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Consider the ribaldry of that, and ask yourselves whether this is a man who would immolate the chance of a witticism upon the altar of Truth. It is significant that Sanazzaro, for what he may be worth, confines himself to the gossip of incest.
But consider them, one by one, at close quarters, and take a critical look at what they actually wrote: SANAZZARO was a Neapolitan poet and epigrammatist, who could not his times being what they were be expected to overlook the fact that in these slanderous rumours of incest was excellent matter for epigrammatical verse.
Thus the last member of the House of Aragon to sit upon the throne of Naples took his departure, accompanied by the few faithful ones who loved him well enough to follow him into exile; amongst these was that poet Sanazzaro, who, to avenge the wrong suffered by the master whom he loved, was to launch his terrible epigrams against Alexander, Cesare, and Lucrezia, and by means of those surviving verses enable the enemies of the House of Borgia to vilify their memories through centuries to follow.
This has been exemplified in our own day in Bembo, in Sanazzaro, in Caro, in Guidoccione, in the Marchioness of Pescara, and in other writers and lovers of the Tuscan rhyme, who, although gifted with the highest and most singular genius, none the less, not being able of themselves to do better than nature exemplifies in Petrarca, they set themselves to follow him, but so happily that they are judged worthy to be read and counted with the best.
When the stricken Pope heard it, he ordered the bed of the river to be dragged foot by foot, with the result that the ill-starred Duke of Gandia was brought up in one of the nets, whereupon the heartless Sanazzaro coined his terrible epigram concerning that successor of Saint Peter, that Fisherman of Men.
The contemporary, or quasi-contemporary writers upon whose "authority" it is usual to show that Cesare Borgia was guilty of both those revolting crimes are: Sanazzaro, Capello, Macchiavelli, Matarazzo, Sanuto, Pietro Martire d'Anghiera, Guicciardini, and Panvinio. A formidable array!
In Italy the Renaissance had reached its height: England, feeling the new life which had been infused into arts and letters, turned instinctively to Italy, and adopted her canons of taste. 'Euphues' has a distinct connection with the Italian discourses of polite culture. Sidney's 'Arcadia' is a copy of what Boccaccio had attempted in his classical romances, and Sanazzaro in his pastorals.
This was a pastoral romance, after the manner of the Italian Arcadia of Sanazzaro, and the Diana Enamorada of Montemayor, a Portuguese author. It was in prose, but intermixed with songs and sonnets, and Sidney finished only two books and a portion of the third. It describes the adventures of two cousins, Musidorus and Pyrocles, who were wrecked on the coast of Sparta.
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