Italian literature

Written by: Sheila Ralphs

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Table of Contents

 Introduction
 Early vernacular literature
o The influence of France
o The Sicilian school
o The Tuscan poets
o The new style
o Comic verse
o Religious poetry
o Prose
 The 14th century
o Dante
o Petrarch
o Boccaccio
o Popular literature and romances
o Religious and historical literature
 The Renaissance
o The age of humanism
o The rise of vernacular literature
o Political, historical, biographical, and moral literature
o Poetry
o Drama
o Narrative
 17th-century literature
 o Poetry and prose
o Music drama and the Accademia dell’Arcadia
 18th-century developments
o Reform of the tragic theatre
o Goldoni’s reform of the comedy
o The world of learning
o The Enlightenment (Illuminismo)
 Literary trends of the 19th century
o Romanticism
o Opposing movements
o The Risorgimento and after
o The veristi and other narrative writers
 The 20th century
o Gabriele D’Annunzio’s nationalism
o Benedetto Croce’s criticism
o Literary trends before World War I
o The “return to order”
o Luigi Pirandello
o The Hermetic movement
o Social commitment and the new realism
o Other writings
o The end of the century

Italian literature, the body of written works produced in the Italian language that had its
beginnings in the 13th century. Until that time nearly all literary work composed in the Middle
Ages was written in Latin. Moreover, it was predominantly practical in nature and produced by
writers trained in ecclesiastical schools. Literature in Italian developed later than literature in
French and Provençal, the languages of the north and south of France respectively. Only small
fragments of Italian vernacular verse before the end of the 12th century have been found
(although a number of legal documents contain sections in the vernacular), and surviving 12th-
and 13th-century verse reflects French and Provençal influence.

Early vernacular literature

The influence of France
French prose and verse romances were popular in Italy from the 12th to the 14th century. Stories
from the Carolingian and Arthurian cycles, together with free adaptations from the classics, were
read by the literate, while French minstrels recited verse in public places throughout northern
Italy. By the 13th century a “Franco-Venetian” literature, for the most part anonymous, had
developed; Italians copied French stories, often adapting and extending various episodes and
sometimes creating new romances about characters from French works. In this literature, though
the language used was purportedly French, the writers often consciously or unconsciously
introduced elements from their own Northern Italian dialects, thus creating a linguistic hybrid.
Writers of important prose works, such as the Venetian Martino da Canal and the Florentine
Brunetto Latini—authors, respectively, of Les estoires de Venise (1275; “The History of
Venice”) and Livres dou trésor (c. 1260; “Books of the Treasure”)—were much better
acquainted with French, while poets such as Sordello of Mantua wrote lyrics in Provençal
revealing an exact knowledge of the language and of Provençal versification. Provençal love
lyrics were, in fact, as popular as the French romances, and the early Italian poets carefully
studied anthologies of the troubadour poetry.

The Sicilian school

In the cultured environment of the Sicilian court of the Italian-born Holy Roman emperor
Frederick II Hohenstaufen, who ruled the Sicilian kingdom from 1208 to 1250, lyrics modeled
on Provençal forms and themes were written in a refined version of the local vernacular. Poetry
was considered an embellishment of the court and an escape from serious matters of life, and it is
significant that it was the love poetry of Provence—and not the political poetry—that was
imitated by the Sicilian school. The most important of these poets was the notary Jacopo da
Lentini, reputed to have invented the sonnet form. By an accident of history, all the poetry of the
Sicilian school was handed down in later Tuscan transcriptions, which make it look much closer
to modern Italian than it really was. The first to be taken in by the manuscript tradition and to
praise its “trans-regional” qualities was Dante Alighieri.

The Tuscan poets

Sicilian poetry continued to be written after the death of Frederick II, but the centre of literary
activity moved to Tuscany, where interest in the Provençal and Sicilian lyric had led to several
imitations by Guittone d’Arezzo and his followers. Although Guittone experimented with
elaborate verse forms, according to Dante in the De vulgari eloquentia, his language mingled
dialect elements with Latinisms and Provençalisms and had none of the beauty of the southern
school. In fact, Guittone was a vigourous and complex poet whose reputation fell victim to
Dante’s anxiety of influence.

The new style

While Guittone and his followers were still writing, a new development appeared in love poetry,
marked by a concern for precise and sincere expression and a new, serious treatment of love. It
has become customary to speak of this new school of poets as the dolce stil novo, or nuovo
(“sweet new style”), an expression used by Dante Alighieri in his Commedia (Purgatorio, Canto
XXIV, line 27) in a passage where he emphasized delicacy of expression suited to the subject of
love. The major stil novo poets were Guido Guinizelli of Bologna, Guido Cavalcanti, Dante
(particularly in the poems included in Vita nuova), and Cino da Pistoia, together with the lesser
poets Lapo Gianni, Gianni Alfani, and Dino Frescobaldi.

These poets were influenced by each other’s work. Guido Guinizelli was best known for his
canzone, or poem, beginning “Al cor gentil rempaira sempre amore” (“Love always finds shelter
in the gentle heart”), which posed the question of the problematic relationship between love of
woman and love of God. His poetry was immediately appreciated by Cavalcanti, a serious and
extremely talented lyric poet. Most of Cavalcanti’s poems were tragic and denied the ennobling
effect of love suggested by Guinizelli. Dante greatly admired Cavalcanti, whom he dubbed his
“first friend,” but his own concept of love, inspired by his love for Beatrice, who died young (in
1290), had much more in common with Guinizelli’s. Dante’s Vita nuova (c. 1293; The New Life)
is the retrospective story of his love in previously composed poems linked together and to some
extent reinterpreted by a framework of eloquent prose: God is the “root” of Beatrice, and she is
able to mediate God’s truth and love and inspire love of God—but her death is necessary for her
lover to reach a state of purification. Cino da Pistoia used the vocabulary of the stilnovisti, as
these poets were called, in an original way that in its melancholy psychological introspection
looks forward to Petrarch. A comparison of the language of the stilnovisti with the earlier Tuscan
poets reveals extensive refinement of the Tuscan dialect. Purely local characteristics were
removed, and the standard nonrealistic literary language of Italy had been created.

Comic verse
Poesia giocoso (realistic, or comic, verse) was a complete contrast to serious love poetry. The
language was often deliberately unrefined, colloquial, and sometimes obscene, in keeping with
the themes dealt with in the poetry. This kind of verse belongs to an ongoing European tradition,
owing something to the satirical goliard poets of the 12th and 13th centuries, who wrote Latin
verses in praise of pleasure or in vituperation of women, their personal enemies, or the church.
Though their personae are often crude, even violent, the comic poets—whose usual verse form
was the sonnet—were cultivated literary men and not the proletarian rebels that they were
thought to be by Romantic critics. The earliest of them was Rustico di Filippo, who produced
both courtly love poetry and coarse, sometimes obscene verse of the “realistic” kind. The best-
known and most versatile was Cecco Angiolieri, whose down-to-earth mistress Becchina was a
parody of the ethereal women of the stil novo and whose favourite subject was his father’s
meanness. Folgore di San Gimignano is often classified among these poets for convenience’s
sake. He is best known for his elegant sonnet cycles listing the aristocratic pleasures (reminiscent
of the Provençal plazer) associated, for example, with the different months of the year. Far more
conventional are the paradoxical negative responses (reminiscent of the Provençal enueg) of
Cenne della Chitarra.

Religious poetry
The famous Laudes creaturarum, or Cantico di Frate Sole (c. 1225; “Canticle of Brother Sun”),
of St. Francis of Assisi was one of the earliest Italian poems. It was written in rhythmical prose
that recalls the verses of the Bible and used assonance in place of rhyme. In the Umbrian dialect,
God is praised through all the things of his creation. It is probable that St. Francis also composed
a musical accompaniment, and after his death the lauda became a common form of religious
song used by the confraternities of lay people who gathered on holy days to sing the praises of
God and the saints and to recall the life and Passion of Christ. The one real poet of the laude
tradition was Jacopone da Todi, a Franciscan and a mystic. His laudi, in the form of ballads,
were often concerned with the themes of spiritual poverty and the corruption of the church. His
most intense composition (“Donna de Paradiso”) is a dialogue between the mother of Christ and
a messenger who graphically describes Christ’s Passion and death.
In northern Italy religious poetry was mainly moralistic and pervaded by a pessimism rooted in
heretical ideas derived from Manichaeism, which saw the world and the body as being evil and
under Satan’s control. The Milanese Bonvesin de la Riva, whose Libro delle tre scritture (1274;
“Book of the Three Scriptures”) anticipates Dante, and the Franciscan from Verona, Giacomino
da Verona, author of De Jerusalem celesti (c. 1250; “On the Heavenly Jerusalem”) and De
Babilonia civitate infernali (c. 1250; “On the Infernal Babylonian State”), were the liveliest and
most imaginative of this group.

Prose
Literary vernacular prose began in the 13th century, though Latin continued to be used for
writings on theology, philosophy, law, politics, and science.

The founder of Italian artistic prose style, the Bolognese professor of rhetoric Guido Faba,
illustrated his teaching with examples adapted from Latin. Guittone d’Arezzo, his most notable
follower in epistolography, tended toward an ornate style replete with rhetorical figures. In
contrast with Guittone’s style is the clear scientific prose of Ristoro d’Arezzo’s Della
composizione del mondo (1282; “On the Composition of the World”) and the simple narrative
style of the Florentine collection of tales Il novellino (written in the late 13th century, published
in 1525 as Le ciento novelle antike; Il Novellino, the Hundred Old Tales). The masterpiece of
13th-century prose is Dante’s Vita nuova. Though not yet completely at ease in vernacular prose,
Dante combined simplicity with great delicacy and a poetic power that derived from the
mysterious depth beneath certain key words.

Giovanni AquilecchiaAnthony Oldcorn

The 14th century

The literature of 14th-century Italy dominated Europe for centuries to follow and may be
regarded as the starting point of the Renaissance. Three names stand out: Dante, Petrarch, and
Boccaccio.

Dante
Dante Alighieri is one of the most important and influential names in all European literature, but
it was only after his exile from his native Florence at age 37 (1302) that he set out to write more
ambitious works. Il convivio (c. 1304–07; “The Banquet”), revealing his detailed knowledge of
scholastic philosophy, though incomplete, was the first great example of a treatise in vernacular
prose: its language avoided the ingenuousness of popular writers and the artificiality of the
translators from Latin. De vulgari eloquentia (“On Vernacular Eloquence”), written about the
same time, but in Latin, contained the first theoretical discussion and definition of the Italian
literary language. Both these works remained unfinished. In a later doctrinal work, also in Latin,
De monarchia (written c. 1313; On World Government), Dante expounded his political theories,
which demanded the coordination of the two medieval powers, pope and emperor.
Dante’s genius found its fullest development in his Commedia (written c. 1308–21; The Divine
Comedy), an allegorical poem in terza rima (stanzas of three lines of 11 syllables each, rhyming
aba, bcb, cdc, etc.), the literary masterpiece of the Middle Ages and one of the greatest products
of any human mind. The central allegory of the poem was essentially medieval, taking the form
of a journey through the worlds beyond the grave, with, as guides, the Roman poet Virgil and the
lady of the Vita nuova, Beatrice, who symbolize reason and faith, respectively. The poem is
divided into three cantiche, or narrative sections: Inferno, Purgatorio, and Paradiso. Each
section contains 33 cantos, with the very first canto serving as an overall prologue. Dante,
through his experiences and encounters on the journey, gains understanding of the gradations of
damnation, expiation, and beatitude, and the climax of the poem is his momentary vision of God.
The greatness of the poem lies in its complex imaginative power of construction, inexhaustible
wealth of poetry, and continuing significance of spiritual meanings. It is remarkable that Dante’s
reputation suffered a 400-year eclipse after enjoying immediate popularity. It was revived in the
Romantic period, and his work continues to influence modern poets both inside and outside of
Italy.

Petrarch
The intellectual interests of Petrarch (Francesco Petrarca, died 1374) were literary and rhetorical
rather than logical and philosophical; his political views were more opportunistic than Dante’s
and his poetic technique more elaborate though less powerful. Petrarch’s influence on literature
was enormous and lasting—stretching through the Italian humanists of the following century to
poets and scholars throughout western Europe. He rejected medieval Scholasticism and took as
his models the classical Latin authors and the Church Fathers. This convergence of interests is
apparent in his ethical and religious works. Humanist ideals inspired his Latin poem Africa
(begun c. 1338) and his historical works, but the autobiographical dialogue Secretum meum
(written 1342–58; Petrarch’s Secret) is most important for a full understanding of his conflicting
ideals. The Canzoniere—a collection of sonnets, songs, sestine, ballads, and madrigals, on which
he worked indefatigably from 1330 until his death—gave these ideals poetic expression.
Although this collection of vernacular poems intended to tell the story of his love for Laura, it
was in fact an analysis and evocation not of present love but of passion that he had overcome.
The main element of this poetry was therefore in the elaboration of its art, even if it always
reflected the genuine spiritual conflicts exposed in the Secretum. In addition to the Canzoniere
Petrarch wrote a vernacular allegorical poem, the Trionfi (1351–74; Triumphs), in the medieval
tradition, but it lacked the moral and poetical inspiration of Dante’s great poem.

The literary phenomenon known as Petrarchism developed rapidly within the poet’s lifetime and
continued to grow during the following three centuries, deeply influencing the literatures of Italy,
Spain, France, and England. His followers did not merely imitate but accepted his practice of
strict literary discipline and his forms, including his preference for the sonnet—without which
the European literary Renaissance would be unthinkable.

Boccaccio
Boccaccio’s early writings, almost all of which are available in English translation, were purely
literary, without any didactic implications. His first prose work, Il filocolo (c. 1336; “Love’s
Labour”), derived from the French romance Floire et Blancheflor, was an important literary
experiment. Inability to write on an epic scale was evident in his two narrative poems in eight-
line stanzas, Il filostrato (c. 1338; “Frustrated by Love”) and Teseida (c. 1340; The Book of
Theseus), while his Ameto, or, more properly, Commedia delle ninfe fiorentine (1341–42;
“Comedy of the Florentine Nymphs”), a novel written in prose and verse, and his Fiammetta (c.
1343; Amorous Fiammetta), a prose novel, showed the influence of classical literature on the
formation of his style. The Decameron (1348–53), a prose collection of 100 stories recounted by
10 narrators—3 men and 7 women—over 10 days, was Boccaccio’s most mature and important
work. Its treatment of contemporary urban society ranged from the humorous to the tragic.
Stylistically the most perfect example of Italian classical prose, it had enormous influence on
Renaissance literature.

As a disciple of Petrarch, Boccaccio shared the humanist interests of his age, as shown in his
Latin epistles and encyclopedic treatises. An admirer of Dante, he also wrote a Trattatello in
laude di Dante (written c. 1360; “Treatise in Praise of Dante”; Eng. trans. The Life of Dante) and
a commentary on the first 17 cantos of the Inferno. He contributed to allegorical poetry with
L’amorosa visione (written 1342–43).

Popular literature and romances

During the second half of the 14th century, Florence remained a centre of culture, but its
literature developed a more popular character. The best-known representative of this
development was bellman and town crier Antonio Pucci (died 1388), whose vast verse
production included poems on local Florentine lore, as well as historical and legendary verse
narratives. Florentine narrative literature was represented by the Pecorone (c. 1378; “Dullard”),
stories by Ser Giovanni Fiorentino after a pattern established by Boccaccio, and Franco
Sacchetti’s Trecentonovelle (c. 1390; “Three Hundred Short Stories”), which provide colourful
and lively descriptions of people and places.

The recasting of the Carolingian and Arthurian cycles continued along lines established during
the 13th century. Compilations in prose and verse became more common, and Franco-Venetian
literature gained in literary value. Epic legends were turned into romantic stories, which appealed
more to their illiterate audiences in town squares and other public places. Novels by Andrea da
Barberino, cantari with legendary subjects by the above-mentioned Antonio Pucci, and the
anonymous Pulzella gaia, Bel Gherardino, Donna del Vergiù, and Liombruno were written in a
popular style combining irony and common sense.

Religious and historical literature

The most important author of religious literature was Jacopo Passavanti, whose Specchio di vera
penitenza (“The Mirror of True Penitence”) was a collection of sermons preached in 1354. Less
polished, but of greater literary value, were the translations of Latin legends concerning St.
Francis and his followers collected in the anonymous Fioretti di San Francesco (The Little
Flowers of St. Francis).

Vernacular historiography of this period could be described as popular literature, with Florence
as its main centre. Florence’s two principal chroniclers were Dino Compagni and Giovanni
Villani. Compagni wrote his chronicle between 1310 and 1312, after having taken part in the
political struggles of his town; his dramatic account of the episodes and the liveliness of his
prose made it the most original work of medieval Italian historiography. Villani’s Cronica
(“Chronicle”) in 12 books, written from 1308 to 1348, was less personal; it followed the
medieval tradition by beginning with the building of the Tower of Babel and included many
apocryphal tales. The last six books, which cover the period from Charles II’s Italian expedition
(1265) to the author’s own time, are of importance to historians. Villani’s prose may lack the
dramatic power of Compagni’s, but his work can nevertheless be described as the greatest
achievement of Italian vernacular historiography during the Middle Ages. His Chronicle was
versified by fellow Florentine Antonio Pucci.

From Boccaccio’s death to about the middle of the 15th century, reflective Italian poetry suffered
a decline. The poetry that survives is popular in nature and written to be accompanied by music.
The following period was to be characterized by critical and philological activity rather than by
original creative work.

Sheila RalphsAnthony Oldcorn

The Renaissance
The age of humanism
The European Renaissance (the “rebirth” of the classical past) really began in 14th-century Italy
with Petrarch and Boccaccio. The 15th century, devoid as it was of major poetic works, was
nevertheless of very great importance because it was the century in which a new vision of human
life, embracing a different conception of man, as well as more modern principles of ethics and
politics, gradually found their expression. This was the result, on the one hand, of political
conditions quite different from those of previous centuries and, on the other, of the rediscovery
of classical antiquity. With regard to the first point, nearly all Italian princes competed with each
other in the 15th century to promote culture by patronizing research, offering hospitality and
financial support to literary men of the time, and founding libraries. As a consequence, their
courts became centres of research and discussion, thus making possible the great cultural revival
of the period. The most notable courts were that of Florence, under Lorenzo de’ Medici “the
Magnificent”; that of Naples, under the Aragonese kings; that of Milan, first under the Visconti
and later the Sforza family; and finally the papal court at Rome, which gave protection and
support to a large number of Italian and Byzantine scholars. To return to the second point, the
search for lost manuscripts of ancient authors, begun by Petrarch in the previous century, led to
an extraordinary revival of interest in classical antiquity: in particular, much research was
devoted to ancient philosophy in general and in particular to Plato (Aristotle had been the
dominant voice in the Middle Ages), a fact that was to have profound influence on the thinking
of the Renaissance as a whole.

By and large, the new culture of the 15th century was a revaluation of man. Humanism opposed
the medieval view of man as a being with relatively little value and extolled him as the centre of
the universe, the power of his soul as linking the temporal and the spiritual, and earthly life as a
realm in which the soul applies its powers. These concepts, which mainly resulted from the new
interest in Plato, were the subject of many treatises, the most important of which were Giannozzo
Manetti’s De dignitate et excellentia hominis (completed in 1452; On the Dignity of Man) and
Giovanni Pico della Mirandola’s Oratio de hominis dignitate (written 1486; Oration on the
Dignity of Man). The humanist vision evolved during this period condemned many religious
opinions of the Middle Ages still widely prevalent: monastic ideals of isolation and
noninvolvement in the affairs of the world, for example, were attacked by Leonardo Bruni,
Lorenzo Valla, and Gian Francesco Poggio Bracciolini. Forthright though these attacks were,
humanism was not essentially anti-Christian, for it generally remained faithful to Christian
beliefs, and the papal court itself regarded humanism as a force to be assimilated rather than
defeated.

In the first half of the century the humanists, with their enthusiasm for Latin and Greek literature,
had a disdain for the Italian vernacular. They wrote for the most part in Latin prose. Their poetic
production, inspired by classical models and written mostly in Latin and later Greek, was
abundant but at first of little value. Writing in a dead language and closely following a culture to
which they had enslaved themselves, they rarely showed originality as poets. Toward the end of
the 15th century there were notable exceptions in Giovanni Pontano, Michele Marullo
Tarcaniota, Politian (Angelo Ambrogini Poliziano), and Jacopo Sannazzaro. These poets
succeeded in creating sincere poetry in which conventional and less conventional themes were
expressed with new, original intimacy and fervour.

The rise of vernacular literature

Toward the middle of the 15th century Italian began to vie with Latin as the literary language.
The Certame Coronario, a public poetry competition held in Florence in 1441 with the intention
of proving that the spoken Italian language was in no way inferior to Latin, marked a definite
change. In the second half of the century there were a number of works of merit written in Italian
and inspired either by the chivalric legends of the Middle Ages or by the new humanist culture.

The “matter of France” and the “matter of Brittany,” which had degenerated into clichés, were
given a new lease on life by two poets of very different temperament and education: Matteo
Maria Boiardo, whose Orlando innamorato (1483; “Orlando in Love”) reflected past chivalrous
ideals as well as contemporary standards of conduct and popular passions; and Luigi Pulci,
whose broadly comic Morgante, published before 1480, was pervaded by a new bourgeois and
popular morality.

The new ideals of the humanists were most complete in Politian, Jacopo Sannazzaro, and Leon
Battista Alberti, three outstanding figures who combined a wide knowledge of classical antiquity
with a personal and often profound inspiration. Politian’s most important Italian work is the
incomplete Stanze cominciate per la giostra del Magnifico Giuliano de’ Medici (1475–78;
“Stanzas Begun for the Joust of the Magnificent Giuliano de’ Medici”)—dedicated to Lorenzo’s
brother Giuliano de’ Medici, assassinated in 1478 in the Pazzi conspiracy—which created a
mythical world in which concepts of classical origin were relived in a new way. The same could
be said of Sannazzaro’s Arcadia (1504), a largely autobiographical pastoral work in verse and
prose that remained widely influential up to the 18th century. A more balanced view of
contemporary reality was given in Alberti’s literary works, which presented a gloomy picture of
human life, dominated by man’s wickedness and the whims of fortune. As for Lorenzo de’
Medici, statesman and patron of many men of letters, he himself had a remarkably vast and
varied poetic output.

Pietro Bembo of Venice published his Prose della volgar lingua (“Writings on the Vulgar
Tongue”) in 1525. In this work, which was one of the first historical Italian grammars, Bembo
demanded an Italian literary language based on 14th-century Tuscan models, particularly
Petrarch and Boccaccio. He found Dante’s work stylistically uneven and insufficiently decorous.
He was opposed by those who thought that a literary language should be based on contemporary
usage, particularly by Gian Giorgio Trissino, who developed Dante’s theories on Italian as a
literary language. In practice the problem was both linguistic and stylistic, and there were in the
first half of the 16th century a great number of other contributors to the question, though it was
Bembo’s theories that finally triumphed in the second part of the century. This was largely due to
the activities of the Florentine Accademia della Crusca, and this more scientific approach to the
language question resulted in the academy’s first edition of an Italian dictionary in 1612.

During the first decades of the 16th century, treatises on poetry were still composed according to
humanist ideas and the teachings of the Roman Augustan poet Horace. It was only after 1536,
when the original classical Greek text of Aristotle’s incomplete Poetics was first published, that
a gradual development became apparent in aesthetic theory. The traditional principle of imitation
was now better analyzed, in the twofold sense of the imitation of classical authors and that of
nature. The three theatrical unities (time, space, action) were among the structural rules then
reestablished, while much speculation was devoted to epic poetry. The classical conception of
poetry as a product of imagination supported by reason was at the basis of 16th-century rhetoric,
and it was this conception of poetry, revived in Italy, that triumphed in France, Spain, and
England during the following century.

Political, historical, biographical, and moral literature

Niccolò Machiavelli’s works reflected Renaissance thought in its most original aspects,
particularly in the objective analysis of human nature. Machiavelli has been described as the
founder of a new political science: politics divorced from ethics. His own political experience
was at the basis of his ideas, which he developed according to such general principles as the
concepts of virtù (“individual initiative”) and fortuna (“chance”). A man’s ability to control his
destiny through the exercise of virtù is contested by forces beyond his control, summed up in the
concept of fortuna. His famous treatise Il principe (The Prince), composed in 1513, in which he
states his conviction of the superiority of virtù, revealed the author’s prophetic attitude, based on
his reading of history and his observation of contemporary political affairs. Its description of a
model ruler became a code for the wielding of absolute power throughout Europe for two
centuries. Machiavelli’s Discorsi sopra la prima deca di Tito Livio (c. 1513–21; Discourse on
the First Ten Books of Titus Livius), showed the same realistic attitude: public utility was placed
above all other considerations, and political virtue was distinguished from moral virtue. His
seven books on Dell’arte della guerra (1521; The Art of War), concerning the creation of a
modern army, were more technical, whereas his historical works, including the Istorie fiorentine
(1520–25; Florentine History), exemplified theories expounded in his treatises. Machiavelli also
holds a place in the history of imaginative literature, above all for his play La Mandragola
(1518), one of the outstanding comedies of the century.

Although more of a realist (or pessimist) than Machiavelli, Francesco Guicciardini was the only
16th-century historian who could be placed within the framework of the political theories he
constructed. He drew attention to the self-interest of those involved in political action and made
Machiavelli’s theories appear idealistic by contrast. One of Guicciardini’s main works, his
Ricordi (1512–30; “Things to Remember”; Eng. trans. Maxims and Reflections of a Renaissance
Statesman), has a place among the most original political writings of the century. Guicciardini
was also the first, in his Storia d’Italia (1537–40), to compose a truly national history of Italy,
setting it in a European context and attempting an impartial analysis of cause and effect.

Giorgio Vasari’s Vite de’ più eccellenti architetti, pittori et scultori italiani da Cimabue insino a’
tempi nostri (1568; Lives of the Painters, Sculptors, and Architects) contained more than 200
biographies and was the first critical and historical appraisal of Italian art. The autobiography of
the sculptor and goldsmith Benvenuto Cellini (written 1558–66, published 1728) was remarkable
for its vigorous spontaneity and its use of popular Florentine language.

The highest moral aspirations of the Renaissance are expressed in Baldassare Castiglione’s
Cortegiano (published 1528; The Courtier), which deals with the perfect courtier, the noble lady,
and the relationship between courtier and prince. It became one of the most influential books of
the century. Giovanni della Casa was the author of another famous treatise, the Galateo (c.
1551–54; Galateo is the name of the chief speaker; Eng. trans. Galateo), a book on courtesy in
which the author’s witty mind and the refinement of contemporary Italian society found full
expression. The excesses of the period were also vividly reflected in the work of Pietro Aretino,
a widely feared polygraph who was called “the scourge of princes” by Ludovico Ariosto. His
Ragionamenti (1534–36; “Discussions”), a dialogue between a seasoned prostitute and a
beginner, were written in a spontaneous style and showed a sensuous and unscrupulous nature.

Poetry
Lyric poetry in the 16th century was dominated by the model of Petrarch mainly because of the
acceptance of the Renaissance theory of imitation and the teaching of Bembo. Almost all the
principal writers of the century wrote lyric poems in the manner of Petrarch. Surprising
originality was to be found in Della Casa’s poems, and Galeazzo di Tarsia stood out from
contemporary poets by virtue of a vigorous style. Also worthy of note are the passionate sonnets
of the Paduan woman poet Gaspara Stampa and those of Michelangelo.

The tradition of humorous and satirical verse also was kept alive during the 16th century.
Outstanding among its practitioners was Francesco Berni, whose burlesque poems, mostly
dealing with indecent or trivial subjects, showed his wit and stylistic skill. Didactic poetry,
already cultivated by humanist writers, was also continued during this period, chiefly by
Giovanni Rucellai, who recast in Le api (1539; “The Bees”) the fourth book of the Roman poet
Virgil’s Georgics, and by Luigi Alamanni, in six books on agriculture and rustic life called La
coltivazione (1546).

The most refined expression of the classical taste of the Renaissance was to be found in
Ludovico Ariosto’s Orlando furioso (1516; “Orlando Mad”; Eng. trans. Orlando Furioso),
which incorporated many episodes derived from popular medieval and early Renaissance epics.
The poem is in fact a continuation of Boiardo’s Orlando innamorato and takes up all of its
interwoven stories where Boiardo left off, but its unique qualities derive from Ariosto’s sustained
inspiration and masterful narrative technique and his detached, ironic attitude toward his
characters. Orlando furioso was the most perfect expression of the literary tendencies of the
Italian Renaissance at this time, and it exercised enormous influence on later European
Renaissance literature. Ariosto also composed comedies that, by introducing imitation of Latin
comedy, marked the beginning of Renaissance drama in the vernacular.

There were also attempts to renew the epic by applying Aristotle’s “rules” of composition. Gian
Giorgio Trissino, a theorist on language, wrote his Italia liberata dai Goti (“Italy Liberated from
the Goths”) according to the strictest Aristotelian rules, while Alamanni tried to focus the
narrative on a single character in Girone il cortese (1548; “Girone the Courteous”) and
Avarchide (1570), an imitation of the Iliad of Homer. Giambattista Giraldi, while more famous
as a storyteller and a tragic playwright, was a literary theorist who tried to apply his own
pragmatic theories in his poem Ercole (1557; “Hercules”).

Two burlesque medley forms of verse were invented during the century. Fidenziana poetry
derives its name from a work by Camillo Scroffa, a poet who wrote Petrarchan parodies in a
combination of Latin words and Italian form and syntax. Macaronic poetry, on the other hand,
which refers to the Rabelaisian preoccupation of the characters with eating, especially macaroni,
is a term given to verse consisting of Italian words used according to Latin form and syntax.
Teofilo Folengo, a Benedictine monk, was the best representative of macaronic literature, and his
masterpiece was a poem in 20 books called Baldus (1517). The tendency to parody, ridiculing
the impractical excesses of humanist literature, was present in both fidenziana and macaronic
verse.

Torquato Tasso, son of the poet Bernardo Tasso, was the last great poet of the Italian
Renaissance and one of the greatest of Italian literature. In his epic Gerusalemme liberata (1581;
Jerusalem Delivered) he summed up a literary tradition typical of the Renaissance: the classical
epic renewed according to the spiritual interests of his own time. The subject of the poem is the
First Crusade to recapture Jerusalem. Its structure dramatizes the struggle to preserve a central
purpose by dominating and holding in check centrifugal urges toward sensual and emotional
indulgence. Its pathos lies in the enormous cost of self-control. L’Aminta (1573), a joyous and
uninhibited drama, was the best example of Tasso’s youthful poetry and belonged to the new
literary genre of pastoral (dealing with idealized rural life). Gerusalemme liberata, however, was
the result of a balance in the poet’s conflicting aspirations: a Christian subject dealt with in a
classical way. In the subsequent Gerusalemme conquistata (1593; “Jerusalem Vanquished”),
Tasso imitated Homer and recast his poem according to more rigid Aristotelian rules and the
ideals of the Roman Catholic church’s reaction against the Protestant Reformation, known as the
Counter-Reformation. Tasso’s conflict had ended in the victory of the moralistic principle:
poetically the new poem was a failure. Tasso also wrote shorter lyric verse throughout his life,
including religious poems, while his prose dialogues show a style no longer exclusively
dominated by classical models. His delicate madrigals were set to music by the age’s most
famous composers.

Drama
Trissino’s Sofonisba (written 1514–15; the title is the name of the female protagonist) was the
first tragedy of Italian vernacular literature to follow classical precedent; its structure derived
from Greek models, but its poetic qualities were somewhat mediocre. Toward the middle of the
16th century Giambattista Giraldi (Cinzio) reacted against imitation of Greek drama by
proposing the Roman tragedian Seneca as a new model, and in nine tragedies and
tragicomedies—written between 1541 and 1549—he showed some independence from
Aristotelian rules. He greatly influenced European drama, particularly the English theatre of the
Elizabethan period. Perhaps the most successful tragedy of the century is Torquato Tasso’s Re
Torrismondo (“King Torrismondo”).

The Italian comedies of the century, inspired by Latin models but also by the tradition of the
novella, possessed greater artistic value than the tragedies, and they reflected contemporary life
more fully: they could be considered as the starting point for modern European drama. To the
comedies of Ariosto and Machiavelli should be added a lively play, La Calandria (first
performed 1513; The Follies of Calandro), by Cardinal Bernardo Dovizi da Bibbiena, and the
five racy comedies written by Pietro Aretino. Giordano Bruno, a great Italian philosopher who
wrote dialogues in Italian on his new cosmology and antihumanist ideas, also wrote a comedy, Il
candelaio (1582; The Candlemaker).

Since the mid-20th century the actor Angelo Beolco (“Il Ruzzante”) has become generally
recognized as one of the most powerful dramatists of the 16th century. His works, often
monologues written in a rural Paduan dialect, treat the problems of the oppressed peasant with
realism and profound seriousness. Another dialect playwright of the same century, now also
more widely appreciated, is the Venetian Andrea Calmo, who showed a nice gift for
characterization in his comedies of complex amorous intrigue.

Narrative
The classicist trend established by Pietro Bembo also affected narrative literature, for which the
obvious model was Boccaccio’s Decameron. Originality and liveliness of expression were to be
found in the 22 stories called Le cene (written after 1549; “The Suppers”) of the Florentine
apothecary Anton Francesco Grazzini. The worldly monk Agnolo Firenzuola produced several
stories, including the fable Asino d’oro (1550), a free adaptation of Apuleius’s Golden Ass. The
cleric and short-story writer Matteo Bandello started a new trend in 16th-century narrative with
214 stories that were rich in dramatic and romantic elements while not aiming at classical
dignity. This trend was partially followed also by Giambattista Giraldi in his collection of 112
stories called (with a Greek etymology) Gli ecatommiti (1565; “The Hundred Stories”).

Giovanni AquilecchiaAnthony Oldcorn