§ 67. THE REVIVAL OF PAGANISM. 611
literary feuds between distinguished men of letters. Poggio and Filelfo fought with poisoned daggers. To sully these pages, says Symonds, " with Poggio's rank abuse would be impossible." Poggio, not content wdth thrusts at Filelfo's literary abilities, accused him of the worst vices, and poured out calumnies on Filelfo's wife and mother. In Poggio's contest with George of Trebizond, tlie two athletes boxed each other's ears and tore one another's hair. George had accused Poggio of taking credit for translations of Xenophon and Diodorus which did not belong to him. Between Valla and Fazio eight books of invectives were exchanged. Bezold is forced to say that such feuds revealed perhaps more than the cynicism of the Italian poetry the complete moral decay. ^
To the close of the period, _the. Renaissance literaty,re abound s^Id^ xxffences a^inst laojulity^jmd decencjt. Poggio was already 70 years of age when he published his filthy Facetioe, Jest-book, which appeared 26 times in print before 1500 and in 3 Italian translations. Of Poggio's works, Burckhardt says, " They contain dirt enough to create a prejudice against the whole class of Humanists." Filelfo's epigrams, De jocis et seriis, are declared by his biographer, Rosmini, to contain " horrible obscenities and expressions from the streets and the brothels." Beccadelli and Aretino openly preached the emancipation of the flesh, and were not ashamed to embellish and glorify licentiousness in brilliant verses, for which they received the homage of princes and prelates. Beccadelli's Hermaphroditus was furiously attacked by the monks in the pulpit, but applauded by the Humanists. Cosimo allowed the indecent work to be dedicated to himself, and the author was crowned by the Emperor Sigismund in Siena, 1433, and died old and popular at Naples, 1471. The critics of his obscenities, Beccadelli pointed to the ancient writers. Nicolas was loaned a copy of his notorious production, kept it for nine days and then returned the work without condemning it. Pietro Aretino, d. 1557, the most obscene of the Italian poets, was called il divino Aretino^ honored by Charles V., Francis I. and Clement VII., and even dared to aspire to a cardinal's hat, 1 Bezold, p. 200, die vollendete sittliche Verkommenheit.
612 THE MIDDLE AGES. A.D. 1294-1517.
but found a miserable end. Bandello, d. 1562, in his Facetioe^ paints society in dissolution. Moral badness taints every one's lips. Debauchery in convents is depicted as though it were a common occurrence. And he was a bishop ! ^
Machiavelli, the Florentine politician and historian, a worshipper of ability and power, and admirer of Ciesar Borgia, built upon the basis of the Renaissance a political system of absolute egotism ; yet he demands of the prince that he shall guard the appearance of five virtues to deceive the ignorant. ^ Under the cover of Stoicism, many Humanists indulged in a refined Epicureanism.
The writers of novels and plays not only portrayed social and domestic immorality without a blush, but purposely depicted it in a dress that would call forth merriment and laughter. Tragedy was never reached by the Renaissance writers. The kernel of this group of works was the faithlessness of married women, for the unmarried were kept under such close supervision tliat they were with difficulty reached. The skill is enlarged upon with which the paramour works out his plans and the outwitted husband is turned into an object of ridicule. Here we are introduced to courtesans and taken to brothels.^
In the Mandragola by Machiavelli, Callimaco, who has been in Paris, returns to Florence determined to make Lucrezia, of whose charms he has heard, his mistress. Assuming the roll of a physician, he persuades her husband, who is anxious for an heir, to allow him to use a potion of mandragora, which will relieve his wife of sterility and at the same time kill the paramour. Working upon the husband's mind through the mother-in-law and Lucrezia's confessor, who consents to the plot for a bribe, he secures his end. Vice and adultery are glorified. And this was one of the plays on which Leo X. } looked with pleasure! In 1513, in face of the age-long pro- \
1 He furnished the text to a series of obscene pictures by Giulio Romano. Symonds, Ital. Lit., II. 383 sqq. Reumont, Hist, of Rome, III., Part II. 367, calls Aretino " die Schandsaule der Literatur.''^
2 The principles of his Principe are fully discussed by Villari in his Machiavelli, II. 403-473, and by Symonds, Age of the Despots, p. 306 sqq.
8 See Symonds, Ital. Lit., II. 174 sqq.