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Updated: May 6, 2025
To Florence and to Lorenzo de' Medici in particular is due the honour of having first introduced the rustic speech of the people. His two poems written in the language of the peasants about Florence, La Nencia da Barberino and a canzonet In morte della Nencia, possess a grace to which the quaintness of the diction adds point and flavour. A short extract must suffice to illustrate the style.
The first sang a canzonet alone. As I came nearer and nearer that which had at first seemed familiar to me, and which had at first attracted my attention, gradually faded away. The singer was now in the midst of a florid, elaborate fermata. Up and down she warbled, up and down; at length she stopped, holding a note on for some time.
"This one, called 'A Canzonet' is brief enough for your Majesty's immediate consideration," replied Teresa; "It is just such a thing as a man might scribble in his note-book after a bout of champagne, when he is in love for ten minutes! He would not mean a word of it, but it might sound pretty by moonlight!" Whereupon she read aloud:
May Saint Bernard, who was a doctor himself, stand by him and defend him, if those revengeful painters, whom he sent to that Pyramid of his rather before their time, are going to twist his windpipe. Ah! who will take the bass parts in my canzonet now, I should like to know?
I shall call it the Butterfly Canzonet. 'Why don't you publish your music under your own name, Mr. Berkeley? 'Oh, because it would never do. I'm a parson now, and I must keep up the dignity of the cloth by fighting shy of any aesthetic heterodoxies. It would be professional suicide for me to be suspected of artistic leanings.
Indeed, it was a common thing then, in places where friend met friend, for one that had a voice to read somewhat aloud for the delectation of the others, whether a pleasant tale in prose or a poetic canzonet. But Dante, while he took the parchment from Guido's fingers, looked about him quietly and spoke, and his voice and words were very decided in denial.
Neifile's canzonet was much commended both of the king and of the other ladies; after which, for that a great part of the night was now spent, the king commanded that all should betake themselves to rest until the day. Day the Tenth
Who does not know that Spanish canzonet the substance of which is in words little more than, "With my maiden I embarked on the sea; a storm came on, and my timid maiden was tossed up and down: nay, I will never again embark on the sea with my maiden?"
Minuccio marvelled at the greatness of the damsel's soul and at her cruel resolve and was sore concerned for her; then, it suddenly occurring to his mind how he might honourably oblige her, he said to her, 'Lisa, I pledge thee my faith, whereof thou mayst live assured that thou wilt never find thyself deceived, and after, commending thee of so high an emprise as it is to have set thy mind upon so great a king, I proffer thee mine aid, by means whereof I hope, an thou wilt but take comfort, so to do that, ere three days be past, I doubt not to bring thee news that will be exceeding grateful to thee; and to lose no time, I mean to go about it forthright. Lisa, having anew besought him amain thereof and promised him to take comfort, bade him God speed; whereupon Minuccio, taking his leave, betook himself to one Mico da Siena, a mighty good rhymer of those days, and constrained him with prayers to make the following canzonet: Bestir thee, Love, and get thee to my Sire And tell him all the torments I aby; Tell him I'm like to die, For fearfulness concealing my desire.
Do you remember how happy we were in the garden bower? How we sang together the old-fashioned canzonet, 'Love in thine eyes forever plays'? And how the mocking-bird imitated your guitar, while you were singing the Don Giovanni serenade? "I was thinking this all over, as I rode alone over the same ground we traversed on that happy day.
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