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CHAPTER VIII.

ITALIAN IMITATORS OF BOCCACCIO.-SACCHETTI.-SER GIO

VANNI.

MASSUCCIO. -SABADINO.-GIRALDI CINTHIO.STRAPAROLA.-BANDELLO.-MALESPINI, ETC.-FRENCH

IMITATORS.

F the Italian imitators of Boccacio, the earliest

OF

was

FRANCO SACCHETTI,

a Florentine, who was born in 1335, and died about the year 1410. He was a poet in his youth, and travelled to Slavonia and other countries, to attend to some mercantile concerns. As he advanced in years he was raised to a distinguished rank in the magistracy of Florence; he became podestà of Faenza and other places, and at length governor of a Florentine province in the Romagna. Notwithstanding his honours he lived and died poor, but is said to have been a good-humoured facetious man; he left an immense collection of sonnets and canzone, some of which have been lost, and others are still in MS. Of his tales there was a great variety of MS. copies, which is a proof of the popularity of the author, but all of them had originally been very incomplete, or became so before any one thought of printing the works of this novelist.1 At length, in 1724, about 250 of the 300 stories, originally written by Sacchetti, were edited by Giovanni Bottari, from two MSS. in the Laurentian library, which were the most ancient, and at the same time the most perfect, at

The fact, however, that Sachetti's "Trecento Novelle" was not printed until the eighteenth century scarcely speaks in favour of its popularity. For full accounts of Sachetti's life and works, see Bottari's preface, and O. Gigli's life of him in the first volume of his works.

that time extant. This edition was printed at Naples, though with the date of Florence, in two vols. 8vo., and was followed by two impressions, which are facsimiles of the former, and can hardly be distinguished from it.

"Ri

Crescimbeni places Sacchetti next to Boccaccio in merit as well as in time. Warton affirms that his tales were composed earlier than the Decameron; but this must be a mistake, as, from the historical incidents mentioned, they could not have been written before 1376. Indeed, the novelist himself, in his proœmium, says he was induced to undertake the work from the example of Boccaccio. guardando all' excellente poeta Giovanni Boccaccio, il quale descrivendo il libro Cento Novelle, etc., Io Franco Sacchetti mi propose di scrivere la presente opera." Were other evidence necessary than the declaration of Sachetti himself, it is mentioned that he wrote at a much later period than Boccaccio, and in imitation of that author, by many of the Italian commentators, and critics, especially Borghini, in his Origine di Firenze,' Cinelli in his catalogue of Florentine writers, and the deputies employed for the correction of the Decameron. All these authors also declare, that most of the incidents related by Sacchetti actually occurred. The novelist, in his introduction, informs us that he had made a collection of all ancient and modern tales; to some incidents related by him he had been witness, and a few had happened to himself. The work, he says, was compiled and written for the entertainment of his countrymen, on account of the wretched state of their capital, which was afflicted by the plague, and torn by civil dissensions.

At the present day I fear the tales of Sacchetti will hardly amuse, in more favourable circumstances. His work wants that dramatic form, which is a principal charm in the Decameron, and which can alone bestow unity or connection on this species of composition. The merit of a pure and easy style is indeed allowed him by all the critics of his own country, and his tales are also regarded by the

1 F. Sacchetti scrisse intorno all' anno 1400. See Borghini, Discorsi, vol. i. p. 303, Milano, 1808, vol. cxlviii. of the Classici Italiani.

2 Qual opera scrisse Sacchetti mosso dal esempio del Boccaccio, con stile di lui piu puro e familiare.

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Italian antiquaries, who frequently avail themselves of his works, as most valuable records of some curious historical facts, and of customs that had fallen into disuse; but their intrinsic merit, merely considered as stories, is not great. There are few novels of ingenious gallantry, and none of any length, interest, or pathos, like the Griselda, or the Cymon and Iphigenia of the Decameron. A great number of them are accounts of foolish tricks performed by Buffalmacco, the painter, and played on Messer Dolcibene, and Alberto da Siena, who seem to have been the butts of that age, as Calandrino was in the time of Boccaccio. But by far the greatest proportion of the work consists of sayings or repartees, which resemble, except in merit, the Facetiae of Poggio. Sismondi, in the Histoire de la Literature du midi de l'Europe, has pronounced a very accurate judgment on the tales of Sacchetti.-"Au reste, quelque éloge que l'on fasse de la pureté et de l'élégance de son style, Je le trouve plus curieux à consulter sur les moeurs de son temps qu'entrainant par sa gaîté lorsque il croit être le plus plaisant. Il rapporte dans ses Nouvelles presque toujours des évènemens de son temps et d'autour de lui: ce sont des anecdotes domestiques-de petits accidens de ménage, qui, en général, me paroissent très-peu rejouissans; quelquefois des friponneries qui ne sont guère adroites, des plaisanteries qui ne sont guère fines; et l'on est souvent tout étonné de voir un plaisant de profession s'avouer vaincu par un mot piquant que lui a dit un enfant ou un rustre, et qui ne nous cause pas beaucoup d'admiration. Apres avoir lu ces Nouvelles, on ne peut s'empecher de conclure que l'art de la conversation n'avait pas fait dans le quatorzieme siecle des progrès aussi rapides que les autres beaux arts, et que ces grands hommes à qui nous devons tant de chefs d'oeuvre n'étaient point si bons à entendre causer que des gens qui ne les valent pas."Although this opinion seems on the whole well founded, a few examples may be adduced as specimens of the manner of Sacchetti, in the style of composition which he has chiefly adopted.

One day while a blacksmith was singing, or rather bawling out the verses of Dante, that poet happened to pass at the time, and in a sudden emotion of anger, threw down

all the workman's utensils. On the blacksmith complaining of this treatment, Dante replied, "I am only doing to your tools what you do to my verses: I will leave you unmolested, if you cease to spoil my productions" [No. 114]. This foolish jest is elsewhere told of Ariosto and other poets.1

Some one having come unasked to a feast, and being reproved for his forwardness by the other guests, said it was not his fault that he had not been invited [No. 51].

A boy of fourteen years of age astonishes a company with the smartness and sagacity of his conversation. One of the number remarks, that the folly of grown-up men is usually in proportion to the sense of their childhood. "You," replies the boy, "must have been a person of extraordinary wisdom in your infancy" [No. 67]. This story is the Puer facete dicax in Poggio's Facetiae, and is there told of a cardinal and a child who delivered a harangue in presence of the pope.2

A Florentine buffoon, seeing a senator and a person of villainous appearance quarrelling at a gaming-house, and the spectators looking quietly on without interfering, offered himself as umpire. This being accepted, he decided for the rascal, without hearing the state of the game, on the ground that where two persons of an exterior so dissimilar dispute, the lookers-on take the part of the man of respectable appearance, if he has the least shadow of right [No. 165]. There is a similar story recorded of a decision given by the Chevalier de Grammont against Louis XIV.

Philip of Valois (1328-50) lost a favourite hawk, for which he offered a reward of two hundred francs. This falcon was some time after found by a peasant, who, recognising the royal bird by the fleur de lis engraved on the bells, carried it to the palace, and was admitted to present it to his majesty by the usher of the chamber, on condition that he should give him half of whatever recompence was bestowed.

1 See Athenæum, June 17, 1854. It is also told of Philoxenus, who lived in the time of Dionysius the younger (Montaigne, "Essais," 1802, vol. ii. p. 364).

2 See also Timoneda, Alivio de Caminantes, p. 1, No. 35. Ursinus Pelius, Deliciae Poetar. German. Scitum Puellae responsum. Le Passetems agréable, p. 331. Poésies de Baraton, 1705. L'enfant Spirituel.—

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The peasant informed the king of this agreement, and solicited as his reward fifty strokes of the baton. He accordingly receives twenty-five blows, and the usher has the remainder of the gratification; but the clown afterwards privately obtains a pecuniary remuneration from the monarch [No. 195]. This story coincides with an English ballad of the end of the fourteenth century, published in Weber's "Metrical Romances," entitled Sir Cleges, where the knight of that name, who wishes to present an offering to King Uter, is admitted into the palace by the porter, and introduced to the royal presence by the steward, on condition that each should receive a third of the recompence bestowed on him by the monarch. The knight being requested by the king to fix his reward, chuses twelve bastinados, eight of which he enjoys the satisfaction of distributing with his own hand between the steward and the porter.1

These are a few of the tales of Sacchetti, which are said to have had some foundation in fact. There are also a good many stories derived from the east, through the medium of the Gesta Romanorum and the Fabliaux.

No. 138. The master of a family, resolving to rule his house without dispute, places a pair of breeches in the hall, and calls on his wife to come and fight for them, if she wishes any longer to contest the superiority. This novel of Sacchetti is incomplete, and there is no account of the issue of the combat, but it is evidently taken from a fabliau, entitled De Sire Hain et de dame Anieuse (Le Grand, 3, 190), where the combat ends in favour of the husband. This contest has probably given rise to the French phrase, Elle porte les culottes, which has become proverbial, I believe, in every European nation where the pre-eminence is disputed.2

1 See Graese, Sagenkreise, p. 251; Grimm Kindermarchen, iii. p. 20, No. 7; Cuentos de Juan Aragones, No. 3 in Timoneda, El Sobremesa, etc.; Straparola, N. 7, Fav. 3; T. Wright, Latin Stories, No. 127, de janitore imperatoris Frederici, Nouveaux contes à rire, Le Brochet de Florentin.-Lieb.

2 Compare also Straparola, No. 8, Nov. 2, " Der böse Rauch," Fastnachspiel of Hans Sachs printed in Tieck's "Deutsches Theater, i. 19, seqq., where, however, the woman vanquishes; also Gesammtabenteuer, i. p. lxxxviii., as well as an old German ballad, "Der Rauch beisst," in Mone's "Anzeiger," v. 79.-Liebrecht.

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