple is procured, and some of the dancing water is bottled in
a phial. But Calmon and his band of statues remind Renzo that he is in
duty bound to be grateful. Calmon lacks his nose; the fountain of
Treviso's breasts are injured; the Moors have, each of them, some broken
limb. Renzo must undertake to restore them properly, and all will go
well with him.

Renzo promises; but he very soon forgets the shattered statues. Lost in
admiration before the image of beautiful Pompea, he spends his days in
wooing her. At length Pompea finds her voice, and confides to him her
previous experience. She was the daughter of a great Italian prince, the
prince of a corrupt but mighty city; and she has now become an idol
through her self-idolatry.

At this juncture enters Truffaldino with exciting news. Tartaglia has
made a declaration of his love through Pantalone to Barbarina. She
wavers between the splendid prospects of a royal match and the affection
which she feels for the Green Bird, her lover and consoler in their days
of poverty. Meanwhile Tartagliona breaks negotiations off by declaring
that Barbarina must bring the Green Bird as dower; else she can never be
Tartaglia's bride. At this announcement Barbarina falls into hysterics,
kicking Pantalone downstairs, and screaming out that nothing but the
Green Bird will satisfy her. Truffaldino, partly out of compassion for
Barbarina's state, partly from a sense of modesty, leaves her presence.
He arrives to rouse his master to a sense of the situation. This is no
time to make platonic love to statues, &c.

Renzo replies that he is quite ready to attempt the adventure of the
Green Bird. He knows from Calmon that the bird alone is capable of
solving the problem of his own parentage, and also of evoking Pompea
from her marble immobility. Consequently he has a strong personal
interest in the capture of the bird; and his sister's troubles are an
additional reason why he should no longer delay. With Truffaldino for
his squire, he will ride forth into the forest of the Goblin, who holds
the bird in meshes of diabolical enchantments. Let Smeraldina remind his
sister that the dagger which he gave her will assure her of his good or
evil fortune in the perilous essay.

While Renzo is on his journey, Barbarina keeps continually gazing on the
dagger. It does not cease to shine. But Smeraldina and the speaking
statue of Pompea work upon her feelings by suggesting the perils her
brother is undergoing, to which her own vanity has exposed him. Moved at
last by simple human sympathy, she finds the situation intolerable, and
resolves to follow Renzo to the place of danger. It is this return to
nature which saves her, and brings about a happy catastrophe. Barbarina
renounces her wish to wed Tartaglia, and thinks only of arresting Renzo
in his dangerous course. She sets off with Smeraldina; and the magic
palace is left desolate, in mourning, all its splendour gone.

Renzo and Truffaldino have now reached the Goblin's hill, where the
Green Bird is seen upon a perch, chained by the leg. Trying to capture
him, Renzo turns into a statue; and there is a whole gathering of
similar statues in the place--men who essayed the same adventure, and
failed.

Barbarina and _Smeraldina_ arrive at the scene of action. The dagger
drops blood. Barbarina's mask of false philosophy and selfish vanity
drops off. She becomes a simple woman, filled with repentance and
anguish for her brother who is dead. She flings herself upon the bosom
of poor Smeraldina, whom she had so villainously treated. At this
juncture, when all seems lost, Calmon appears, and reads her a sound
moral lecture. Then he points to a scroll before her feet, and instructs
her what she has to do. She must walk up to within a hair's-breadth--no
more and no less--of the bird, and take good heed that he does not utter
a sound before she has read aloud the words inscribed upon the scroll.
If she succeeds in this feat, all may yet come right. There is a
breathless moment, during which Barbarina executes what Calmon told her.
The bird is captured, and begins to talk. Let her take a feather from
his tail. That will restore the statues to life.

The drama is quickly wound up. By means of the bird's tail-feather,
Renzo and Pompea are made happy lovers. Ninetta returns from her hole.
Tartagliona is changed into a tortoise, and Brighella into a donkey. The
Green Bird resumes his form as King of Terradombra and plights his faith
to Barbarina. Tartaglia recognises his lost son and daughter, and is
fain to be contented with the resuscitated wife whom he had so wantonly
condemned to a lingering death.

       *       *       *       *       *

This analysis, if any one takes the trouble to read it, will suffice to
show the sprightliness of Gozzi's invention, and also the essential
weakness of his artistic method. The magic and the transformations at
the close are mechanical. The fate of the Green Bird is connected by no
proper motive with the fate of Tartaglia and the twins. Calmon and the
statues, allegorically useful, are in like manner independent of the
main dramatic action. Ninetta's doom is atrocious. Tartaglia is only
saved from being disgusting by his burlesque absurdity.


XI.

In the spring of 1762, having exhibited _Le Tre Melarancie_, _Il Corvo_,
_Il Re Cervo_, and _Turandot_, Gozzi proved that he had won the game
against Chiari and Goldoni. Sacchi's company removed from the theatre at
S. Samuele to a more commodious house at S. Angelo. Chiari retired to
his native city, Brescia, and left off writing for the stage. Goldoni
departed for Paris. None of Goldoni's biographers deny that he took this
step in consequence of Gozzi's triumph. In his own Memoirs he omitted
all references to the literary quarrels of the years 1756-62; and he
gives excellent reasons, quite independent of Gozzi, for his setting off
to seek fortune in the French capital. Certainly, the last piece he
presented to the Venetian public, _Una delle ultime sere di Carnovale_,
was received with enthusiasm. "It closed the theatrical year of 1761,"
he says;[90] "and the evening of Shrove Tuesday brought me an ovation.
The theatre rang with thunders of applause, among which could be
distinguished these farewells: _A happy journey! Come back to us! Be
sure you do not fail to do so!_ I confess that I was touched to tears."
Yet the simultaneous retirement of both Chiari and Goldoni at this
critical moment justifies our believing that the latter judged it
expedient to leave Venice after the revolution effected by Gozzi. He did
so without ill-will on either side. Count Gasparo Gozzi, Carlo's
brother, and a distinguished member of the Granelleschi, undertook the
charge of seeing a new edition of Goldoni's plays through the press in
his absence.

For some years after this event, Carlo Gozzi and Sacchi's company had
the theatres of Venice pretty much at their own disposal. But the
success of the _Fiabe_ was ephemeral. Before their author's death, he
saw his own dramatic novelties cast into the shade and Goldoni's
realistic comedies restored to favour. A poet of such eminence as
Goethe, surveying all things Italian with curiosity in 1786, paid a
well-considered tribute to Gozzi's sympathy with the Venetian public,
praised the energy and nature of the _Commedia dell' Arte_, but reserved
his highest panegyric for a representation of Goldoni's _Baruffe
Chiozzote_ at the theatre of S. Luca.[91] "At last I am able to say that
I have seen a comedy," are the emphatic words with which Goethe opens a
detailed description of this piece.

In the course of the last hundred years, Goldoni has secured a signal
and irreversible victory over his rival. One of the best theatres at
Venice is called by his name. His house is pointed out by gondoliers to
tourists. His statue stands almost within sight of the Rialto on the
Campo S. Bartolommeo, where people most do congregate. His comedies are
repeatedly given by companies of celebrated actors. Gozzi's _Fiabe_ have
been relegated to the marionette stages, where some of their _scenari_
in a mutilated form may still be seen. There exist no memorials to his
fame in Venice. Not even a tablet with the words _Qui nacque Carlo
Gozzi_ is to be found upon the ancient palace at S. Cassiano. The
sacristan of the church, where his dust is gathered to his fathers,
cannot point to the Gozzi vault.

The vicissitudes of Gozzi's reputation turn upon the different views
which have been taken of his merits in relation to Goldoni. In Italy the
balance of opinion tends to sink against him. Baretti, that fiery member
of Sam Johnson's club, the fierce opponent of Goldoni, pronounced at
first in Gozzi's favour, lamented that he could not bring Garrick to one
of his plays, proposed to translate the _Fiabe_ into English, and swore
that Gozzi stood next to Shakespeare in dramatic genius. But when
Baretti read the _Fiabe_ in print, he declaimed against the buffooneries
of the Masks, and dropped his enthusiasm. Tommasei found no words too
strong to express his contempt for a writer whose genius he denied, and
whose character inspired him with repugnance. Tommasei was a champion of
Goldoni. Omitting further details, it is enough to say that Italy has
elected to ignore Gozzi and to deify Goldoni. The causes are not far to
seek. Gozzi's vogue depended partly upon controversy and satire. It was
confined to the locality of Venice. His plays required the co-operation
of the Masks; and these expired in his own lifetime. Moreover, they
appealed to a rare combination of sensibilities, romantic and humorous,
which is not common in Italy. Lastly, for their proper mounting on the
stage, they demanded an expenditure of ingenuity and money, which their
fading popularity prohibited. Goldoni, on the other hand, suited the
temper of the growing age by his simplicity, his truth to nature, his
realism, and the freshness of eternal youth which lends charm to the
facile productions of his amiable genius. His comedies can be put upon
the stage without the least difficulty; and they afford scope for the
display of varied talents in actors of several descriptions.

In Germany Gozzi enjoyed wide posthumous reputation, not as a playwright
with the public, but as a poet among men of letters. He was early
chosen, during the _Sturm und Drang_ period, to perform the part of
champion of Romantic against Classical forms of art. How mistaken this
view of Gozzi really is, I have attempted to prove. Yet if critics
ignore what Gozzi wrote about the origin of his _Fiabe_, and keep out of
sight his intentions while composing them--if they only regard the
printed plays--it is not difficult to make him assume this false
position. Franz A. C. Werthes translated the _Fiabe_ into German so
early as 1777-79, and published them at Bern. No less than twelve
separate versions of selected plays have since appeared, up to the date
1877.[92] Among these may be mentioned Schiller's _Turandot_, which was
executed from the translation of Werthes, and a reproduction of _I
Pitocchi Fortunati_ by Paul Heyse. Schlegel introduced the _Fiabe_ to
public notice, emphasising their value as specimens of the Romantic
style, and connecting them with the indigenous art of Italy. Hoffmann
declared his enthusiasm for Gozzi; and if he did not borrow motives from
the _Fiabe_ and the _Memoirs_ for his own fantastic productions, he
undoubtedly regarded their author as a genius of the same species as
himself. Wagner, I may parenthetically observe, based one of his
earliest operatic productions on _La Donna Serpente_. It was composed in
1833, and was first exhibited at Munich in 1888. To follow the several
steps by which Gozzi came to be regarded in Germany as a Romanticist,
snuffed out by the Revolution, would lead me beyond the limits of this
introduction. I suspect that he was known there mainly in the
translation of Werthes, and that his works were quarried as a mine of
motives by writers of romantic tendencies, who lacked invention. There
is a pocket edition of the _Fiabe_ in Italian, 3 vols., published by
Hitzig, 1808.

The German conception of Gozzi as a Romantic poet of the purest water
spread to France. It took the French imagination just when the Romantic
movement was at its height. Philarete Chasles treated his works from the
point of view of Spanish dramatic literature. Paul de Musset pounced
upon the Memoirs, condensed them into a small volume with considerable
literary ability, and so ingeniously manipulated their text in the
process as to create the illusion that Gozzi had pronounced himself to
be in fact what his German admirers found in him. This clever travesty
of Gozzi's autobiography presented him to the world as the victim of
sprites, the creature of his own inventions, the plaything of
superstition, instead of the caustic, practical, sometimes dissembling,
and often sinister, man of thwarted passion, violent caprice, hard head,
and conservative heart, who will presently be revealed in my version of
the Memoirs. I do not blame Paul de Musset for his literary escapade. I
understand his motive, and appreciate the joke. He wanted, at one and
the same time, to place Gozzi, as the Germans had already placed him,
among the fathers of Romanticism, and also to construct a telling novel
of adventure out of the copious materials furnished by the Memoirs. But,
by so doing, Paul de Musset misled writers who had no access to the sole
edition of Gozzi's _Memorie_, or who were perhaps too careless to seek
this document out. Among these I may mention M. Paul Royer, the
translator of five of Gozzi's _Fiabe_ into French,[93] and Vernon Lee,
the talented authoress of a deservedly popular book entitled _Studies of
the Eighteenth Century in Italy_.[94] Both of these distinguished
writers have fallen into the trap laid for them by Paul de Musset, and
have accepted a false conception of the man who forms the subject of
these volumes.

Gozzi, who plumed himself upon his Democritean philosophy of laughter,
his Stoic-Epicurean acceptance of every wayward stroke of fortune, would
have been the first to smile sardonically, yet not without a touch of
benignant humour, upon the mask he has been made to wear by Germans and
by Frenchmen. English critics, with the exception of Vernon Lee, have
had little or nothing to do with him up to this date.[95] Let the man
speak for himself in the account of his own life, which I now for the
first time present to the multitude of English readers.

_August 8, 1888._




CARLO GOZZI.




I.

_My Pedigree and Birth._


There are people foolish enough to make every family history the object
of their ridicule and satire. For the sake of wits of this sort I shall
give a short but truthful account of my ancestry, in order that they may
have something to quiz.

Our stock springs in the fourteenth century from a certain Pezolo
de'Gozzi. This is proved by an authentic genealogy, which we possess;
the authority of which has never been disputed, and which has been
accepted as evidence in law-courts, although it is but a dusty document,
worm-eaten and be-cobwebbed, not framed in gold or hung against the
wall. Since I am no Spaniard, I never applied to any genealogist to
discover a more ancient origin for our race. There are historical works,
however, which derive us from the family de'Gozze, extant at the present
epoch in Ragusa, and original settlers of that venerable republic. The
chronicles of Bergamo relate that the aforesaid Pezolo de'Gozzi was a
man of weight and substance in the district of Alzano, and that he won
the gratitude of the most serene Republic of Venice for having
imperilled his property and person against the Milanese in order to
preserve that district for her invincible and clement rule. His
descendants held office as ambassadors and podestas for the city of
Bergamo, which proves that they were members of its Council; while two
privileges of the sixteenth century show that two separate branches of
the family obtained admission to the citizenship of Venice.[96] They
erected houses for the living and provided tombs for their dead in the
quarter and the Church of San Cassiano, as may be seen at the present
day.[97] One of these branches was honoured with adoption into the
patrician families of Venice in the seventeenth century,[98] and
afterwards expired. The branch from which I am descended remained in the
class of Cittadini Originari, on which they certainly brought no
discredit whatsoever.

None of my ancestors aspired to the honourable and lucrative posts which
are open to Venetian citizens.[99] They were for the most part men of
peaceful unambitious temper, contented with their lot in life, or
perhaps averse from the disturbances of competition. Had they entered
upon a political career, I am quite sure that they would have served
their Prince faithfully, without pride and without vain ostentation.

About two centuries ago, my great-great-grandfather purchased some six
hundred acres of land,[100] together with buildings, in Friuli, at the
distance of five miles from Pordenone. A large portion of these estates
consists of meadow-land, and is held by feudal tenure. All the
heirs-male are bound to renew the investiture, which costs some ducats.
Upon this point the officials of the Camera de' Feudi at Udine are
extremely vigilant. If the fine is not paid immediately after the death
of the last feudatory, they confiscate the crops derived from the
meadows subject to this tenure. That happened to me after my father's
decease. A few months' negligence cost me a considerable sum in excess
of the customary fine. It is probably by right of some old parchment
that we own the title of Count, conceded to our family in public acts
and in the addresses of letters.[101] I should feel no resentment, if
this title were refused me; but it would anger me extremely, if my hay
were withheld.

My father was Jacopo Antonio Gozzi; a man of fine and penetrative
intellect, of sensitive and delicate honour, of susceptible temper,
resolute, and sometimes even formidable. His father Gasparo died while
he was yet a child, leaving this only son to the guardianship of his
mother, the Contessa Emilia Grampo, a noble woman of Padua. The estate
was sufficient to sustain his dignity with credit; but he indulged
dreams of magnificence. Sole heir, and educated by a tender mother, who
humoured every fancy of her son, he early acquired the habit of
following his own inclinations. These led him into lordly
extravagances--stables full of horses; kennels of hounds;
hunting-parties; splendid banquets--nor did he reflect upon the
consequences of a marriage, which he made without deliberation in his
early manhood, to indulge a whim of the heart. My mother was Angela
Tiepolo, the daughter of one branch of that patrician house, which
expired in her brother Almoro Cesare.[102] He died, a Senator of the
Republic, about the year 1749.

I shall perhaps have wearied my readers with these facts about my
pedigree and birth. Satirists will not, however, find in them anything
to excite ambition in myself or to wing their pen with ridicule. Social
ranks have always been regarded by me as accidental, though necessary
for the proper subordination on which our institutions depend. As for my
birth, I think less of whence I came than of whither I am going. Conduct
unworthy of a decent origin might cause sorrow to my deceased parents,
whose memory I hold in honour, and might cover myself and all my
posterity with shame.

My name is Carlo. I was the sixth child born by my mother into the
light, or shall I say the shadows of this world. I am writing on the
last day of April in the year 1780. I have passed fifty, and not yet
reached the age of sixty.[103] I shall not put the sacristan to trouble
in order to view the register of my baptism, being quite sure that I was
christened, and not having the stupid vanity to pass for a curled
dandy. That is obvious, and has been always obvious, from the fashion of
my clothes and the way I dress my hair. Besides, I set no value on the
age of men. Human beings die at all ages; and I have seen boys who are
adult, while grown-up men or grey-beards are often nothing better than
peevish and ridiculous children.




II.

     _My Education and Circumstances down to the Age of
     Sixteen--Concerning the Art of Improvisation, and my Literary
     Studies._


Our family consisted of eleven children, male and female. I could record
nothing but what is creditable of my brothers and sisters, had I
proposed to write their memoirs. But this is not my thought; and they
are capable of writing their own, if the whim should take them; for the
epidemic of literature was always chronic in our household.

A succession of priests with little learning were our domestic
pedagogues up to a certain age. I say a succession advisedly; each in
turn having earned his dismissal by impertinent behaviour and intrigues
with the serving-maids.

From early childhood I was always a silent observer of men and things,
by no means insolent, of imperturbable serenity, and extremely
attentive to my lessons. My brothers used my taciturn and peaceable
temper to their own advantage. They accused me to our common tutor of
all the naughtinesses of which they had been guilty. I did not
condescend to excuse myself or to accuse them, but bore my unjust
punishments with stoicism. I venture to affirm that no boy was ever more
supremely indifferent than I was to the terrible penalty of being sent
away from table just as we were sitting down to dinner. Smiling
obedience was my only self-defence. Enemies may conclude from these
traits of character that I was a stupid lout, and friends that I was a
philosopher in embryo. Nothing is rarer than the eye of equal justice.
Yet any one who takes the trouble to inquire of my acquaintances and
servants, will learn that my taciturnity, my tolerance, my stoical
endurance, have not changed with years--that I continue to view the
events of this life with a smile, and that only those have nettled me
which touched my honour.

[Illustration: SCARAMOUCH (1645)

_Illustrating the Italian Commedia dell'Arte, or Impromptu Comedy_]

The growing disorder in our family affairs did not at first deprive us
boys of a sound education. My two elder brothers, Gasparo and Francesco,
went to public schools,[104] and were in time to drink at all the
fountains of the regular curriculum. Extravagant expenditure, however,
combined with the needs of a numerous progeny, soon rendered anything
like an adequate course of studies impossible for the younger
children. I was intrusted for some years to a learned country-parson,
and then to a priest in Venice, of decent acquirements and excellent
morality. After this I entered the academy of two Genoese priests, who
supplied instruction to some youths of noble birth, and to some of no
nobility whatever. There were about twenty-five pupils in this academy.
We pursued the same studies, with some difference according to our
classes. Here I had the opportunity of observing that teachers are very
valuable guides to youths who love learning, and mere images of
ineffectual deities to such as hate it. For my part, being fond of books
and eager for information, I imbibed my fill of such instruction as a
boy can acquire before the age of fourteen. But sloth and vicious habits
extirpate the seeds of learning planted by preceptors in the minds of
ill-conditioned lads. Therefore I saw, and still see, more than
two-thirds of my fellow-pupils sunk in a slough of baseness. Grammar,
the classics, and rhetoric only taught them to get drunk in taverns, to
carry sacks for hire upon their shoulders, and to cry "_Baked apples,
plums, and chestnuts!_" about the streets, with a basket on their heads
and a pair of scales slung round their waists. Wretched fate to be a
father!

When I became aware that our domestic difficulties would prove an
obstacle to my remaining long at school, I determined to utilise the
little I had already learned, and to carry on my education by myself. My
elder brother Gasparo's example, whose passion for study had won public
recognition, and my own good-will, kept me nailed to books of all sorts;
nor could I imagine any pleasure worth a thought, beyond reading,
meditating, and writing.

Poetry, choice Italian, and correct style were then in vogue. The young
men of Venice met to discuss these three topics, which have now been
utterly forgotten--possibly for the greater advantage and convenience of
our citizens. I see crowds of young people, hair-brained, conceited,
idle, frivolous, presumptuous, and harmful to society. Heaven knows what
their studies are! Not poetry, not the niceties of the Italian language,
not correction of style. And then, forsooth, I am to admire a
hurly-burly of well-born persons, who claim in their foolhardiness to be
omniscient, who produce nothing whatsoever, who cannot write three lines
of a letter which shall express their sentiments, and which shall not
swarm with revolting faults of grammar and of spelling!

I will omit to observe that respect for nobles in a state is necessary;
but that the respect shown simply for their birth and wealth is not
respect but false feigned adulation. I will refrain from asserting that
a daily correspondence, maintained with a large variety of
persons--people who may not perhaps be scientific, but who understand
whether a letter is well written or ridiculous--may be capable of
securing a large part of the regard, or of occasioning a large part of
the contempt, bestowed on nobles. I make no mention of the rich man in
Signor Mercier's comedy of Indigence, who found it impossible to write a
letter of the utmost importance because his secretary was away from
home. I will say nothing to those scientific tutors of the scions of our
aristocracy, who instil derision and disdain for polite literature and
the art of elegance in diction into the brains of their pupils, moulding
them into geometricians, mathematicians, philosophers, physicists,
astronomers, algebraical professors, naturalists, a whole deluge of
sciences, but who cannot after all their labour express in writing what
they have taught or what the common business of life requires.

All these things, and everything which imposture has presented to my
senses and impressed upon my mind, must remain unwritten in my pen. I
have no wish to make enemies.

Yet we cannot prevent drops of ink from falling sometimes from the pen
and making blots upon our papers. Just so, while I am dictating these
memoirs of my life, I shall not be able to avoid splutterings, however
out of place and inconvenient.

I am almost ashamed to confess the intense assiduity with which I
applied myself to those frivolous literary studies of which I have been
speaking. They brought on a haemorrhage from the nostrils, so violent
and so frequent, that I was more than once or twice given up for dead in
the manner of Seneca.[105] In their anxiety about my health, my friends
hid away all my books, and deprived me of paper and inkstand; but I was
the cleverest of thieves in searching for them, and went on doggedly
reading and writing by stealth in the uninhabited attics of our mansion.
After relating this fact about my boyhood, malicious people may think
that I am claiming to be considered worthy of a panegyric. They are
quite mistaken. I fix them with my eyeglass, and assure them that it is
rather my intention to provide them with another good reason for
quizzing me. The famous Doctor Tissot angrily rebukes excessive
application to those studies which are universally esteemed as useless.
He reserves his praise for folk who ruin their health in pursuits
considered beneficial to humanity; and such, I do not doubt, are the
studies affected by himself and his admirers.

The Abbe Giovan Antonio Verdani, keeper of the select and extensive
library of the patrician family Soranzo, was a man of vast literary
erudition. He felt compassion for my weakness, which coincided with his
own, and directed my reading by lending me the rarest books,
masterpieces of pure Italian diction in prose and poetry. To estimate
the quantities of paper which I covered with my thoughts in verse and
prose, would be beyond my powers. I tried to imitate the style of all
the early Tuscan writers who are most admired. Assuredly I never
approached the perfection of their language; but I am none the less sure
that the diligent and attentive perusal of a mass of the best works,
treating of a vast variety of subjects, cannot fail to furnish a better
head than mine with instruction and ideas, with the power of making just
reflections and probable conjectures, and with the principles of sound
morality. I am also convinced that the imitation of style in writing,
pursued methodically, enables a man to express his own thoughts with
facility, propriety of colouring, exactitude of phrase and term,
according to the variety of images, grave or gay, familiar or dignified,
which we desire to develop and to communicate under their true aspect in
prose or poetry.

Without attaining to the mastery of style at which I aimed, I acquired
the miserable satisfaction of finding myself in the very select group of
persons who know this truth. I also earned the wretchedness of being
forced to read with insuperable aversion and disgust the works of many
modern Italian authors, which are full of false fancies and sophisms,
the rhetoric and diction of which never vary however the subject-matter
changes, which are defiled by all manner of gibberish, bombast,
nonsense, with periods involved in unintelligible vortices, and with
preposterous phraseology. The sciences, the discoveries, the branches
of new knowledge which are now so loudly vaunted, ought to be accepted
as useful, and are worthy of respect. For this reason it is wrong to
profane them and to render them contemptible by barbarous impurity and
impropriety of diction. Francesco Redi, that great man, great
philosopher, great physician, great naturalist, confirms my doctrine by
his written works.[106] As regards the literature of art and wit and
fancy, it is obvious that without correction of style this is absolutely
worthless and condemned to merited oblivion. No one could count the fine
and ample sentiments which perish, smothered in the mire of inartistic
writing. Not less numerous, on the other hand, are the small but
brilliant thoughts, duly  with appropriate terms, and placed at
the right point of view by a master-hand, which sparkle before the eyes
of every reader, be he learned or simple.

There is no disputing about tastes. Yet I think it could be easily
maintained that our century has lapsed into a shameful torpor with
regard to these things. I have written and printed quite enough upon the
subject; without effect, however; and now I see no reason why I should
not utter a last funeral lament over the mastery of art I longed to
possess. That mastery, which nowadays is reckoned among the inutilities
of existence, has been freely conceded to me by the verdict of
contemporaries--blind judges, governed not by intelligence but by
ignorant assumption--so that their opinion does not sustain me with the
sure conviction of having attained my purpose. Nevertheless I am
grateful even to the blind and deaf, who see and hear what gives them
pleasure in my writings.

My pursuit of culture advanced on the lines I have described, whether
for my happiness or my misfortune it is worthless to inquire. I read
continually, and wasted enormous quantities of ink; paid close attention
to men and manners; profited by the encouragement of the Abbe Verdani
and Antonio Federigo Seghezzi; walked in the steps of my brother
Gasparo; and frequented a literary society which met daily at our house.
From a Piedmontese, who knew how to read and nothing more, I learned the
first rudiments of French; not that I wished to talk French in Italy, an
affectation which I loathed; but because it was my desire, by the help
of grammar and dictionary, to study the books, most excellent in part,
in part injurious to society, which issue daily from the French press.
It was thus that I formed those literary tastes, to which I have always
clung for innocent and disinterested amusement, and which, now that my
hairs are grey, will be my solace till the hour of death. The giants of
science, to whom I dare not raise my quizzing-glass for fear of
committing an unpardonable sin, will perceive that in describing the
scanty sources of my education, I am only painting the portrait of a
literary pigmy in all humility.

As regards my moral training, it is only necessary to observe that the
family of which I was a member has always cherished a deep and fervent
reverence for the august image of religion, and that my father, careless
as he was in matters of economy, never neglected religious duties or the
good ensample of honourable conduct. He was a bitter enemy of falsehood.
His delicate susceptibility detected a lie by the inflection of the
voice, and he punished it upon the spot with sounding boxes on the ears
of his offspring.

Being a bold rider and passionately fond of horses, he taught us to
ride, and liked to see us every day on horseback during our summer
visits to the country. It was useless to plead timidity, or to shrink
from the snortings and jibbings of some half-broken beast he wanted us
to back. Up we went; a cut or two of the switch across our legs set us
off at a gallop; and there we were in full career, without a thought for
broken shins or necks. Some jockeys, who came to break in vicious colts,
put me up to tricks for mastering a hard-mouthed bolting animal. One of
these tricks stood me in good stead upon an occasion I shall afterwards
relate. Indeed, I may say that I owe my life to a jockey.

We had a little theatre of no great architectural pretensions in our
country-house; and here we children used to act.[107] Brothers and
sisters alike were gifted with some talent for comedy; and all of us,
before a crowd of rustic spectators, passed for players of the first
quality. Beside tragic and comic pieces learned by heart, we frequently
improvised farces with a slight plot upon some laughable motive. My
sister Marina and I had the knack of imitating certain married couples
notorious in the village for their burlesque humours. We used to
interpolate our farces with scenes and dialogues in which the famous
quarrels of these women with their drunken husbands were reproduced to
the life. Our clothes were copied from the originals; and the imitation
was so exact that our bucolic audience hailed it with Homeric peals of
laughter, measuring their applause by the delight it afforded their
coarse natures. My father and mother took a fancy to see themselves
represented in this way. My sister and I were shy at first, but we had
to obey our parents. Finally, we regaled them with a perfect
reproduction of their costume, their gestures, their way of talking, and
some of their familiar household bickerings. Their astonishment was
great, and their laughter was the only punishment of our dutiful
temerity.

I learned to twang the guitar with a certain amount of skill, and vied
with my brother Gasparo in improvising rhymed verses, which I sang to
music in our hours of recreation. This was done with all the
foolhardiness inseparable from a display which the vulgar are only too
apt to regard as miraculous. Since I have touched upon the point, I will
digress a little on this so-called miracle. In my opinion, the immense
crowds of people hanging with open mouths upon the lips of an
_improvisatore_ only prove that, in spite of the contempt into which
poetry has fallen, it still possesses that power over the minds and the
brains of men which their tongues deny it. Cristoforo Altissimo, a poet
of the fifteenth century, is said to have publicly improvised his epic
in octave stanzas on the Reali di Francia; the words were taken down
from his lips, just as he composed them at the moment. The book was
published; and though it is extremely rare, I have read it through the
kindness of the Abbe Verdani. Only a few stanzas, out of all that ocean
of verse, are worthy of the name of poetry; and yet we may believe that
before the work was given to the press, some pains had been bestowed
upon it. I have listened to many extempore versifiers, male and female,
the most famous of our century. It has always struck me that if the
deluges of verses which they spout forth with face on fire, to the
applause of frantic multitudes, were written down, they would have very
little poetical value, and that nobody would have the patience to read
the twentieth part of them. Padre Zucchi, of the Olivetan Order, whom I
heard in my youth, surpassed his rivals; now and then he produced
sensible stanzas; but he improvised so slowly that reflection may have
had some part in the result. I do not deny that these extempore
rhymesters may be people of culture and learning, qualified to discourse
well upon the themes proposed to them. Yet they would not be listened
to, if they spoke ever so divinely in prose. In order to draw a crowd,
they are forced to express their thoughts and images, just as they come,
with voluble rapidity, in bad rhymed verses, which often are no better
than a gabble of words without sense. This throws their audience into a
trance of astonishment. Humanity has always quested after the marvellous
like a hound. If a painter sought to depict foolhardiness or imposture
wearing the mask of poetry, I could recommend nothing better than the
portrait of an improvisatore, with goggle-eyes and arms in air, and a
multitude staring up at him in stupid dumb amazement. These being my
sentiments, I am willing, out of mere politeness and good manners, to
approve the coronation of a Cavaliere Perfetto or a Corilla on the
Capitol. But I can only accept with cordial and serious enthusiasm the
honours of that sort paid to a Virgil, a Petrarch, and a Tasso.

The Arcadians will laugh when I proceed to speak about an improvisatore,
whom I knew and whom I have listened to a hundred times. Yet I should be
committing an injustice if I did not mention him, and declare my opinion
that he was the single really wonder-worthy artist in this kind, with
whom I ever came in contact. He used to pour forth anacreontics, octave
stanzas, any and every metre, extempore, to the music of a well-touched
guitar. His verses rhymed, but had no _Clio_, _Euterpe_, _Plettro_,
_Parnaso_, _Aganippe_, _Ruscelletto_, _Zefiretto_, and such stuff, in
them. They composed a well-developed discourse, flowing evenly, not
soaring, but with abundance of well-connected images, and natural,
lively, graceful thoughts. He invariably used either the Venetian or the
Paduan dialect; which will augment the derisive laughter of Arcadia, and
make the Campidoglio ring. On one occasion, while he was improvising on
the theme: _diligite inimicos vestros_, it happened that two enemies
were present. At another time, he dilated on his own grief for a
cavaliere[108] who had been kind to him, and who was then dying, given
over by the doctors. Not only did the audience hang upon his lips with
rapt attention; but in the former case, the enemies were reconciled,
while in the latter tears were freely shed for the poet's expiring
benefactor. Such influence over the passions of the heart reveals a true
poet; for such a man I reserve the laurel crown upon my Campidoglio. His
name was Giovanni Sibiliato, brother of the celebrated professor of
literature in the University of Padua.

Returning from this digression, I will resume the narrative of my
boyhood. I learned to fence and to dance; but books and composition were
my chief pastime. Before a numerous audience in our literary assemblies
I felt no shyness. In private visits, among people new to me, the
reserve of my demeanour often passed for savagery. My first sonnet of
passable quality was written at the age of nine. Beside the applause it
won me, I was rewarded with a box of comfits; and for this reason I have
never forgotten it. The occasion of its composition was as follows. A
certain Signora Angela Armano, midwife by trade, had a friend at Padua
whose pet dog died and left her inconsolable. Signora Angela wished to
comfort her friend; indulged in condolements for her loss; and sent a
little spaniel of her own, called Delina, to replace the defunct pet.
Delina was to be given as a present, and a sonnet was to accompany the
gift, expressing all the sentiments which a lady of Signora Angela's
profession might entertain in a circumstance of such importance. Though
our family was a veritable lunatic asylum of poets, no one cared to
translate the good creature's gossipping garrulity into verse. Moved by
her entreaties, I undertook the task; and the following Bernesque sonnet
was the result:--

    "Madama io vi vorrei pur confortare
         Con qualche graziosa diceria,
         Ma la sciagura vuole, e vostra, e mia,
         Che in un sonetto la non vi puo stare.
     Non vi state, mia cara, a disperare,
         Che la sarebbe una poltroneria,
         L'entrar per un can morto in frenesia;
         Chi nasce muor, convien moralizzare.
     Vi sovvenite, ch' egli avra pisciato
         Alcuna volta in camera, o in cucina,
         Che in quell' istante lo avreste ammazzato.
     Io vi spedisco intanto la Delina
         Che piu d'un cane ha d'essa innamorato,
         E puo farvi di cani una dezina.
               E bella, e picciolina;
     Di lei non voglio piu nuova, o risposta,
         Servitevi per razza, o di supposta."

Two years later, a new edition of the poems of Gaspara Stampa appeared
in Venice, at the expense of Count Antonio Ramboldo di Collalto of
Vienna, a prince distinguished for his birth and writings. Scholars know
that this sixteenth-century Sappho sighed her soul forth in love-laments
to a certain Count Collaltino di Collalto, doughty warrior and polished
versifier, and that she was reputed to have died of hopeless passion in
her youth.[109] The ladies of our century will hardly believe her
story; for Cupid has changed temper since those days, and kills his
victims with far different and less honourable weapons. Some verses by
contemporary writers in praise of our literary heroine were to be
appended to this edition of her works. I dared to enter the lists, and
wrote a sonnet in the style of the earliest Tuscan poets. Such as it is,
the sonnet may be found printed in the book which I have indicated. It
appears from this juvenile production that I already acknowledged a
mistress of my heart; compliance with fashion was alone responsible for
my precocity.

This trifling composition was read by the famous Apostolo Zeno. He
deigned to inquire for the author, who had reproduced the antique
simplicity of Cino da Pistoja, Guittone d'Arezzo, and Guido Cavalcanti.
On my presenting myself, Signor Zeno politely expressed surprise at
discovering a mere boy in the learned writer of the sonnet, treated me
with kind attention, and placed his choice library at my disposal.[110]
The encouragement of this distinguished poet, true lover of pure style,
and foe to seventeenth-century conceits, added fuel to the fire of my
literary passion. From that day forward not one of those collections of
verses appeared, in which marriages, the entrance of young ladies into
convents, the election of noblemen to offices of state, the deaths of
people, cats, dogs, parrots, and such events, are celebrated in Venice
and other towns of Italy, but that it contained some specimen of my Muse
in grave or playful verse.

Books, paper, pens and ink formed the staple of my existence. I was
always pregnant, always in labour, giving birth to monsters in remote
corners of our mansion. I scribbled furiously, God knows how, up to my
seventeenth year. Besides innumerable essays in prose and multitudes of
fugitive verses, I wrote four long poems, entitled _Berlinghieri_, _Don
Quixote_, _Moral Philosophy_ (based upon the talking animals of
Firenzuola), and _Gonella_ in twelve cantos. The Abbe Verdani took a
fancy to this last, and wished to see it printed. Signor Giulio Cesare
Beccelli, however, had published a poem at Verona on the same subject,
which robbed my work of novelty; and though mine was richer in facts
drawn from good old sources, I did not venture to enter into competition
with him. The three years' absence from home, which I shall presently
relate, and the revolution in our domestic affairs which surprised me on
my return, exposed these boyish literary labours to ruin and
dispersion. It is probable that pork-butchers and fruit-vendors
exercised condign justice on the children of my Muse.




III.

     _The Situation of my Family, and my Reasons for Leaving Home._


In the course of these years, the early deaths of a brother and a sister
had reduced our numbers from eleven to nine. Meanwhile, our annual
expenditure exceeded the resources at our command, and left but little
for the needs of a numerous offspring, too old to be contented with a
toy or plaything. Some lawsuits, which we lost, diminished the estate.
Clouds of doubt and care began to obscure the horizon, and in a few
years the family was plunged in pecuniary embarrassment.

My brother Gasparo had taken a wife in a fit of genial poetical
abstraction. Even poetry has its dangers. This man, who was really
singular in his absolute self-dedication to books, in his indefatigable
labours as an author, and in a certain philosophical temper or
indolence, which made him indifferent to everything which was not
literary, learned to fall in love from Petrarch. A young lady, ten years
older than himself, named Luigia Bergalli,[111] better known among the
shepherdesses of Arcady as Irmenia Partenide, a poetess of romantic
fancy, as her published works evince, was my brother's Laura. Not being
a canon, like Petrarch, he married her in Petrarch's spirit, but with
due legal formalities. This woman, of fervent and soaring imagination,
which fitted her for high poetic flights, undertook to regulate the
disorder in our affairs. Impelled by the instincts of a good nature,
with something of ambition and a flattering belief in her own practical
ability, she did the best that in her lay. Yet all her projects and
administrative measures revolved within a circle of romantic raptures
and Pindaric ecstasies. Thirsting with soul-passion after an ideal
realm, she found herself the sovereign of a state in decadence. It was
the desire of her heart to make us all happy, in the most disinterested
way. Yet she accomplished nothing beyond involving every one, and
herself to boot, in the meshes of still greater misfortune. Her
husband, poring perpetually upon his books, could only oppose her at the
sacrifice of ease and quiet. This he was incapable of doing.--In order
to judge people equitably, it is necessary that character, temperament,
and circumstances should be thoroughly explained.

I know how unphilosophical it is to ascribe the discords of a family to
malignant planetary influences. Our domestic circle consisted of a
father, a mother, four brothers, and five sisters, all of them
good-hearted, honourable, mutually well-inclined; and yet it became the
very mirror of infelicity at every moment and in each of the persons who
composed it. Minute investigation into the causes of this painful fact
would probably reveal them. But it is better to adopt the language of
the vulgar, and to say that a bad star pursued our family. Otherwise,
analysis might lead one into acts of unkindness, and involve one in
hatred.

The confusion in which we lived at that period, and the bitter
discomforts we had to bear, were augmented by expenses due to my
brother's increasing progeny. Our worst disaster, however (and this
wound I carry in my heart even to the present day), was a cruel stroke
of apoplexy which laid my beloved father low. He continued to exist, an
invalid, for about seven years after the sad event; dumb and paralytic,
but in possession of all his mental faculties--a circumstance which
rendered his deplorable condition almost unbearable to a man of my
father's extreme sensibility.

The tears of five sisters, the births of nephews and nieces, a house
swarming with female go-betweens, brokers, and the Hebrew ministers of
our decaying realm--all this whirlpool of economical extravagance and
folly, to utter one word against which was reckoned mutiny or treason,
drove my second brother, Francesco, into exile. He went into the Levant
with the Provveditore Generale di Mare,[112] his Excellency the
Cavaliere Antonio Loredano, of happy memory. At that period I was about
thirteen.

Letters written from Corfu by this brother describing the kindness shown
him by his Provveditore, and the rank of ensign to which he soon
attained, awoke in me a burning desire to escape like him from those
domestic turmoils, the gravity of which I felt in experience and
measured by anticipation, but which my state of boyhood rendered me
unable to remedy. Our uncle on the mother's side, Almoro Cesare Tiepolo,
recommended me to his Excellency Girolamo Quirini, Provveditore Generale
elect for Dalmatia and Albania. Furnished with a modest outfit, in which
my book-box and guitar were not forgotten, I bade farewell to my parents
at the age of seventeen,[113] and went across seas as volunteer into
those provinces, to study the ways and manners of my fellow-soldiers,
and of the peoples among whom we were quartered.


IV.

     _I Embark upon a Galley, and Cross the Seas to Zara._


I was not slow to perceive that I had adopted a career by no means
suited to my character, the proper motto for which was always the
following verse from Berni:

    "Voleva far da se, non commandato."

My natural dislike of changeableness kept me, however, from showing by
outward signs of any sort that I repented of my choice; and I reflected
that abundant opportunities were now at least offered for observations
on the men of a world new to me. This thought sufficed to keep me in
good spirits and a cheerful humour through all the vicissitudes of my
three years' sojourn in Illyria.

According to orders received from his Excellency, the Provveditore
Generale Quirini, I embarked before him on a galley called
_Generalizia_, which was riding at the port of Malamocco. There I was to
wait for his arrival. A band of military officers received me with
glances of courtesy and some curiosity. In a Court where all the members
are seeking fortune, each newcomer is regarded with suspicion. Whether
he has to be reckoned with or may be disregarded on occasions of
promotion, concerns the whole crew of officials, who, like him, are
dependent on the will of the Provveditore. It was perhaps insensibility
which made me indifferent to these preoccupations; this the sequel of my
narrative will show; and yet such thoughts are very wood-worms in the
hearts of courtiers.

I had to swallow a great quantity of questions, to which I replied with
the laconic brevity of an inexperienced lad upon his guard. Some of
those gentlemen had known my brother Francesco at Corfu. When they
discovered who I was, they seemed to be relieved of all anxiety on my
account, and welcomed me with noisy demonstrations of soldierly
comradeship. I expressed my thanks in modest, almost monosyllabic
phrases. They set me down for an awkward young fellow, unobliging, and
proud. This was a mistake, as they freely confessed a few months later
on. I had retired into myself, with the view of studying their
characters and sketching my line of action. The quick and penetrative
intuition with which I was endowed at birth by God, together with the
faculty of imperturbable reserve, enabled me in the course of a few
hours to recognise in that little group some men of noble birth and
liberal culture, some nobles ruined by the worst of educations, and some
plebeians who owed their position to powerful protection.

Gaming, intemperance, and unbridled sensuality were deeply rooted in the
whole company. I laid my plans of conduct, and found them useful in the
future. My intimacies were few, but durable. The vices I have named,
clung like ineradicable cancers to the men with whom I associated. Sound
principles engrafted on me in my early years, regard for health, and the
slenderness of my purse helped me to avoid their seductions. At the same
time, I saw no reason why I should proclaim a crusade against them.
Holding a middle course, I succeeded in winning the affection of my
comrades. They invited me to take part in their orgies. I did not play
the prude. Without yielding myself to the transports of brutal appetite,
I proved the gayest reveller at all those lawless meetings. Some of my
seniors, on whom a career of facile pleasure had left its inevitable
stigma, used to twit me with being a reserved young simpleton. I did
not heed their raillery, but laughed at the inebriation of my comrades,
studied the bent of divers characters, observed the animal brutality of
men, and used our uproarious debauches as a school for fathoming the
depths of human frailty.

Now I will return to the point of my embarkation on the galley
_Generalizia_ in the port of Malamocco. While awaiting the arrival of
the Provveditore, I had two whole days and nights to spend in sad
reflections on humanity. These were suggested by the spectacle of some
three hundred scoundrels, loaded with chains, condemned to drag their
life out in a sea of miseries and torments, each of which was sufficient
by itself to kill a man. An epidemic of malignant fever raged among
these men, carrying away its victims daily from the bread and water, the
irons, and the whips of the slavemasters. Attended in their last passage
by a gaunt black Franciscan friar, with thundering voice and jovial
mien, these wretches took their flight--I hope and think--for Paradise.

[Illustration: THE FRANCISCAN FRIAR ON THE GALLEY

_Original Etching by Ad. Lalauze_]

The Provveditore's arrival amid the din of instruments and roar of
cannon roused me from my dismal reveries. I had visited this gentleman
ten times at least in his own palace, and had always been received with
that playful welcome and confidential sweetness which distinguish the
patricians of Venice. He made his appearance now in crimson--crimson
mantle, cap, and shoes--with an air of haughtiness unknown to me, and
fierceness stamped upon his features. The other officers informed
me that when he donned this uniform of state, he had to be addressed
with profound and silent salaams, different indeed from the reverence
one pays at Venice to a patrician in his civil gown.[114] He boarded the
galley, and seemed to take no notice whatever of the crowd around him,
bowing till their noses rubbed their toes. The affability with which he
touched our hands in Venice had disappeared; he looked at none of us;
and sentenced the young captain of the guard, called Combat, to arrest
in chains, because he had omitted some trifle of the military salute. My
comrades stood dumbfounded, staring at one another with open eyes. This
singular change from friendliness to severity set my brains at work. By
the light of my boyish philosophy I seemed to comprehend why the noble
of a great republic, elected general of an armament[115] and governor of
two wide provinces, on his first appearance in that office, felt bound
to assume a totally different aspect from what was natural to him in his
private capacity. He had to inspire fear and a spirit of submission into
his subordinates. Otherwise they might have taken liberties upon the
strength of former courtesy displayed by him, being for the most part
presumptuous young fellows, apt to boast about their favour with the
general. For my own part, since I was firmly bent on doing my duty
without ambitious plans or dreams of fortune, this formidable attitude
and the harsh commands of the great man made a less disheartening
impression on me than on my companions. I whispered to myself: "He
certainly inspires me with a kind of dread; but he has taken immense
trouble to transform his nature in order to produce this effect; I am
sure the irksomeness which he is suffering now must be greater than any
discomfort he can cause me."

The general retired to his cabin in the bowels of our floating hell, and
sent Lieutenant-Colonel Micheli, his major in the province, to make out
a list of all the officers and volunteers on board, together with the
names of their protectors. Nobody expected this; for we had been
personally presented to the general at Venice, and had explained our
affairs in frequent conversations. Once more I reflected that this was
his way of damping the expectations which might have been bred in
scheming brains before he exchanged the politenesses of private life for
the austerities of office. The Maggiore della Provincia Micheli--a most
excellent person and very fat--bustled about his business, sweating, and
scribbling with a pencil on a sheet of paper, as though the matter was
one of life or death. Everybody began to shy and grumble and chafe with
indignation at passing under review in this way. When my turn came, I
answered frankly that I was called Carlo Gozzi, and that I had been
recommended by the patrician Almoro Cesare Tiepolo. I withheld his title
of senator and the fact that he was my maternal uncle, deeming it
prudent not to seem ambitious.

The _Generalizia_, convoyed by another galley named _Conserva_ and a few
light vessels of war, got under way for the Adriatic;[116] and the night
fell very dark upon the waters. I shall not easily forget that night,
because of a little incident which happened to me, and which shows what
a curious place of refuge a galley is for young men leaving their homes
for the first time. A natural necessity made me seek some corner for
retirement. I was directed to the bowsprit; on approaching it, an
Illyrian sentinel, with scowling visage, bushy whiskers, and levelled
musket, howled his "_Who goes there?_" in a tremendous voice. When he
understood my business, he let me pass. My next step lighted on a soft
and yielding mass, which gave forth a kind of gurgling sound, like the
stifled breath of an asthmatic patient, into the dark silent night.
Retracing my path, I asked the sentinel what the thing was, which
responded with its inarticulate gurgling voice to the pressure of my
feet. He answered with the coldest indifference that it was the corpse
of a galley-slave, who had succumbed to the fever, and had been flung
there till he could be buried on the sea-shore sands in Istria. The hair
on my head bristled with horror. But my happy disposition for seeing the
ludicrous side of things soon came to my assistance.

After twelve days of much discomfort, and twelve noisome nights, passed
in broken slumbers under the decks of that galley, which only too well
deserved its name, our little fleet entered the port of Zara. We went on
shore at first privately and quietly; and after a few days the public
ceremonies of official disembarkation were gone through. The
Provveditore Generale Jacopo Cavalli handed his baton of command over to
the Provveditore Generale Girolamo Quirini with all the formalities
proper to the occasion. This solemnity, which is performed upon the open
sea, to the sound of military music, the thunder of artillery, and the
crackling of musket-shots, deserves to be witnessed by all who take an
interest in imposing spectacles. An old man, fat and short of stature,
with a pair of moustachios bristling up beneath his nostrils, a merry
and most honest fellow to boot, who bore the name of Captain Girolamo
Visinoni, was appointed master of these ceremonies, on account of his
intimate acquaintance with their details. I had no other duty that day
but to wear my best clothes, which did not cost much trouble.


V.

     _I Fall Dangerously Ill; Recover; Form the only Intimate
     Acquaintance I made in Dalmatia._

When the new Regency had been established and the Court settled, I had
but eight days to learn my duties as volunteer or adjutant[117] to his
Excellency, as it is called there, before I fell ill of a fever which
was declared to be malignant. Alone among people whom I hardly knew, at
the commencement of my career, poorly provided with money, and lying in
a wretched room, the windows of which were closed with torn and rotten
paper instead of glass, I could not but compare my present destitution
with the comforts of our home. Here I was battling with a mortal disease
in solitude. There, at the least touch of illness, I enjoyed the tender
solicitude of a sister or a servant at my pillow, to brush away the
flies which settled on my forehead. Fortunately, I was not so strongly
attached to life as to be rendered miserable by unavailing recollections
and gloomy forebodings.

It happened one day, as I lay there burning, that a convict presented
himself at the door of my miserable den, and asked me if I wanted
anything which he could fetch me. He was one of those men who prowl
around the officers' quarters, wrapped in an old blanket with a bit of
rope about the waist, ready to do any dirty business and to pilfer if
they find the opportunity. I gave him a few farthings and told him to
send me a confessor--an errand very different from what he had expected.
Before long a good Dominican appeared, who prepared me to die with the
courage of an ancient Roman. Our modern sages may laugh at this plebeian
wish of mine to make my peace with Heaven; but I have never been able to
dissociate philosophy from religion. Satisfied to remain a little child
before the mysteries of faith, I do not envy wise men in their
disengagement from spiritual terrors.

The chief physician, Danieli, a man of prodigious corpulence and
blackness, who had been sent to my assistance by the Governor, spared no
attentions and no remedies. As usual, they proved unavailing; and he
bade me prepare myself for death by receiving the holy sacrament. I
summoned what remained to me of vital force, and went through this
ceremony with devotion. There seemed to be so little difference between
a sepulchre and the room in which my body lay, that I felt no disgust at
relinquishing my corpse to the grave-diggers. I was now ready for the
last unction, when an attack of hemorrhage from the nostrils, like those
which had already nearly brought me to death's door, recalled me for the
nonce to life. All the ordinary remedies--ligatures, powders, herbs,
astringent plasters, sympathetic stones, muttered charms, old wives'
talismans--were exhibited in vain. After filling two basons with blood,
I lapsed into a profound swoon, which the doctor styled a syncope. To
all appearances I was dead; but the blood stopped; in a quarter of an
hour I revived; and three days afterwards I found myself, weak indeed,
but wholly free from fever and on the road to recovery. My ignorance
could not reconcile this salutary crisis with Danieli's absolute
prohibition of blood-letting in my malady. But I suppose that a score of
learned physicians, each of them upon a different system of hypotheses,
conjectures, well-based calculations, and trains of lucid argument,
would be able to demonstrate the phenomenon to their own satisfaction
and to the illumination or confusion of my stupid brain. Stupendous
indeed are the mental powers which Almighty God has bestowed on men!

The readers of these Memoirs will hardly need to be informed that my
slender purse had nothing in it at the termination of this illness.
Under these painful circumstances I found a cordial and open-hearted
friend in Signor Innocenzio Massimo, nobleman of Padua, and captain of
halbardiers at the Dalmatian Court. This excellent gentleman, of rare
distinction for his mental parts, the quickness of his spirit, his
courage, energy, and honour, was the only intimate friend whom I
possessed during my three years' absence from home. When they were over,
our friendship continued undiminished by lapse of time, distance, and
the various vicissitudes of life. I have enjoyed it through thirty-five
years, and am sure that it will never fail me. Some qualities of his
character have exposed him to enmity; among these I may mention a
particular sensitiveness to affronts, an intolerance of attempts to
deceive him, and a quick perception of fraud, together with a firm
resolve to stem the tide of extravagance and fashionable waste in his
own family. His many virtues, the decent comfort of his household, his
hospitality to friends and acquaintances, his careful provision for the
well-being of his posterity, his benevolence to the poor and afflicted,
his successful efforts as a peacemaker among discordant fellow-citizens,
his expenditure of time and trouble upon all who come to him for advice
or assistance, have not sufficed to disarm the malignity of a vulgar
crowd, corrupted by the false philosophy of our century, which goes from
bad to worse in dissolution and ill manners.




VI.

     _Short Studies in the Science of Fortification and Military
     Exercises.--Some Reflections which will pass for Foolishness._


On the restoration of my health, his Excellency placed me under
Cavaliere Marchiori, Lieutenant-Colonel of Engineers, to learn
mathematics as applied to fortification. This gentleman sent for me, and
said that he had heard from my uncle of my aptitude for study, adding
that the subject he proposed to teach me was of the greatest consequence
to a soldier. I perceived at once that I was being treated on a
different footing from the other volunteers, and that the studied
forgetfulness of the Provveditore had been, as I suspected, a politic
device to humble ambitious schemers. I thanked Signor Marchiori, and
followed his instructions with pleasure, without however abandoning my
own interest in literature.

He questioned me regarding my knowledge of arithmetic, which was only
elementary; and when I saw that I must master it, in order to pursue the
higher branch of study, I gave my whole head to the business. In the
space of a month, I could cipher like a money-lender, and was ready to
receive my master's teaching. My friend Massimo possessed a good
collection of instruments for engineering draughtsmanship, and a
library of French works on geometry, mathematics, and fortification,
both of which he placed at my disposal. Signor Marchiori's lectures,
long discussions with Signor Massimo, perusal of Euclid, Archimedes, and
the French books, soon plunged me in the lore of points and lines and
calculations. I burned with the enthusiasm, droll enough to my way of
looking at the world, which inspires all students of this science. Yet I
did not, like them, regard moral philosophy and humane literature as
insignificant frivolities. I bore in mind for what good reasons the
Emperor Vespasian dismissed the mathematicians who offered their
assistance in the building of his Roman edifices. I knew that
innumerable vessels, fabricated on the principles of science, have
perished miserably in the tempests; that hundreds of fortresses, built
by science, have been destroyed and captured by the same science; that
inundations are continually sweeping away the <DW18>s erected by science,
to the ruin of thousands of families, and that the inundations
themselves are attributable to the admired masterpieces of science
bequeathed to us by former generations; that, in spite of science and
her creative energy, the buildings she erects are not secured from
earthquakes, conflagrations, and the thunderbolt. It remains to be seen
whether Professor Toaldo's lightning-conductors will prove effectual
against the last of these disasters. Then I reckoned up the blessings
and curses which this vaunted science has conferred on humanity,
arriving at the conclusion that the harm which she has done infinitely
exceeds the good. I shuddered at the hundreds of thousands of human
beings ingeniously massacred in war or drowned at sea by her devices;
and took more pleasure in consulting my watch, her wise invention, for
the dinner-hour than at the hour of keeping an appointment with my
lawyer. Without denying the utility of sciences, I stuck resolutely to
the opinion that moral philosophy is of more importance to the human
race than mechanical inventions, and deplored the pernicious influence
of modern Lyceums and Polytechnic schools upon the mind of Europe.

Signor Massimo and I kept house together in a little dwelling on the
city walls, facing the sea. The sun, in his daily revolutions, struck
this habitation on every side; and there was not an open space of wall
or window-sill without its dial, fabricated by my skill, and adorned
with appropriate but useless mottoes on the flight of time. A lieutenant
named Giovanni Apergi, upright and pious, especially when the gout he
had acquired in the world's pleasures made him turn his thoughts to
Heaven, gave me friendly lessons in military drill. I soon learned to
handle my musket, pike, and ensign; and sweated a shirt daily, fencing
with Massimo, who was ferociously expert in that fiendish but
gentlemanly art. We also spent some hours together over a great
chessboard of his, covered with wooden soldiers, which we moved from
square to square, forming squadrons, and studying the combinations which
enable armies to kill with prodigality and to be killed with
parsimony,--fitting ourselves, in short, for manuring cemeteries in the
most approved style.

I was already half a soldier, and meant to make myself perfect in my
profession; not, however, without a firm resolve to quit the army[118]
at the expiration of my three years' service. Twelve months spent in
studying my comrades convinced me that, though some worthy fellows might
be found among them, their society as a whole was uncongenial to my
tastes. I had neither the ambition nor the greed of gain which might
have sapped this resolution; and my persistence during the appointed
time was mainly due to a dislike of seeming fickle. I wanted to gain the
respect of my relatives, whom I hoped to help one day with my counsel,
my credit, and the example of my perseverance.

After eight months spent in the study of fortification, I lost my poor
master. He died suddenly of a fit of spleen a few days after winning his
company in a regiment called Lagarde. This promotion he obtained by
competition; and some insulting words dropped upon the occasion, which
he was unable to resent, caused his mortal illness. Every one deplored
the death of Marchiori; but no one more than I did. His goodness,
sweetness, affability, and friendly patience left a powerful impression
on my memory. Gradually my interest in geometry declined, and I resumed
my former studies with fresh ardour, attending meanwhile to my military
duties, and waiting philosophically till the three years should be over.




VII.

     _This Chapter proves that Poetry is not as useless as people
     commonly imagine._


I am bound to confess that my weakness for poetry and Italian literature
was great. In the Venetian service, and particularly in Dalmatia, there
were very few indeed who shared these tastes. I wrote and read my
compositions to myself, without seeking the applause of an audience or
boring my neighbours with things they do not care for, as is the wont of
most scribblers.

The secretary of the Generalate, Signor Giovanni Colombo, took some
interest in literature. I may mention, by the way, that he afterwards
rose to high dignity, which involved a calamity for him, sweetened,
however, by a splendid funeral; in other words, he died Grand Chancellor
of our most serene Republic.[119] This man, of gentle spirit and jovial
temper, knowing the epidemic of poetry which possessed the Gozzi family,
encouraged me to read him some of my trifles, and seemed to take
pleasure in listening to them. He owned a small but well-chosen library,
which he courteously allowed me to use. My verses, satirical for the
most part and descriptive of characters--without scurrility indeed,
though based on accurate observation of both sexes--were communicated to
him and Massimo alone.

The town of Zara was bent on testifying its respect for our Provveditore
Generale Quirini by a grand public display. A large hall of wood was
accordingly erected on the open space before the fort, and hung with
fine damask. Tickets of invitation were then distributed to various
persons, who were to compose an Academy upon the day of the solemnity.
Every academician had to recite two compositions in prose or verse, as
he thought fit. The subjects were set forth on the tickets, and were as
follows:--First, Is a prince who preserves, defends, and improves his
dominions in peace, more praiseworthy than one who seeks to extend them
by force of arms? The second was to be a panegyric of the Provveditore
Generale. An old nobleman of Zara, named Giovanni Pellegrini, was chosen
to preside in the Academy and to dispense the invitations. He wore a
black velvet suit and a huge blonde wig, done up into knotted curls, and
possessed a fund of eloquence in the style of Father Casimir
Frescot.[120]

I did not receive an invitation, which proves either that I was an
amateur of poetry unknown to fame, or that Signor Pellegrini, in his
gravity and wisdom, judged me a mere boy, unworthy of consideration in
an enterprise which he treated with true Illyrico-Italian seriousness.
Signor Colombo and my friend Massimo urged me to prepare two
compositions on the published themes; but I reminded them that I had no
right to appear uninvited. Nevertheless, I amused myself by scribbling a
couple of sonnets, which I consigned to the bottom of my pocket. As may
be imagined, I defended peace in the one, and did my best to belaud his
Excellency in the other.

The Provveditore Generale, attended by his officers and by the magnates
of the city, entered the temporary hall, and took his seat upon a rich
fauteuil raised many steps above the ground. A covey of literary
celebrities, collected Heaven knows where, ranged their learned backs
along a row of chairs, which formed a semicircle round him.

Strolling outside the damasked tabernacle, I saw some servants who were
preparing beverages and refreshments with a mighty bustle. I was
thirsty, and thought I should not be committing a crime if I asked one
of them for a lemonade. He replied that express orders had been given
not to quench the thirst of anybody who was not a member of the Academy.
This discourteous rebuff, repeated to the _sitio_ of several officers,
raised a spirit of silent revolt among us. I resolved to put a bold face
on the matter, and to proclaim myself an academician, thinking that the
title of poet might win for me the lemonade which was denied to the
dignity and the weapons of an officer.

This little incident confirmed my opinion of the usefulness of poetry
against the universal judgment which regards it as an inutility. Poetry
stood me in good stead by procuring me a lemonade and saving me from
dying of thirst. Having swallowed the beverage, I proceeded to one of
the seats in the assembly, exciting some surprise among its members, who
were, however, kind enough to tolerate my presence. For three whole
hours the air resounded with long inflated erudite orations and poems
not remarkable for sweetness. A yawn from the General now and then did
honour to the Academy and the academicians. I must in justice say that
some tolerable compositions, superior to what I had expected, struck my
ears. A young abbe in holy orders gushed with poetic eloquence. I have
heard that he is now become a bishop. Who knows whether poetry was not
as serviceable to him in the matter of his mitre, as she was to me in
the matter of my lemonade!

I declaimed my sonnets in their turn; the second of which, by Apollo's
blessing, pleased his Excellency, and consequently was received with
general approval. It established my reputation among the folk of Zara,
and led to a comic scene two days later. The Provveditore Generale was
in the habit of riding in the cool some four or five miles outside the
city; a troop of officers galloped at his heels, and I galloped with
them. While we were amusing ourselves in this way, his Excellency took a
fancy to hear my sonnet over again; for it had now become famous, as
often happens with trifles, which go the round of society upon the
strength of adventitious circumstances. He called me loudly. I put spurs
to my horse, while he, still galloping, ordered me to recite. I do not
think a sonnet was ever declaimed in like manner since the creation of
the world. Galloping after the great man, and almost bursting my lungs
in the effort to make myself heard, with all the trills, gasps,
cadences, semitones, clippings of words, and dissonances, which the
movement of a horse at full speed could occasion, I recited the sonnet
in a storm of sobs and sighs, and blessed my stars when I had pumped
out the fourteenth line. Knowing the temper of the General, who was
haughty and formidable in matters of importance, but sometimes whimsical
in his diversions, I thought at the time that he must have been seeking
a motive for laughter. And indeed, I believe this was the case. Anyhow,
he can only have been deceived if he hoped to laugh more at the affair
than I did. Yet I was rather afraid of becoming a laughing-stock to my
riding-companions also. Foolish fear! These honest fellows, like true
courtiers, vied with each other in congratulating me upon the partiality
of his Excellency and the honour he had done me. They were even jealous
of a burlesque scene in which I played the buffoon, and sorry that they
had not enjoyed the luck of performing it themselves.




VIII.

     _Confirmation of a hint I gave in the Second Chapter of these
     Memoirs relating to a great danger which I ran._


I related in the second chapter of this book that I once owed my life to
a trick taught me by a jockey. The incident happened during one of our
cavalcades with the Provveditore Generale.

At the hour appointed for riding out, all the officers of the Court sent
their saddles and bridles to the General's stables, and each of us
mounted the animal which happened to be harnessed with his own gear. Now
the Bashaw of Bosnia had presented the governor with a certain Turkish
stallion, finely made, but so vicious that no one liked to back the
brute. One day I noticed that the grooms had saddled this untamable Turk
for me. Who knows what motives determine the acts of stable-boys? I am
not accustomed to be easily dismayed; besides, I had ridden many
dangerous horses in my time, and this was not the minute to show the
white feather before a crowd of soldiers. I leapt upon the animal like
an antique paladin, without looking to see whether the bit and trappings
were in order. Our troops started; but my Bucephalus reared, whirled
round in the air, and bolted toward his stable, which lay below the
ramparts. Pulling and working at the reins had no effect upon the brute;
and when I bent down to discover the cause, I found that the bit had not
been fastened, either through the negligence or the malice of the
grooms.

Rushing at the mercy of this demon through the narrow streets and low
doors of the city, I began to reflect that I was not likely to reach the
stables with my head upon my shoulders. Then I remembered the jockey's
advice, and rising in my stirrups, leaned forwards, and stuck my fingers
into the two eyes of the stallion. Suddenly deprived of sight, and not
knowing whither he was going, he dashed furiously up against a wall,
and fell all of a heap beneath me. I leapt to earth with the agility of
a practised rider, and made the Turk get up; he was trembling like a
leaf, while I with shaky fingers fastened the bit firmly; then I mounted
again, and rejoined my company among the shouts of applause which always
greet dare-devil escapades of this kind. The middle finger of my left
hand had been flayed by striking against the wall. I still bear the scar
of this glorious wound.




IX.

     _Little incidents, trifling observations, moral reflections of no
     value, gossip which is sure to make the reader yawn._


Our forces had little to occupy them in those provinces, so that my
sonnet in praise of peace exactly fitted. Some interesting incidents,
and several journeys which I undertook, furnished me, however, with
abundant matter for reflection. I shall here indulge myself by setting
down a few observations which occur to my memory.

The regular troops which garrison the fortresses of Dalmatia had been
recalled to Italy, in order to defend the neutrality of Venice during
the wars which then prevailed among her neighbours. In these
circumstances the Senate commissioned our Provveditore Generale to levy
new forces from the subject tribes, not only for maintaining the
military establishment of Dalmatia, but also for drafting a large number
of Morlacchi[121] into Italy. It was a matter of no difficulty to enrol
garrisons for the Illyrian fortresses; but the exportation of the
Morlacchi cost his Excellency the greatest trouble. These ruffianly wild
beasts, wholly destitute of education, are aware that they are subjects
of Venice; yet their firm resolve is to indulge lawless instincts for
robbery and murder as they list, refusing obedience in all things which
do not suit their inclinations. To reason with them is the same as
talking in a whisper to the deaf. They simply resisted the command to
form themselves into a troop and leave their lairs for Italy.

Their chiefs, who were educated men, brave and loyal to their prince,
strained every nerve to carry out these orders. It was found needful to
recall the bandits, who swarm throughout those regions, outlawed for
every sort of crime--robberies, homicides, arson, and such-like acts of
heroism. Bribes too were offered of bounties and advanced pay, in order
to induce the wild and stubborn peasants to cross the seas. I was
present at the review of these Anthropophagi; for indeed they hardly
merited a more civilised title. It took place on the beach of Zara under
the eyes of the Provveditore, with ships under sail, ready for the
embarkation of the conscripts. Pair by pair, they came up and received
their stipend; upon which they expressed their joy by howling out some
barbarous chant, and dancing off together with uncouth gambols to the
transport ships. I revered God's handiwork in these savages while
deploring their bad education, and felt a passing wish to explore the
Eden of eternal beatitude in which the Morlacchi dwell.

It is certain that the Italian cities under our benign government were
more disturbed than guarded by these brutal creatures. At Verona, in
particular, they indulged their appetite for thieving, murdering,
brawling, and defying discipline, without the least regard for orders.
At the close of a few months, they had to be sent back to their caves,
in order to deliver the Veneto from an unbearable incubus. Even at the
outset, their spirit of insubordination let itself be felt. Scarcely had
the transports sailed, when the sight of the Illyrian mountains made
them burn to leap on shore. The seamen did their best to restrain the
unruly crew; but finding that they ran a risk of being cut in pieces,
they finally unbarred the pens before this indomitable flock of rams.

What I am now writing may seem to have little to do with the narrative
of my own life, and may look as though I wished to calumniate the
natives of Dalmatia. The rulers of those territories will, however, bear
me out in the following remarks. I have visited all the fortresses,
many districts, and many villages of the two provinces. In some of the
cities I found well-educated people, trustworthy, cordial, and liberal
in sentiment. In places far removed from the Provveditore Generale's
Court the manners of the population are incredibly rough. All the
peasants may be described as cruel, superstitious, and irrational wild
beasts. In their marriages, their funerals, their games, they preserve
the customs of pagan antiquity. Reading Homer and Virgil gives a perfect
conception of the Morlacchi. They hire a troop of women to lament over
their dead. These professional mourners shriek by turns, relieving one
another when voice and throat have been exhausted by dismal wailings
tuned to a music which inspires terror. One of their pastimes is to
balance a heavy piece of marble on the lifted palm of the right hand,
and hurl it after taking a running jump. The fellow who projects this
missile in a straight line to the greatest distance, wins. One is
reminded of the enormous boulders hurled by Diomede and Turnus.

In their mountain homes the Morlacchi are fine fellows, useful to the
State of Venice on occasions of war with the Turks, their neighbours,
whom they cordially detest. The inhabitants of the coast make bold
seamen, apt for fighting on the waters. Toward Montenegro the tribes
become even more like savages. Families, who have been accustomed for
some generations to die peaceably in their beds or kennels, and cannot
boast of a fair number of murdered ancestors, are looked down upon by
the rest. On the beach outside the city walls of Budua, for which these
men and brothers leave their hills in summer-time to taste the coolness
of sea-breezes, I have witnessed their exploits with the musket and have
seen three corpses stretched upon the sands. A member of one of the
pacific families I have described, being taunted by some comrade, burned
to wipe out the shame of his kindred, and opened a glorious chapter in
their annals by slaughtering and being slaughtered. Fierce battles and
armed encounters between village and village are frequent enough in
those parts. The men of one village who kill a man of the next village,
have no peace unless they pay a hundred sequins or discharge their debt
by the death of one of their own folk. Such is the current tariff, fixed
without consulting their sovereign, among these people, who regard
brutality as justice. I learned much about these traits of human nature
from a village priest of Montenegro, who conversed with me nearly every
day upon the beach at Budua. He talked a strange Italian jargon,
narrated the homicides of his flock with complacency, and let it be
understood that a gun was better suited to his handling than the vessels
of the sanctuary.

The thirst for vengeance is never slaked there. It passes from heir to
heir like an estate in tail. Among the Morlacchi, who are less
bloodthirsty than the Montenegrins, I once saw a woman of some fifty
years fling herself at the feet of the Provveditore Generale, extract a
mummied head from a game-bag, and cast it on the ground before him,
weeping as though her heart would burst, and calling aloud for pity and
justice. For thirty years she had preserved this skull, the skull of her
mother, who had been murdered. The assassins had long ago been brought
to justice, but their punishment was insufficient to lay the demon of
ferocity in this affectionate daughter. Accordingly, she presented
herself indefatigably through a course of thirty years before each of
the successive Provveditori Generali, with the same maternal skull in
her game-bag, with the same shrieks and tears and cries for justice.

I liked seeing the Montenegrin women. They clothe themselves in black
woollen stuffs after a fashion which was certainly not invented by
coquetry. Their hair is parted, and falls over their cheeks on either
shoulder, thickly plastered with butter, so as to form a kind of large
shiny bonnet. They bear the burden of the hard work of the field and
household. The wives are little better than slaves of the men. They
kneel and kiss the men's hands whenever they meet; and yet they seem to
be contented with their lot. Perhaps it would not be amiss if some
Montenegrins came to Italy and changed our fashions with regard to
women; for ours are somewhat too marked in the contrary direction.

Climate renders both the men and women of those provinces extremely
prone to sensuality. Legislators, recognising the impossibility of
controlling lawless lust here, have fixed the fine for seduction of a
girl with violence at a trifle above the sum which a libertine in Venice
bestows on the purveyor of his venal pleasures. At the period of my
residence in Dalmatia, the cities retained something of antique
austerity. This did not, however, prevent the fair sex from conducting
intrigues by stealth. It is possible that, since those days, enlightened
and philosophical Italians, composing the courts of successive
Provveditori Generali, may have removed the last obstacles of prejudice
which gave a spice of danger to love-making.

In Dalmatia the women are handsome, inclining for the most part toward a
masculine robustness; among the Morlacchi of the villages, a Pygmalion
who chose to expend some bushels of sand in polishing the fair sex up,
would obtain fine breathing statues for his pains. These women of
Illyria are less constant in their love than those of Italy; but merit
less blame for their infidelity than the latter. The Illyrian is blinded
and constrained by her fervent temperament, by the climate, by poverty
and credulity; the Italian errs through ambition, avarice, and caprice.
I consider myself qualified for speaking with decision on these points,
as will appear from the chapter I intend to write upon the
love-adventures of my youth.

The land of those provinces is in great measure mountainous, stony, and
barren. There are, however, large districts of plain which might be
extremely fertile. Neither the sterile nor the fertile regions are under
cultivation, but remain for the most part fallow and unfruitful. Onions
and garlic constitute the favourite delicacies of the Morlacchi. The
annual consumption of these vegetables is enormous; and it would not be
difficult to raise a large supply of both at home. They insist, however,
on importing them from Romagna; and when one takes the peasants to task
for this sluggish indifference to their own interests, they reply that
their ancestors never planted onions, and that they have no mind to
change their customs. I often questioned educated inhabitants of those
regions upon the indolence and sloth which prevail in rural Dalmatia.
The answer I received was that nobody, without exposing his life to
peril, could make the Morlacchi do more than they chose to do, or
introduce the least reform into their agriculture. I observed that the
proprietors might always import Italian labour and turn those fertile
plains into a second Apulia. This remark was met with bursts of
laughter; and when I asked the reason, my informants told me that many
Dalmatian gentlemen had brought Italian peasants over, but that a few
days after their arrival, they were found murdered in the fields,
without the assassins having ever been detected. I perceived that my
project was impracticable. Yet I wondered at my friends laughing rather
than shedding tears, when they gave me these convincing answers.

It is a pity that Illyria and Dalmatia cannot be rendered fertile and
profitable to the State. As it is, they cost our treasury more than they
yield, through the expenses incidental to their forming our frontier
against Turkey. But I never made it my business to meddle in affairs of
public policy; and perhaps there are good reasons why these provinces
should be left to their sterility. The opinion I have continually
maintained and published, that we ought to begin by cultivating heads
and hearts, has raised a swarm of hostile projectors against me. Such
men take the truths of the gospel for biting satires, if they detect the
least shadow of opposition to their views regarding personal interest,
personal ambition, or particular prejudice. Yet the real miseries which
I noticed in Dalmatia, the wretched pittance which proprietors draw from
their estates, and the dishonesty of the peasants, suffice to
demonstrate my principles of moral education beyond the possibility of
contradiction.

During my three years in Dalmatia I used to eat superb game and
magnificent fish for a mere nothing; often against my inclination, and
only because the opportunity could not be neglected. When you are in
want of something, you rarely find it there. The fishermen, who live
upon the rocky islands,[122] ply their trade when it pleases them. They
take no thought for fasts, and sell fish for the most part on days when
flesh is eaten. The fish too is brought to market stuffed into sacks. I
could multiply these observations; but let what I have already said
suffice. It is my firm opinion that the economists of our century are at
fault when they propose material improvements and indulge in visions of
opulence and gain, without considering moral education. Wealth is now
regarded by the indigent with eyes of envy and the passions of a pirate;
rich people act as though they knew not what it was to possess wealth,
and make a shameless abuse of it in practice. The one class need to
learn temperance, moderation, and obedience to duty; the other ought to
be trained to reason and subordination. The sages of the present day
entertain very different views from these. In their eyes nothing but
material interest has any value; and instead of deploring bad morals and
manners, they seem to glory in them.




X.

     _I am enrolled in the Cavalry of the Republic.--What my military
     services amounted to._


Some fifteen months of my three years' service had elapsed, when the
recall of our regular troops and the enrolment of fresh forces in
Dalmatia, which have been described by me above, took place. I have now
to mention that the Provveditore Generale chose this moment for placing
me upon the roll of the Venetian service.

He had me inscribed as a cadet noble[123] of cavalry. Accordingly I
blossomed out into a proper soldier at the age of about eighteen. Signor
Giorgio Barbarigo, the paymaster,[124] a short, fat, honest fellow,
informed me that my commission was registered, and that I was qualified
to draw the salary of thirty-eight lire in good Venetian coin monthly at
his office. The news surprised me, and I went at once to pay my
acknowledgments to his Excellency.

He told me that, nearly all the regular troops having been recalled to
Italy, he saw no prospect of awarding me a higher rank during the term
of his administration, a considerable part of which had already
elapsed. To this he added some ironical remarks to the following
effect--"Although, indeed, I do not think you mean to follow a military
career, having observed from many points in your behaviour that you are
rather inclined to assume the clerical habit." I chose to interpret the
irony of my chief to my advantage, and answered cheerfully that although
I felt little inclination for the military profession, nothing would
ever induce me to become an ecclesiastic; meanwhile I was glad to have
studied human nature as one finds it in an army and in those provinces;
above all things, I recognised the advantage of having been allowed to
serve his Excellency during the three years of his office. I perceived
that this reply had not been unacceptable, and retired after making the
regulation bow.

I discharged my military duties with punctuality; and if my courage had
been put to the test, I feel sure that I should have faced death with
romantic enthusiasm. Yet I cannot boast of having earned my monthly pay
by any particular services. In addition to the daily and nightly routine
of discipline, I attended his Excellency upon visits of inspection by
sea and land to the various fortified places of the territory. When the
plague broke out, I spoiled my shirts and ruffles in fumigating the mass
of correspondence which used to reach the Provveditore Generale from
infected villages. I delivered sentences of arrest by word of mouth to
Venetian patricians, noblemen, and officers--always much against the
grain. I lay, together with several of my comrades, under arrest on a
false charge of malpractice, and owed my liberation after a few hours to
the intercession of a gentle lady of the Veniero family. While
enumerating these martial deserts, I ought not perhaps to include the
sufferings endured upon my journeys, whether riding the worst of nags
under a fierce sun and sleeping in jackboots upon the open fields, or
rocking at sea all night aboard some galley on a coil of cable, half
devoured by myriads of bugs. Great as these sufferings were, I must
admit that I endured greater in the disorderly garrison amusements which
I joined of my own accord. Some account of these I intend to give in
another chapter.

It will be observed that my services to the State were but slender. Yet
many men have gained promotion or a pension on the strength of nothing
better. And now I think upon it, I will mention one notable achievement,
which, though it be not martial, might have put some other soldier
laddie in the way of rising to his colonelcy. I hardly expect to be
believed, but I am telling the truth, when I affirm that I acquired
renown throughout Dalmatia as a _soubrette_ in improvised comedy upon
the boards of a theatre.




XI.

     _My theatrical talents; athletic exercises; imprudences of all
     kinds; dangers to which I exposed myself; with reflections which
     are always frivolous._


All through the carnival, tragedies, dramas and comedies used to be
performed by amateurs in the Court-theatre, for the amusement of his
Excellency, the patricians on the civil staff, officers of the garrison,
and the good folk of Zara.[125]

Our troop was composed exclusively of male actors, as is the case in
general with unprofessional theatres; and young men, dressed like women,
played the female parts. I was selected to represent the _soubrette_.

On weighing the tastes of my audience, and taking into account the
nation for whom I was to act, I invented a wholly new kind of character.
I had myself dressed like a Dalmatian servant-girl, with hair divided at
the temples, and done up with rose- ribbands. My costume
corresponded at all points to that of a coquettish housemaid of
Sebenico. I discarded the Tuscan dialect, which is spoken by the
_soubrettes_ of our theatres in Italy, and having learned Illyrian
pretty well by this time, I devised for my particular use a jargon of
Venetian, altering the pronunciation and interspersing various Illyrian
phrases. This produced a very humorous effect, and lent itself both in
dialogue and improvised soliloquies to the expression of sentiments in
keeping with my part. Courage and loquacity were always at my service;
after studying the plot of a comedy, which had to be performed
extempore, I never found my readiness of wit at fault. Accordingly, the
new and unexpected type of the _soubrette_ which I invented was welcomed
with enthusiasm alike by Italians and natives. It created a _furore_ in
my audience, and won for me universal sympathy.

My sketches of Dalmatian manners studied from the life, my satirical
repartees to the mistresses I served, my piquant sallies upon incidents
which formed the talk of town and garrison, my ostentatious modesty, my
snubs to impertinent admirers, my reflections and my lamentations, made
the Provveditore Generale and the whole audience declare with tears of
laughter running down their cheeks that I was the wittiest and most
humourous _soubrette_ who ever trod the boards of a theatre. They often
bespoke improvised comedies, in order to enjoy the amusing chatter and
Illyrico-Italian jargon of Luce; for I ought to add that I adopted this
name, which is the same as our Lucia, instead of Smeraldina, Corallina,
or Colombina.

Ladies in plenty were eager to know the young man who played Luce with
such diablerie and ready wit upon the stage. But when they met him face
to face in society, his reserve and taciturnity were so unlike the
sprightliness of his assumed character, that they fairly lost their
temper. Now that I am well stricken in years, I recognise that their
disappointment was anything but a misfortune for me. The conduct of
those few who concealed their feelings and pretended that my
self-control and seriousness had charms to win their heart, justifies
this moral reflection. Meanwhile my talent for comedy relieved me of all
military duties so long as carnival lasted. Each year, at the
commencement of this season, the Provveditore Generale sent for me, and
affably requested me to devote my time and energy to his amusement in
the Court-theatre.

During summer he set the fashion of pallone-playing, which had hitherto
been unknown at Zara.[126] I had made myself an adept in this game at
our Friulian country-seat. Accordingly his Excellency urged me to
display my accomplishments for the entertainment of the public. In a
short time my seductive costume of fine white linen, with a waistband of
black satin and fluttering ribands, cut a prominent figure among the
competitors in this noble sport. My turn for study, literary talent,
grave demeanour, and seriousness of character made far less impression
on the fair sex than my successes on the stage and the pallone-ground.
It was these and these alone which put my chastity to the test and
conquered it, as will appear in the chapter on my love-adventures. I
might here indulge in a digression hardly flattering to women. But I
prefer to congratulate them on their emancipation from the ideality of
Petrarch's age. Now they are at liberty to float voluptuously on the
tide of tender and electrical emotions, in company with youths congenial
to their instincts, who have abandoned tedious studies for occupations
hardly more exacting than a game at ball or the impersonation of a
waiting-maid.

The truth of history compels me to touch upon some incidents which put
my boyish courage to the proof; yet I must confess that my deeds of
daring in Dalmatia were nothing better than mad and brainless acts of
folly. While recording them, I dare hardly hope--although I should
sincerely like to do so--that they will prove useful to parents by
exposing the kind of life which young men lead on foreign service, or to
sons by pointing out the errors of my ways.

We had no war on hand, and our valour was obliged to find a vent for
itself. I should have passed for a poltroon if I had not joined the
amusements and adventures of my comrades. These consisted for the most
part in frantic gambling, serenading houses which returned our serenades
with gunshots, entertaining women of the town at balls and
supper-parties, brawling in the streets at night, disguising ourselves
to frighten people, and breaking the slumbers of the good folk of the
towns and fortresses where the Court happened to be fixed. I remember
that one summer night in the city of Spalato, eight or ten of us dressed
up for the latter purpose. Each man put on a couple of shirts, thrusting
his legs through the sleeves of one and his arms through the other, with
a big white bonnet on his head and a pole in his hand. Thus attired, we
scoured the town like spectres from the other world, knocking at doors,
uttering horrid shrieks to rouse the population, and striking terror
into the breasts of women and children. Now it is the custom there to
leave the stable-doors open, because of the great heat at night.
Accordingly we undid the halters of some fifty horses, and drove them
before us, clattering our staves upon the pavement. The din was
infernal. Folk leaped from their beds, thinking that the Turks had made
a raid upon the town, and crying from their windows: "Who the devil are
you? Who goes there? Who goes there?" They screamed to the deaf, while
we went clattering and driving on. In the morning the whole city was in
an uproar, discussing last night's prodigy and skurrying about to catch
the frightened animals.

My guitar-playing accomplishments made me indispensable in these
dare-devil escapades of hair-brained boys, which by some miracle never
seemed to reach the Provveditore Generale's ears. Had they done so, I
suppose they would have been punished, as they deserved; for he was a
man who knew how to maintain discipline. The Italians and Illyrians do
not dwell together without a certain half-concealed antipathy. This
leads to frequent trials of strength and valour, in which the Italians
are most to blame. They insult the natives and pick quarrels with a
people famous for their daring and ferocity. The courage displayed in
maintaining these quarrels and facing their attendant dangers deserves
the name of folly rather than of bravery. After stating this truth, to
which indeed I was never blind, I dare affirm that no one met
musket-shots and menaces with a bolder front than I did. Physicians
versed in the anatomy of the human frame may be able to explain my
constitutional imperturbability under all circumstances of peril. I am
content to account for it as sheer stupidity.

We were at Budua, toward Montenegro, my friend Massimo and I. In this
city women are guarded with a watchful jealousy of which Italians have
no notion; while homicides occur with facility and frequency. Massimo
began a gallant correspondence from the window of our lodging with a
girl who was our neighbour. She belonged to one of the noblest families
of the place, and was engaged to a gentleman of the city. Nevertheless,
she returned my friend's advances with the eagerness of one who has been
kept in slavery. I must add that the future bridegroom obtained some
inkling of this aerial intrigue. He was a rough Illyrian of no breeding.
One morning this fellow opened conversation with us officers in a little
square, where we were seated together on stone benches. With much
circumlocution and a kind of awkward sprightliness, addressing himself
to Massimo, and smiling half-sourly and half-sillily, he expressed his
own stupid contempt for Italian customs with regard to women. The long
and the short of this involved discourse was simply that all the men in
Italy were cuckolds, and all the women no better than they should be.
Massimo took care not to emphasise the meaning of the fellow's
innuendoes, which would have called for blood and vengeance; but
contented himself with bluntly defending our social institutions. In the
course of his argument he proved that the barbarity and tyranny of men
toward women, who are always sharp of wit and full of cleverness in
every climate, caused more of immorality and intrigue in Illyria than
freedom of intercourse between the sexes caused in Italy. To my mind,
he spoke what was partly true and partly false; for it cannot be
maintained that the facilitation and toleration of licentiousness remove
it from our midst. The Illyrian, however, lacked eloquence, and felt ill
at ease in carrying on a wordy warfare. So he did not attempt to confute
Massimo; but rolled his head and knit his brows, and told him that he
might soon be taught at his own cost how badly the Italians conduct
themselves in this respect.

Nothing more was wanted in the way of challenge to set us Italians on
our mettle. A trifle of this sort turned us at once into knights-errant,
championing our nation's cause among half-savages, who murder men with
the same indifference as they kill quails or fig-peckers. Massimo turned
to me and said that, when night fell, I must take my guitar and follow
him. Obeying the rash romantic impulse of my heart, I replied that
nothing should prevent me from attending on him. The other Italians who
were present at this interview, with more prudence than ourselves,
affected to hear nothing.

It happened that a young Florentine named Steffano Torri was at this
time clerk in the secretary's office of the Generalato. He played female
parts in our comedies and tragedies with much ability, and sang like a
nightingale. In order to give our nocturnal enterprise the character of
a serenade--a thing quite alien to the customs of that district--Massimo
invited this poor lad to warble, without informing him of what, had
happened. He was only too glad to let his fine voice be heard; and being
besides an obliging creature, he gave his promise on the spot.

[Illustration: IL CAPITANO (1668)

_Illustrating the Italian Commedia dell'Arte, or Impromptu Comedy._]

Night came. It was September; the season warm, and the moon shining
brightly. We girt our swords, stuck a brace of pistols in our belts, and
took up our station in the principal street, which was long and
straight, beneath the windows of Massimo's Dulcinea. Torri sent melody
after melody forth into the silent air, while I twanged my
guitar-strings for a good hour's space. Suddenly a window, belonging to
the mansion we were honouring with our duet, flew violently open. A
great black head appeared, from which there issued a hoarse voice like
that of Charon in Dante's Inferno. "What insolence!" it uttered with a
bad Italian accent. We knew that the huge skull was consecrate, and
belonged to a certain Canon, uncle of the girl. But something more was
needed than the big bovine voice of an ecclesiastic to disturb our
tranquillity. Torri, however, being a civilian and no soldier, began to
be aware that his melodious airs were out of place. The prudence which
is born of fear made him reflect upon the situation, and he asked leave
to retire. We persuaded him to stay awhile, pointing out that the street
was public, that our amusement was lawful and innocuous, and that it
conferred an honour on our nation. He resumed his singing; but from this
moment the melodies had a certain quaver in them, which the composer had
not calculated. The first assault by the Canon was sustained and
repulsed; for after roaring out "What insolence!" three or four times,
he shut the window in our faces with a crash.

The second attack upon our obstinacy was something very different and
far more formidable than a priest's voice, however horrible. It
effectually shut the mouth up of our young musician. By the light of the
moon we could discern six men at a distance entering the street with six
lowered and gleaming muskets; the cowls of their cloaks concealed their
faces, and they advanced at a slow pace toward us. At this apparition
our musician took to his heels, and did not stop running till he reached
his lodging. Massimo and I stood our ground like Orlando and Rodomonte.
I went on playing; my friend, to keep the singing up, howled out some
rustic ditties in a bold voice, which was however, I am bound to say,
even less agreeable than the Canon's. His discords were enough to cast
eternal shame upon Italian music; and if the young lady heard them, they
must have frightened her out of her wits instead of giving her the
pleasure of a serenade.

Observing our determination to stand firm, the six cowled men advanced
to within twenty paces. We heard the click of their six gunlocks, as
they cocked them, ready to give fire. At this point our intrepidity
deserved no other name than madness; it called for the lancet,
hellebore, strait-jackets, a good drubbing. Without budging an inch, we
raised our pistols at the muffled band. They looked at us, we looked at
them, for good two minutes. Then they made their minds up to defile
past, leaving us at a little distance, but always keeping their eyes
fixed with a haughty defiance on our faces. We, on our part, made our
minds up to let them pass, returning no less haughty glances. Perhaps
they wished to give us time for repentance, or for wholesome
reflections, which should make us quit our post. Anyhow, they moved
onward till they reached the end of the street, when once again they
turned and faced us.

Little did those cowled and mantled fellows know the length and breadth
of our stupidity! We recommenced our duet with a more hideous din than
ever. They retraced their steps, and advanced steadily toward us. But
when they found the pair of little fighting-cocks still standing with
raised pistols on the watch, they judged it wiser to pursue their course
and disappear. The removal of the Court from Budua, which took place one
day after this memorable exploit, probably saved us from being shot down
by an ambuscade. I also imagine that the men only wished to frighten us
away. Possibly our expected departure from the city, or else respect for
our staff-uniform, restrained their fingers on the trigger. Such
considerations had certainly more weight with those fierce natives than
the insane bravado of two insects armed with pistols. Anyhow, I have
always regarded our courage in this danger as fool-hardiness rather than
magnanimity.

I could relate an infinity of such adventures, in all of which we risked
our lives on some puerile point of honour, or in pursuit of some
impertinence which called for castigation. One night at Spalato our
serenading party was welcomed with a storm of heavy stones, which made
us skip like kids, but could not drive us from our post. We were paying
this compliment to a handsome girl of Ragusa, the mistress of one of the
chief nobles of the city, and we maintained our station for the honour
of Italy, with skulls unbroken, till the day rose.

In the society of unemployed and lazy officers, a young man may be said
to have worked miracles who preserves the good principles implanted in
him at home. Unless he conforms to the tone and fashion of his comrades,
he is sure to be derided and despised. If he does conform, he is likely
to lose substance, health and reputation at cards, with women, or by
drinking. Besides this, he constantly risks life and limb in the
so-called pastimes I have just described.

I am able to boast without exaggeration that I never played for high
stakes, that I never surrendered myself to debauchery, that I preserved
the sound principles of my home education, and yet that I was popular
with all my comrades, owing to the clubbable and fraternal attitude
which I assumed at some risk, it is true, yet always with the firm
determination to leave a good character behind me when my term of
service ended.




XII.

     _Shows how a young Cadet of Cavalry is capable of executing a
     military stratagem._


Having described the dangers to which my system of conduct in the army
exposed me, I ought in justice to myself to show that I was able on
occasion to reconcile our absurd code of honour with prudence and
diplomacy. With this object I will relate an incident, which is neither
more nor less insignificant than the other events of my life.

The city of Zara is traversed by a main street of considerable length,
extending from the piazza of San Simeone to the gate called Porta
Marina. Several lanes and alleys, leading downwards from the ramparts on
the side toward the sea, debouch into this principal artery. It so
happened that some of the officers, wishing to traverse one of these
lanes on their way to the promenade upon the ramparts, had been
intercepted by a man muffled in a mantle, who levelled an eloquent
enormous blunderbuss at their persons, and forced them to change their
route. This act of violence ought to have been reported to the
Provveditore Generale, and he would have speedily restored order and
freedom of passage. Our military code of honour, however, forbade
recourse to justice as an act of cowardice; albeit some of my comrades
found it not derogatory to their courage to recoil before a blunderbuss.

My readers ought to be informed that a girl of the people, called
Tonina, one of the loveliest women whom eyes of man have ever seen,
lived in this lane. She had multitudes of admirers; and the cozening
tricks she used to wheedle and entice a pack of simpletons, made her no
better than any other cheap and venal beauty. Yet she contrived to sell
her favours by the sequin. A gentleman, whom I shall mention lower down,
was madly in love with this little baggage. Wishing to keep the treasure
to himself, he adopted a truly Dalmatian mode of testifying his
devotion, and stood sentinel in her alley. On two consecutive evenings
the passage was barred; we talked of nothing else in the ante-chamber of
the General, and laid plans how to reassert our honour. A number of
officers agreed to face the blunderbuss; I received an invitation to
join the band; and acting on my system of good-fellowship, I readily
consented.

Our discussion took place in the ante-chamber; silence was enjoined; we
settled that each of the conspirators should wear a white ribband on his
hat, and that three hours after nightfall we should assemble under arms
at our accustomed mustering-place. This was a billiard-saloon, whence
we were to sally forth to the assault of Budua.

An Illyrian nobleman, Signor Simeone C----, of handsome person,
honourable carriage, and a resolute temper, which inspired even soldiers
with respect, although he held no military grade, was sitting in a
corner of the ante-chamber, half-asleep, and apparently inattentive to
our project. I knew him to be frank and genial, and he had often
professed sentiments of sincere friendship for myself. After our scheme
had been concerted, I passed into the reception-room of the palace. He
followed, and opened a conversation on indifferent topics, in the course
of which he drew me aside, changed his tone, and began to speak as
follows:--

"The moment has arrived for me to testify the cordial friendship which I
entertain for you. I regret that you have promised to join those
fire-eaters this evening. On your honour and secrecy I know that I can
count. I am sure that you will not reveal what I am about to disclose;
else the higher powers, whom we are bound to regard, might be involved,
and cowardice might be suspected in those whose courage is indisputable.
This preamble will enable you to judge what I think of you, and to
measure the extent of my friendship. I am the man in the mask. To-night
there will be four blunderbusses in the alley. I shall lose my life; but
several will lose theirs before the lane is forced. I am sorry that you
are in the affair. Contrive to get out of your engagement. Let the rest
come, and enjoy their fill of pastime at the cost of life or limb."

This blunderbuss of an oration took me by surprise. But I did not lose
my senses or my tongue, and answered to the following effect:--

"I am amazed that you should have begun by professing friendship and
preaching caution. You do not seem to understand the first elements of
the one or the simple meaning of the other. I am obliged to you for one
thing only, your belief that I am incapable of divulging what you have
just told me. Upon this point alone your discernment is not at fault. I
would rather die than expose you. Yet you want me, under threats, to
break my word, and to render myself contemptible in the eyes of all my
comrades. This you call a proof of friendship. It is as clear as day,
too, that you have yielded to a hussy's importunities, risking your own
life and the lives of your friends upon a silly point of honour in a
shameful quarrel. This is the proof of your prudence. If you withdraw
from the engagement, no harm will be done, and cowardice will only be
imputed to a nameless mask. But if I break my word, you cannot free me
from the imputation of having proved myself a renegade and a dastard. I
shall become an object of scorn and abhorrence to the whole army. If I
act as you desire, my oath of secrecy to you will violate the laws of
friendship, prudence, everything which men hold sacred. Your promise of
secrecy again puts my honour in peril. How can you be sure that one of
your accomplices will not privily inform his Excellency of your name and
your mad enterprise? Where shall I then be? No: it is clearly your duty
to obey the counsels dictated by my loyal friendship and my sound
prudence. Leave the alley open; and then you will in truth oblige me.
Make love to your Tonina with something more to the purpose than a
blunderbuss. Her physical shape excuses your weakness for her; her mind
deserves your scorn; but I am not going to preach sermons on objects
worthy or unworthy of love; I feel compassion for human frailty."

It was obvious that Signor Simeone C---- felt the force of these
arguments. But he writhed with rage under them, and showed no sign of
consenting. In his fierce Dalmatian way he burst into bare
protestations, swore that he would never quit the field, and wound up
with a vow to sell his life as dearly as man ever did.

At this point I judged it needful to administer a dose of histrionic
artifice. After gazing at him for some seconds with eyes which spoke
volumes, I assumed the declamatory tone of a tragedian, and exclaimed:
"Well then, I promise to be the first to enter the lane this evening,
and, without attacking you, I shall offer my breast to your fire. I have
only this way left of proving to you that you are in no real sense of
the word my friend." Then I turned my back with a show of passion,
taking care, however, to retire at a slow pace. Except for the ferocity
instilled by education, he was at bottom an excellent good-hearted
fellow. Seizing me by the arm, he begged me wait a moment. I saw that he
was touched, and maintaining the tragic tone, I persuaded him to leave
the access to the alley free, without resigning his exclusive right to
the Tonina. For my part, I undertook never to reveal our secret. This
promise I have kept for thirty-five years. Lapse of time and the
probability of his decease--for he was much older than I--excuse me for
now breaking it.

On three following nights I joined the allied forces at the
billiard-room, armed to the teeth, and with a white ribbon flying from
my hat-band. I was always the first to brave the blunderbusses, being
sure that no resistance would be offered. Indeed, the victory, on which
we piqued ourselves, had been won beforehand in my battle of words. The
culpable conduct of Tonina, a girl of the people, who had exposed so
many gentlemen to serious danger, remained fixed in my mind. I shall
relate the sequel to this incident, which took a comic turn, in the next
chapter. For the present, it is enough to add that Signer Simeone C----'s
infatuation for this corsair of Venus rapidly declined, as is the wont
of passions begotten by masculine appetite and feminine avarice.
Tonina, however, did not lack lovers, and the badness of her nature
continued to spread discord and foment disorder in our circle.




XIII.

     _The fair Tonina is rudely rebuked by me upon an accidental
     occasion in the theatre.--My reconciliation with the young
     woman.--Reflections on my life in Dalmatia._


One evening during the last carnival of my three years' service, the
Provveditore Generale bespoke an improvised comedy at the Court-theatre.
The officers arranged a supper-party and a ball in private rooms,
intending to pass the night gaily when the farce was over. I had to play
the part of Luce, married to Pantalone, a vicious old man, broken in
health and fortune. I was reduced to extreme poverty, with a daughter in
the cradle, the fruit of my unhappy marriage.

There was a night-scene, in which I had to soliloquise, while rocking my
child and singing it to sleep with some old ditty. This lullaby I
interrupted from time to time with the narrative of my misfortunes and
with sallies which made the audience die of laughter. Bursts of applause
brought the house down as I told my story, enlarged upon my reasons for
marrying an old man, related the incidents of my life, alluded in
modest monosyllables to what I had to bear, described what a fine figure
of a woman I had been, and what a scarecrow matrimony had made me. I
complained of cold, hunger, evil treatment. I did not make milk enough
to suckle my baby; and what I made was sour, nay, venomous from fits of
rage and all the sufferings I had to go through. This bad milk gave my
darling, the fruit of my womb, the stomach-ache. It kept bleating all
night like a lamb, and would not let me close an eye. The night was far
advanced. I was waiting for my old fool of a husband. What could be
keeping him abroad? He must surely be in the Calle del Pozzetto,
notorious at Zara for its evil fame. I had a presentiment of coming
troubles, moralised upon the woes of life, and burst into a flood of
tears, which made everybody laugh. The truth was that one of our
officers, Signor Antonio Zeno, who played the part of Pantalone
excellently, had not turned up at the proper time to enter into dialogue
with me. Until he arrived, I was forced to continue my soliloquy, which
had already occupied the attention of the audience full fifteen minutes.
A good extempore actor ought never to lose presence of mind, or to be at
a loss for material. In order to prolong the scene, I pretended that my
baby was crying, and that it would not go to sleep for all my lullabies
and cradle-rocking. In a fit of impatience I took it up, unlaced my
dress, and laid it with endearing caresses to my breasts to quiet it.
This fresh absurdity, together with my lamentations over the
non-existent teats I said the greedy little thing was biting, kept my
audience in good-humour. From time to time I turned my eyes to the
sides, being really disturbed at Signor Zeno-Pantalone's non-appearance,
and racking my brains in vain for some new matter to sustain the
soliloquy.

Just then I happened to catch sight of Tonina seated in one of the front
boxes of the theatre, resplendent with beauty, and attired in a gala
dress which cast a glaring light upon her dubious career. She was
laughing with more assurance and sense of fun than anybody at my jokes.
The catastrophe which she had nearly caused flashed suddenly across my
mind. I felt that I had discovered a treasure; and plunged like
lightning into a new subject. What I proceeded to do was bold, I admit,
yet quite within the limits of good taste upon our amateur stage, where
personal allusions were allowed perhaps a little too liberally. I called
my doll-baby by the name of Tonina, and addressed my speech to it. I
caressed it, admired its features, flattered my maternal heart with the
hope that Tonina would grow up a lovely girl. So far as I was concerned.
I vowed to give her a good education, by example, precepts,
chastisement, and watchful care. Then, taking a tone of gravity, I
warned her that if, in spite of all my trouble, she fell into such and
such faults, such and such acts of imprudence, such and such immoral
ways, and caused such and such disturbances, she would be the worst
Tonina in the world, and I prayed God to cut her days short rather in
the cradle. All the evil things I mentioned were faithfully copied from
anecdotes about Tonina in the front box, with which my audience were
only too well acquainted.

Never in my whole life have I known an improvised soliloquy to be so
tumultuously applauded as this of mine was. The spectators at one point
of the speech turned their faces with a simultaneous movement towards
Tonina in her gala dress, clapping their hands and laughing till the
theatre rang again. His Excellency, who had some inkling of the siren's
ways, honoured my unexpected satire with explosions of unconcealed
merriment. Tonina backed out of her box in a fit of fury, and escaped
from the theatre, cursing my soliloquy and the man who made it.
Pantalone finally arrived, and the comedy ended without any episode more
mirthful than the scene between me and my baby.

Do not imagine that I have related this incident to brag about it.
Although the young woman in question was a girl of the people, whose
dissolute behaviour and ill-nature had been the cause of many
misadventures, and though the Provveditore Generale applauded my
performance, I blamed myself, when it was over, for yielding to a mere
impulse of vanity, and exhibiting my power as a comedian at the cost of
committing an act of imprudence and indiscretion. Much has to be
condoned to youth which is never conceded to maturity.

I have mentioned that a ball and supper-party had been arranged by us
officers after the play, and that I was a member of the company. I went
in my costume of Luce, partly to save time, and partly to carry on the
joke. Tonina was among the guests. She did not expect me, and was
sitting in a corner, angry and out of spirits. When she saw me, one
would have thought she had set eyes on the fiend; she looked as though
she meant to leave the room. I took her hand, and protested I would
rather go than that the company should lose its loveliest ornament. I
vowed that she was adorably beautiful, and that it was a pity she was
not equally good. I begged her in gentle terms to take the accident of
the evening into account, to reflect upon the universal verdict given by
the audience on her ways of life, and to guard against the private
flatterers who blinded her to the truth. I told her that God had meant
to send in her an angel, and not a devil into this world. I interwove so
many praises with so many insolences, and with such complete frankness,
that she could not but laugh. Everybody laughed, down to her very
lovers. She expressed a wish to dance with me. I accepted the
invitation. This looked like a token of peace; but it was only
treachery. While dancing, she exerted all the charms, enticements,
captivating humours, pressures of the hand, and so forth, which her bad
vindictive and seductive nature could suggest to enslave me.

A woman's coquetries directed to some purpose of revenge are always
blind, and give the best advantage to a clever roue. The reason is that
the woman, piqued to the point of seeking a victory at any price, lowers
herself to the utmost, without being aware of what she is conceding. I
was not a roue; and woe to me if I had let myself be snared by the wiles
and artifices of that viper smarting under the sense of recent insult!

Our pleasure party was resumed soon after supper, during which my fair
foe kept me at her side. We broke up about sunrise; and Tonina never
ceased to call me her accursed little devil; that was the sweet
Dalmatian term of endearment which she used. Compelled by these
compliments, I promised to pay her a visit, but I did not keep my word.

I have now given some general notion of my ways of thinking and acting,
my character and conduct, up to the age of eighteen on to twenty.
Nothing but the truth has dictated these reminiscences, from which I
have undoubtedly omitted many things of similar importance. I am sure
that if I had been guilty of anything really wrong during this period,
it would not have escaped either my memory or my pen. I have never
hardened my heart against the stings of remorse, and I would far rather
frankly record facts to my discredit than bear the stings of conscience
by suppressing what is true. Reviewing the veracious picture of myself
which I have painted, friends will see in me a somewhat eccentric young
man, but of harmless disposition; enemies will take me for a worthless
scapegrace; the indifferent, who know me superficially by sight, will
discover some one very different from their conception based on my
external qualities. At the proper place and time I shall account for
this not unreasonable and yet fallacious conception formed of me by
strangers. The reasons will appear clearly in the detailed portrait I
intend to execute of myself, and which will surpass the best work of any
painter.




XIV.

     _The end of my three years' service.--I cast up my accounts, and
     reckon debts; calculate upon the future, with a sad prevision of
     the truth.--My arrival in my home at Venice._


The three years of my military service were nearly at an end, when I
contracted a slow fever, not dangerous to life, but tedious. The time
had come for settling accounts, and seeing how I stood. My family, since
I left home, had furnished me with only two bills of exchange, one for
fourteen, the other for six sequins. My useless duties to the State had
brought me thirty-eight lire per month. Against these receipts I
balanced my expenses: so much for my daily food; so much for my lodging,
clothing, and washing; so much for a servant, indispensable in my
position; so much for two illnesses, together with the small sums spent
on unavoidable pleasures of society. The result was that I found myself
in debt to my friend Massimo for exactly the sum of fifty-six sequins
and sixteen lire, or 200 ducats.[127]

If the necessities of life are not to be considered vices, this debt was
certainly a modest one. Still it weighed upon my mind. I consoled myself
by recalling my friend's nobleness of nature, and felt sure that I
should be able to repay him on reaching home. I computed that the gross
sum I had received during those three years amounted to 480 ducats; and
I did not think I had been a spendthrift in consuming about 150 ducats a
year on my total expenditure. I could indeed have saved something by
attending the table which the Provveditore Generale kept daily for the
officers of his Court and guard, but which his sublime Excellency never
honoured with his presence. Little did he know what a gang of ruffians,
with the exception of a few patient souls constrained by urgent need,
defiled his table, or what low tricks were perpetrated at it. Since the
day of my arrival I had heard the infamous and compromising talk which
went on there, had watched the squabbles between guest and guest, and
guests and serving-men, had seen the cups and platters flying through
the air--and, like a naughty boy perhaps, I preferred to contract a debt
of 200 ducats rather than accept a hospitality so prostituted to vile
uses. I attended this table of Thyestes, as it seemed to me, only when I
could not help it, on the days when I had to mount guard.

The financial statement I have just made will appear to many of my
readers a mere trifle, unworthy of recording here. They are mistaken.
When they have learned in what a state of desolation I found my father's
house, and how I strove to stem the tide of prodigality and waste which
was bringing our family to ruin, they will understand my reasons for
insisting on these trifles. Heads heated by anger and resentment are
only too ready to invent false accusations; and I shall soon be made to
appear a prodigal, a reckless gambler, a consumer of the substance of my
family during the three years I spent abroad. This is why I am so
scrupulous in telling the plain truth about my cost of living in
Dalmatia. I have never been ashamed of letting the whole world know how
modest are my fortunes. I should think it a greater shame to pretend to
possess more than I really own. Riches have always seemed to me to be a
name, and to reside in the imagination. If I cast my eyes on a
carpenter, then raise them to a duke, and finally lift them to a king, I
obtain convincing demonstration of the fact that he alone is rich who
has the mental wealth--to be contented with his lot. Alas! that only I
and many millions upon their deathbed recognise this truth.

My three years were over. The new Provveditore Generale, Jacopo Boldu,
arrived in Dalmatia, and received the staff of office with the usual
formalities from his Excellency Quirini. In my moments of leisure I had
composed several poems in honour of the latter, and had procured others
from Venice. These I copied out in the beautiful handwriting which I
then possessed, sewed them together, added a respectful dedication, and
had them bound in a fine velvet cover. Then I paid my respects to his
Excellency in company with my friend Massimo, and laid my literary
tribute at his feet. I was no Virgil, nor was I born in the golden age
of Augustus. Only my fanaticism for the art of poetry made me imagine
that verses could be anything worth offering as a gift.

The Cavaliere accepted my donation with affability. He said: "I thank
you. At least I have the wherewithal to show that, while a member of my
Court, you have remained at school."

Afterwards I learned that he made a present of this book to the Very
Eminent Cardinal, his uncle, Bishop of Brescia. His Excellency inquired
whether I preferred to return to Venice or to stay in Dalmatia,
occupying the post of cadet noble of cavalry on my promotion. I begged
him to take me in his train to Venice, and he graciously accepted.

Some one else than I would have looked around for testimonials little to
be trusted, which might have kept me fraudulently drawing pay upon the
muster-roll of Venice from a too indulgent Government. But I had
renounced the military career, and had no mind to spunge upon the public
treasury. Our Prince I regarded as a common father, but did not think it
just to saddle him with thievish sons, each one of whom by coaxed
protections, adulations, hypocrisies, and the vilest offices, eats into
the common patrimony of the nation, which ought to be reserved for
urgent needs. I was a poor lad, with a debt of 200 ducats; but I knew
that the services rendered to the State by me constituted no claim upon
the public purse. If I was poor, this came from our being too many in
our family and from the maladministration of our property.

My wants were moderate. I flattered myself that I could satisfy them by
attending to the management of the estate; and I felt sure that my
father, paralysed and speechless as he was, would never refuse to pay
the trifling debt I had contracted. Meanwhile it is not improbable that
my name remained upon the muster-roll long after I left Dalmatia.
Somebody may have pocketed my pay and pilfered from the treasury to this
extent. I was not responsible for this, and had no right to inquire into
the matter, since I never asked to be cashiered in form. Poor I was,
poor I am, and poor I expect to die. At any rate, I am sure that I
should die in desperation if I felt on my deathbed that I had earned a
fortune by deceit, injustice, and intrigue.

It was in the month of October when at last I embarked for Venice on the
galley of his Excellency. Wind and weather were against us. After a
painful voyage of twenty-two days, we came in sight of home, and I drew
breath again. After paying my respects and returning thanks to the
Cavaliere who had brought me back, I set off for our ancestral mansion
at San Cassiano, accompanied by Signor Massimo, whom I had invited to
stay with me upon his way to Padua. There I hoped to be able to pay my
friend some attention by giving him good quarters during his sojourn in
Venice.




XV.

     _Disagreeable discoveries relating to our family affairs, which
     dissipate all illusions I may have formed._


Leaving the horrors of the galley for the ancient home of my ancestors,
I palpitated between pleasure at escaping into freedom, hope of being
able to make my friend comfortable, and uneasiness lest this hope might
prove ill-founded.

We reached the entrance, and my companion gazed with wonder at the
stately structure of the mansion, which has really all the appearance of
a palace. As a connoisseur of architecture, he complimented me upon its
fine design. I answered, what indeed he was about to discover by
experience, that attractive exteriors sometimes mask discomfort and
annoyance. He had plenty of time to admire the facade, while I kept
knocking loudly at the house-door. I might as well have knocked at the
portal of a sepulchre. At last a woman, named Eugenia, the
guardian-angel of this wilderness, ran to open. To my inquiries she
answered, yawning, that the family were in Friuli, but that my brother
Gasparo was momently expected. Our luggage had now been brought from the
boat, and we began to ascend a handsome marble staircase. No one could
have expected that this fine flight of steps would lead to squalor and
the haunts of indigence. Yet on surmounting the last stair this was what
revealed itself. The stone floors were worn into holes and fissures,
which spread in all directions like a cancer. The broken window panes
let blasts from every point of the compass play freely to and fro within
the draughty chambers. The hangings on the walls were ragged, smirched
with smoke and dust, fluttering in tatters. Not a piece remained of that
fine gallery of pictures which my grandfather had bequeathed as
heirlooms to the family. I only saw some portraits of my ancestors by
Titian and Tintoretto still staring from their ancient frames. I gazed
at them; they gazed at me; they wore a look of sadness and amazement, as
though inquiring how the wealth which they had gathered for their
offspring had been dissipated.

I have hitherto omitted to mention that our family archives contain an
old worm-eaten manuscript, in which are registered the tenths[128] paid
to the public treasury. From this document it appears that the father of
my great-grandfather was taxed on upwards of ten thousand ducats of
income. It is perhaps a folly to moralise on such things; yet the
recollection of those mournful portraits gazing down upon me in the
squalor of our ancient habitation prompts me to tell an idle truth.
Nobody will be the wiser for it; certainly none of our posterity in
this prodigal age. My grandfather left an only son and a good estate
settled in tail on heirs-male in perpetuity. Four excellent residences,
all of them well-furnished, one in Venice, another in Padua, another in
Pordenone, another in the Friulian country-town of Vicinate, were
included in this entail, as appears from his last will and testament.
Little did he think that the solemn appointments of the dead would be so
lightly binding on the living.

I had informed my friend Massimo of the exact state of our affairs at
home, so far as these were known to me. I could not acquaint him with
the grave disasters which had happened in my three years' absence, being
myself in blessed ignorance as yet. The news that my two elder sisters
had been married inclined me to expect that our domestic circumstances
were improving. Cruel deception wrapped me round, and a hundred
speechless but eloquent mouths were now proclaiming, from the walls and
chambers of my home, how utterly deceived I had been.

Before long I broke, as usual, into laughter, and gaily begged my
comrade's pardon for bringing him to such a wretched hostelry. I assured
him that my heart, at any rate, was not so ruined as my dwelling, and
engaged him in conversation, while we roamed around its chambers, every
nook of which increased my mirth by some new aspect of dilapidation.
Then I bade him refresh his spirits with a survey of the noble facade;
till at last we settled down as well as circumstances permitted. Two
days afterwards, my brother Gasparo arrived. I presented the stranger I
had brought to share our hospitality, frankly expressing my sense of his
worth and my obligations to him as a friend. Upon this we established
ourselves in a little society of three, enlivened by the conversation of
my brother, who, even with a fever on him, never failed to be witty.

Gasparo and I were anxiously awaiting an opportunity to talk alone like
brothers after my long absence. When the moment came, I inquired after
my poor father, our mother, and the circumstances of the family. What I
had already seen on my arrival prepared me for the disagreeable news I
had to hear. With his usual philosophy, but not without an occasional
sign of painful emotion, he gave me the following details. The family
was reduced to really tragic straits. Our father lived on, but
speechless and paralytic, in the same state as when I left him. My two
elder sisters, Marina and Giulia, were married respectively to the Conte
Michele di Prata and the Conte Giovan-Daniele di Montereale. About ten
thousand ducats had been promised for their dowries. To raise this sum,
such and such portions of the estate had been sold, and a debt of more
than two thousand ducats had been contracted. A lawsuit was pending
between the family and the Conte Montereale concerning part of the dowry
still due to him. Our other three sisters, Laura, Girolama, and Chiara,
were growing into womanhood, and gave much to think of for their future.

I saw, to my great annoyance, that it would be impossible to liquidate
my debt upon the spot. But all these terrifying details did not make me
regret my resignation of the post of cadet noble in the cavalry. A few
days later, Signor Massimo left for Padua, with the assurance that his
two hundred ducats would be paid in course of time by me. Upon this
matter he only expressed the sentiments of cordial friendship.

It was not too late in the season for a visit to the country. I felt a
strong desire to reach Friuli, and to kiss the hands of my unhappy
father. Thither then I went, together with my brother, armed with a
giant's fortitude, which was not long in being put to proof.




XVI.

     _Fresh discoveries regarding the condition of our family.--Vain
     hopes and wasted will to be of use.--I abandon myself to my old
     literary studies._


Our country-house had been originally constructed on an old-fashioned,
roomy, and convenient scale, with numbers of out-buildings. It was now
reduced to one of those dilapidated farms, which I have described in my
burlesque poem _La Marfisa Bizzarra_, canto xii., stanza 126.[129]
Two-thirds of the edifice had been demolished, and the materials sold.
The remaining fragments were inhabited, but bore written on their front:
"Here once was Troy."

Prepared as I was by the misery of our town-house for the desolation of
this rural mansion, I hardly cared to cast a glance upon it. What I
noticed on arriving was a certain air of jollity and gladness, breathing
health, betokening contentment, which all the faces of the village
people wore. Amid the jubilations of relatives, guests, serving-folk and
lads about the farm, not omitting a pack of barking dogs, I descended
from the caleche with my brother. A whole crowd of people, whom I did
not know and could not number, fell upon my neck to bid me welcome.
Something of a military carriage, which I had picked up abroad, but
which had no relation to my real self, made our farm-folk stare upon me
like a comet.

Then I raised my eyes, and saw my poor father at a window in the upper
storey, with trembling limbs, dragging himself forward on his stick to
catch a glimpse of me. All the blood turned suddenly and galloped
through my veins. I rushed up the stairs, burst into the room where he
was standing, seized one of his hands, and kissed it in a transport of
filial affection. He fell upon my shoulder, more paralytic than he had
been when I last embraced him, and, in his inability to speak, broke
into a piteous fit of weeping. The effort I made to restrain my own
tears, lest they should add to his unhappiness, made me feel as though
my lungs would burst. Leaning on my arm, he slowly tottered after me,
and little by little we reached another room which he frequented.
October was nearly over, and the cold in that Friulian climate was very
sensible. A good fire burned on the hearth, near which stood the
arm-chair of my father, who for seven years had dragged his life out in
this wretched state. All the resources of medical science had been tried
in vain. Physicians sometimes agreed and sometimes differed about his
treatment. But their concord and their discord were equally impotent to
effect a cure; and he had not yet reached the age of fifty-five.

I found my mother in the same apartment. She uttered sentiments which
were not inappropriate to her maternal character, but in a frigid tone
and with an air of stately self-control. I always loved and respected
her, not merely from a sense of duty, but with a true filial instinct.
She, on her side, used frequently to protest when there was no need for
protestation, that she loved all her nine children with exactly the same
amount of affection. She often repeated the following words with
gravity, raising her eyebrows as she spoke: "Cut off one of my fingers
and I suffer pain; cut off a second and I suffer;" and so on through
nine fingers, amputated by the same figure of speech, with equal agony
in each case. Notwithstanding this, I believe that the loss of eight
fingers would not have given her the same pain as that of the first-born
finger, in other words, of my brother Gasparo. He is still alive, a man
of honour, and a sage if ever sage existed; and I feel sure that he
would admit the truth of this statement, if called on to confirm it.

In my long and anxious study of human nature, I have seen so many
mothers with the weakness of my own, that I never dreamed of blaming
her. It seemed right to me that my brother's mental gifts and noble
qualities should earn for him more of her love than she bestowed on all
her other eight children. Mothers, however, who are so devoted to a son
generally spoil him, notably by extolling what is good in his character,
but also by defending his natural frailties. Acting thus, my mother
favoured Gasparo's marriage, which subjected her beloved son to a real
martyrdom. Her lifelong devotion to him, and the prejudice displayed in
his favour by her will, only served to increase the unhappiness of a man
whom I always loved, loved still, and shall love as friend and brother
till the end of my days on earth. This digression was rendered necessary
by what will follow in my Memoirs.

The room was soon full of relatives and intimate friends, all curious
about me. My father strove to ply me with questions, but his tongue
refused its office, and he relapsed into weeping. Sad at heart as I was
for him, I contrived to relate the most amusing anecdotes I could
remember concerning my life in Dalmatia and my travels. In this way I
kept him laughing, together with the whole company, through the rest of
that day.

The perfect country air; a table abundantly served with rural dainties,
though somewhat deficient in elegance; the joviality, wit, and pleasant
sallies which never failed in our domestic circle,--all this prevented
me from attending to the defects of our establishment. Next day I began
to discover that the real cause of trouble was not in the building, but
in the minds of its inhabitants. I could not have explained why, but I
seemed to be a person of importance in the eyes of everybody. My three
sisters confided to me in secret that my brother Gasparo's wife, in
close alliance with my mother, who doted on her as the consort of her
favoured first-born, ruled all the affairs of the family, which were
rapidly going from bad to worse. My father's authority as head of the
house had ceased to be more than a mere instrument for carrying out what
my sister-in-law advised and my mother sanctioned. Unless I managed to
stem the tide of extravagance, we should all be plunged into an abyss of
ruin. One of my sisters, Girolama, a girl devoted to reading, writing,
and translating from the French--for she too was bitten with our family
cacoethes--spoke like a sibyl, gravely and eloquently, on these painful
topics. At the same time, my brother's wife contrived secret interviews,
in which she explained to me that her husband was indolent, torpid,
drowned in fruitless studies, devoted to the company of a certain clever
person, and wholly averse from thoughts or cares about domestic matters.
She had done everything in her power--God knew she had. She would go on
doing her best--God should see she would. Then she described her plans
and projects, which, to tell the truth, were pure poetical stupidities.
She vowed that she was not in any sense the mistress of the
establishment, the administrator of the estate, or the disposer of its
revenues; she merely gave advice, made suggestions, and exerted herself
for the common benefit and to supply the needs of the family in general.
She exhorted me to speak seriously to her husband; I was to make him
abandon his unprofitable studies, make him, above all things, give up
those visits of taste and soul, which did so much harm; in fine, I was
to force him to sustain his wife in her stupendous labours, and to
concentrate his thoughts upon his children, who were five in number.

When I came to analyse the curious compound of truths, lies, and fancies
which issued from the fevered brains of this poor lady--always hard at
work, always embarrassed in a labyrinth of business--I seemed to
perceive that what moved her most was the fear of being made herself
responsible for our financial failure. It was also clear that her
original ambition of acting the part of prime minister in a realm which
only existed in her own imagination, kept her always on the stretch;
while a certain little devil of feminine jealousy against her husband
added to her disquietude. He, good fellow, had forgotten the long
collection of Petrarchan poems written by him for her honour in the
past, and which she had repaid with the gift of five children. Not the
least little sonnet issued from his pen to celebrate her now. His lyrics
were addressed to another idol of the moment.

Meanwhile she set great store upon her personal importance. Every member
of our family, who wanted a ducat, a pair of shoes, or something of the
sort, came to her with humble supplications, imploring her good offices
at head-quarters--and Heaven knew where head-quarters were. This honour
and glory made up to her for all her heroic labours in the little
realm, which she administered with real authority, though her right to
do so was contested, and her schemes were pindarically unpractical.

My younger brother, Almoro,[130] was also at our villa, on a holiday
from school--the non-existent school he never went to. His education
seemed to have been of the slightest, and his wardrobe left even more to
be desired. A boy of good heart and parts, however; gay-spirited and
innocent; he was not old enough and had not time to reflect upon our
troubles; setting snares for little birds was all his pastime, and when
he talked to me, I heard only of the number and the kinds of birds he
caught, and the important adventures he had met with in his fowling
expeditions.

My father did not converse with me, because he could not; my mother,
because she would not. Gasparo's five children with their quarrels and
their games broke in upon the only solace which I had, that of reading
and writing.

To all the complaints I heard, to all the exhortations which were daily
heaped upon me, I gave one only answer: we will see and think it over.

One thing emerged with distinctness from this hurlyburly of our family.
If I attempted any salutary innovation in the wasp's nest of my
relatives, I should find no difficulty in gaining supporters to assist
me in my opposition to the government; but the government was in the
hands of women, under the shadow of my father's authority; I should
therefore be misrepresented to him, prejudiced as he was by education,
susceptible and hot-blooded by temperament, enfeebled by chronic
illness; and he was still the master, still my father, loved and
respected by me. I doubted whether anything which I could do would not
prove ineffectual or worse. I was afraid of becoming the object of
everybody's hatred; for I observed that personal considerations, rather
than wise reflection and moderate ambitions, were the motive principles
of all the folk I had to deal with. Finally I dreaded giving such a
shock to my father's declining frame as would cut short the few days of
life which still remained to him. The sequel will show that these
anticipations were not ill-founded.

In these circumstances I determined to exercise the strictest
self-control, and to bear with everything during my father's lifetime.
Literature and my favourite studies of the world meanwhile would suffice
to entertain me. Knowing that my uncle Almoro Cesare Tiepolo was in the
country on an estate of his not far from where we lived, I went to pay
him my respects. He inquired how I had been treated in Dalmatia by his
Excellency Quirini. I answered that he had treated me very well indeed,
but that he could not give me any permanent commission, because our
troops had been drafted into Italy. He then proposed to recommend me to
his Excellency the Provveditore Generale at Verona. I replied that I was
grateful for his interest on my behalf, but that Mars had not inspired
me with a vocation for military service. I foresaw that I should have to
employ all my energies upon the affairs of my family, which were calling
loudly for my assistance. Shaking his head and pursing up his lips, he
answered that what I said was only too true.




XVII.

     _Return from Friuli to Venice with my family.--I pursue my chosen
     path in life, and open new veins of experience.--Yet further
     painful discoveries as to our circumstances.--The beginnings of
     domestic discord._


The month of November was wearing away when our family began to think of
Venice. It amused me to watch the preparations for our journey and our
luggage, which in no wise resembled that of the General's suite I had
been used to. My father, an invalid; my mother, serious and
diplomatical; my sister-in-law, the woman of business; my brother
Gasparo, wool-gathering; our little sisters, intent upon the custody of
their old-fashioned bonnets; Almoro, plunged in grief at leaving his
birds and cages, which he consigned by something like a last will and
testament to the bailiff; I, giving myself military airs, quite out of
season; some serving-maids and men in worn-out livery; a few cats and
dogs; these composed our travelling party, which might have been
compared to a troupe of comedians upon the march.

I shall perhaps be told that there was no reason to enumerate these
humiliating circumstances. But I have never had to blush for unworthy
actions in my family; and it seems to me a poor philosophy that feels
ashamed where no shame is. Such as it was, our caravan arrived in
Venice, joking and laughing all the way. There we installed ourselves
with as much disorder and as little comfort as was proper to a fine
large mansion with nothing to fill its empty spaces.

For my own use I chose out a little room at the top of the house, where
I set up a rickety table, provided myself with a huge inkstand and
plenty of pens and paper, and spent at least six hours a day in reading
and scribbling poetic nonsense. This was my best amusement; but I ought
to add that I devoted some of my time to the cafes, studying types of
character and listening to conversation; nor did I neglect our theatres,
where I saw the various tragedies and comedies which appeared. My
brother Gasparo had already given several serious pieces to the stage.
They pleased the public then; and though they may be out of fashion
now, they would not fail to please me still. I know the instability of
taste too well to change my old opinions.

I had mixed with all sorts of men and learned to know their
characters--generals, admirals, noblemen, great lords, officers,
soldiers, the people of Illyrian cities, the Morlacchi of the villages,
Mainotti, Pastrovicchi, convicts, galley-slaves. It was time, I thought,
to become acquainted with my own Venetians. I began by cultivating a set
of men who go in Venice by the name of Cortigiani.[131] My companions of
this kind were chiefly shopkeepers and handicraftsmen, with a priest or
two among the number; clever fellows, respectable, and versed in all the
ways of our Venetian world. Their courage and readiness to take part in
quarrels won them the respect of the common people, and they carried the
art of getting the maximum of pleasure at a minimum of outlay to
perfection. On certain holidays I joined their boating-parties, and went
to shoot birds on the marshes with them. Or else we lunched together on
the Giudecca, at Campalto, Malcontenta, Murano, Burano, and other
neighbouring islands. My share of the expense on these occasions was
not much above sixpence, and I gained the hearty good-will of my
companions by contributing some slices of excellent Friulian ham to our
common table. The characters and manners of these men delighted me; I
took pleasure in listening to the stories of their quarrels,
reconciliations, love-adventures, misfortunes, accidents of all kinds,
told in racy Venetian dialect, with the liveliness which is natural to
our folk. What is more, I learned much from them. Alas! the race of
Cortigiani has degenerated, like everything else in this corrupt age.
When I chance to meet a survivor of the honest jolly crew, he strikes
his forehead, and confesses that the good days of his youth are
irrecoverable, and that the Cortigiano is an extinct species.

Meanwhile I took good care to interfere with nobody and nothing in the
household. This I did for my poor father's sake. But I kept my eyes open
to observe the intrigues, schemes, and movements of the government. Some
Jews, some brokers, and a crowd of women were always coming and going on
secret conferences with my sister-in-law. These attracted my attention,
and formed the subject of my earnest cogitations. It grieved me to see
my brother Gasparo immersed in his philosophy and poetry, never for one
moment giving the least thought to domestic economy. It grieved me; but
I grieved in silence. There was one circumstance, however, which fairly
put me out of patience. We had three sisters in the house; and a swarm
of drones, hulking young fellows of the freest manners, kept buzzing
round them. When I came home and found these visitors at their
accustomed chatter, I used to scowl at them, lift my hat and put it on
again, turn my back, and climb the stairs to my own den, with the fixed
intention of making the gentlemen perceive how little their company
attracted me. This manoeuvre had its effect. My sister-in-law took it
upon her to read me a matronly lecture on the impropriety of insulting
friends of the family by my rough ways. I replied that I knew very well
what friendship was, but that I could distinguish the false from the
true; I was not conscious of having been rude to anybody; my father was
the master, and if he did not mind some things which seemed to my
inexperience imprudent and irregular, a mere lad's opinions were not
worthy of consideration. This hint of my displeasure made all the women
of the house regard me like a serpent. Even my three sisters, who loved
me sincerely, and were excellent creatures, imbued with the soundest
religious principles, could not help harbouring a trifle of suspicion in
their feminine brains. For the rest, I said what I thought when I was
consulted upon affairs of no importance. My advice in such matters
pleased nobody. I ran on little errands if these were intrusted to me;
and above all, I devoted some hours of every evening to my father, who
always received me with tenderness and tears.

From conversation with my sisters I learned that the five thousand
ducats raised by sale of lands in Friuli, ostensibly to make up portions
for my married sisters, had either not been paid by the purchasers or
had only reached the hands of the husbands in part. The same had
happened with the drapery, linen, and jewels, for which a large debt had
been contracted with a company of merchants. These and similar
confidences made it clear to my mind that the marriages of my two
sisters had not been arranged for their settlement in life so much as
with the view of raising money under colourable pretexts, and of
alienating entailed property with some show of legality. In fact, I
scented disastrous dealings of the sort which are known at Venice by the
name of _stocchi_.[132] As natural consequences of this crooked policy,
urgent needs for ready money and embarrassments of all sorts had ensued,
which led to fresh expedients and ever-growing financial distress.

Without attributing malice to any one, I merely blamed the bad luck of
our family, owing to which my grandfather's fine estate had passed into
the hands of women under two administrations, and had been wasted by a
course of insane irregularities. I took care to send an accurate report
of our domestic circumstances to my brother Francesco at Corfu. And now
I must embark upon the sea of my worst troubles.




XVIII.

     _I become, without fault of my own, quite unjustly, the object of
     hatred to all members of my household.--Resolve to return to
     Dalmatia.--My father's death._


It had not escaped my notice that my mother and sister-in-law were in
the habit of going abroad together in the mornings. During the five
winter months they wore masks, and their proceedings had all the
appearance of some secret business.[133] Now Carnival was over. We had
reached the month of March 1745, a date which will be always painful to
my recollection. Every morning the two ladies left the house together,
no longer masked, but wearing the _zendado_.[134] I asked my sisters if
they knew the object of these daily expeditions. They answered to the
following effect: all they knew for certain was that my father's invalid
condition made a residence in Venice irksome to him; now that the spring
was advancing, he wished to go into Friuli with my mother, leaving our
sister-in-law at the head of affairs in Venice; meanwhile the treasury
was empty, the barns and cellars of our country-house had nothing left
in them. I shrugged my shoulders, and kept silence.

A few days afterwards, while I was attempting to drive away care by
study in my little upper chamber, my three sisters entered. They were
weeping, and my first fear was lest my father should have died.
Reassuring me upon this point, they passionately besought me to
interpose between the family and shameful ruin. I alone was capable of
doing this. The secret expeditions of my mother and sister-in-law had
resulted in a contract with a certain Signor Francesco Zini, cloth
merchant. He undertook to pay down six hundred ducats in exchange for
our ancestral mansion, agreeing, moreover, to hand over a little
dwelling of his own in the distant quarter of San Jacopo dall' Orio.
They added that my father was ready to give his assent to this bargain,
and my brothers Gasparo and Almoro would offer no opposition. I felt
deeply moved by the distress of these poor girls as well as by my own
keen sense of humiliation; and when they concluded by enjoining the
strictest secrecy upon myself in the transaction, a gulf of dissensions,
disagreeableness, and misery of all kinds seemed to yawn before my feet.
Our pressing want of money, the contract verbally completed by my mother
and sister-in-law, my father's consent, the adhesion of my brothers to
the scheme, the obligation to secrecy laid upon me by my sisters, my own
bad reputation in the household as a disturber of domestic quiet, my
lack of friends and supporters in Venice, all filled me with terror. Yet
I resolved to try what I could do to gratify my father's desire for the
country, and to put a stop to this humiliating contract. With that
object in view I also undertook a secret mission and went to visit
Signor Francesco Zini.

I laid myself open to him in terms of flattering politeness, appealing
to his excellent disposition, and pointing out that he was about to
enter on a business which would expose him to risk and us to notable
humiliation. I told him that my father had been an invalid for many
years, that our ancestral mansion was subject to a strict entail, that
on my father's death he would lose his money and the house, that all
the sons of the family were not prepared to sanction the contract, that
one of them was in the Levant, that I had not the least intention of
assenting, and that the utmost I could do would be to abandon the house
at my father's express command. Then I passed to the pathetic. I
described a numerous family departing with their scanty bundles from the
loved paternal nest, bowed down with grief and shame before the eyes of
all their neighbours, who would be exclaiming: "See those gentlefolk
upon the move, because their home has been sold over their heads!" I
proved to him that if he gained a fine house to live in, he would also
gain an odious and ugly reputation. Finally, I besought him, as a man of
worth, to seize some plausible pretext for breaking a bargain which,
happily for his advantage and our own, had not been ratified.

Over the fat, red, small-pox-pitted features of Signor Zini spread
amazement and perplexity. He did not understand my rigmarole, he said;
he was an honest man, pouring out his blood, not water, to obtain the
house; my mother and sister-in-law, together with the broker of this
honourable bargain, had assured him that my father wished to conclude
it, and that all his sons were prepared to emancipate themselves from
the paternal authority, in order to be able to sign the contract, thus
giving it validity, and securing the rightful interest of the innocent
purchaser. The affair had been settled, the necessary deeds were
waiting on the bureau of Marchese Suarez, his advocate. Most assuredly,
unless my father's male heirs procured their emancipation, in order to
give validity to the contract in perpetuity, he would not unbutton his
pockets to disburse a penny; he was not a fool, to be imposed upon with
fibs and fables.

I commended the fat gentleman's perspicacity and caution; repeated that
I had no intention of procuring my emancipation, and that nothing on
earth would force me to consent; once more I begged him to find some
excuse for breaking off the bargain; and wound up by imploring him to
keep silence upon my interference in the matter. I made it clear that
only a brute, devoid of Christian charity, would reject a son's
entreaties, and render him odious to mother and father without any
advantage to himself. He promised to respect my secrecy, wagging his
huge scarlet jowl and lifting his night-cap, with so many protestations
of being touched to the heart, that I ought to have been put upon my
guard. I did not yet know human nature, and retired as happy as if I had
taken Gibraltar by assault, feeling confident that my prudence and
discretion had averted a lamentable catastrophe.

Nothing was said by me about the course which I had followed, even to my
three sisters. I reflected that they were women, and awaited a quiet
termination of the affair, trusting to Signor Zini's humanity.
Meanwhile I ruminated how to procure my father's removal to the country,
and how to help the family without waiting for the harvest, which would
be finished in three months. I computed the value of my clothes, my
watch, my snuff-box; prepared as I was then, to sell everything I
possessed. But these calculations only reduced me to despair. My one
real friend was Signor Massimo, then at Padua. I remembered that I
already owed him two hundred ducats, and that he was living on an
allowance from his father. Yet I knew that both father and son, as well
as a brother of my comrade, were no less generous toward persons on
whose character for loyalty and friendship they relied, than they were
suspicious of intriguers and impostors. I was also aware that they were
in a position to render me substantial services. How often, during the
tempestuous vicissitudes of my existence, have I not had the opportunity
to verify this fact!

While thus engaged in studying ways and means, Signor Zini broke rudely
in upon my meditations. Possessed with the desire to obtain our dwelling
for his own, he divulged the secret of my visit, and exposed what I had
said to him in terms of his own choosing. My belief is that his
communication amounted to this:--unless the hot-headed impetuous young
fellow, who had come to treat with him, were brought to reason, and
compelled to sign the contract, he refused to disburse two shillings.

I was in my upper chamber, studying as usual, and talking with my
brother Almoro about his wretched schooling, when my mother appeared one
day. Something of philosophical severity in her toilette, something
imposing in her manner, which concealed, however, an internal
irritation, proclaimed the gravity of her mission. She addressed herself
pointedly to me, with the features of a judge rather than a mother, and
began a long narration of the straits to which we were reduced. She said
that, God be blessed, she had been inspired and assisted to discover six
hundred ducats in the hands of a benevolent merchant, which would be
placed immediately at her disposal upon such and such conditions. The
notary was ready to engross the necessary deeds; and she begged me to
declare what I thought about this special providence.

At the bottom of her heart I read Signor Zini's act of treason, and saw
that I was lost. However, I answered respectfully that a contract of
this kind struck me as anything but providential; still my father had
full power to do what he thought fit, without rendering an account of
his actions to his sons. She flamed up, and cried with a threatening air
that my consent was also needed; she could not believe that I should be
so rash and headstrong as to prevent a plan which would relieve my
father and the family in our present painful circumstances. I could have
uttered several truths without a wish to wound; but certain truths,
once spoken, wound incurably. Therefore, I contented myself with
observing that I was ready to shed my blood for my father, but that I
could not assent to a contract so humiliating and ruinous, the last of a
whole series dictated by suicidal policy. People who understood economy
were in the habit of calculating and making provision for the future,
not of selling or mortgaging their property to meet embarrassments
created by their own extravagance. The latter course was rapidly
bringing our whole family to the workhouse. Under a disastrous financial
system our income had been reduced to three thousand ducats; yet I could
not comprehend how we were in such straits as she had described. When
people were unable to maintain a decent state in the capital, they could
live at ease in the country at one-third of the same cost. Houses ought
to be let, and not sold. Still my father had the power to make any
contract he thought right; only I did not believe him capable of forcing
me to give consent against my will and judgment.

The gestures of submission, respect, and supplication with which I
accompanied this speech had no power to mollify the pungency of its
significance. My mother rose, with her arms akimbo, and inquired who it
was I meant to blame for our misfortunes. Instead of telling the bitter
and irrefutable truth, I said that I only blamed fate and the
misfortunes themselves. "I reckon," she replied with a smile of fury,
"that you will give in your adhesion." "Indeed I shall not," was my
answer; and the profound bow with which I spoke these words had the
appearance of impertinent irony, although God knows I did not mean it.
This was enough to fan the smothered flames into a Vesuvius in eruption.
My mother bent her stormy brows upon me--upon the sixth finger of her
maternal hands--and broke into the following declamation. "From the
moment of my return she had prophesied, like Cassandra, that I should
turn the household upside down. She did not know me for one of her own
children. The intimacy of a certain friend to whom I had attached myself
was ruining the family, as it had ruined me. (Poor innocent generous
Signor Massimo!) If I had behaved well during my three years' service,
his Excellency Quirini would certainly have rewarded me with some good
military situation. As it was, my excursion into Dalmatia had been a
source of burdensome expense. I had led a vicious life there ... she
knew ... she did not mean to speak ... but ... enough ... and my debt of
two hundred ducats to Massimo was merely a sum lost by me at basset."

Now this debt had not yet been paid, and had therefore been of no
inconvenience to my family. Such extravagant accusations took me by
surprise; and the reader will now perceive the reason of the accounts
which I rendered in a former passage of these Memoirs. I should perhaps
have flown into a fury alien to my real nature, if these reproofs had
been based on truth. The wounding allusion to Signor Massimo nearly
roused me, but I preserved my self-control. It was clear that my mother
had been deeply prejudiced and cruelly instigated against me. The
consciousness of my innocence and a sense of duty made me stand before
her rigid and mute as a statue. With an impulse of affection, maternal
as it seemed, my mother took my brother Almoro by the arm, and gazing at
me with contempt, which strove to be compassionate, she addressed these
words to him: "Come away, my dear boy; let us leave that madman to the
error of his ways!" Then she turned her back and led him from the room,
as though she were saving an innocent creature from some fearful danger.

Convinced by this tragi-comedy that I was the victim of a family cabal,
I saw no other course open but to resume my commission as a cadet of
cavalry. I left my room, went downstairs, and found all the family
(except my father) assembled in commotion, listening to the
commiserations of their usual friends enraged against me. It had been
proclaimed aloud that I had called them all thieves, retorted against my
mother with scandalous and impious audacity, and betrayed my
determination to make myself the tyrant of the household. Even my three
sisters, who had urged me into opposition, showed themselves sulkily
scornful; and though I might have exposed them before the whole
company, I did not deign to do so. Confirmed in my resolve to leave
Venice for Dalmatia, I buckled on my sword, wasted no words about my
intention, and repaired to the Riva dei Schiavoni, to see if I could
find a ship for Zara. There I discovered that a _trabacolo_ would set
sail in four or five days. The captain was a certain Bernetich. I took
down his name, and, wrapped up in my own dark thoughts, spent all that
day in exile, wandering far from home.

On my return, I noticed that, though everybody wore a crabbed face
against me, something had happened to their satisfaction. Signor Zini,
it appeared, was willing to execute the contract without requiring my
consent. I did not know that my brother Francesco had left a power of
attorney to act for him in Gasparo's hands. With voices of triumph they
all exclaimed together that the great sacrifice was to be solemnly and
legally performed next day. I did not care to inquire how things had
been brought to this conclusion; but putting on as cheerful a face as
possible, I went to keep my poor father company as usual for a few hours
in the evening.

It will be as well at this point to describe the topography of our
house. It was originally built for two separate residences, with double
entrances upon the street and water-side, two staircases and two
cisterns. At the time when it was planned, the Gozzis formed two
families, which were afterwards reduced to one. We occupied the lower
floor and some apartments in the highest storey. The second floor was
let for 150 ducats a year to an honest iron-monger called Uccelli; but
this portion of the mansion had also been sold upon my father's life, by
one of those contracts which were only too frequent in our family, for
the sum of 1200 ducats to his Excellency the Procuratore Sagredo.

I did all in my power to avoid the least allusion to the painful scenes
of the preceding day; but my dear father kept gazing earnestly at me,
and shedding tears from time to time. In vain I tried to inspire him
with happier thoughts. Would that I could banish all recollection of
that night, which was one of the most sombre, the most painful, in the
whole course of my existence. Paralysed and dumb for seven long years,
he yet retained his mental faculties in their full vigour. Summoning all
his force, by signs and stammerings and tears, he made it only too clear
how much he suffered from the miserable straits to which the family had
been reduced. He also continued to express his sympathy with me for my
dislike to sign the projected contract. To my surprise and grief, he
intimated that I had only a brief time to wait; his swift approaching
death would restore to us the upper dwelling, which had been sold upon
his life, and which was much better than the one we occupied. This
inarticulate but eloquent discourse ended in a flood of tears. Deeply
moved to the bottom of my heart, I strove to tranquillise his mind, and
direct his thoughts from such afflicting topics. I perceived that no
pains had been spared to make me odious in my father's eyes, and that
this had been done without the least regard for his infirmity. Yet I did
not attempt to justify my conduct, and said nothing about my firm
resolve to leave home. His departure for Friuli had been fixed on the
third day after this fatal evening, and I mentally decided to set out
for Dalmatia two days later on. My assumed cheerfulness, and the merry
turn I gave to all those dismal subjects of reflection, seemed to
tranquillise him. Then he tried to lift himself from his arm-chair, as
though to get to bed. I helped to raise him, but he tottered more than
usual, and sank with his knees toward the ground. I took him in my arms
to keep him from falling. Agonising moment! It was clear that a last
stroke of apoplexy was carrying away my father from my arms. In a loud
voice and with perfect articulation he pronounced the words: "I am
dying!" They fell like lead upon my heart, with such cruel force that I
nearly dropped. My mother, who was present, fled from the room. I called
aloud for aid. Servants hurried in; one of these I dispatched for
medical assistance, while the others helped me to place my poor dear
father, now quite incapable of any movement, on his bed. A physician,
Doctor Bonariva by name, had him bled at once. But nothing could be done
to save his life. Assisted by Don Pietro Pighetti, now Canon of S.
Marco, in the last religious duties of our creed, he displayed all the
signs of Christian resignation and intelligence; and after eight hours
of oppression, toilsome suffering, and the pangs of death, my unhappy
parent closed his eyes upon the vast obscurity in which his family was
plunged.




XIX.

_My attempts at pacification defeated.--Useless philosophical
reflections.--A terrible domestic storm begins to brew._


No sooner had my father breathed his last than my lady sister-in-law,
all activity and bustle, issued from the room of mourning, and took upon
her to console his sorrowing children with the convincing statement that
he was the most lovely corpse which eyes of men had ever seen. This
wholly unexpected statement, which had nothing of humanity, morality, or
philosophy in it, and which she kept repeating and affirming upon oath
for our relief, filled me then, and fills me now, with such fury, that I
should be angry to think that any of my readers could laugh at it.

One disastrous thought kept breaking in upon our sorrow at this tragic
moment. Am I to record it? We had neither the wherewithal to provide a
decent interment for my father, nor the credit to obtain it. The
habitues of the house gave words in abundance, but no pecuniary aid. I
had only one friend, Massimo, my creditor, the object of my relatives'
calumnies. Grief inspired me with the thought of writing to lay our
difficulties before his generous mind. The special messenger by whom I
sent this letter returned with a sum of money more than sufficient to
defray the expenses of a becoming funeral. On receiving it, I took my
brother Gasparo apart, placed the money in his hands, and told him who
had given it. Then I begged him not to misinterpret what I was about to
say. He was my elder, and I willingly acknowledged him to be the head of
our family. He could not be blind to the deplorable condition into which
we had declined. Duty required that he should take the reins with manly
resolution, and should withdraw the management of our affairs from the
hands of those who had brought us to utter shipwreck. My brother
accepted the money and my speech as well as might have been expected
from a man of his excellent disposition and superior intelligence. He
admitted that he saw the necessity of a thorough economical reform,
carried through with virile firmness. Some increase of income, owing to
the expiration of contracts made upon my father's life, would facilitate
the undertaking. He was willing to relinquish literary occupations,
which were neither appreciated nor remunerated in Italy, for the sake
of being able to devote his energy and time to the administration of our
common property.

I did not flatter myself that anything so much to be desired would come
to pass. I knew how impossible it is for people to change their
character and nature. I knew his wife's meddlesome, restless, imperious
thirst for ruling--his own peaceable temperament, averse from
opposition, addicted to the habits of a student. Yet I saw the necessity
of taking the step I did, if only to correct the bad impression of
myself, which had grown up under malevolent influences in the family.

I had no heart to follow my father to the grave, but shut myself up in
my little chamber, where I gave way through three days and three nights
to grief, not unmingled with remorse for having innocently helped to
hasten his death. Nothing less than this tragedy was needed to cancel
Signor Francesco Zini's contract.

I feel some repugnance at sitting down to write what happened at this
epoch in my family. I wish that I could tell the tale without appearing
to censure any of my relatives and without seeming to draw a
vain-glorious picture of myself. The truth at any cost has to be
reported; but I protest with emphasis, and this is also true, that I
always experienced real pain when I beheld the disastrous consequences
which the faults of others brought upon themselves, and that I neither
took pleasure in revenge, nor cherished sentiments of ambition in doing
good to my family--if indeed I did do good. The reader will be able to
judge of that from the sequel of these Memoirs.

When a group of closely related persons in one household fall to
quarrelling, all the causes which perpetuate faults of character and
conduct begin to operate. Each member of the company is perfectly
acquainted with the weak side of his neighbour, and knows exactly how to
sting him to the quick. Exacerbated tempers and prejudiced minds judge
everything awry, while partisans and flatterers add fuel to the fire.
Zeal is misconstrued into craft and tyranny; no protestations and no
arguments suffice to remove such false impressions. The torment of the
hell in which one has to live blinds reason and enslaves the freedom of
volition; years of unhappiness pass by before the weapons of vindictive
rage are blunted by constant acts of toleration and disinterested deeds
of kindness, and the innocent are seen in their true light. To blame the
doings of a family divided against itself is much the same as blaming
the actions of somnambulists.

We had never used the outward demonstrations of affection, kisses and
caresses, in our domestic circle. Yet we were bound together by real
sentiments of friendliness and love on all sides. Unluckily the seeds of
discord had already begun to germinate in our brains. Besides my mother,
three brothers and three sisters, my sister-in-law was there, with her
hot, headstrong, vindictive temperament, her aptitude for colouring
everything to suit her own purpose, and her established dominion over
the minds of my relations. During my father's long illness there had
been no real head in the household. Everybody passed for master. No one
learned the virtues of submission and filial obedience. Each member of
the family had his own engagements, his own separate obligations,
together with the passions proper to himself as a human being. There was
no defect of intelligence or mental energy. But lacking a central
authority which might have brought man's egotistic passions into
wholesome subjection, self-love and caprice turned the individuals of
the group into so many political agents, bent on achieving their own
ends, without regard for the common interest. I must not omit the
chronic malady under which we suffered--that predilection for poetry,
which tinged all we thought and planned with romanticism. During a
period of many years no records had been kept either of the income
derived from our estate, or of the sales which had been made. With
perfect justice each in turn denied that he had directed our affairs. In
such circumstances the death of the father leaves a family exposed to
direst intestine warfare; and I should be both indiscreet and inhuman if
I were to lay the whole blame of what ensued upon any of the six
relatives whom I have mentioned.

A young man like myself, of little more than twenty years, prone to
thinking rather than to speaking, with a military air acquired abroad,
when he found himself in the middle of so many working brains, and
attempted to effect a total revolution, could not but raise
irascibilities of all sorts and expose himself to odious suspicions. The
portrait which I mean to paint of my own physical and other qualities
will perhaps reveal defects which rendered such suspicions, unjust as
they are, at any rate excusable.

My mother was not so overwhelmed by the recent loss of her husband as to
be unable to think of business. She demanded the repayment of her dowry,
small as it was, like one who feels the coming shipwreck and seeks a
skiff for his salvation. My sister-in-law, bent as usual on displaying
her talent for affairs, called the brokers, Jews, and female go-betweens
around her. My sisters were always conferring in secret among
themselves, or with my sister-in-law, who kept promising them husbands
and marriage-portions. My brother Gasparo, at the very moment when he
solemnly promised to assume the reins of government, handed over the
money I had got from Padua to his wife, to do as she thought best with,
reserving only a few coins for his own purse. Then he relapsed into his
ordinary ways of life, his literary studies, his society of wit and
genius, and gave no signs of any firm intention to make himself the
master.

About twenty days had passed since my father died, when I was summoned
to a serious conference with my elder brother, my mother, and my
sister-in-law. We seated ourselves upon four straw-bottomed rickety
chairs, and my sister-in-law, with an air betokening the gravity of the
occasion, moved the following resolution. Signor Massimo ought to be
repaid (this, mark well, was meant to gain me over). With a view to
discharging the debts we owed him, and for other urgent necessities, it
would be advisable to sell the upper dwelling in our town-house for the
sum of 1200 ducats on the lives of us four brothers. A purchaser was
ready (possibly Signor Francesco Zini). The capital left over would
enable us to put our affairs in order, and to go forward swimmingly upon
a new and proper method of administration. My mother blinked approval of
this fine idea. My brother declared that it was the only course left
open to us. They all looked at me and waited for my assent. I did not
comprehend by what right my mother and sister-in-law took part in the
conference, or how my brother was not ashamed of cutting the figure he
did there, and of following his wife's suggestions with such docility. A
hell of squabbling yawned before me, and I answered as coldly as I could
that, so far as Signor Massimo was concerned, I could trust his generous
indulgence towards a friend in difficulties, and that I did not approve
of selling property upon our joint lives. Such a step seemed to me mere
progress on the former road to ruin. I should prefer to let our mansion,
removing the whole family to the country, where we could live for
one-third of the expense, until our debts were paid and the estate was
nursed into comparative prosperity.

This scandalous ultimatum, which wounded the inclinations and the
self-interest of every member in the family, won me the reputation of a
very Dionysius of Syracuse. Day by day, in secret conclaves, the storm
against me grew and gathered strength. My brother Francesco, however,
had written from Corfu that he was coming home, and I judged it prudent
to await his arrival. Until I gained his support, I stood alone, hated
and dreaded like a fatal comet by my kindred. To distract my mind from
painful thoughts, I summoned all my mental forces, and poured forth
torrents of verse and prose and bizarre fancies upon paper. All through
my long and troubled life I have drawn relief from two main sources. One
is my own robust and democratic[135] bent of mind. The other is my
aptitude for studying human nature and for writing. I may truly say
that the exercise of fancy and the art of composition have been to my
mental pains what opiates are to physical torments.




XX.

_We plunge from bad to worse, deeper and deeper into the mire._


When my brother Francesco arrived from the Levant, I explained to him
the state of our affairs, and my own wishes with regard to their
administration. We both decided that he should repair to Friuli, and
undertake the management of our estates there. Gasparo was to remain
titular head of the family, while Francesco received rents, kept strict
accounts, and provided for the common household. Meanwhile we begged our
mother to charge herself with certain domestic duties, and our
sister-in-law with certain others, hoping by this apportionment of
officers to introduce harmony and order into the establishment. My
sister-in-law displayed a really exemplary resignation, merely
expressing her desire that, at this juncture, the account-book of
expenditure which she had kept for some years past should be signed by
her husband and his three brothers, in token of approval and in
discharge to her of all pecuniary obligations.

I strove to make her understand that there was no need for such a
receipt in form; nobody would dream of calling her to account, and we
were all very grateful for her services. She would not listen to my
arguments, but insisted on our signing a certain notebook scrawled with
cabalistic characters and numbers. Francesco observed that we might
safely sign, for the sake of peace and quiet. Having entered our family
without a farthing, accompanied by her father and mother, whom we had
supported for many years and buried at our own charges, she was
incapable of making claims on the estate. To this he added that he had
consulted lawyers, and that he was quite convinced of the propriety of
yielding to her wishes.

The sequel of this history will show that his reasoning, though
plausible enough, was faulty, and that the policy he recommended led to
further complications. Gasparo and Almoro had already signed; Francesco
was prepared to follow suit; I did not care to take the odium of
standing out alone. Accordingly, four signatures were generously
appended to the mass of undecipherable hieroglyphics, without any
attempt on our part to examine the accounts, which by this act we
formally accepted.

Francesco set off for Friuli, after promising to maintain a detailed
correspondence with Gasparo on the state and management of our farms
there, and not to let himself be wheedled out of money or produce at the
demand of every one and anybody. I did not then know what a worthless
coadjutor I had summoned to support my policy. Without the least
intention to defraud, he was governed by an insect's blind instinct for
his own particular advantage. Under a compliant exterior, he concealed
the subtlety of a diplomatist. His sole aim was to temporise and make
concessions, with the view of bringing matters to a rupture and of
obtaining his own share in the division of our common patrimony. This
end he pursued in secrecy and silence, without reflecting on his duties
to the family, or the position of our three unmarried sisters, and the
discords which his pursuit of self-interest was bound to foment.

What followed after his departure for Friuli seemed conclusively to
prove that a plan had been laid to drive him to the Levant and me to
Dalmatia by involving us in embarrassments of all sorts. I accuse
nobody; the heated passions which raged round us, and the injuries from
which I suffered, deserve compassion more than blame.

Scarcely a day passed without letters being sent from Venice, begging my
brother to dispatch provisions or money on various pretences. He
complied with every application, whether it bore the name of Gasparo or
of my mother or my sister-in-law. In the course of some seven months he
had exhausted the whole harvest of that year, without asking for
accounts or disputing the claims made upon the property he managed. In
like manner the profits of certain houses in Venice, and of some farms
at Bergamo and Vicenza, amounting to 800 ducats, had been dissipated.
When letters still kept coming, demanding supplies and setting forth our
urgent needs, my brother could only answer that there was nothing left
to send. It was vain to inquire how the casks of wine and sacks of corn
and bags of cash had vanished. Everybody had taken something to defray
his own particular expenses. One said, "I got only so much;" another, "I
got so much; I did this, and I did that." Gasparo knew less than anybody
how matters had been managed, and had kept no account of the least
article. The conclusion arrived at was that we must all die of hunger
unless we sold some piece of the estate upon our joint lives.

      "Ora incomencian le dolenti note."
    "And now begins the Iliad of our woes."




XXI.

     _My attitude of patient calm is useless.--Volcanic eruptions,
     machinations, tragi-comic civil wars within our household._


At this point I resolved to step forth boldly and to take the whole
weight of our affairs upon my shoulders, without troubling my head about
being called a tyrant and disturber of domestic peace. I proclaimed
aloud that the family must retire for some time into the country and
economise. Nothing would induce me to consent to sales or mortgages.
Then I began to contract debts on my own account, and to part with my
personal trifles for the support of the household. I soon saw that it
was impossible in this way to keep fifteen people, servants included, at
Venice. Whenever I insisted upon the necessity of leaving for the
country, all the women rose in revolt, and turned their backs without a
word of answer. Our dining-table became the scene of daily quarrels,
sullen faces, surly glances, biting speeches. I was deeply grieved to
observe that a final division of the estate was drawing nearer and
nearer. To avert this catastrophe seemed impracticable, and I reflected
gloomily upon the condition to which my brother Gasparo would be
reduced, with a wife and five children to support upon the fourth part
of our encumbered property. Meanwhile I could not blame him except for
his incurable indolence and absolute immersion in studies for which I
shared his weakness.

Among the habitues of the house, none of them friends of mine, were
certain lawyers. I noticed that these gentlemen had frequent conferences
with the ladies of the family who ruled my brother. They were clearly
plotting against me, and seeking means to set the machinery of the law
in movement in order to hamper my free action. There was also a lady to
whom the female members of my family paid visits every evening. She was
the Countess Elisabetta Ghellini of Vicenza, widow of the patrician
Barbarigo Balbi, who died some years before this epoch, leaving her the
mother of an only son. It is exceedingly rare to find a lady endowed
with the excellent qualities of heart and head which she possessed in a
supreme degree. About forty years of age, infirm of health, and exposed
to constant litigation through various claims advanced against her
moderate estates, she bore the trials of life with steady courage and
constant trust in Heaven. Her chief interest was the education of her
son, a boy of eight or nine, for whom she had provided masters, while
she herself instilled into his mind the principles of sound religion and
morality. Gifted with a lively intellect, and fond of literature, she
spent a large part of the day in reading poetry, and opened her house to
a society composed mainly of persons who had suffered in the battles of
life. Her extreme sympathy for the afflicted led her to despoil herself
with admirable intrepidity, and to bestow on others what was needed for
her own support. This compassionate and pious lady had for her adviser
and advocate in the numerous lawsuits to which she was condemned, the
celebrated Conte Francesco Santorini.

It will appear from the sequel that this digression upon the Countess
Ghellini was needed to explain an important passage in my life. Amid the
din and squabbles of our home, I used at times to catch fragments of
the panegyrics poured forth by my female relatives and Gasparo upon this
lady, and heard them rehearse the sonnets which they intended to recite
in her honour, or to offer for her recreation. Such was the common
custom at that period, observed by poets in the houses they frequented.
I speedily divined that a plot was in process of formation to secure the
assistance of a very famous advocate against me. Trusting this
intuition, I resolved to introduce myself, although I had received no
invitation, to the lady whom my enemies so warmly praised.

She received me, and asked who I might be. On giving my name, the noble
and yet kindly distance of her manner changed suddenly to sternness. A
few phrases which I thought it right to utter about her interest in my
relatives increased this expression of reserve; and she began to speak
as follows, with the happy choice of words which was peculiar to her:
"Sir, I am a poor woman as regards the wealth of this life, but by the
grace of God I am rich in the possession of good sentiments and a sound
education. Your family is cultivated, and deserves to meet with kindly
feeling and esteem from all the world. It is a pity that such a family
should be annoyed and brought to sorrow by a certain individual bound to
it by ties of blood, duty, and respect. A mother of very noble birth
treated with contempt, sisters domineered over, persons of merit
regarded with hatred--all kinds of extravagances and injustice--such
things dishonour the individual of whom I speak." This preamble made me
feel inclined to bow myself out of the room in silence, since I am by
nature far from prone to justify my innocence; but politeness and a fear
that a certain famous advocate, if prejudiced against me, might upset my
plans, kept me where I was. I suffered, however, keenly from the
barbarous picture which had been presented to me, and began to plead in
self-defence. She interrupted me by saying that she did not believe me
to be entirely bad-hearted, and that if I ceased to follow the counsels
of a certain friend of mine, I might become a rational and right-feeling
young man. So then, here was Signor Massimo once more made a
scape-goat--the friend who had assisted me in Dalmatia, succoured my
family in our distress, and who still remained our uncomplaining
creditor. The impropriety of this attack stung me so sharply that I
could not hold my tongue. I had been treated as a knave and fool without
losing patience; but never in my life have I heard my friends insulted
without resenting the injustice.

I told the lady, knitting my brows and speaking seriously, that she was
bound to listen to me: unless, as I thought not, she was indifferent to
equity. Prejudice, I said, is a very unjust judge, and I did not wish
her to fall into that category. Then I entered into a candid narration
of our family affairs. I described the ill results of reckless
mal-administration. I related what had already happened and was sure to
happen, what I wanted, how I was opposed, my honourable intentions, the
plots and schemes to thwart me, the services rendered by my friend and
his guiltlessness of any machinations. I could see that she was both
surprised and penetrated by my reasoning. Just at this point Conte
Francesco Santorini entered the apartment, tired and drowsy. We
exchanged greetings, and the lady spoke to him in this way: "Count, you
were quite right to doubt about the Gozzi. This gentleman has put a very
different face upon the matter, and I know not what to think." The Count
sank sleepily into a chair, murmuring: "Did I not tell you that you
ought to hear both sides? The chatter of women, heated brains" ... And
having said these words, he subsided into slumber.

I begged this noble lady to continue her protection to our family, and
to receive the visits which I hoped to pay her; if she sought to help
us, she could do so by allaying the fever which was burning in so many
irritated bosoms. For my part, I cultivated her friendship through many
long years, until death forced me to deplore the loss of one whom I
esteemed and reverenced. My relatives, on the other hand, gradually
relaxed in their attentions, ceased to visit her, and changed their
eulogistic sonnets into petty satires.




XXII.

     _The dogs of the law are let loose on me by my family.--It is
     impossible to avoid a separation._


As time went on, my steady intention to remove our family into the
country, and my other plans of reform, roused my domestic antagonists to
various pettifogging stratagems. The black-robed seedy myrmidons of the
courts began to haunt our dwelling, taking inventories of every nail on
the pretext of my mother's dowry, delivering demands in form from my
three sisters for maintenance and marriage portions, presenting bills
for drapery and jewels furnished by a company of merchants to the tune
of 1500 ducats, and suing on the part of my two brothers-in-law for some
4000 ducats owed to them. Little creditors of all descriptions rose in
swarms around us; and what was still more astounding, my sister-in-law
advanced a claim of 900 ducats, due to her, she said, upon the statement
of accounts which we had signed so negligently. One would have thought
the myrmidons and ban-dogs of the law had been unleashed by hunters bent
on driving a wild beast from his lair; while the satisfaction and
triumph depicted on the faces of my relatives showed too clearly who
were the real authors of this legal persecution.

I bore the brunt of these attacks with my habitual philosophy of
laughter, drew closer to my brother Almoro, and informed Francesco by
letter of what was being conspired against us. Count Francesco Santorini
helped me at this pinch with excellent advice. Under his direction I
took the following measures. Francesco received instructions to hold
fast by every rood of our Friulian property, and to send me copies of
any writs which might be served upon him there. I recognised my mother's
dowry, and offered annual payments to the merchants and my
brothers-in-law. To my sisters I replied in writing that their
maintenance should be duly attended to, but that it was impossible to
create marriage portions for them under the conditions of entail to
which the estate was subjected. With regard to the monstrous claims
advanced by my sister-in-law, I flatly denied their validity until they
had been submitted to a court of justice. Then I proceeded to meet the
current expenditure of our establishment as well as I was able, while
waiting for the time of harvest; and all this I did without mooting the
question of Gasparo's separation from our brotherhood, in the hope that
little by little things would settle down in peace and quietness. Vain
and idle expectation! My reforms, by cutting at the root of vested
interests, and checking the arbitrary sway of Heaven knows whom, merely
fanned the flames of rage which burned against me. In a private
memorial, addressed to my mother, brother, sister-in-law, and sisters,
I finally explained the impossibility of supporting the family any
longer at Venice, exposed as I was to annoying and expensive litigation
with the very persons who ate and drank at the same table. I might just
as well have talked to images. Writs issued by my mother, my
sister-in-law, my sisters, fell in showers. Slights and insults
thickened daily. Our common table had become a pit of hell, worthy to be
sung by Dante. To such a state of misery had irrational dissensions
brought a set of relatives who really loved each other.

In order to shelter Almoro and myself from the wordy missiles which fell
like hail all dinner-time, I had a little table laid for us two in a
separate apartment. The covers were removed with rudeness, on the
pretext that the linen, plates, dishes, &c., belonged to my mother's
dowry, and that if I wanted such furniture I must buy it. Pushed in this
way to extremities, I decided to leave a house which had become for me a
hell on earth. Perhaps it was impolitic to take this step. But I could
not stand these petty persecutions longer. Before quitting the infernal
regions, I begged permission from my mother to take away the beds in
which my brother Almoro and I enjoyed our troubled slumbers, offering to
pay their price to the credit of her dowry. She replied with a sardonic
smile of discontent that she could not grant my request, since the beds
were needed by the family. I accepted this refusal with hilarity.

      "E quindi uscimmo a riveder le stelle."
    "And thence we issued to review the stars."




XXIII.

     _Calumnious reports, negotiations, a legal partition of our family
     estate, tranquillity sought in vain._


I had hardly settled down with my brother Almoro in the remote quarter
of S. Caterina, where lodgings are cheap in proportion to their
inconvenience and discomfort, before the whole town began to talk about
our doings. Three of the brothers Gozzi, it was rumoured, had laid
violent hands upon the family estate; their eldest brother with his wife
and five children, their three unmarried sisters, and their mother, a
Venetian noblewoman worthy of all respect, had been plunged in tears and
indigence by the barbarous inhumanity of these unnatural monsters. The
hovel I had hired, and where I suffocated with Almoro in the smoke of a
miserable kitchen, ill-furnished and waited on by an old beldame called
Jacopa, was besieged by the myrmidons of the law. Everything was done to
dislodge me from the city, and to make me abandon the line of action on
which I had resolved. Democritus and my innocence came to my aid; and I
determined to stand firm with silent and passive resistance.

In these painful circumstances I heard to my great sorrow that my
brother's wife had persuaded him to become the lessee of the theatre of
S. Angelo at Venice.[136] Her romantic turn of fancy, together with her
love of domination, made her conceive wild hopes of profit from this
scheme. A company of actors were engaged at fixed salaries; and she was
to play the part of controller, purse-holder, and stage-manager for the
troupe at Venice and on the mainland. Moved by pity for my brother and
his innocent children, I did everything I could, without appearing
personally in the matter, to dissuade this hot-headed woman from so
perilous an enterprise. She repelled all such attempts with scorn, being
firmly convinced that she would gain a fortune and make her
brothers-in-law bite their nails with envy.

I saw that the division of our patrimony could no longer be postponed,
and civilly intimated to Gasparo that the time was come for taking this
supreme step. Articles were accordingly drawn up, whereby the several
parcels of our estate in Friuli, Venice, Bergamo, and Vicenza were
partitioned into four lots. Provision was made for the repayment of my
mother's dowry and for the proper maintenance of my three sisters, all
of whom elected to reside with Gasparo. A fund was formed for the
liquidation of debts, the charge of which devolved on me. I undertook to
render an annual report of this operation, showing how I had bestowed
the monies in my hands as trustee for the family. Nothing was fixed
about my sister-in-law's claims for reimbursement; but it will be seen
that when her theatrical speculation proved a ruinous failure, I had to
take these also into account. Gasparo expressed a wish to obtain the
upper dwelling in our mansion as part of his share. The lower dwelling
was conceded to Francesco, Almoro and myself. To my mother and sisters
we offered the hospitality of sons and brothers, in case at any time
they should repent of their decision to abide with Gasparo.

It might be imagined that, while these negotiations were in progress, I
had no time to spend on literary occupations. Nothing could be further
from the fact. I found in them my solace and distraction, pouring forth
multitudes of compositions, for the most part humorous and alien to the
cares which weighed upon my mind. The course of my Memoirs will bring to
light many curious incidents which these literary pastimes occasioned,
and the narration of which will prove, I hope, far from saddening to my
readers.




XXIV.

     _I enter on a period of toilsome litigation, and become acquainted
     with Venetian lawyers._


I should have been an arrant fool had I flattered myself with the hope
that this partition would introduce the olive-branch of peace into our
midst. On the contrary, I looked forward, and with justice, to all kinds
of coming troubles. Two-thirds of the estate were saved from extravagant
administration by the process; but the minds of Gasparo's family had
been almost incurably embittered by the same cause. When I wanted to lay
my hands upon our documents, in order to study the nature of various
entails and trusts under which the estates were settled, I found that
all these papers had been sold out of spite. Who had done this I did not
learn, but I was informed in great secrecy by a servant-maid that they
had been sold to a certain pork-butcher. I repaired immediately to his
shop, and was only just in time to repurchase some abstracts and wills,
which had not yet been used to wrap up sausages. Then I set to work in
the cabinets of notaries and advocates and in the public archives,
following the scent afforded by my recovered papers. More than eighty
bulky suits in my own handwriting remain to show how patiently I
studied the rights and claims of our estate, and now I prepared myself
for the task of laying these before the courts.

At this epoch I made acquaintance with the celebrated pleader, Antonio
Testa, under whose direction and advice I embarked upon a series of
litigations which kept me fully occupied for eighteen years, and in the
course of which I became acquainted with the men who haunt our palace of
justice, and learned the chicaneries of legal warfare. Inveterate
abuses, introduced in the remote past, and complicated by the ingenuity
of lawyers through successive generations (most of them men of subtle
brains, some of them devoid of moral rectitude), have been built up into
a system of pleading as false as it is firmly grounded and imbued with
ineradicable insincerity. This system consists, for the most part, of
quibbling upon side-issues, throwing dust in the eyes of judges,
cavilling, misrepresenting, taking advantage of technical errors, doing
everything in short to gain a cause by indirect means. And from this
false system neither honourable nor dishonest advocates are able to
depart.

In justice to the legal profession, I must, however, say that I found
many practicians who combined the gifts of eloquence and intellectual
fervour with urbanity, cordiality, prudence, and disinterested zeal.
Outside the vicious circle of their system they were men of loyalty and
honour. Among these I ought to pay a particular tribute to my friendly
counsel and defender, Signor Testa. Knowing my circumstances and my
upright motives, he refused to take the fees which were his due, and not
unfrequently opened his purse to me at a pinch in my necessities. I have
never met with a lawyer more quick at seizing the strong and weak points
of a case, more rapid in his analysis of piles of documents, more
sagacious in divining the probable issue of a suit, or more acute in
calculating the mental powers, the bias, and the equity of judges. Time
and the circumstances of our several lives have drawn us somewhat apart.
But nothing can diminish the feeling of deep gratitude which I shall
always cherish for one who helped to heal the distractions and to
improve the fallen fortunes of my family.

The final result of eight or nine tedious lawsuits, carried through with
the assistance of Signor Testa, was that I received several parcels of
our estates in Friuli, Vicenza, Bergamo, and Venice, which had been
alienated by fraudulent evasions of entail.[137] Meanwhile I found time
to visit my mother and Gasparo's family. The latter were busily engaged
in concocting and translating plays for my brother's theatre. These
visits, paid with cordiality and frankness on my side, were usually the
occasions of requests for money on my mother's. She begged with maternal
dignity for little loans. I complied to the best of my ability, and
forgot to remind her of her debts. My sister-in-law forced herself to
treat me with an affectation of flattery. My sisters looked upon me with
real affection, checked in its expression by I know not what untoward
influence. My brother accepted me with philosophical indifference.




XXV.

     _A collision with my brother's family, due to old grudges and to
     present needs.--They make me a married man without my having taken
     a wife._


My brother Gasparo's income, derived from his portion of the family
estates, from the interest on my mother's dowry and the annual allowance
for my sisters' maintenance, together with the profits of his writing
and of certain literary services rendered to his Excellency Marco
Foscarini,[138] late Doge of glorious memory, amounted to about 1500
ducats, free of all debts and obligations. This was certainly nothing
very splendid; but neither would the wealth of Croesus have been
anything to boast of in the hands of an extravagant family, ruled only
by the caprice of its component members.

I have mentioned above that Gasparo obtained the upper dwelling in our
house at Venice, which was let for 150 ducats, while we three brothers
received the lower dwelling, at that time inhabited by him. Some few
months were allowed him to remove from the one apartment to the other.
But no sooner had he entered into legal possession of his new habitation
than he, or perhaps I ought to say his wife, let it again to the noble
lady Ginevra Loredan Zeno. She paid the rent of several years in
advance, and installed herself in Gasparo's part of the mansion, while
he, with all his family, continued to inhabit our part with the utmost
sang-froid, taking no further heed of the engagement he was under to us
three brothers. Now we had resolved to put this tenement into good
repair and to let it for some years, until the debts of the estate had
been discharged and we could go to live in it at peace. With this view
we had already found a tenant, who was no other than the Contessa
Ghellini Balbi. She, on her side, had given up her old apartment, which
was already let in advance to other tenants by her landlord. Time went
on, and I saw no sign of our house being abandoned to our use, according
to the family agreement. It appeared only too clearly that the
partition I had demanded, my resolve to pay the family debts out of
income without resorting to sale or mortgage, and my application to the
courts for annulment of contracts made during my father's lifetime, were
all of them unpardonable offences in the eyes of those who had made the
debts, the mortgages, the contracts.

I began by gently asking for the house which was our portion, seeing
that we had resigned the upper dwelling to our brother at his particular
request. No answer reached me; but rumours ran around the city that I
was now attempting to turn my old mother, my three marriageable sisters,
my brother, his wife, and five innocent children into the streets. At
this point I expected that one of those interminable lawsuits, which are
the dishonour of the legal profession, but which never lack advocates to
keep them going, would be commenced against me. In order to lend colour
and substance to their false report, my relatives determined to give me
a wife without consulting me. It was impossible to fix definite
calumnies upon Mme. Ghellini Balbi, because of her exemplary life and
conspicuous piety. But my daily visits to her house offered a pretext
for injurious insinuations; and I soon heard it announced that I was
secretly married to this lady, and that all my plots had only this one
end in view. Such gossip did me honour in some respects. Yet I was
grieved that a lady of excellent conduct, devoted to her only son, and
old enough to be my mother, should be made the butt of malignant
animosity.[139]

Without wasting time or breath in contradicting these unjust and lying
vociferations of my private enemies, I made my mind up to obtain
possession of my house by all the straightforward means in my power.
Accordingly I managed to meet my brother apart from the din of women,
and laid a clear statement before him of my obligations to Mme. Ghellini
Balbi (who ran the risk of remaining without a roof to shelter her) and
of my well-founded rights which were being iniquitously set at nought.
The poor fellow seemed on the point of weeping. His gestures reminded me
of patient Job, while he protested that he had nothing whatever to do
with a state of affairs the injustice of which he frankly admitted. He
added that he had to put up with infernal clamourings--that he was
called a chicken-hearted poltroon, a father without entrails for his
offspring--in short, that he was neither obeyed nor listened to at home.
Then, to convince me that it was not he who opposed my entrance into our
part of the house, he took a pen and wrote and signed a declaration to
the effect that he fully acknowledged the title of his brothers
Francesco, Carlo, and Almoro, and that he would never interfere to
prevent our taking possession of our lawful property.

All these steps proved fruitless. Time pressed, and I found myself
obliged to bring my cause before a judge, who chanced to be his
Excellency Count Galean Angarano, at that time Avvogador del
Comune.[140] What was my astonishment when I saw my sister-in-law, like
an advocate in petticoats, at the head of my mother and my sisters, with
my hen-pecked brother to bring up the rear, come marching into court. I
will not dwell upon this too too comic scene--

    "For my Thalia takes no thought to sing."

The judge recognised that my claims were indisputable. But before
pronouncing sentence in my favour he strove to settle matters by
mediation. Conferences took place; first between the bench and his
Excellency the Senator Daniele Reniero, who acted for Mme. Ghellini
Balbi; then between the Senator and my sister-in-law, who was the rock
and stone of our vexation. I was curious to know the upshot of these
whispered confabulations. At length Senator Reniero came up and told me
that if I was willing to disburse sixty ducats, which my sister-in-law
had pressing need of, I might enter at once into possession of the
house without a verdict from the bench. Such a verdict would be appealed
against and would certainly lead to indescribable delays. I thanked his
Excellency for suggesting this arrangement. My sister-in-law received
her ducats, and we obtained our dwelling. I had it straightway put into
repair, for it looked as though it had sustained a siege. Mme. Balbi
went at once to live there with a lease of five years only, while I
retired with my brothers into a cheap house, which I had taken at S.
Ubaldo and furnished with strict regard to economy. Here I arranged for
Almoro's tuition by an excellent ecclesiastic. For my own part, I went
on paying off debts, rebuilding such of our houses as needed it,
prosecuting my lawsuits, and amusing myself in leisure hours with
literature.




XXVI.

     _A serious event, depicting the character of my uncle, the Senator
     Almoro Cesare Tiepolo._


A very long time had elapsed since I visited my maternal uncle, the
Senator Almoro Cesare Tiepolo. I imagined that my mother and the persons
about her, who were assiduous in paying court to him from motives wholly
alien to my nature, might have prejudiced the good old man against me.
Still I did not choose to undergo the mortification of defending
myself, especially as I could only do so by accusing those for whom at
the bottom of my heart I felt both love and reverence. I knew, moreover,
that our Venetian patricians, though just and dispassionate upon the
bench in their capacity of judges, were singularly liable to be
influenced by what they heard in private at their own homes from suitors
or clients, and that it was extremely difficult to remove impressions
which had once been made upon their minds. This weakness I have always
ascribed to their amiability, and have regarded the nobles of our
Republic as really adorable for qualities of the heart, in spite of the
sentimental bias I have mentioned.

My habitual taciturnity and solitary ways of life, my neglect of petty
social duties, my habit of asking and desiring nothing from fortune,
together with the freedom of my pen, might have won me formidable
enemies, if any such had deigned to look down upon a person of so little
consequence as I am.

My wise and good uncle, who was suffering from a dropsy in the chest,
and not far from death's door, let me know that he should like to see
me. I went at once to his house; and was bidden to take a seat at his
bedside. He began to complain gently that I had so long neglected to
visit him. I answered frankly that I had stayed away through fear of his
having been wrongfully prejudiced against me, and also because I heard
that he was angry with me, perhaps on account of my prolonged absence.
"If I complained," he said, "that my sister and your mother was being
exposed to ill-treatment and affronts, this was no reason why you should
suspend your visits." "I see," I replied, "that my suspicions and my
fears are not without foundation. But this is not the proper time to
trouble you with lengthy narratives in self-defence. Your health is a
matter of concern to me for your sake and for my own. I have tried
everything in my power to avert discords and divisions, even to the
point of doing violence to my naturally pacific temper. I feel sure,
when you recover, as I hope you will with all my heart, that I shall
make it clear to you that I have hurt nobody and attacked nobody, and
that I am only doing all I can to benefit our family, without the least
regard for my mere private interest; nay, that I am bearing the burden
of enormous cares and weighty business, not to speak of exposing myself
to risks and dangers, for the common good."

He was just, prudent, a philosopher, and ill. Therefore he made no
immediate answer. I renewed my daily visits, and had the satisfaction of
hearing afterwards that the venerable old man expressed himself in these
words to my mother: "Believe me, your son Carlo is a good young fellow."

His illness kept increasing, and I perceived, by the persons whom he
urged to visit him, that he was anxious to be reconciled with all of his
acquaintances who might be under the impression that he bore a grudge
against them. A certain Frate Bernardo of the Gesuati, who then passed
for a learned ecclesiastic, acted as his spiritual director, and used to
read at his request portions of the Holy Scriptures aloud to him.
Observing his indifference upon the point of death, this excellent friar
was moved to say: "I do not want you to prepare yourself for death too
much like a philosopher."

Though he had filled important posts in the Government, and had
frequently sat as member of the sublime Council of Ten, he was never
heard, throughout his last illness, to utter the least word regarding
the tribunals of justice or the state.

During his whole lifetime he had taken delight in gathering company
around his hospitable board, and seeing the table furnished with good
cheer, especially with the choicest kinds of fish. Now that he was sick
unto death, and could only take some spoonfuls of such broth as are
administered to dying persons, he still would have the table served as
formerly for guests. Every morning he used to send for one of his
gondoliers, and inquire what sorts of fine fish were that day in the
market. On receiving the man's report, he commented in praise or blame,
as this might be, upon the season and the quality of the fishes for
sale, and the various waters in which they had been caught. After
settling these affairs of the household, he proceeded to religious
exercises, grave discourses with his spiritual director, and prayers of
fervent piety. I ought further to testify that he breathed his last in
the spirit of a great man, philosophically Christian, and that his
example inspired me with the desire to imitate his end.

He possessed the virtue of patience in the highest degree. No one ever
saw his temper stirred by any untoward accident which happened to him.
In order to give a single instance of his intrepid constancy, I will
relate an event which happened some years before his death. One evening,
while alighting from his gondola, he caught his foot in the long and
ample robes of the patrician mantle, and was upon the point of falling
into the canal. The gondolier, in his anxiety to catch and keep him up,
let the oar go which he was holding in his hands. The oar fell with
violence upon the right arm of his master, and broke it. The gondolier
was not aware of what had happened; and my uncle, though he knew very
well, uttered no complaint. He ascended the stairs, and when he reached
his apartment, the valet came forward to help him off, as usual, with
his cloak. Then at last he remarked with imperturbable long-suffering:
"Pull gently, for my right arm is in two pieces." The uproar among the
servants, who were greatly attached to him, was tremendous. The
gondolier ran up, weeping bitterly and begging to be pardoned. He bade
them all be calm, and said to the man: "You did me harm when you were
meaning to do me good. What fault have you committed, which requires my
pardon?" After this he had to lie forty days in bed without altering his
position, at the surgeon's orders; yet he never uttered a syllable that
betrayed any impatience. I could relate a number of such traits of
character, but they have nothing to do with the Memoirs of my life.

After his death, which I felt very deeply, as every one could see, a
certain Signor Giovannantonio Guseo came to call on me. This man
practised as notary, land-surveyor, advocate, registrar, and judge in
certain courts of Friuli. He was known to be more wily than the old
Greek Sinon, and had assisted my brother's wife in procuring the
alienation of certain portions of our entailed estates. Now he suggested
that it would do me great honour, as a sign of affectionate remembrance,
if I were to contribute ten sacks of flour and two casks of wine
annually to my mother, in addition to her dowry. I saw at once from whom
this proposal emanated, and admired the address with which the proper
moment had been chosen for working on my feelings. Such artifices,
however, were repugnant to my nature; and changing my tone from sadness
to cold reserve, I replied to the following effect. "I thought my
mother's preference for my brother Gasparo's family unfortunate; my own
house was always open to her, and here she would be revered and loved by
three respectful sons. Here she would enjoy her yearly maintenance, and
the income of her dowry. By refusing our offer, she only affronted us.
By accepting it, she would confer a benefit on Gasparo, the number of
whose family would be diminished. Meanwhile, the obligation I was under
of reducing debts, repairing buildings on the property, and reclaiming
parts of the entailed estates, rendered it impossible that I should
weaken the insufficient resources at my command by any such donation as
Signor Guseo had proposed." This answer set tongues wagging again, and
revived the opinion that I was a downright Phalaris.

The estate of my uncle Tiepolo had gained nothing by his regency of
Zante and by other lucrative appointments. The probity of his character
did not suffer him to enrich himself at the expense of the State.
Accordingly, he provided by will that all his debts should be paid off,
appending a schedule of his creditors. The residue he bequeathed to his
sister Girolama for her lifetime, with reversion to my mother. On the
same sad occasion my mother inherited a portion of some landed property
in Friuli, which had belonged to an old aunt Tiepolo, who died
intestate. This, united to her dowry, formed a sufficient fund for her
establishment.

My mother continued to regard me as her sixth finger, amputated without
any suffering on her part. Of course she had the right to dispose of her
affections as she felt inclined, and to keep her tender heart open for
the persons who possessed her favour. It was my misfortune not to
possess it, but I did not envy those who had that privilege; and I can
assure my readers that what caused me the greatest annoyance with regard
to my mother, was seeing her always without a ducat to spend according
to her fancy. This state of things continued when the whole property of
that branch of the Tiepolos passed into her hands upon the death of her
sister Girolama, who left furniture and a considerable amount of money
to my mother, jointly with my brother Gasparo and his children.




XXVII.

     _It is decided that I was a husband, though I had no wife.--Some
     anecdotes of a serious character._


An event happened which clenched the gossip of my imaginary marriage to
the Contessa Ghellini Balbi. The patrician Benedetto Balbi, Canon of
Padua and Abbot of Lonigo, a gentleman abundantly endowed with gifts of
nature and of fortune, who was this lady's brother-in-law, had caused
himself to be legally appointed sole guardian of his nephew Paolo, the
widow's only son. The lad may have been about ten years old at this
epoch; and his uncle resolved to separate him from his mother, and to
place him in a school kept by the Somascan fathers, at San Cipriano on
the island of Murano.[141] His mother, who was tenderly devoted to her
son, did not oppose his entrance into this college, but resented his
being torn from the arms which had nursed and fostered him till now, as
though she were a peril to his youth and had no claim to supervise his
education in the school. Sharp and angry words passed; and Mme. Balbi
applied to the courts, demanding to be nominated guardian together with
her brother-in-law. The conflagration spread, and I, innocent as I was,
found myself involved in it. With the object of strengthening his case,
the Cavaliere went about the town, loudly protesting that his
sister-in-law had contracted a second alliance with Count Carlo Gozzi;
that she had ceased thereby to be a Balbi, and had lost all rights over
the boy, who belonged to his family. I laughed, as usual, with the lady
over the pertinacity of folk in thinking we were married. But my
laughter was turned to seriousness, when the Cavaliere finally declared
his intention to be free of legal quarrels, and to abandon all the
schemes which he had formed for his nephew's advantage, leaving him
entirely to his mother's authority.

Assuming a Catonian gravity, I pointed out to Mme. Balbi that she ought
to waive her just claims and to stomach her natural resentment for the
sake of her son. I firmly believed in my own soul that an ounce of
sincere love was worth more than a hundred pounds of gold. Yet I
reminded her that she was not in the position to make up to her boy for
the loss of his uncle's property. This reasoning, which I regard as mere
sophistry, but which the world accepts as irrefutable, made the lady
burst into a flood of tears and then exclaim: "You are right! I am a
poor woman, and should be condemned by everybody, perhaps even in the
future by my own son. I am ready to sacrifice my rights; I will bury in
my breast the stirrings of maternal love, the sense of insult and of
injury, all that may prove prejudicial to the interests of my adored
son, on whom I am unable to confer those benefits which lie within his
uncle's power. Pray do me the further kindness of undertaking to explain
the unalterable decision at which I have arrived."

I praised her virtuous resolution, and reported to the noble gentleman,
her brother-in-law, from whom I have always received distinguished marks
of politeness, the decision she had come to. In doing so, I attempted to
draw a picture of her merits, and to maintain that her feelings were not
merely excusable, but worthy of the highest commendation. The Cavaliere
replied with some emotion: "You must not take me for a wild beast! I
mean that the boy shall be visited by his mother, and looked after in
all his wants, the charge of supplying which I take for the future on
myself. I am quite willing to let her bring him back from time to time
to dine with her, and only stipulate that her demonstrations of
tenderness shall not interfere with his education and discipline." These
solemn words of covenant having been exchanged, I was the instrument of
separating the boy from his mother's embraces, and of conducting him to
his appointed school. His behaviour on this occasion, in which firmness
blent with filial emotion, made me feel sure that he was destined to
reward his mother's virtues and his uncle's benevolence with conduct
worthy of the highest honours of his country. Only death, which spared
neither of his relatives, and which prevented them from reaping the
fruits of their respective love and kindness, defeated these
prognostications. The mother died twelve, and the uncle fifteen years
after the events I have narrated. Young Balbi grew up to be an ornament,
by his intellectual and moral qualities, by his probity and purity of
manners, by his sympathy for the oppressed, and by his thoroughly
national temper, to the Venetian Republic, in the administration of
which his birth opened for him a career of usefulness and honour.




XXVIII.

     _I should not have believed what is narrated in this chapter, if I
     had not seen it with my own eyes._


Family jars and discords have this effect upon embittered minds that
each member, wherever the wrong may really lie, is apt to think, not
only that he is in the right, but that the right is absolutely and
wholly on his side. For my part, I am not altogether sure that I was
justified in doing what I did, and what I have described above with
perfect candour.

I was aware that the theatrical speculation into which my brother had
been induced to enter had taken a bad turn, and that worse might be
expected in the future. A malignant and vindictive spirit would have
found some satisfaction in these circumstances. As it was, I felt
sincerely sorry, and flattered myself on being therefore free from
malice. In proportion as things went from bad to worse, the rancour
against myself increased, as though I had been responsible for an
enterprise which I had always solemnly condemned by act and word.

I kept up relations with my brother's family, wishing to maintain the
links of relationship unbroken, and to explain from time to time what I
was doing for the common good. In spite of these demonstrations of a
kindly feeling, which I admit were never very gushing, I saw to my deep
regret that the wounds caused by the partition of our patrimony had not
ceased to bleed.

The youngest of my sisters, Chiara by name, induced perhaps by some
presentiment of coming trouble, asked me one day to take her under the
protection of us three brothers. I cordially acceded to her request, and
would have done the like by my mother and our two other sisters, had
they not spurned the acceptance of what they had hitherto rejected as a
great misfortune.

I told this youngest of my sisters that, our mother not being under my
roof, my brother Francesco occupied with the estates in Friuli, Almoro a
mere boy engaged in studies, and I absorbed in legal affairs for the
common interests of the family, she could not with any propriety be left
to the custody of a rough and stupid serving-woman. I therefore begged
her to enter a convent for a while, until we should have changed our
mode of living, and should be in a position to receive her more suitably
and to take thought for her proper establishment. My sisters are neither
foolish nor ill-natured. Chiara accepted my proposal, and was placed in
the convent of S. Maria degli Angeli at Pordenone, as a young lady in
charge of the Superior.

Any one exposed, as I was, to the rage of angry tongues, blackening me
with the epithets of unjust, inhumane, tyrannical, marrying me against
my will, and capable of insinuating the worst of charges against me for
my guardianship of a sister, would act rightly if he took the
precautions I did. Yet the precautions of the most prudent man on earth
do not always bear the good results expected of them. I speak with
experience derived from long study of ill-inclined men and
worse-inclined women, who have invariably taken my unalterable good
faith for venomous maliciousness.

I was excessively pained to observe that the bitterness created in my
brother Gasparo's family by the events I have narrated remained
unconquerable. It is true that they concealed, as far as possible, their
grudge against me, whenever I paid them visits and treated them with
brotherly good-will. This grudge, however, could not help showing itself
in public; and it did so in a monstrous fashion, which I should not have
credited unless I had been an eye-witness of the scandal.

My brothers and I were in the habit, during carnival-time, of frequently
attending the theatre of S. Angelo, which was under the direction of my
sister-in-law far rather than her husband. Amusement was less our object
than the wish to support, so far as in us lay, a speculation to which we
feared our brother had been sacrificed. We persuaded Mme. Ghellini Balbi
to accompany us; and she entered into our designs by applauding as
heartily as any of the audience.

They had given at this theatre a translation of the French comedy called
_Esop at the Court_, which succeeded partly by the elegance of my
brother's Italian version, and partly by its novelty. Rumour told us
that the sequel, by the same French author, entitled _Esop in the Town_,
was being translated and would soon appear. We were eager to be present
at the first night, to back the piece with our approval, and to witness
its triumph.

A worthy fellow, who aired his eloquence at Gasparo's house and also in
our own, took me apart one day, and spoke with an air of secrecy and
consternation to the following effect: "You must know that the
forthcoming play of _Esop in the Town_ will contain a scene,
interpolated, not translated from the original, in which you, your
brothers Francesco and Almoro, and Mme. Ghellini Balbi, are held up in a
cruel satire to the public scorn. Do not let my name transpire; but take
means to prevent this scandal; the comedy will be represented in five
days from now." I was far from disbelieving that what my friend said was
the truth; yet I took care to let no sign of my belief escape me. I
thanked him for the friendly interest which had prompted him to warn me,
but laughed the matter off as something beyond the range of possibility.
He strained every nerve to convince me, but got nothing for his pains
beyond smiles and ironical protestations of gratitude. I left him there
fuming with anger at my obstinate hilarity.

I kept guard over my tongue in the presence of my brothers and the lady,
and made a show of great anxiety to see the new play produced upon the
boards. At last the first night came, and we all provided ourselves with
a convenient box for the occasion. We were disappointed to find the
theatre ill-attended, and to notice that the comedy dragged. _Esop at
the Court_ had caught the public by something piquant in its chief
character, by his grotesque, crook-backed figure, and by the appropriate
fables which had been written with real dramatic skill for the part.
_Esop in the Town_ was no less worthy of attention, but the novelty had
evaporated; it seemed a plagiarism of the former piece, and wearied the
audience like a composition which has lost its salt. At length the
interpolated scene, of which my friend had warned me, came on.[142]

An ancient dame, attired in black, made her entrance, and unfolded the
tale of her self-styled calamities to Esop. Pouring forth an
interminable catalogue of woes, she enumerated all the lies which had
been circulated against myself and Mme. Balbi at the period of our
family dissensions. The ancient dame summed up by saying that she had
been turned out of house and home, together with a loving son, three
daughters, a daughter-in-law, and five grandchildren, by three of her
own male children, the barbarous perverted offspring of her womb. Then
she appealed with tears for counsel and advice to Esop, who expressed
his sympathy in a frigidly elaborated fable. The ancient dame, attired
in black, was an exact image of our poor mother, who had been blinded by
a touch of spite against me and by the mud-honey of her favouritism into
allowing herself to be exposed in this way on a public stage for the
mirth of the populace.

The scene was very long; it had nothing to do with the action of the
piece, having been foisted in to gratify a private animosity. The
audience, ignorant of what it meant, began to yawn; and it contributed
in no small measure to the failure of the play.

While this indecent and malignant episode was dragging its slow length
along, I saw Mme. Ghellini Balbi becoming momently more taciturn and out
of humour, my two brothers flaming into anger and preparing for some act
of violence. The shouts of laughter with which I greeted this abortion
of a satire added fuel to their fire, and Francesco, spurred by martial
ardour, was on the point of defying the players. He only made me laugh
the louder; but I had some difficulty in persuading my companions to
quench their indignation in a cup of water, and to wrap themselves
around with imperturbable indifference. They obeyed me. If we had made a
disturbance, we should have put the cap on our own heads. As it was, our
cold behaviour snuffed out the whole episode, without awaking anybody's
interest. And such will, peradventure, be the fate of these Memoirs I am
writing of my life.

In after days I was glad to have laughed at this indecent exhibition.
The perusal of an anecdote in AElian confirmed my self-congratulation. It
was to the following effect. "When," says he, "a firm courageous spirit
is attacked before the public in quizzical caricatures and gibing
insults, these trifles vanish like mist before the wind; but if they
meet with a nature which is base and proud and abject all at one and the
same time, they fill it with melancholy and madness, which often lead it
to the grave.[143] Take the proof of these remarks. Socrates, when he
was ridiculed upon the public stage by Aristophanes, enjoyed the fun and
laughed at it. Poliagros, under the same circumstances, went mad and
hanged himself."

In concluding this episode, which I leave my readers to characterise
with stronger epithets than I shall use, I wish to affirm that I never
have believed, or can believe, that my brother Gasparo lent his pen or
his assent to the production of the scene in question.




XXIX.

     _A disagreeable action at law brought against me._


While busily engaged in prosecuting my many lawsuits, I was unpleasantly
surprised by the revival of my sister-in-law's old claim for
reimbursement of monies expended by her in the management of our affairs
during my father's lifetime.[144] This preposterous claim had long been
lying dormant, and the better terms on which we were gradually coming to
live together made me forget it as a chimera of the past.

My brother Gasparo's direction of the theatre of which he was the sole
lessee bore such fruits as every one predicted. Instead of the pecuniary
profits he had been encouraged to expect, the poor fellow was worried
with vexatious and aggressive opposition, peculiarly trying to one of
his gifts and temperament, but only too usual in enterprises of this
kind.

Wounded pride and thirst for vengeance, together with the hideous
necessity of meeting debts contracted in this unsuccessful speculation,
were the causes which roused his wife to bring her alleged claims upon
the family into a law-court. The defendants in this suit were myself and
my two brothers Francesco and Almoro. It will be remembered that she had
induced us to sign her cabalistic book of magic numbers with the sole
object of freeing her from any possible pretensions upon our side. My
elder brother, who had been the first to sign, in order to give a good
example to his juniors, was not prosecuted by his wife.

Our legal advisers maintained, with some show of reason, that Gasparo
was the real mover in this matter. For my part, knowing as I did his
peaceful character, I felt certain, that though he was capable of
countenancing irregularities through indolence and the desire to live a
quiet life, he was incapable of stirring up litigious strife on such
foundations. I was not ignorant that he had stooped to the theatrical
speculation in order merely to escape from a vortex of domestic
intrigues. I knew, moreover, that, after the partition of our patrimony,
his wife and family had changed their residence at least six times,
through restlessness, without informing him; so that he had gone to
knock at empty house-doors, and had casually learned from neighbours in
what quarter of the town his flighty brood had nested last. It also
reached my ears that his wife was selling property upon his life, and
that he had finally been driven by the tempest of his home to take a
distant lodging of two rooms,[145] where he installed himself with his
little heap of books and abandoned himself to study, seeking the peace
he could not find. After all, the father of a family who flies domestic
cares, only brings upon himself more carping cares than those which he
has fled from. All these considerations put together enabled me to
convince my counsel that Gasparo had no share in the proceedings of his
wife.

In the pleadings which set forth my sister-in-law's cause, Signor Guseo,
already named by me above, deposed on obviously false oath that he had
been commissioned by us three brothers to examine her accounts, and that
he had found her claim for reimbursement in the sum demanded to be just.
To cut a long story short, our arguments upon the other side were
useless. It was in vain that we expounded the inability of a woman who
had entered our family without dowry, and had got the management of
affairs into her hands through the indolence of its real head, to
constitute herself its creditor; in vain that we denounced the collusion
of one brother with his wife against the interests of three innocent
brothers, who had been absent many years without burdening the estate;
in vain that we showed how the father and the mother of the plaintiff
had been received into our house and maintained for full fifteen years
until their death, and how her relatives had been more the masters there
than its legitimate owners; in vain that we brought forward the chaotic
account-book, signed by us in compliance with our elder brother for the
sole sake of calming troubled tempers; in vain that we pointed out
figures, garbled, cancelled, altered in these precious documents; in
vain that we offered to discharge sums due to creditors for money or
goods rendered to the plaintiff in her administration of the family
affairs. All these solid pleas were like words thrown to the winds
before the impudence of two scoundrelly pettifoggers, the very scum of
the Venetian law-courts, who managed to convince our sapient judges that
men ought to open their eyes wide before they signed papers. From that
moment until now, I have always read my letters through ten times before
appending my signature.

As usual, I consoled myself by laughing over the inevitable. Nor did I
dream of complaining to Francesco, who had drawn me into the affair by
his desire to settle matters. He, good fellow, met my laughter with a
sorry countenance, protesting that he could never have anticipated such
an abominable trick of fortune.

Seven hundred ducats were passed to my sister-in-law's credit on the
termination of this suit. They did my brother's family no good. Debts to
comedians had eaten up the capital beforehand; and I was obliged to pay
a set of hungry fellows with the consent of him and his wife. The
annoyance, however, did not stop here. In order to bolster up her claim,
my sister-in-law had raked together a multitude of soi-disant creditors,
who pretended to have supplied money or goods to our family; and
declarations signed by them, recognising her as their sole debtor, were
put into court as evidence. When they found their expectations
frustrated, the wasp's nest swarmed out against us three brothers, and
sequestrated our house-property for payment of their alleged debts.
Before I succeeded in finally shaking them off, I had to transact much
tiresome business and to fight several lawsuits.




XXX.

     _A long and serious illness.--My recovery.--The doctors
     differ.--One of my sisters takes the veil.--Beginnings of literary
     squabbles, and other trifles._


In the midst of these annoyances, I found the time and strength to
pursue my literary studies, especially in the now neglected art of
poetry, and enjoyed excellent health; when suddenly, one night, a
violent hemorrhage from the lungs warned me that the life of mortals
hangs upon the frailest thread.

Bleeding, vegetable diet, and a frugality in food, which few, I think,
are capable of continuing for as long a space of time as I can,
together with my philosophical indifference to death, restored me to
something like a tolerable state of health.

It seemed to me at this period that my two brothers and I, who always
kept together, were in a position to settle down again into our paternal
home. Mme. Ghellini Balbi, who had rented the house for more than five
years, politely retired at my request, and found another habitation at
S. Agostino. I furnished our ancestral nest as decently as I was able;
and we were soon installed there. It was then that I invited my youngest
sister to leave her convent and join us, travelling myself to Pordenone
for this purpose.

Whether through weakness, or human influence, or Divine inspiration, I
know not; but I found the good girl obstinate against my prayers, my
anger, and my threats. She entreated with a holy stubbornness to be left
in prison, to be indulged in her desire to pass her lifetime in that
blessed aviary of virgins. I commanded her to come home for at least
three or four months. At the end of that time, if she still persisted in
her pious fanaticism, I promised to play the part of executioner at her
request. She replied with a serious enthusiasm, which made me laugh,
that she knew enough of the world to be experienced in its wickedness;
and when I insisted, she met me with rather less than heavenly
doggedness by remarking that nothing short of cutting her in pieces
would make her quit the convent-gratings. Though I did not believe that
this ultimatum was dictated by the angels, I bent my head in order to
avoid a scandal. On taking the veil, she received those appointments and
allowances which are usually bestowed upon the brides of Christ.

Were I to fix my thoughts upon the troubles which my four married
sisters have had to suffer and still suffer--and I am only too well
informed about them--I should be obliged to admit that the youngest
chose the better part in life. They were always in straits, always
weeping, with their gentle natures and their illimitable powers of
endurance. One of them died before my eyes, to my deep sorrow, only
because she was a wife. Meanwhile, the nun, beloved by her sisters,
placidly smiled at things which we, refined in pleasures, finding
nowhere solid pleasure for our satisfaction, would call barbarous
tortures, and took delight in little treats, which we philosophers,
past-masters in the arts of greed, are wont to scorn and turn our backs
upon. In due course she attained the highest rank of Abbess in her
convent; and I believe she was more gratified with this honour than
Louis XVI. with his titles of King of France and of Navarre.[146]

Time had at length allayed the discords of our family. My two remaining
sisters found husbands. My brother Gasparo obtained a post at the
University of Padua, which brought him six hundred ducats a year,
besides pecuniary gratifications for extraordinary services.[147] This
proves that literature is not wholly unremunerated in Venice. In
addition to these emoluments, he found another way, legitimate indeed,
but one which seems incredible, for accumulating the sequins so much
needed after his theatrical disaster. There was not a marriage, a taking
of the veil among our noble families, an election of a Doge, or
procurator, or grand chancellor, without my brother being engaged to
produce the panegyrics or poems which are usual on such occasions--more
sought perhaps by fashion than by studious readers. The patricians made
it their custom to reward him with a hundred sequins, which contributed
to the splendour of their families, but did him little good, for in his
hands money found wings and flew away.

These details have little to do with my Memoirs; yet they are honourable
to my nation, and are not without a certain bearing on my subject.
Poetical trifles, published by me in collections, found favour by some
aspect of novelty and by genial satire on contemporary fashions.
Unluckily, they got me the reputation of a good poet and good writer.
Accordingly, many of our lords tried to press me into the ranks of the
_Raccoglitori_--collectors and compilers of occasional verse-books.
They did not know that I had adopted for my motto that line of Berni:--

        "Voleva far da se, non comandato."
    "His master he would be, and no man's man."

Whenever they did me the honour to force this function on me, I civilly
declined, and sent their messengers on to my brother, without, however,
refusing compositions of my own, which swelled the collections, to their
gain or loss as chance might have it.

I never abandoned the scheme I had formed of moving at law against the
Marchese Terzi of Bergamo in a suit for the recovery of lands and rights
belonging to us.[148] But while I was engaged on the preliminary
business, a fresh attack of pulmonary hemorrhage cooled my ardour. Many
learned physicians whom I consulted, looked upon me as a victim of
consumption, at the point of death. Beggars in the street, when they saw
me pass, promised to pray for my life if I would fling them a copper.
The cleverest professors of medicine at Padua prescribed ass's milk,
which was tantamount to saying: "Phthisical creature, go and make your
peace with Heaven!" My own doctor in ordinary, Arcadio Cappello by name,
now dead--an old man, experienced, well acquainted with my
constitution, and a philosopher to boot--forbade me milk as though it
had been poison. "You," he said, "are suffering from a nasty malady. Yet
it has not the origin, nor has it made the progress, which these eminent
physicians fancy. If you let your illness prey upon your mind, you will
die. If you have the strength and heart to throw aside all thoughts
about it, you will recover. It has in you no other basis than a
hypochondriacal habit, which you have contracted by a sedentary life of
worry, business, and excessive study. Raw milk of any kind is a pure
poison in your case. Live regularly, cast aside reflections on your
symptoms, take horse-exercise two or three hours a day. These are your
best medicines."

Marchese Terzi owes no thanks to my malady. Bloodless as I was, through
what I lost by hemorrhage and venesection, my intellect enjoyed the
highest qualities of penetration and acumen. Stretched out upon my bed,
I had the necessary papers for my lawsuit brought to me--abstracts and
wills recovered from the pork-butcher--a whole paraphernalia of
documents forbidden by my doctors--and set up a scheme of proofs and
arguments, so clear and so convincing that they subsequently drove my
enemy to desperate measures.

These annoying relapses of my malady continued for two years and a half
to fall upon me when I least expected them. They were enough to
dishearten any man less stupid than myself, and make him despair of
living. Contrary to the advice of several physicians, who protested with
wide-open horror-stricken eyes that riding would inflame my blood and
burst the arteries of my lungs, I followed the prescription of Doctor
Arcadio Cappello, half-suffocated as I was with hemorrhage. He proved to
be right. Regular diet, contempt for my symptoms, and horse-exercise
completed my cure. It is now twenty years and more since I have been
reminded that I was ever subject to this indisposition.

As I have often had occasion to remark, no business, no quarrels, no
lawsuits, and no illnesses prevented me from devoting some hours every
day to poetry. This being the case, when controversies arose in Venice
on philology and the higher Italian literature--controversies of which I
mean to render some account in the following chapters--I went on
vomiting blood from my veins, and scribbling sonnets, satires, essays in
defence of our great writers, treatises on style, polemics against
Chiari and Goldoni and their followers. All these trifles, when I read
them aloud, made my friends laugh, as well as my doctor and the surgeon
who attended on me.

Before engaging in the circumstances which led to my becoming a writer
for the theatre, I will wind up the history of our private affairs.
First of all, I let the lawsuit with Marchese Terzi drop. My reasons
were as follows:--With the best intentions in the world, and the
strongest desire to reunite the scattered members of our family under
one roof, I found this task impossible. My sisters married. My brothers
Francesco and Almoro in course of time took wives and begat children. My
mother's inheritance of the Tiepolo property (though strictly speaking
it ought to have been treated as entailed upon her sons) ran to waste in
the hands of Gasparo and his wife. I had the old debts of our estate
still weighing on my shoulders. It seemed to me, in this condition of
affairs, best to remain a bachelor, and to devote myself to the duties I
had undertaken, without ambitious projects and without assuming heavier
obligations. Freed from further responsibilities to my family, whom I
had loyally served in their material interests, and against none of whom
I harboured any rancour, I was master of my time and could devote myself
to the literary exercises which were so congenial to my temper.

END OF VOL. I.

PRINTED BY BALLANTYNE, HANSON AND CO. EDINBURGH AND LONDON.




INDEX.

This index appears at the end of Volume 2, but is shown here for the
convenience of the reader. {note of etext transcriber}


Academy de' Granelleschi, at Venice, i. 89, 99.

Actors, Italian, their character, ii. 137.

Actresses, Italian, their character, ii. 137.

Agazi, Francesco, Censor of Plays, ii. 264, 268.

Albergati, Marchese Francesco, ii. 240;
  notes on his career, ii. 240 _note_ 1.

Altissimo, Cristoforo, poet and _improvisatore_, i. 202.

"Amore delle Tre Melarancie," Gozzi's first _Fiaba_, i. 109; ii. 129, 133.
  translation of, i. 112-146.
  its triumphant success, i. 146, 147; ii. 130.
  his best Fable, artistically, i. 163.

Andreini, Francesco, a celebrated actor, i. 51.

Andrich, Carlo, ii. 76.

Angaran, Zorzi, Avogadore, i. 13.

Angarano, Count Galeaso, i. 341.

Apergi, Lieutenant Giovanni, i. 227; ii. 16.

Aretino, Pietro, i. 29.

Arlecchino, i. 35,
  description of, in the _Commedia dell'Arte_, i. 46.

"Augellino Belverde," one of Gozzi's "Fiabe," analysis of, i. 164-176.

Bada, Gianbattista, i. 100 _note_ 2.

Balbi, Benedetto, Canon of Padua, i. 349-352.

Balbi, Countess Elisabetta Ghellini, _see_ Ghellini Balbi, Countess.

Balbi, Paolo, i. 349-352; ii. 89, 295.
  his sudden death, ii. 326.

Balestra, Antonio, painter, ii. 342.

Baretti, Giuseppe, his opinion of Gozzi, i. 179.

Barsanti, Domenico, actor, ii. 216, 323.

Bartoli, Adolfo, his "Scenari Inediti," i. 57.

Bartoli, Francesco, husband of Teodora Ricci, ii. 195 _note_ 1, 249-252.
  his ill-health and separation from his wife, ii. 199.

Battagia, Maddalena, actress, ii. 174.

Benedetti, Luigi, actor, ii. 209, 269, 288, 323.

Beolco, Angelo, a Paduan writer of simple rustic comedies, i. 33.

Bergalli, Luisa Pisana, wife of Gasparo Gozzi, _see_ Gozzi, Luisa Pisana.

Bettinelli, Abbe Xavier, his attempted revolution in literary taste, ii. 104.
  shown up by the Granelleschi, ii. 105.

Bevilacqua, Doctor Bartolommeo, ii. 314.

Boldu, Jacopo, Provveditore Generale di Dalmazia, i. 276.

Borrommeo, Carlo, his crusade against the Comedians, i. 70.

Bragadino, Cavaliere, the curious occurrence that earned
Gozzi his friendship, ii. 80-84.

Brescia, Bishop of, i. 277.

Brighella, i. 35; description of, in the _Commedia dell'Arte_, i. 47.
  as employed by Gozzi, i. 152.

Burchiello, an obscure Florentine poet, ii. 116.


Calogera, Padre, ii. 117.

Canale, or Canaletti, Antonio, ii. 338.
  his defects, ii. 338.

Canziani, Maria, dancer, ii. 75.

Capitano, the, a character in the _Commedia dell'Arte_, i. 35, 50.

Capocomico, manager of the Comedians, his functions, i. 58-60, 64.

Cappello, Arcadio, physician, i. 368.

Casali, Gaetano, comedian, i. 112 _note_ 1.

Casanova, Ignazio, comedian, i. 112 _note_ 1.

Casanova, Jacques, i. 4, 73, 350 _note_ 1; ii. 99 _note_ 1.

Cavalli, Jacopo, Provveditore Generale di Dalmazia, i. 220.

Cecchi, playwright, i. 33.

Cenet, Madame Jeanne Sarah, ii. 310.

Cerlone, Francesco, poet, i. 35 _note_ 3.
  fixed the type of Pulcinella, i. 49.

Chasles, Philarete, i. 181.

Chaussee, Nivelle de la, his sentimental comedies, i. 87.

Chiari, Abbe Pietro, playwright, i. 2.
  his rivalry with Goldoni, i. 97.
  Gozzi's attacks on, i. 99.
  makes common cause with Goldoni against Gozzi, i. 106, ii. 127.
  various satirical allusions to him in Gozzi's first "Fable," i. 112-146.
  his popularity in Venice, ii. 110.
  Gozzi's opinion of, ii. 113, 114.
  defeated by Gozzi, gives up play-writing, i. 177, ii. 155, 156.

Cicucci, Regina, actress, ii. 170.

Colombani, Paolo, bookseller, his shop the headquarters
of the Granelleschi, ii. 127.

Colombo, Giovanni, i. 229.
  Grand Chancellor of the Venetian Republic, i. 230.

Comedian, qualifications of a good Italian, i. 61.

Comedians, their degraded social position, i. 70.

Comedy, Italian--
  Its origin during the Renaissance, i. 26.
  its dependence on Latin models, i. 26, 28.
  the _Commedia Erudita_, i. 27, 39.
  the first attempts at National Italian comedy, i. 28.
  its stock characters, i. 28.
  _Commedia dell'Arte all'Improviso_, its causes, and its
   distinctive features, i. 30-32.
  its great antiquity, i. 32.
  its relation to the _Commedia Erudita_, i. 32, 55.
  farces in relation to the _Commedia dell'Arte_, i. 33.
  the _Commedia dell'Arte_ trusted to the improvisatory
    talent of the actors, i. 34.
  the actors in it wore masks, i. 34.
  the principal masks--Pantalone, Il Dottore, Arlecchino, Brighella, i. 34.
  description of the masks, i. 43-54.
  the less important masks, i. 52.
  relation of the _Commedia dell'Arte_ to the old Latin comedy
    of mimes and _exodia_, i. 36-40.
  Lombard, Neapolitan, and Florentine ingredients in it, i. 40.
  its culmination and decay, i. 43.
  modifications introduced into the fixed characters of the _Commedia
    dell'Arte_
    by celebrated actors, i. 53.
  the plots and subjects of improvised comedies, i. 54.
  its indecency and buffoonery, i. 56.
  description of the _scenari_ of the comedies, i. 56.
  how they were arranged or rehearsed, i. 58.
  qualifications of the actors, i. 61.
  stock speeches, which were not left to the inspiration of the comedians,
    but were written, i. 62.
  _lazzi_ (sallies of buffoonery), i. 63.
  its tendency to degenerate, i. 64, 69.
  the widespread popularity of the _Commedia dell'Arte_, i. 65.
  its success in Paris, Spain, Portugal, and London, i. 65, 67.
  probably the model on which Tarleton and Wilson formed their Drolls, i. 68.
  Gozzi's praise of it, i. 68.
  its decadence, i. 69, 87.
  the degraded social position of the actors, i. 70.
  Garzoni's description of the strolling comedians, i. 73-80.
  superseded by the _Comedie Larmoyante_, i. 87.
  Gozzi's "Fiabe Teatrali," an attempt to rehabilitate the impromptu
    comedy, i. 109.
  translation of Gozzi's first "Fiaba," i. 112-146.
  character of the actors in Italian Comedy, ii. 137.

_Commedia dell'Arte._ _See_ Comedy, Italian.

Comparetti, Doctor Andrea, ii. 300.

Contarini, Francesco, Gratarol's uncle, ii. 292, 293.

Coralli, actor, ii. 201, 208, 214, 216.

Cornaro, Giorgio, physician, ii. 327.

Cortigiani, the Venetian, or Men of the World, i. 294 _note_ 1.

Coviello, a mask in the _Commedia dell'Arte_, i. 50.

Crespi, Giuseppe Maria, ii. 342.


Dalmatia, the character of the natives of, i. 238.
  the women of, i. 242.
  the nature of the country, i. 243.

Danieli, chief physician to the Provveditore di Dalmazia, i. 222.

Da Ponte, Lorenzo, i. 4.

Darbes, Cesare, comedian, i. 95, 112 _note_ 1; ii. 131, 169.

Della Bona, Professor, ii. 310.
  his skilful treatment of Gasparo Gozzi's illness, ii. 316.

Desperiers, Bonaventura, ii. 7 _note_ 1.

Dialects, different, spoken in the _Commedia dell'Arte_, i. 35.

Dolfin-Tron, Caterina, i. 11; ii. 264, 287, 312, 319.
  her character and influence, i. 9.
  her enmity towards Gratarol, i. 9.
  ruins Gratarol, i. 12, 13.
  Gratarol's "Narrazione" bitterly attacks her, i. 13.
  Gozzi's relations with, ii. 266 _note_ 1.
  Gozzi intercedes with her to have "Le Droghe d'Amore" stopped, ii. 288.
  her refusal, ii. 290.
  Gozzi shows her how he has been insulted by Gratarol, ii. 208.
  her interest in Gasparo Gozzi, ii. 308.

_Doti_--stock passages in the _Commedia dell'Arte_ which were not left to
    improvisation, i. 62; ii. 144.

Dottore, the, a character in the _Commedia dell'Arte_, i. 34.
  description of, i. 45.

"Droghe d'Amore, Le," Gozzi's comedy which caused the quarrel between
    Gratarol and Gozzi, i. 10; ii. 225, 252, 258.
  licensed for the stage, ii. 259.
  the cast changed by the actors in order to attack Gratarol, ii. 260, 269.
  read to the actors, ii. 260.
  Gratarol's foolish conduct forces the piece on the stage, and
    makes all Venice talk of it, ii. 263.
  its production, ii. 270.
  the excitement it causes, ii. 274.
  Gratarol's distress at its success, ii. 277.
  Gozzi's efforts to have it stopped, ii. 286-294.

Drousiano, an Italian comedian in London in 1577-8, i. 67.


"Esop in the Town," a play in which Gozzi and the Countess
    Balbi were attacked, i. 356.

Farces, popular during the Renaissance, i. 33.

Farsetti, Daniele, Gozzi dedicates his "Tartana degl'influssi" to, ii. 116.

Farsetti, Giuseppe, ii. 124.

"Fiabe Teatrali," Gozzi's celebrated plays, i. 107; ii. 129-137.
  an endeavour to rehabilitate the _Commedia dell'Arte_, i. 109.
  success of his first Fable, i. 146, 147.
  list of the remaining nine Fables, i. 148.
  critical account of, i. 148-176.
  the sources of, i. 162.
  their success but ephemeral, i. 178.

Fiorelli, Agostino, comedian, i. 112 _note_ 1; ii. 131, 169, 323.

Fiorelli, Tiberio of Naples, the famous Scaramouch, i. 51, 53.
  his wonderful acting described, i. 66.

Florentine burlesque poets, Gozzi's true ancestors in art, i. 110.

Florentine ingredients in the _Commedia dell'Arte_, i. 40.

Foscarini, Marco, Doge of Venice, i. 337.


Galante, avvocato fiscale dell'Avogaderia, i. 13.

Garzoni, his description of the strolling comedians,
    in his "Piazza Universale," i. 73-80.

_Generici_--or common-places--in the _Commedia dell'Arte_, i. 62.

Ghellini Balbi, Countess Elisabetta, i. 324, 338, 342, 355, 365.
  her interest in the Gozzi family, i. 324.
  Gozzi calls upon her, i. 325.
  Gozzi reported to be married to her, i. 339, 349.
  her anxieties about her son, i. 349-352.
  attacked in a play called "Esop in the Town," i. 356.

Gherardi, his "Theatre Italien," i. 61, 66.

Goethe, his estimate of Goldoni and Gozzi, i. 178.

Goldoni, Carlo, dramatist, i. 2, 4, 87.
  his severe condemnation of the Italian Comedy, i. 72.
  his undoubted genius, i. 89.
  his excellent character, i. 89.
  his qualities and defects, i. 89-91.
  sketch of his career, i. 92.
  his desire to reform Italian Comedy, i. 93.
  the steps which he took in that direction, i. 93-95.
  joins the company of Medebac, i. 95.
  his first comedy of character, as opposed to impromptu comedy, i. 95.
  the fortunes of his crusade against the _Commedia
    dell'Arte_, i. 95; ii. 128.
  his contest with Chiari, i. 97.
  Gozzi's hatred for him as a corrupter of the language, i. 99.
  Gozzi's first attack on him, i. 99; ii. 116.
  his reply to Gozzi, i. 101; ii. 117.
  the long-continued warfare between him and Gozzi, i. 102; ii. 119-128
  Chiari makes common cause with him against Gozzi, i. 106; ii. 127.
  various satirical allusions to him in Gozzi's first "Fable," i. 112-146.
  defeated by Gozzi, goes to Paris, i. 177; ii. 155, 156.
  his ultimate success and fame, i. 178.
  his popularity in Venice, ii. 110.
  Gozzi's opinion of him, ii. 111-113.
  his superiority over Chiari, ii. 114.
  the various publications in which Gozzi attacked him, ii. 119-128.
  himself writes a "Fable," ii. 150.
  his similarity in art with Longhi the painter, ii. 350.

Gozzi family, i. 185;
  _Cittadini Originari_ of Venice, i. 186.

Gozzi, Almoro, younger brother of Carlo, i. 290, 320, 329, 330,
    331, 354; ii. 79, 162, 336.

Gozzi, Angela Tiepolo, mother of Carlo, i. 189, 285, 304.
  her maladministration of the family affairs, i. 297.
  her quarrels with Carlo Gozzi, i. 304.
  her dislike for Carlo, i. 348.

Gozzi, Carlo--
  his autobiography, entitled "Memorie inutili della vita di
    Carlo Gozzi." i. 1.
  design of his autobiography, i. 3, 19;
    its value historically, i. 4.
  his "Droghe d'Amore" supposed to contain a caricature of Gratarol. i. 10.
  attacked by Gratarol in his "Narrazione Apologetica, i. 14.
  writes a reply--"Epistola Confutatoria," i. 14;
    but is not allowed to publish it, i. 15.
  publishes his memoir and, under provocation, the "Epistola Confutatoria,"
    after the fall of the Venetian republic, i. 16-19.
  his autobiography, its form, its merits and defects, and its
    reliability, i. 19-24.
  his personal characteristics, i. 22.
  his "Fiabe," i. 43.
  his eulogy of the _Commedia dell'Arte_, i. 68.
  his description of the contest between Goldoni and Chiari, i. 98.
  translation of his first Fable, i. 112-146.
  its triumphant success, i. 146, 147.
  his other "Fiabe," i. 148.
  critical account of his "Fiabe Teatrali, i. 148-176.
  his use of the Masks, i. 149-154.
  his mixture of the comic element with the fairy-tale, i. 154.
  not a great imaginative poet, i. 156.
  his merits as a playwright, i. 157-160.
  his conservative philosophy of life, i. 160.
  the sources of his "Fiabe," i. 162.
  analysis of "L'Augellino Belverde," i. 164-176.
  his victory over Goldoni and Chiari, i. 176.
  his fame ephemeral, i. 178.
  German translation of his plays, i. 180.
  his pedigree, i. 2, 185-190.
  his birth, i. 190 _note_ 1.
  the exact trustworthiness of his Memoirs, i. 190 _note_ 1.[I?]
  his brothers and sisters, i. 191.
  his education, i. 192.
  injures his health by study, i. 196.
  his endeavours after a good literary style, i. 197.
  his moral and physical training, i. 200, 205.
  his acting as a child, i. 201.
  shows skill as an _improvisatore_, i. 202.
  his first poetical productions, i. 205-207.
  his early productions, i. 208.
  the family difficulties, i. 209.
  the discomforts of his home, i. 212.
  he leaves home and becomes a soldier, i. 213.
  his first experiences as a soldier, i. 214-221.
  has a dangerous illness, i. 221.
  studies Fortification, i. 225.
  his love of poetry, i. 229.
  his sonnet in praise of Provveditore Quirini, i. 233.
  an exciting adventure with a horse, i. 234.
  he is enrolled as a _Cadet noble_ of cavalry, i. 246.
  what his military services amounted to, i. 247.
  his success as a _soubrette_ in the military theatricals at Zara,
    i. 249-251.
  some of his escapades as a youth, i. 252-273.
  the adventures in connection with the courtesan Tonina, i. 262-272.
  his finances at the close of his military service, i. 273.
  returns to Venice, i. 278.
  the state of his family and home, when he returns, i. 279.
  his first meeting with his family, i. 284.
  his difficulty in interfering in the management of the family
    affairs, i. 290.
  his negotiations with Francesco Zini, i. 300.
  becomes the object of hatred to all his family, i. 307, 318.
  in continual quarrels with his family, i. 322.
  his interview with the Countess Ghellini Balbi, i. 325.
  his family set the law in motion against him, i. 328.
  he leaves home, i. 330.
  lies spread about him, i. 331.
  the family property divided, i. 332.
  is dragged into tedious lawsuits, i. 334-342.
  his friendship with the Countess Ghellini Balbi, i. 339, 349.
  his sister-in-law's vexatious lawsuit against him, i. 360-364.
  has violent haemorrhage from the lungs, i. 364, 368.
  his illnesses and occupations, i. 370.
  his account of his own physical and mental qualities, ii. 1-9.
  accepted no payment for any of his works, ii. 3.
  his love-tales--
    his first love, ii. 11-27;
    his second love, ii. 28-33;
    his third love, ii. 33-69.
  his reflections on his love affairs, ii. 69.
  his object in relating them, ii. 72 _note_ 1.
  the absurdities and contrarieties to which his star made him
    subject, ii. 73-89.
  his unfortunate experience as a landlord, ii. 85-89.
  the origin and progress of his literary quarrels, i. 2; ii. 90.
  his views upon Italian literature, ii. 91.
  his dissertation on Prejudice, ii. 99.
  his humorous attack on Bettinelli, ii. 106.
  the motives of his attacks upon Chiari and Goldoni, ii. 115.
  his first attack on Goldoni and Chiari in his "Tartana degli Influssi,"
    i. 100, 109; ii. 116.
  Goldoni's reply, i. 101, 109; ii. 117.
  his Aristophanic satire upon Goldoni, entitled "Il Teatro Comico,"
    i. 104, 109; ii. 120.
  he withdraws this satire at Goldoni's request, i. 106; ii. 124.
  the origin of his celebrated "Fiabe Teatrali," i. 107; ii. 128.
  his first Fable, "The Love of the Three Oranges (L'Amore delle Tre
    Melarancie)," i. 109; ii. 129.
  the various publications in which he carried on the war against Goldoni
    and Chiari, ii. 119-128.
  his relations with Sacchi's company of comedians, ii. 137-155.
  his tuition of the actresses, ii. 145.
  his lawsuit against the Marchese Terzi, ii. 160.
  its successful issue, ii. 164.
  he withdraws his aid temporarily from Sacchi's company, ii. 166.
  comes to their assistance again, ii. 168.
  undertakes to tutor Teodora Ricci, ii. 177.
  the successful result of his tuition, ii. 185.
  his defence of his character and conduct in connection with Teodora Ricci,
    and the actresses of Sacchi's company, ii. 187, 192 _note_ 1.
  becomes Cicisbeo to Ricci, i. 9; ii. 193.
  is godfather to her child, ii. 198.
  his troublous relations with the Ricci, ii. 200.
  his excuse for submitting to the worries caused by the Ricci, ii. 218.
  his adaptations of Spanish plays, ii. 225.
  his "Droghe d'Amore," i. 10; ii. 225.
  his and Gratarol's versions of the quarrel between them, ii. 229 _note_ 1.
  Gratarol's first visit to him, ii. 238.
  his final rupture with Ricci, ii. 246.
  annoyed by her, ii. 249, 255.
  annoyed by her husband, ii. 250.
  completes his comedy "Le Droghe d'Amore," ii. 252.
  is pestered into giving it to Sacchi, ii. 258.
  his innocence of an intention to caricature Gratarol in "Le Droghe d'Amor,"
    ii. 258.
  reads the piece to the actors, ii. 260.
  tries to have it withdrawn, ii. 263.
  his friendship with Madame Dolfin Tron, ii. 266 _note_ 1.
  forbidden by the Censor to withdraw his play, ii. 268.
  his distress at the play's vogue, ii. 274.
  waited on by Carlo Maffei on behalf of Gratarol, ii. 277.
  interview between him and Gratarol, ii. 279-285.
  his futile efforts to have the play stopped, ii. 286-294.
  his further squabbles with Gratarol, ii. 294.
  his cause espoused by the Supreme Tribunal, which forces Gratarol to
    apologise to him, ii. 303.
  Gratarol's conduct to him subsequently, ii. 307.
  goes to Padua, where his brother Gasparo lies dangerously ill, ii. 309.
  uses his influence in Gratarol's behalf, ii. 319.
  his reflection on Gratarol's flight, ii. 321.
  his last interview with Sacchi, ii. 324.
  his sorrow at the death of his friends, ii. 325.
  has a bad attack of fever, ii. 327.
  lays down his pen, ii. 330.
  a review of his life and an estimate of his character, ii. 330.
  his old age, ii. 332.
  his will, ii. 333.
  his death, ii. 337.

Gozzi, Chiara, sister of Carlo, i. 354.
  becomes a nun, i. 365.

Gozzi, Francesco, brother of Carlo, i. 319, 320, 329, 354; ii. 79, 162.
  becomes a soldier, i. 212.
  his bad character, i. 321.
  his death, ii. 326.

Gozzi, Gasparo, grandfather of Carlo, i. 189.

Gozzi, Gasparo, brother of Carlo, i. 282, 286, 288, 293, 312, 320, 329;
    ii. 301, 319, 350.
  his personal leaning towards Goldoni, i. 106.
  undertakes to superintend a new edition of Goldoni's plays, i. 177.
  his passion for study, i. 194.
  his marriage, i. 209.
  becomes lessee of the theatre of S. Angelo at Venice, i. 332.
  his helpless position in his own house, i. 340.
  his theatrical speculation is unsuccessful, i. 353, 360.
  Carlo Gozzi and the Countess Balbi attacked on his stage, i. 357.
  obtains a post at the University of Padua, i. 367.
  his "Defence of Dante" against the Abbe Bettinelli, ii. 106.
  his lack of spirit, ii. 162.
  his friendship with Madame Dolfin Tron, ii. 267.
  his serious illness, ii. 308.
  in his delirium throws himself from a window, ii. 308.
  his recovery, ii. 317.
  his death, ii. 327.

Gozzi, Girolama, i. 288.

Gozzi, Giulia, i. 282.

Gozzi, Jacopo Antonio, father of Carlo, i. 188.
  has a stroke of apoplexy, i. 211.
  his feeble state of health, i. 284.
  the unhappiness of his position amid the family quarrels, i. 309.
  his death, i. 310.

Gozzi, Luisa Pisani Bergalli, wife of Gasparo, i. 210.
  the ruler of the Gozzi family affairs, i. 287.
  her mismanagement, i. 299, 317.
  her dishonourable conduct, i. 319, 328.
  tries to manage her husband's theatre, i. 332.
  brings a lawsuit against Carlo, i. 360-364.

Gozzi, Marina, sister of Carlo, i. 201, 282.

Gradenigo, Cavaliere Andrea, ii. 76.

Grampo, Contessa Emilia, i. 189.

Granelleschi, Academy of the, i. 89, 99, 102.
  its warfare with Goldoni and Chiara, i. 102.
  the founding of the Academy, ii. 93.
  its burlesque Prince, ii. 93.
  its more serious objects, ii. 97, 108.
  its attack on the Abbe Bettinelli, ii. 105.
  its headquarters in the shop of the bookseller, Paolo Colombani, ii. 127.

Gratarol, Pier Antonio, i. 359 _note_ 1; ii. 10, 72 _note_ 1, 79, 227, 263.
  his quarrel with Gozzi, i. 2, 6.
  account of his life, i. 7-16.
  nominated as Venetian Resident at Naples, i. 8.
  his quarrel with Caterina Dolfin Tron, i. 9.
  becomes lover to Teodora Ricci, i. 10; ii. 229.
  his version of his quarrel with Gozzi compared with Gozzi's statement,
    ii. 229 _note_ 1.
  his presence behind the scenes of Sacchi's theatre, ii. 230, 233.
  his entertainment to the actors and actresses, ii. 237.
  his first visit to Gozzi, ii. 238.
  Ricci compromised by him, ii. 242.
  caricatured in "Le Droghe d'Amore," but not by Gozzi's wish,
    i. 10; ii. 258, 259.
  his foolish conduct forces the piece on the stage, ii. 263.
  is present on its production and sees himself caricatured, ii. 272.
  his distress, ii. 275 _note_ 1, 277.
  his intrigues against Gozzi, ii. 278.
  his interview with Gozzi, ii. 279-285.
  Gozzi's efforts to have the play stopped, ii. 286-294.
  the further squabbles between him and Gozzi, ii. 294-300.
  forced by the Supreme Authority to apologise to Gozzi, ii. 303.
  his own account of the letter which he was forced to write,
    ii. 303 _note_ 1.
  his conduct to Gozzi subsequently, ii. 307.
  suspected of having the actor Vitalba assaulted, ii. 319.
  his appointment to Naples cancelled, ii. 319, 320.
  his withdrawal from Venice and consequent outlawry, i. 12; ii. 321.
  his "Narrazione Apologetica" published at Stockholm, i. 13.
  published at Venice after the fall of the Republic, i. 16.
  his death, i. 16.
  book entitled "Last Notices regarding Pietro Antonio Gratarol," i. 17.
  Gozzi's reflections on his character, ii. 321.

Grazzini, Anton-Francesco, his Carnival song of the Zanni and
    Magnifichi, i. 41.

Gritti, Francesco, ii. 76.
  his play of _Gustavus Vasa_, ii. 184.

Guardi, Francesco, ii. 338.
  the interest of his paintings historically, ii. 340.

Guseo, Giovannantonio, a notary, i. 347, 362.


Hoffmann, E. T. W., his enthusiasm for Gozzi, i. 181.

Hogarth, William, contrasted with Pietro Longhi, ii. 350.


Illyria, the nature of the country, i. 244.

Improvisation, Gozzi's views on, i. 202.

I Rozzi, a company at Siena, who performed farces, i. 33.

Italian Comedy. _See_ Comedy, Italian.

Italian Literature, ii. 91.


Lami, Signor, ii. 117.

Laveleye, Emil de, ii. 99 _note_ 1.

Lazari, V., ii. 347 _note_ 1, 353 _note_ 1.

_Lazzi_--or humorous sallies--in the _Commedia dell'Arte_, i. 63.

Lee, Vernon, i. 23, 182.

Lombard ingredients in the _Commedia dell'Arte_, i. 40.

Longhi, Alessandro, son of Pietro, ii. 346, 357.

Longhi, Pietro, ii. 338-361.
  the interest of his works, ii. 338 _note_ 1, 341, 347.
  his parentage, ii. 342.
  his early training, ii. 342.
  his _Fall of the Giants_, ii. 343.
  finds his true vocation as a painter in studies of contemporary
    Venetian life, ii. 344.
  the difference in his handiwork, ii. 346.
  his similarity in art with Goldoni the dramatist, ii. 350.
  the strong contrast between him and Hogarth, ii. 350.
  his portrait, ii. 351.
  filled the Chair of Painting in the Pisani Academy, ii. 353.
  a picture representing the Pisani family attributed to him, ii. 354.
  frescoes in the Palazzo Sina attributed to him, ii. 356.
  his sketch-book, a collection of 140 drawings, ii. 357.
  its great value, ii. 357.
  description of its contents, ii. 358.
  its merits and its limitations, ii. 358, 359.
  summary of his work, ii. 360.

Loredano, Cavaliere Antonio, i. 212.


Machiavelli, Niccolo, i. 29.

Maffei, Carlo--
  account of his character, ii. 276.
  his intervention on Gratarol's behalf in the dispute regarding
    the "Droghe d'Amore," ii. 277-285.
  his sudden death, ii. 326, 327.

Manzoni, Caterina, actress, ii. 170.
  her excellent qualities, ii. 192.

Marchiori, Cavaliere, Lieutenant-Colonel of Engineers, i. 225.
  Gozzi studies Fortification under, i. 225.
  his death, i. 228.

Marsili, Professor Giovanni, ii. 308.

Martelli, Pier Jacopo, i. 97 _note_ 1.

Martellian verses, i. 97 _note_ 1.

Masi, Ernesto, i. 99 _note_ 1.

Masks, the, as employed by Gozzi, i. 149.

Massimo, Innocenzio, i. 226, 227, 278, 326; ii. 28, 162, 310.
  his friendship with Gozzi, i. 223, 283.
  his character, i. 224.
  a foolish adventure, i. 254-260.
  his generous kindness to Gozzi, i. 312.
  his sudden death, ii. 327.

Medebac (master of a company of comedians), engages Goldoni to
    write for his company, i. 95.

Messer Grande, the Chief Constable of Venice, ii. 89 _note_ 1.

Micheli, Maggiore della Provincia, i. 218.

Montenegrins, the women of the, i. 241.

Morlacchi, a tribe of Dalmatians, i. 237 _note_ 1.
  their barbarism, i. 237, 239.

Musset, Paul de, his travesty of Gozzi's real character, i. 23,
    24 _note_ 1, 181, ii. 89 _note_ 2.


Neapolitan ingredients in the _Commedia dell'Arte_, i. 40.


Pallone, the game of, i. 251 _note_ 1.

Pantalone, i. 34; description of, in the _Commedia dell'Arte_, i. 43.
  as employed by Gozzi, i. 152.

Paruta, the Patrician, Gozzi mistaken for, ii. 74.

Perrucci, Andrea, his description of the rehearsal of an
    impromptu comedy, i. 58.

Pisani family, their Academy for the Study of the Art of Design, ii. 353.

Pozzobon, Giovanni, i. 100 _note_ 2.

Prata, Count Michele di, i. 282.

Prejudice, Gozzi's dissertation on, ii. 99.

Provveditore Generale di Dalmazia, the office of, i. 212 _note_ 1.

Provveditore Generale di Mare, the head of the Venetian
    forces in the Levant, i. 212 _note_ 1.

Pulcinella, i. 35;
  description of, i. 49.

Punch (Pulcinella), i. 50.


Quirini, Girolamo, Provveditore di Dalmazia, i. 213, 216, 247, 277, 278.
  the town of Zara gives a grand public display in his honour, i. 230.
  Gozzi presents a volume of his poems to him, i. 276.


Regina, the actress engaged by Sacchi to fill Ricci's place, ii. 254.

Renier, Paolo, ii. 301, 305.
  his brilliant abilities, and his career, ii. 301 _note_ 1, 306 _note_ 1.

Reniero, Senator Daniele, i. 341.

Ricci, Marianna, sister of Teodora, ii. 242.

Ricci, Teodora, ii. 174, 324.
  engaged as leading actress by Sacchi, ii. 174.
  her personal appearance, ii. 175.
  her connection with Gozzi, i. 9.
  her connection with Gratarol, i. 10.
  Gozzi's tuition of, ii. 177
  the opposition to her, ii. 179.
  her _debut_ at Venice not very successful, ii. 182.
  her success in "Gustavus Vasa," ii. 184.
  her triumph in Gozzi's "Principessa Filosofa," ii. 185.
  her gratitude to Gozzi, ii. 186.
  her merits and defects, ii. 188-192.
  Gozzi becomes her Cicisbeo, ii. 193.
  Gozzi is godfather to her child, ii. 198.
  her separation from her husband, ii. 199.
  her _liaison_ with Sacchi, ii. 202-210.
  her foolish conduct, ii. 216.
  her rapacity, ii. 221.
  her agreement for five years with Sacchi, ii. 221.
  her friendship with P. A. Gratarol, ii. 227, 241, 245.
  its consequences, ii. 242.
  Gozzi's final rupture with her, ii. 246.
  her annoyance of him, ii. 249, 255.
  she leaves Sacchi's company and goes to Paris, ii. 254.
  her strange manners when she returns, ii. 256.
  her failure as an actress when she began to ape the French, ii. 257.
  her conduct at the reading of "Le Droghe d'Amore," ii. 260.
  her foolish conduct in connection with the play, ii. 269, 275.
  pretends illness in order to stop the play, ii. 275.
  is ordered to play by the authorities, ii. 276.
  her tactics which led to the withdrawal of "Le Droghe d'Amore," ii. 306.
  her death in a madhouse, ii. 195 _note_ 1.

Riccoboni, Luigi, i. 63.

"Riflessioni d'un Imparziale," a pamphlet in answer to Gratarol's
    "Narrazione," i. 13 _note_ 2, 15 _note_ 1.

Rossi, Pietro, actor, ii. 189.

Royer, Paul, i. 182.

Ruskin, John, ii. 340.


Sacchi, Antonia, actress, i. 112 _note_ 1.

Sacchi, Antonio, i. 53, 100, 101, 112 _note_ 1, 150; ii. 201,
    262, 272, 282 _note_ 1, 286, 297, 306, 318.
  list of his company, i. 112 _note_ 1.
  allusion to his company in Gozzi's first "Fable," i. 127.
  the inventor of Truffaldino as a form of Arlecchino, ii. 131 _note_ 1.
  his famous company, ii. 142.
  ruined by the opposition of Chiari and Goldoni, ii. 132.
  their visit to Lisbon, ii. 132.
  their return to Venice, ii. 132.
  their success with Gozzi's pieces, i. 176; ii. 132.
  their gratitude to Gozzi, ii. 137.
  Gozzi temporarily withdraws his aid from his company, ii. 166.
  obtains a lease of the theatre S. Salvadore, ii. 167, 168.
  his passion for the Ricci, ii. 202, 214.
  his ill-treatment of her, ii. 207.
  its result, ii. 208-210.
  his theatre pronounced unsafe, ii. 219.
  his five years' agreement with Ricci, ii. 221.
  his difficulties with Gratarol, ii. 233.
  Ricci leaves his company and he engages Regina in her place, ii. 254.
  consents to withdraw the "Droghe d'Amore," ii. 263.
  produces it, ii. 271.
  the dissolution of his company, ii. 322.
  his excesses and tempers, ii. 322.
  his last interview with Gozzi, ii. 324.
  his death, ii. 325 _note_ 1.

Sacchi-Zannoni, Adriana, actress, i. 112 _note_ 1; ii. 131.

Sacchi's company--
  its respectability, ii. 143.
  Gozzi's relations with the actors and actresses, ii. 137-155.
  dissensions in, ii. 164.
  the details of its dissolution, ii. 322-325.

Santorini, Count Francesco, i. 324, 327, 329.

Schlegel, A. W., his praise of Gozzi's "Fiabe," i. 180.

Sciugliaga, Stefano, Secretary of the University of Milan, ii. 198.

Sechellari, Giuseppe, Prince of the Accademia Granellesca, ii. 93.
  the tricks played on him, ii. 95.

Seghezzi, Antonio Federigo, i. 199.

Servetta, the, a character in the _Commedia dell'Arte_, i. 48, 154.

Sibiliato, Giovanni, a wonderful _improvisatore_ and a true poet, i. 204.

Smeraldina (Servetta), as employed by Gozzi, i. 154.

Somascan Order of Monks, i. 350 _note_ 1.

Stampa, Gaspara, poetess, i. 206.

Stock speeches in the _Commedia dell'Arte_, i. 62.


Tartaglia, a mask in the _Commedia dell'Arte_, i. 35, 50.
  as employed by Gozzi, i. 152.

Terzi, Marchese, of Bergamo, i. 368, 369, 370.
  Gozzi's lawsuit against, ii. 160.
  its successful issue, ii. 164.

Testa, Antonio, a famous lawyer, i. 335; ii. 163.
  his kindness to Gozzi, i. 336.

Theatres, private, in the houses of the Venetian nobility, i. 201 _note_ 1.

Tiepolo family, i. 189 _note_ 1.

Tiepolo, Almoro Cesare, i. 213, 291, 342.
  his just and excellent character, i. 344-347.

Tiepolo, G. B., painter, ii. 338.
  a genius of the first order, ii. 339.

Tiepolo, Nicolo Maria, his condemnation of comedians, i. 71.

Tiepolo Gozzi, Angela, mother of Carlo Gozzi--_See_ Gozzi, Angela Tiepolo.

Toaldo, Professor, ii. 75.

Todeschini, Raffaelle, ii. 295, 326.

Tommassei, his contempt for Gozzi, i. 179.

Tonina, a courtesan of Zara, i. 262.
  Gozzi's impromptu attack on, in the theatre, i. 269.

Tron, Andrea, Procuratore di San Marco, i. 9, 14; ii. 264 _note_ 1.

Tron, Caterina Dolfin, see Dolfin-Tron, Caterina.

Truffaldino, the mask, a modification of Arlecchino, i.
    46, 150; ii. 131 _note_ 1.
  as used by Gozzi, i. 153.


Vendramini, Antonio, proprietor of the theatre of S. Salvadore,
    ii. 167, 173, 276, 286.

Venice--
  its decadence, i. 7 _note_ 1.
  its political and social state about the middle of the 18th century, i. 82.
  conflict of liberalism and conservatism in literature and
    the theatre, i. 86.
  success of the _Comedie Larmoyante_, i. 87.
  foundation of the Academy de' Granelleschi, i. 89.
  the granting of citizenship in, i. 186 _note_ 1.
  the position of the _Cittadini Originari_, i. 186 _note_ 1.
  posts open to the _Cittadini_, i. 187 _note_ 3.
  Gozzi's remarks on the degeneration of the Venetian youth, i. 194.
  robes of the Dignitaries, i. 217 _note_ 1.
  the office of Grand Chancellor, i. 230 _note_ 1.
  the values of the sequin and lira, i. 274 _note_ 1.
  _Decime_ (taxes), i. 280 _note_ 1.
  its theatres, i. 332 _note_ 1; ii. 167.
  its law of entail, i. 336 _note_ 1.
  the _Avogadori del Comun_, i. 341 _note_ 1.
  decay of literary taste in, ii. 108-110.
  the length of the theatrical year, ii. 146 _note_ 1.
  its decrepitude, as shown in State interference in Gratarol's
    quarrel with Gozzi, ii. 303 _note_ 1.
  the influence of the French Revolution on, ii. 328.
  partial revival of art in, in the 18th century, ii. 338.
  Longhi's paintings of contemporary life in, ii. 338 _note_ 1;
    ii. 341, 347, 358.

Verdani, Abbe Giovan Antonio, i. 196.

Vilio, Count, of Desenzano, ii. 24.

Vinacesi, Elisabetta, actress, ii. 213.

Vincentini, Tommaso, his excellence as Harlequin, i. 67.

Vitalba, Giovanni, actor, ii. 269.
  the actor who caricatured Gratarol in the "Droghe d'Amore," ii. 272.
  assaulted by a ruffian in Milan, ii. 318.


Wagner, Richard, his "Fairies," a setting of Gozzi's "Donna Serpente,"
    i. 160 _note_ 1, 181.

Werthes, Franz A. C., translator of Gozzi's "Fiabe" into German, i. 180.

Widiman, Count Ludovico, a patron of Goldoni, ii. 124.


Zanche, Daniele, advocate, ii. 161.

Zanerini, Petronio, the best actor of Italy, ii. 323.

Zanoni, Atanagio, comedian, i. 112 _note_ 1; ii. 131, 323.

Zannuzzi, Francesco, of the Comedie Italienne at Paris, ii. 211,
   212 _note_ 1.

Zeno, Apostolo, encourages Gozzi in his poetical attempts, i. 207.
  his influence in the drama, i. 207 _note_ 1.

Zini, Francesco, a cloth merchant, wishes to buy the Gozzis' house, i. 299.
  Carlo Gozzi tries to prevent the purchase, i. 300.

Zon, Signer, Secretary to the Inquisitors of State, ii. 303 _note_ 1.

Zucchi, Padre, an _improvisatore_, i. 203.

       *       *       *       *       *

The following typographical errors have been corrected by the etext
transcriber:

Many years have elasped since Tartaglia married=>Many years have elapsed
since Tartaglia married

twirls his moustachioes=>twirls his moustachios

Philarete Chasles=>Philarete Chasles

whence we were to sally forth to the assault of Buda.=>whence we were to
sally forth to the assault of Budua.

       *       *       *       *       *

FOOTNOTES:

[1] Under date August 31, 1885, with the assumed signature of E. H.
Westbourne. See _Academy_, No. 696, Sept. 5, 1885.

[2] See Romanin, _Storia Documentata di Venezia_, vol. viii. ch. 7.

[3] Gratarol was not formally divorced from his wife. This appears from
several passages of his _Narrazione Apologetica_. It may, however, be
here observed that scandalous irregularities with regard to matrimony
formed one of the main signs of Venetian decadence. Between 1782 and
1796 the Council of Ten received no fewer than 264 petitions for
divorce, and the Patriarch is said to have had 900 applications at one
time before him, requiring his decision in matters relating to a
dissolution of the marriage tie. See Magrini, _op. cit._, p. 23; and
Macchi, _Storia del Concilio dei Dieci_, vol. ii. p. 355. It seems that
the most shameless reasons were collusively alleged by the parties in
these cases for breaking a tie which the Church regarded as
indissoluble. In 1782 the Ten passed a law requiring a divorced woman to
enter a convent.

[4] A short while before, he had been appointed Resident at Turin, and
had received the usual equipment for that service. Circumstances
independent of his own will in the matter prevented him from assuming
the office. His political ill-wishers were able to point to the unused
grant which he had pocketed.

[5] Caterina was the daughter of the ancient and noble, but impoverished
house of Dolfin. She contracted her first marriage with a member of the
Tiepolo family, obtained a divorce from him, and married her lover,
Andrea Tron.

[6] It may be read in Gratarol's _Narrazione Apologetica_, vol. ii. p.
78, &c.

[7] These magistrates acted for the Fisco or Treasury of the Republic.

[8] It has been suggested that Gratarol so heavily mortgaged his lands
before leaving Venice that they were not worth more than this sum, after
allowing for rent charges on them and _fidei commissa_. See the
observations of a self-styled impartial writer printed at the end of the
_Narrazione Apologetica_, ed. 1797. I must, however, observe that this
writer is by no means impartial. The essay in question is a piece of
skilful special pleading in defence of Mme. Tron, her husband, the
oligarchs of Venice, and the officers who executed the _bando_ against
Gratarol.

[9] Gratarol pays high tribute to Gozzi's genius. But he sticks to the
conviction that the _Droghe d'Amore_ was meant to turn him into
ridicule, and that its author could, if he had chosen, have withdrawn it
from the stage.

[10] He tells us that he began the Memoirs on April 30, 1780. _Memorie_,
vol. i. p. 3. The passage occurs in Gozzi's manifesto, of which more
anon. I may add that the manifesto is not included in all copies of the
Memoirs.

[11] An anonymous answer, entitled _Riflessioni d'un Imparziale_,
appeared at Lugano. This was ascribed to Carlo Gozzi's pen; but he
repudiated the pamphlet, and it does not bear the mark of his style. It
may be found at the end of vol. ii. of Gratarol's _Narr. Apol._, ed.
1797, Venice, Silvestro Gatti.

[12] _Memorie_, vol i. pp. 3-15.

[13] This is evident from the appearance of the _Ragionamento del
Cittadino Carlo Gozzi a' Cittadini amici della Memoria di P. A.
Gratarol_ at the beginning of the _Memorie_, vol. ii.

[14] _Memorie Ultime_, p. 39; Gozzi's _Memorie_, vol. ii. p. x.

[15] The family of Widiman or Widman was of patrician rank in Venice.

[16] Vol. i. p. 4.

[17] Vol. ii. p. xvi.

[18] De Musset, in order to support his view of Gozzi as the precursor
of Romanticism and of Hoffmann, strains to the utmost the chapter on
_Contrattempi_ in the Memoirs. He furthermore professes to have
extracted a very bizarre account of the reasons why Gozzi abandoned his
_Fiabe_--in plain words, because the elves and spirits he brought upon
the stage were resolved to be revenged on him--from a letter addressed
to Gasparo by Carlo Gozzi (_Memoires de Charles Gozzi_, pp. 184-188). De
Musset adds no reference to the source of this alleged letter, which is
mentioned by neither Magrini nor Masi. Indeed, Signor Ernesto Masi
informs me that he knows nothing about it. I too have failed to discover
it. In his Memoirs, and in the prefaces to several plays, Gozzi gives a
very different account of the reasons why he stopped producing _Fiabe_.
I am loth to draw the conclusion that the letter in question was a
deliberate forgery of Paul de Musset's. Further researches may bring it
still to light, but at present it has to be regarded with the greatest
possible suspicion.

[19] I have treated the subject of the Italian drama elsewhere:
_Renaissance in Italy_, vol. v. ch. 11.

[20] The full title would be _Commedia dell' Arte all' Improviso_. It is
also called _Commedia a soggetto_, _Commedia non scritta_, _Commedia
improvisa._ The written comedy, beside _Commedia Erudita_, was also
called _Commedia sostenuta, scritta_, or _letteraria_.

[21] See what I have said at length upon this point in my _Shakespeare's
Predecessors_, p. 259, and _Renaissance in Italy_, vol. v. p. 188.

[22] To Maurice Sand, in his _Masques et Bouffons_, vol. ii. p. 77 _et
seq._, is due the merit of having resuscitated the fame of this great
local dramatist, yet I think M. Sand exaggerates Beolco's influence in
the creation of impromptu comedy.

[23] See Collier's _English Dramatic Poetry_ (ed. 1879), vol. iii. p.
197.

[24] It is impossible to avoid the awkwardness of using the word _mask_
in a double sense,--both to indicate the fixed character assumed by a
certain species of actor, and also the vizard which concealed his
features.

[25] It may here be mentioned that in English we still retain the names
of some of these masks, as Zany, Harlequin, Pantaloon, and Punch. Our
Columbine is the Neapolitan form of the _Servetta_ or soubrette. Our
Scaramouch is one of the numerous forms of the Captain, which obtained
great popularity at Paris. Whether the Clown of our pantomimes has to be
classed with the _Villano_, or rather with one of the Zanni, I am
uncertain. His traditional connection with the part of Pantaloon seems
to indicate the latter alternative.

[26] In a comedy by Virgilio Verucci (_Li Diversi Linguaggi_, Venezia,
1609), French, Venetian, Bergamasque, Roman, Sicilian, Bolognese,
Neapolitan, Matriccian, Perugian, and Florentine dialects were spoken.
See Bartoli, _op. cit._, p. lxxix.

[27] Conversely, masks were sometimes created out of persons. Thus the
plebeian poet of Naples, Francesco Cerlone, moulded the mask of Don
Fastidio upon a barber of his acquaintance, Francesco Massaro. Here the
man became a type; and after he had made it famous, it was continued by
other players, who adapted themselves to his humours. (See Scherillo's
_Commedia dell' Arte_, chap, iii., for the history of Don Fastidio).
This mask was very popular for a time in Southern Italy. When Casanova
wanted to engage a troop at Otranto for performance at Corfu, he had to
choose between the rival companies of Neapolitan Don Fastidio and
Sicilian Battipaglia (_Memoires_, vol. i. ch. xv.). The Capocomici, as I
have previously mentioned, were known by the names of their masks.

[28] _Fescenninus_ is variously derived from the town Fescennia in South
Etruria, or from _fascinum_, the Latin form of _phallus_.

[29] The common meaning of _satura_ and _farsa_, both of which have
reference to stuffing, is somewhat singular.

[30] I have seen them doing this with reticence and decorum at
Montepulciano.

[31] A curious passage in the Life of Don Pietro di Toledo (_Arch.
Stor._, vol. ix. p. 23) shows what a startling impression these
Dionysiac revels made upon a Spanish Viceroy in the early seventeenth
century. Pontano's Latin poems are full of matter bearing on the
vitality of antique rustic habits in the neighbourhood of Naples.

[32] It was included in the first edition of the _Canti
Carnascialeschi_, 1559, and is reprinted in Verzone's edition of
Grazzini's _Rime Burlesche_, Firenze, Sansone, 1882.

[33] "Acting the Bergamasque and the Venetian, we roam the whole world
over, and the recitation of comedies is our trade.... We are all of us
Zanni, excellent and perfect players; the other choice actors of our
troupe, lovers, ladies, hermits, and soldiers, have stayed behind to
guard our booth.... We have a stock of new comedies, so fine, so
mirthful, and so witty, that when you hear them you will die of
laughing. Afterwards you will see a dance upon our stage, all full of
new and varied sports.... But since there is a certain custom in this
country, ladies, which prevents your coming to our public show, if you
will open your house-doors to us, we will let you taste in part the
sweetness and the pleasure of our sports."

[34] The other channels were French plays, modifications of English
plays, adaptations of Spanish plays, and musical melodramas.

[35] I do not vouch for this etymology, which Boerio, the compiler of
the Venetian Glossary, has adopted. For myself, I should be well
contented with the derivation from San Pantaleone, and would willingly
make him the patron saint of pantaloons and professed trousers-makers.

[36] It is singular that Shakespeare, who uses Pantalone as the symbol
of old age in _As You Like It_, knew him already in decrepitude.

[37] It was my good fortune, while writing these pages at Davos in the
summer of 1888, to become acquainted with two brothers from Bergamo, who
were living representatives of the Zanni. They had come to help at the
hay-harvest, leaving their own farm in the Bergamasque hills.
Brighella's wit and knavery amused me. I marvelled at Arlecchino's
simplicity and suppleness.

[38] Carlo Gozzi at Zara in his youth created a new type of the
Servetta, adapted to Dalmatian circumstances, under the name of Luce.

[39] Scherillo, in his _Commedia dell' Arte_, has resuscitated Cerlone's
fame, as Maurice Sand made us acquainted with Beolco.

[40] See above, p. 38.

[41] For a short notice of these curious Maccaronic poems, _I Cantici di
Fidentio Glottogrysio Ludimagistro_, see my _Renaissance in Italy_, vol.
v. p. 328. The obscurity of their jargon veiled considerable indecency.
It is noticeable that this book, now exceedingly rare, should have
become the text-book of the Pedante. But see Bartoli, _op. cit._, pp.
lii., lvii.

[42] Burattino is so kaleidoscopic that at last he becomes the
patronymic hero of marionettes in Italy. _I Burattini_ are the acting
dolls.

[43] In the _Ragionamento Ingenuo_ and _Appendice_, Op., 1772, vols i.
and iv.

[44] _Scenari Inediti_, Firenze, Sansoni, 1880.

[45] It has to be mentioned that in plays of a more serious description,
the parts of character were frequently written out, and only the parts
of the masks left to improvisation. This was the method pursued by Gozzi
in his _Fiabe_.

[46] Andrea Perrucci, _Dell' Arte Rappresentativa premeditata ed all'
improvviso_, Napoli, 1699, quoted by Bartoli, _op. cit._, p. lxxi.

[47] _Histoire Anecdotique du Theatre Italien_, Paris, 1769, quoted by
Bartoli, _op. cit._, p. lxxvi.

[48] _Le Theatre Italien_, quoted by Bartoli, _op. cit._, p. lxx.

[49] These phrases are used by Gozzi in his _Memorie Inutili_. Compare
what he says in his _Appendice al Ragionamento Ingenuo_, Op., 1772, vol.
iv. p. 40.

[50] Quoted by Bartoli, _op. cit._, p. lxxi.

[51] I am indebted to Maurice Sand, _Masques et Bouffons_.

[52] Vol. iii. p. 201.

[53] _Ragionamento Ingenuo_, Op., 1772, vol. i.

[54] Scherillo, in his book on _La Commedia dell' Arte_, ch. vi., has
given the history of San Carlo's efforts to suppress the theatre at
Milan.

[55] Nicolo Maria Tiepolo, about 1778, quoted by Molmenti in his Essay
on Goldoni, Venezia, Ongania, 1880, p. 68.

[56] Pasquali's edition, 1761; also, _Teatro Comico_, act i. sc. 2.

[57] _Memoires de Jacques Casanova_, Bruxelles, Rozez, vol. i. ch. II.

[58] _Memoires de M. Goldoni_, Paris, Veuve Duchesne, 1787, vol. i.
ch. 5.

[59] A common inn-sign. This reminds us of the earliest performances of
plays in the yards of London hostelries.

[60] Ed. cit., vol i. p. 228.

[61] See his Memoires, part i. ch. 40.

[62] This is perhaps the proper place to explain the meaning of
Martellian verses. They owe their name to Pier Jacopo Martelli
(1665-1725), who revived them, and used them for the drama. Metrically
speaking, Martellian verses are twelve-syllable lines of the Alexandrine
type. These long lines had been commonly employed in Italy during the
thirteenth century, before the heroic verse of eleven syllables obtained
ascendancy. It is difficult to say why the Alexandrine, which Italy in
the thirteenth century shared with France, died out in the former
country and became the standard heroic line of the latter. Possibly the
reason may be found in the Italian tendency toward double rhymes; the
so-called _versi piani_ of Dante being decasyllabic iambics with a
redundant syllable rather than hendecasyllabics. Anyhow, the Alexandrine
has not flourished south of the Alps. Martelli's revival did not
prosper; and Carducci, in his _Su' Campi di Marengo_ (_Nuove Poesie_, p.
91), is the only recent poet who has attempted them with success.

[63] Opere, ed. 1772, tom. viii. p. 27. "The partisans on both sides
gathered forces daily. One swears by _Original_ (a name for Goldoni),
the other by _Plunder_ (Chiari, because of his plagiarisms). The whole
city was turned upside down, and indeed it is no laughing matter.
Brothers fought with brothers, wives did worse with their husbands.
Everywhere the wrangling was fierce; nought but confusion, nought but
discord."

[64] The details of the controversy between Gozzi and Goldoni are given
at fuller length than I have attempted in Signor Ernesto Masi's masterly
Introduction to his edition of the _Fiabe Teatrali_.

[65] Opere, vol. viii. _Tartana_ is a large merchant vessel.

[66] The editor of this Venetian Zadkiel was originally Giovanni
Pozzobon. After his death it was continued by Giambattista Bada.
Pozzobon was nicknamed Schieson. The almanac was adorned with a
ridiculous portrait of a doctor in a huge wig. Owing to this fact,
Schieson came to signify any one with rumpled hair. See Boerio's
_Dizionario del Dialetto Veneziano_.

[67] Opere, vol. viii. p. 164.

[68] The original exists in MS. at the Marcian Library. Goldoni wrote
the poem on the occasion of S. E. Bastian Venier's return from the
rectorship of Bergamo. When he reprinted it in the edition of his
poetical works (Pasquali, Venezia, 1764), he omitted the passage
referring to Gozzi's _Tartana_. The lines above are given in Magrini's
and Masi's essays. I add a translation. "I have seen a certain _Tartana_
in print, full of rancid and insipid verses, verses bad enough to
terrify a goblin, verses seasoned by the wise plagiary with acrid salt
of evil-speaking, full of false arrogant sentiments. One can, however,
condone this licence in one who is out of temper with Fortune, she being
not greatly well-affected toward him. He who speaks evil without any
reason shown, he who does not prove his assumptions and his arguments,
acts like the dog who barks against the moon."

[69] It was written for the marriage of Contarini Venier. "A Lombard who
pretends to be a Delia Cruscan, with a smile on his lips and venom in
his heart."

[70] "Only too well I know that I am not a good writer, and that I never
drank at the best fountains. I write and reason as my style dictates,
and sometimes by good chance I also have afforded pleasure. But woe to
me if the Florentine sieve should be applied to sifting my productions."

[71] Opere, vol. viii. p. 183. "I am engaged in preparing a commentary
which shall prove both the assumption and the argument."

[72] _Il Teatro Comico_ was the first of the famous sixteen comedies of
1749-50. The list of the pieces to be expected was announced in it. See
Goldoni's _Memoirs_, part i. ch. 7.

[73] "Yes, thou art the eagle, I am the ant. Thou soarest to the zenith
without exertion; my Muse cannot rise to the poles of the universe."

[74] Only in this respect, however; otherwise, as artist, Gozzi differs
widely from Aristophanes.

[75] Opere, vol. iii. p. 9.

[76] The actors in Sacchi's company were: Antonio Sacchi, _Truffaldino_;
Atanagio Zanoni, _Brighella_; Agostino Fiorelli, _Tartaglia_; Cesare
Darbes, _Pantalone_; Adriana Sacchi Zanoni, _Smeraldina_; Antonia
Sacchi, _Beatrice_; together with Ignazio Casanova and Gaetano Casali.
How the parts of Leandro, Clarice, Re di Coppe, Celio, Morgana, Creonta,
Ninetta were distributed, we do not know. Antonia Sacchi (the _Beatrice_
of the troupe) probably played Clarice.

[77] In Italian, _Re di Coppe_. The Italian suits are _Coppe_ or cups,
_Danari_ or coins, _Spade_ or swords (whence our Spades), _Bastoni_ or
clubs.

[78] In Italian, _Cavaliere di Coppe_.

[79] I have adopted the old English fourteen-syllable line for the
translation of Gozzi's Martellian verses. It seemed to me that the
lumbering effect of this metre lent itself to the spirit of his parody.
What Martellian verses were has been explained at p. 97.

[80] I cannot pretend to give a literal translation of these gross
parodies of Goldoni's forensic verbiage. The most I can do is to stuff
the verse with more or less of legal phraseology.

[81] See above, p. 112, for the names of the five actors who sustained
these parts in Sacchi's company.

[82] I wrote this in the spring of 1888, before I was aware that Wagner
had set the _Donna Serpente_ to music. His early piece, _The Fairies_,
was composed in 1833, and first performed this year in June at Munich.

[83] Act ii. sc. 5. In Masi's edition, vol. ii. p. 458. Readers who care
for further diatribes _a la Gozzi_ on these topics, may be referred to
the _Astrazione_ which serves as introduction to his translation of
Boileau, Op., vol. vii. p. 53.

[84]

                  "Many are now alive,
    Who haply are more statues than I am.
    Thou shalt experience what power hath a statue,
    And how a live man may become an image."


[85] _Tarocchi_ is the name for the cards, seventy-eight in number, used
in a now well-nigh forgotten game. Fifty-six cards of the whole series
consist of the four Italian suits: Coppe, Spade, Bastoni, and Danari.
The remaining twenty-two are properly called _Tarocchi_, and in the game
of Taroc take precedence of any cards of the four ordinary suits.

[86]

    "I too have charms,
     Sweet flatteries, dulcet wiles; and to my side
     He shall be faithful ever. Yet I would not
     That, loving him, my kindness should arouse
     In hearts of others jealousy."


[87]

"Fair, yea, most fair thou art in sooth; yet still more fair wouldst be
Didst thou an apple hold which sings, plucked from the magic tree.

           *       *       *       *       *

Daughter, I trow that thou art fair; yet still more fair wouldst be
Didst thou that water hold which plays and dances merrily."

[88]

"So! this is my philosopher, who went Yesterday picking sticks, and now!
... But patience!... I wished to stay with her, for I adore her; And
stay with her I shall. We must contrive To hold our tongue; and yet this
may not be. I vow I scarcely knew her! What grand airs! Some devil must
have daubed her o'er with gold. 'Twould vex me sorely if the little
hussy ... Some rich milord perhaps.... Well, I'll know all."

{_Exit._

[89] There are five of these old statues, painted, in Moorish costumes.
One of them has the name Rioba carved above his head. Everybody in
Venice, of course, knew them; and their appearance on the stage must
have been mirth-promoting.

[90] _Memoires_, part ii. cap. 45.

[91] Letters from Italy, dated October 4, October 6, and October 10,
1786.

[92] See Masi's Essay, p. cxxxii.

[93] _Carlo Gozzi, Theatre Fiabesque, Alphonse Royer._ Paris, Michel
Levy, 1865.

[94] London, W. Satchell & Co. 1880.

[95] Through the courtesy of Mr. John P. Anderson of the British Museum
I am able to state that, besides a short article in the _Encyclopaedia
Britannica_, he can only discover an essay in _Lippincott's Magazine_
(vol. xx. p. 347, &c.), entitled "A Venetian of the Eighteenth Century,"
which deals with Carlo Gozzi.

[96] The Gozzi family were thus _Cittadini Originari_ of Venice. These
_Cittadini_ had to prove legitimate birth in the city; three generations
during which the family had exercised no mechanical arts; freedom from
any criminal stain, debts to the state, or factious behaviour.
Citizenship, as in the case of the Gozzi, was also granted by privilege.
The _Cittadini_ formed a class of burgher aristocracy, ranking below the
patricians and taking no part in the actual government of the State,
since they did not vote in the Consiglio Grande. Their names, pedigrees,
and arms were enrolled in a book, of which many copies exist, and which
was commonly called the _Libro d'Argento_, to distinguish it from the
_Libro d'Oro_ of the patricians. In a MS. of the seventeenth century,
which belonged to Cicogna, now at the Museo Civico, entitled _Le Due
Corone della Nobilta Veneziana, Corona Seconda_, the Gozzi arms are
blazoned thus: "Or, on the topmost branches of an olive-tree vert a dove
ppr., and round the stem of the tree a scroll argent inscribed Signum
Pacis." The family is described as wealthy; but no pedigree is given:
_Non vi e albero_. Carlo Gozzi, in his _Lettera Confutatoria, Memorie_,
vol. iii. p. 31, asserts that the privilege of citizenship was given to
his ancestors by the Doge Cicogna (1585-95). It is neither impossible
nor improbable that the Gozzi of Bergamo were derived from the same
stock as the Gozze or Gozzi of Ragusa. These latter drew their pedigree
from Herzegovina, and were therefore Slavs. We know that the patrician
families of Polo and Sagredo came originally from Sebenico.

[97] Their palace is still inhabited by a Conte Gozzi. The _arca_, or
family sepulture, can no longer be traced in the church. It was at the
foot of the altar in the Chapel of the Madonna. Here Carlo Gozzi was
buried.

[98] In a voluminous MS. written by Cicogna, embodying all he could
collect about the _Famiglie Cittadine_ (now at the Museo Civico), we
find that _Alberto Gozi detto delle Sede_ was inscribed among the
patricians in 1646. I may mention that Cicogna tricks the arms of Gozzi
without the dove.

[99] The Grand Chancellor, the Ducal Notaries, and the Secretaries of
many Magistracies, were chosen from the _Cittadini_, who were also sent,
after holding such posts, as ambassadors of the second class, or
Residents, to foreign Courts.

[100] The word, which I have translated acre, is _campo_. Now the
_campo_ differed in different provinces of Lombardy. But the _Campo
Padovano_ corresponded pretty nearly to an English acre; and from
another passage in Gozzi (_Memorie_, vol. iii. p. 226) it appears that
he was in the habit of using the Paduan standard.

[101] The Gozzi were what are called in Venice _Conti di Terra Ferma_,
and their title seems to have been dependent upon these feudal tenures.

[102] At the time when Gozzi wrote, this was the eldest branch, called
Di San Fantin. Two remote branches, of S. Apollinare and San Polo,
survived. They descended from a collateral ancestor, Girolamo Tiepolo,
who died in 1516. The branch of S. Polo expired in 1820. See Litta,
_Famiglie Celebri_. The Tiepolo family was one of the oldest and most
illustrious among the patrician houses. It ranked with the _Case
vecchie_, as distinguished from the _Case nuove_. These _Case vecchie_
were also called tribunizie, from having exercised the highest offices
of State at the time when Venice was still governed by tribunes, and
before the foundation of the Dogeship. Of these oldest and purest noble
houses there were twenty-four. The closing of the Grand Council in 1297,
which determined the oligarchical character of the Venetian government,
led to an attempted revolution in the State by Baiamonte Tiepolo.
Tiepolo's conspiracy was really an effort in the interests of the old
aristocracy to throw off the yoke which _novi homines_ were fixing on
the commonwealth. An excellent essay on Baiamonte Tiepolo will be found
in H. F. Brown's _Venetian Studies_. I may add to this note that the
Gozzi had previously intermarried with the Corner, Zuccato, Dona, and
Morosini, patrician houses of high respectability.

[103] Carlo Gozzi was born December 13, 1720. He probably knew that he
was in his sixtieth year; and this passage enables us to measure the
exact amount of duplicity which he thought venial in composing his
Memoirs. It was Gozzi's object to extenuate the fact that his _liaison_
with Teodora Ricci had been carried on when he was past the age of
fifty. When he asserts that he had "not yet reached the age of sixty,"
he was just within the bounds of veracity; for he wanted more than seven
months to complete his sixtieth year.

[104] _Collegi._ Gasparo was educated in the Somaschan establishment at
S. Cipriano on the island of Murano.

[105] Casanova, in the first chapter of his Memoirs, says that he
suffered during his boyhood from the same violent haemorrhages.

[106] _Gozzi_ might have cited Galileo, whose style, formed by the study
of the "divine" Ariosto, is a model of exquisite and urbane Italian
diction.

[107] Compare what Goldoni says about the marionette theatre at his
grandfather's country-seat. In some of the great villas of the Venetian
nobility these private stages were built on an enormous scale. The
account of Marco Contarini's theatre at Piazzola near Padua, and of the
sumptuous dramatic performances which took place there, reads like a
passage from the _Arabian Nights_. See Romanin's _Storia di Venezia_,
vol. vii. p. 550.

[108] I may here say that the title of cavaliere, or knight, was
commonly given to members of patrician families at Venice, irrespective
of their being laymen or in orders.

[109] Gaspara Stampa was born at Padua, but was a gentlewoman of Milan
by descent. She died about 1554, at the age of thirty. If this edition
of Gaspara Stampa's _Rime_ is the one prepared for publication by Luisa
Bergalli (Gozzi's sister-in-law), there is the same confusion of dates
here as I have noticed above. It was published when Gozzi had reached
his seventeenth year.

[110] A tablet over the entrance to the restaurant at the Calcina on the
Zattere, records that Apostolo Zeno dwelt there. It was, perhaps, to
this house that young Gozzi paid his visit. Zeno (b. 1668, d. 1750)
exercised considerable influence over the Italian drama. He wrote plays
for music and oratorios. For some years he held the post of Cesarean
poet at Vienna, which he resigned to the more celebrated Metastasio.

[111] Luisa Pisana Bergalli was born at Venice in 1703, of humble
parentage, being descended from a Piedmontese shoemaker. Luigi Mocenigo
and Pisana Cornaro held her at the font, and gave her their two
Christian names. She showed distinguished talents in early youth, and
was educated by the painter Rosalba Carriera, afterwards by Caterino and
Apostolo Zeno. At twenty-three she published a tragedy and an anthology
of Italian poems by female writers; at twenty-five another tragedy; at
thirty a translation of Terence, and a comedy dedicated to Count Jacopo
Antonio Gozzi. It appears from this dedication to _Le avventure del
poeta_ that she was the protegee of both Count Gozzi and his wife, and
on the best of terms with their children. She was thirty-five and
Gasparo was twenty-five when they married. See Tommasei, _Storia Civile
nella Letteraria_, pp. 185-188.

[112] The title _Provveditore Generale di Mare_ was given to the supreme
head of the Venetian naval and military forces in the Levant. He resided
at Corfu, where he maintained a princely court, and ruled like a
sovereign, being only responsible for his actions to the Senate. Next in
importance to this functionary was the _Provveditore Generale di
Dalmazia_, of whose Court we shall hear much in Gozzi's Memoirs.
Casanova, who went to Corfu in the train of the Prov. Gen. Dolfino,
called Il Bucentoro because of his grand manner, and the father of the
famous Caterina Dolfin Tron, gives an excellent account of the Court
there, its military, naval, and civil establishment. Chapters xiii.-xvi.
of the first volume of his Memoirs deserve to be compared with the
corresponding part of Gozzi's.

[113] Not at seventeen, but at twenty. Gozzi was born in 1720, and
Quirini took the government of Dalmatia in 1740.

[114] _Togato._ The State dignitaries of Venice wore robes of various
colours and forms, according to their office. A simple nobleman was
bound to go abroad in a flowing robe of silk, or toga, ample enough to
conceal whatever costume he may have worn beneath it.

[115] _Armata_, composed of naval and military forces, to act equally on
sea and shore.

[116] It seems from the names of these larger galleys that they were the
official ships of the Provveditore, his own flag-ship and her attendant
convoy. Romanin (vol. viii. p. 372) says that at this epoch Venice kept
fifteen heavy galleys, ten lighter, nine sailing ships of the frigate
build, and twenty-four armed craft of other descriptions. The galleys
and sailing ships were commanded only by patricians. This was her peace
establishment.

[117] Gozzi says _adjutante_ alone. _Adjutante di campo_ is
aide-de-camp.

[118] This word is in the Italian _armata_. The _armata_, to which Gozzi
belonged, was properly an armament of mixed naval and military forces,
and _armata_ would naturally be translated "navy." He was attached to
it, however, in the quality of soldier, and was eligible (as we shall
afterwards see) for transfer into the land forces of the State in
Lombardy. Thus he belonged to the Venetian army.

[119] This was the highest office in the State to which a _cittadino_
could aspire. It conferred the rank of cavaliere. The Grand Chancellor
could open public despatches; he attended the sittings of the Grand
Council and the Senate, but without a vote, and was the official chief
of all the civil servants.

[120] Probably Freschot, the author of several works on Venice, a
Frenchman by birth.

[121] The native Dalmatians of Slav origin, inhabiting the inland
villages and country districts, were called by this name.

[122] _Scogli._ A long low island opposite the harbour of Zara is so
called.

[123] This and other French terms show to what extent the military
system of Venice had been modernised.

[124] Razionato.

[125] This chapter will be read with interest by students of the
_Commedia dell' Arte_. It throws light upon the way in which an actor of
originality could adapt one of the fixed characters of that comedy, in
this case the _servetta_, to his own talents and to local circumstances.

[126] _Pallone_ is a game played with a large leather ball, filled with
air, and something like our football. In Italy it is struck with the
hand, which is armed for the purpose with gloves or a flat short bat
fixed on the palm. Sides are chosen, and the game roughly resembles
tennis on a large scale. Pallone is the original of our balloon.

[127] The sequin at this time was worth twenty-two _lire Venete_. The
worth of the _lira_ was about half a franc, says Romanin (vol. viii. p.
302). Romanin in the same place fixes the ducat at eight _lire_. Gozzi's
debt amounted to 1248 _lire_. This would make only 156 ducats at the
above rate. But the relation of the ducat to the sequin and the _lira_
is very obscure, and seems to have varied according to the kind of
ducat.

[128] _Decime._ Taxes annually raised upon the whole property of a
Venetian.

[129] Opere, vol. vii. p. 393. This is the stanza--

    Gli antichi di provincia tuoi fedeli
    Son quasi tutti fuggiti alle ville,
    In castellacci discoperti a' cieli,
    Con figli e figlie e nipoti e pupille,
    Ripieni di pensieri acri e crudeli,
    Allor che suonan mezzodi le squille.
    Educazion non han, mangiar, ne bere;
    Pensa se daran nerbo alle tue schiere!

This is said to the burlesque Carlo Magno of the poem. The passage in
the text confirms the theory that Gozzi intended his Carlo Magno to
represent the decrepit majesty of Venice.

[130] Almoro is the Venetian form of the name Ermolao.

[131] Gozzi's description of the Venetian _Cortesan_ may serve as
illustration to a popular play of Goldoni's, _Momolo Cortesan_. This was
the first comedy of character Goldoni composed. Its title-role was
written for a celebrated Pantalone, Golinetti (see Goldoni's _Memoirs_,
part i. ch. 40). When he printed it, he translated the title into
_L'Uomo di Mondo_, finding no exact equivalent for the Venetian phrase
_Cortesan_. Goldoni's account of the character tallies with Gozzi's.

[132] In these and several passages which follow, Gozzi ascribes the
pecuniary embarrassments of his family to the maladministration of his
mother, aided by his sister-in-law. It it only fair to say, that Gasparo
Gozzi's correspondence confirms his veracity. That favourite and
favoured eldest son complains bitterly that, even to the last days of
her life, his mother insisted on managing the property, and that she
made underhand contracts to the prejudice of himself and his children.
It was, in fact, a misfortune for the Gozzi that their father, Jacopo
Antonio, married into a patrician family of higher rank and pretensions
than his own. Angela Tiepolo, knowing herself to be one of the last
representatives of a very noble house, with considerable expectations
from her childless brother, drove her easy-going husband into ruinous
expenditure, and domineered over her kindred by right of a marriage
which savoured of a mesalliance. See the article upon her in Litta's
_Famiglie Celebri_, sub tit. "Tiepolo."

[133] The _bautta_ and the mask were permitted at Venice from the first
Sunday in October until Ash Wednesday.

[134] This was a very long scarf of black silk, which, draped above the
head, and fulling over the shoulders, was tied in a knot, and allowed to
hang on both sides of the wearer's skirts. The mask or _bautta_ was only
permitted during the prolonged Venetian Carnival.

[135] The Italian is _democraziano_. Perhaps Gozzi wrote _democriziano_,
from Democritus, the sage who laughed at all things. In either case the
adjective is wrongly formed. It ought to be either _democratico_ or
_democritico_. But _democrazia_ may have led him to _democraziano_. He
not infrequently employs this phrase, which always puzzles me, because
nobody was really less democratic than Carlo Gozzi, and as yet, in 1780,
he had no reason, under the pressure of the Revolution, to dissemble.

[136] The theatres of Venice were called by the names of the parishes in
which they stood, or of non-parochial churches to which they were
contiguous. S. Angelo was one of the smaller.

[137] I have condensed in this sentence the details of a long and
tiresome chapter (chap. xxix.). It is worth adding here that the law of
Venice with regard to entail was very strict; time gave no title to a
purchaser who had obtained possession of an estate subject to _fidei
commissa_. One of Goethe's most interesting letters from Venice (October
5, 1786) contains the full description of a cause he heard pleaded in
the Ducal palace for the recovery of illegally alienated real property.
Goethe remarks upon the extraordinary permanence of trusts in Venice.

[138] The author of an unfinished work on Venetian literature.

[139] It seems probable that Gozzi was really at one time on the point
of marrying this lady.

[140] The Avvogadori del Comune, or _Advocatores Comunis_, corresponded
in a certain sense to the modern Procuratori di Stato, and had some
resemblance to the Roman tribunes. They formed a High Court of Justice
for the guardianship of property accruing to the Exchequer, for the
protection of private rights in property, rights of minors and widows,
the superintendence of registers of births and marriages, &c. Three
patricians formed the board.

[141] The Somascan Order was founded about 1540 by Girolamo Miani, a
Venetian senator, upon the model of the Theatines. Its object was
education, principally of the poor. With regard to the school at S.
Cipriano, it is worth mentioning that the famous adventurer, Casanova,
was placed there by his guardian the Abbe Grimani in the year 1740 or
thereabouts. He gives a full account of the institution in his Memoirs
(vol. i. ch. vi.), from which it appears that at this epoch about 150
youths were educated by the Somascan monks. Readers of Casanova need
hardly be reminded that he was expelled from the seminary after a few
weeks' residence. Gasparo Gozzi was also educated here.

[142] This scene has actually been preserved and printed in Gasparo
Gozzi's works. Opere, Minerva, Padova, vol. vii. It forms the 6th scene
of the 3rd act of _Esopo in Citta_, and is very much as Carlo Gozzi
describes it. The ancient lady throws the principal blame for her
domestic sufferings upon a certain "Sicofante, Dottor legista di questa
citta," whom I take to be Carlo's lawyer, Testa.

[143] Gozzi can hardly not have been thinking of poor Gratarol, when he
penned these lines. Mentally he contrasts his own conduct under the
inconvenience of a stage-satire with Gratarol's.

[144] See above, p. 319.

[145] On the Fondamenta Nuove, looking across Murano to the mountains of
the Dolomites. See Tommasei, _op. cit._, p. 258.

[146] This was written in 1780, but when it was printed in 1797, Louis
XVI. had little reason to be proud of his titles.

[147] He was made secretary to the Riformatori dello Studio.

[148] Gozzi here resumes a portion of the 29th chapter of his Memoirs,
which I have condensed in Chapter XXIV. above (see note to p. 336). It
seemed unnecessary to burden the translation of his autobiography with
more of legal details than was absolutely necessary for understanding
the tenor of his life-experience.







End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of The Memoirs of Count Carlo Gozzi;
Volume the first, by Count Carlo Gozzi

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