PROPERTY OF THE CITY OF NEW YORK HISTORY OF FICTION. CHAPTER VII. ORIGIN OF ITALIAN TALES. -FABLES OF BIDPAI. -SEVEN WISE MASTERS.-GESTA ROMANORUM. -CONTES ET FA BLIAUX.-CENTO NOVELLE ANTICHE.-DECAMERON OF BOCCACCIO. IT T seems not a little remarkable that Italy, which produced the earliest and finest specimens of romantic poetry, should scarcely have furnished a single prose romance of chivalry. This is the more remarkable, as the Italians seem to have been soon and intimately acquainted with the works of the latter description produced among the neighbouring nations. Nor does this knowledge appear merely from the poems of Pulci and Boiardo, but from the authors of a period still more remote, in whom we meet with innumerable allusions to incidents related in the tales of chivalry. Dante represents the perusal of the story of Lancelot, as conducting Paolo and Francesca al doloroso passo (Inf. c. 5), and elsewhere shows his acquaintance with the fabulous stories of Arthur and Charlemagne Inf. c. 31 and 32, Parad. c. 16 and 18). Petrarch also appears to have been familiar with the exploits of Tristan and Lancelot (Trionfi, &c.). In the Cento Novelle Antiche there exists the story of King Meliadus and the Knight without Fear; as also of the Lady of Scalot, who died for love of Lancelot du Lac. There, too, the passion of Yseult and the phrensy of Tristan 'are recorded; and in the sixth tale of the tenth day of the Decameron, we are told that a Florentine gentleman had two daughters, one of whom was called Gineura the Handsome, and the other Yseult the Fair. Nevertheless the Italians have produced no original prose work of any length or reputation in the romantic style of composition. This deficiency may be partly attributed to national manners and circumstances. Since the transference of the seat of the Roman empire to Constantinople, the Italians had never been conquerors, but had always been vanquished by barbarous nations, who were successively softened and polished at the same time that, they became enervated. The inhabitants possessed neither that extravagant courage nor refined gallantry, the delineation of which forms the soul of romantic composition. At a time when, in other countries, national exploits, and the progress of feudal institutions, were laying the foundation for this species of fiction, Italy was overrun by the incursions of enemies, or only successfully defended by strangers. Hence it was difficult to choose any set of heroes, by the celebration of whose deeds the whole nation would have been interested or flattered, as England must have been by the relation of the achievements of Arthur, or France by the history of Charlemagne. The fame of Belisarius was indeed illustrious, but as an enemy he was hated by the descendants of the northern invaders; and, as a foreigner, his deeds could not gratify the national vanity of those he came to succour. His successor's exploits were liable to the same objections, and were besides performed by a being of all others the worst calculated to become a hero in a romance of chivalry. The early division, too, of Italy into a number of small and independent states, was a check on national pride. A theme could hardly have been chosen which would have met with general applause, and the exploits of the chiefs of one district would often have been a mortifying tale to the inhabitants of another. Besides, the mercantile habits so early introduced into Italy repressed a romantic spirit. It is evident from the Italian novelists, that the manners of the people had not caught one spark of the fire of chivalry, which kindled the surrounding nations: In the principal states of Italy, particularly Florence, the military profession was rather accounted degrading than honourable, during an age when, in every other country of Europe, the deference paid to personal strength and valour was at the highest. The Italian republics, indeed, were not destitute of political firmness, but their martial spirit had forsaken them, and their liberties were confided to the protection of mercenary bands. Add to this, that at the time when France and England were principally engaged with compositions of chivalry, and when all the literary talent in these countries was exerted in that department, the attention paid in Italy to classical literature introduced a correctness of taste and fondness for regularity, which was hostile to the wildness and extravagance of the tales of chivalry. At the same period, the three most distinguished and earliest geniuses of Italy were employed in giving stability to modes of composition at total variance with the romantic. Those who were accustomed to regard the writings of Dante and Petrarch as standards of excellence, would not readily have bestowed their approbation on Tristan, or the Sons of Aymon. But the Decameron of Boccaccio was probably the work which, in this respect, had the strongest influence. The tales it comprehends were extremely popular; they gave rise to early and numerous imitations, and were of a nature the best calculated to check the current of romantic ideas. Since then, in the regions of Italian fiction, we shall no longer meet with fabulous histories, resembling those of which such numerous specimens have already been presented, it will now be proper to give some account of the endless variety of tales, or Novelettes, which were coeval with the appearance of romances of chivalry in France and England, and which form so popular and so extensive a branch of Italian literature. It may be interesting, in the first place, to trace the origin of this species of composition, in the tales which preceded the Decameron of Boccaccio. These were adapted to the amusement of infant society, but are interesting in some degree, as unfolding the manners of the age, and exhibiting the rude materials of more perfect composition. Before mankind comprehend the subtilties of reasoning. or turn on themselves the powers of reflection, they are |