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Baschet and d'Ancona both carry on what Barthold had begun; other investigators, in France, Italy and Germany, have followed them; and two things are now certain, first, that Casanova himself wrote the Memoirs published under his name, though not textually in the precise form in which we have them; and, second, that as their veracity becomes more and more evident as they are confronted with more and more independent witnesses, it is only fair to suppose that they are equally truthful where the facts are such as could only have been known to Casanova himself.
For these notices see Anselmi's monograph, "A proposito della classificazione dei monumenti nazionali nella provincia d'Ancona." Also quoted by Cavalcaselle e Crowe, viii. p. 480. Vasari, iii, 686.
Any one who is sceptical of the Courtly derivation of the Italian popular song may, besides consulting the admirable book of Prof. d'Ancona, compare with the contents of Tigri's famous "Canti popolari Toscani," the following scraps of Sicilian and early Italian lyrics:
It was finally disproved by a series of articles of Armand Baschet, entitled 'Preuves curieuses de l'authenticite des Memoires de Jacques Casanova de Seingalt, in 'Le Livre, January, February, April and May, 1881; and these proofs were further corroborated by two articles of Alessandro d'Ancona, entitled 'Un Avventuriere del Secolo XVIII., in the 'Nuovo Antologia, February 1 and August 1, 1882.
The latter years of the fourteenth century, at any rate, saw the open-air sacred drama in full action, and that suffices for our purpose. The Sacre Rappresentazioni Leaving D'Ancona, Vasari and the others in their confusion of dates, we find ourselves provided with a satisfactory point of departure and with some facts well defined.
This form of composition at once became fashionable. Luigi Pulci composed his Beca di Dicomano, which attained almost equal success and passed for the work of Lorenzo. It is, however, a far inferior production, in which the quaintness of the model is replaced by coarse caricature and its delicate rusticity by a cruder realism. Other imitations followed, but none bear comparison with Lorenzo's poem . It is in thought and expression rather than in actual language that these poems distinguish themselves from the literary pastoral. More noticeably dialectal is an anonymous Pescatoria amorosa printed about 1550. It is a Venetian serenade sung in the persons of fishermen, and possesses a certain grace of language: Symonds and D'Ancona alike remark, with perfect truth, that Lorenzo's rustic style, in spite of its sympathetic grace, is not altogether dissociated from burlesque. While free from the artificiality of court pastoral, it is equally distinct from the natural simplicity of the Theocritean idyl. Its flavour depends upon the half cynical, half kindly, amusement afforded by the contrast between the naïveté of the country and the familiar and conventional polish of town life. This theme had already caught the fancy of the song-writers of the fourteenth century, who produced some of the most delightful examples of native and unconventional pastoral anywhere to be found . Franco Sacchetti the novelist, for example, gives us a series of charming vignettes of country life and scenery, but always from the point of view of the town observer. One poem of his in particular gained wide popularity, and a modernized and somewhat altered version was iater printed among the works of Poliziano. It was originally a ballata, but I prefer to quote some stanzas from the traditional version: But if pastoralism made its appearance in the lyric, the lyric equally influenced pastoral, for it is in the songs of the fifteenth century that we first meet with that spirit of graceful melancholy sighing over the transitoriness of earthly things, the germ of the volutt
Alessandro D'Ancona in his monumental work on the sources of the Italian play says: "The 'Favola di Orfeo, although it drew its argument from mythology, was hardly dissimilar in its intrinsic character from the sacred plays, and was moreover far from that second form of tragedy which was later given to it, not by the author himself, but probably by Tebaldeo, to serve the dramatic tastes of Ferrara.
It is, however, not invariably accurate, and the literary appreciations, whether original or borrowed, are seldom enlightening. Had the space occupied by these been devoted to giving references to special works, the value of the book would have been enormously increased. A. D'Ancona and O. Bacci. Manuale della letteratura italiana. 5 vols. Firenze, 1897-1900.
It was finally disproved by a series of articles of Armand Baschet, entitled 'Preuves curieuses de l'authenticite des Memoires de Jacques Casanova de Seingalt, in 'Le Livre, January, February, April and May, 1881; and these proofs were further corroborated by two articles of Alessandro d'Ancona, entitled 'Un Avventuriere del Secolo XVIII., in the 'Nuovo Antologia, February 1 and August 1, 1882.
The production of Poliziano's "Orfeo" may not have seemed to its contemporaries to possess an importance larger than that which Rossi and D'Ancona attribute to it; but its proper position in musical history is at the foundation of the modern opera. Poetically it was the superior of any lyric work, except perhaps those of Metastasio.
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