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Updated: May 29, 2025
Tassoni and Boileau have left us the best examples of this way in the "Seechia Rapita" and the "Lutrin," and next them Merlin Cocaius in his "Baldus." I will speak only of the two former, because the last is written in Latin verse. The "Secchia Rapita" is an Italian poem, a satire of the Varronian kind. It is written in the stanza of eight, which is their measure for heroic verse.
The heroes of Modena had, in 1325, discomfited the Bolognese, and pursued them to the very heart of their city, whence they carried off, as a trophy of their victory, the bucket belonging to the public well. The expedition undertaken by the Bolognese for its recovery forms the basis of the twelve mock-heroic cantos of Tassoni.
He took a pen and noted the name down, and said, "But Tassoni has criticised Petrarch very ingeniously." "Yes, but he has dishonoured taste and literature, like Muratori." "Here he is. You must allow that his learning is immense." "Est ubi peccat." Voltaire opened a door, and I saw a hundred great files full of papers. "That's my correspondence," said he.
Although the great scene of the controversy was France, the question had been expressly raised by an Italian, no less a person than Alessandro Tassoni, the accomplished author of that famous ironical poem, "La Secchia rapita," which caricatured the epic poets of his day.
We liked Ariosto better than Tasso, and Petrarch had our whole admiration, while Tassoni and Muratori, who had been his critics, were the special objects of our contempt.
The proposition that the posterior is better and the late comers have the advantage seemed to be incompatible with an obvious historical fact. We are superior to the men of the dark ages in knowledge and arts. Granted. But will you say that the men of the tenth century were superior to the Greeks and Romans? To this question on which Tassoni had already touched Perrault replies: Certainly not.
We next pass to the life of Guarini, and missing Tasso, whose life Mary Shelley did not write, we come to Chiabrera, who tried to introduce the form of Greek poetry into Italian. Tassoni, Marini, Filicaja are agreeable, but shortly touched on.
This discourse kindled the controversy in France, and even struck a characteristic note. Homer already severely handled by Tassoni was to be the special target for the arrows of the Moderns, who felt that, if they could succeed in discrediting him, their cause would be won.
With Michael Angelo in 1564, Palladio in 1580, Tintoretto in 1594, the godlike lineage of the Renaissance artists ended; and what children of the sixteenth century still survived to sustain the nation's prestige, to carry on its glorious traditions? The list is but a poor one. Marino, Tassoni, the younger Buonarotti, Boccalini and Chiabrera in literature. The Bolognese academy in painting.
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