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Updated: June 26, 2025
Of the readiness which converts to Popery exhibit to sacrifice all the ties of blood and affection on the shrine of their newly-adopted religion, there is a curious illustration in the work of Luigi Pulci.
The truth is, the poet should have attached himself wholly to the Medici. Had he not adhered to the duller house, he might have led as happy a life with the pope as Pulci did with the pope's father; perhaps have been made a cardinal, like his friends Bembo and Sadolet. But then we might have lost the Orlando.
The Sicilian, however, no matter how uneducated he may be, has an appetite for romance which must be gratified and, as it would give him some trouble to brush up his early accomplishments and stay at home reading Pulci and Boiardo, Tasso and Ariosto, he prefers to follow the story of Carlo Magno and his paladins and the wars against the Saracens in the teatrino.
But your high fortune has come on you too soon: I don't mean the professor's mantle that is roomy enough to hide a few stolen chickens, but Messer Endymion minded his manners after that singular good fortune of his; and what says our Luigi Pulci? "`Da quel giorno in qua ch'amor m'accese Per lei son fatto e gentile e cortese."
He learned Italian in order to read the romancers Ariosto, Tasso, Pulci, and Boiardo preferring them to Dante. He studied Gothic architecture, heraldry, and the art of fortification, and made drawings of famous ruins and battle-fields.
This interest was not confined to the upper circles of society, but spread through all classes, and was no doubt largely increased by the songs and the improvisations of strolling minstrels and Provençal story-tellers. First of all the Florentine Pulci, and after him Boiardo and Bello of Ferrara, sought inspiration in the same source, and later on their example was followed by Ariosto and Tasso.
The tonsor inequalis is inevitably betrayed when he takes the shears in his hand; is it not true, Messer Bardo? I speak after the fashion of a barber, but, as Luigi Pulci says "`Perdonimi s'io fallo: chi m'ascolta Intenda il mio volgar col suo latino."
We know not how to reconcile this monkish spirit with the semi-pagan character of society under Lorenzo di Medici, nor whether we ought to accuse Pulci of gross bigotry or of profane derision."
Petrarch, who is not the inventor of that tender poetry of which he is the model, and Boccaccio, called the father of Italian novelists, have alike profited by a studious perusal of writers, who are now only read by those who have more curiosity than taste. Boiardo has imitated Pulci, and Ariosto, Boiardo.
'Yes, said the man in black, 'a dangerous personage; that poem of his cuts both ways; and then there was Pulci, that Morgante of his cuts both ways, or rather one way, and that sheer against us; and then there was Aretino, who dealt so hard with the poveri frati; all writers, at least Italian ones, are not lickspittles.
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