The Civilisation of the Renaissance in Italy

1200

Many instances of such superstitions in the case of the last Visconti are mentioned by Decembrio (Murat. xx. col. 1016 sqq.). Odaxius says in his speech at the burial of Guidobaldo (Bembi Opera, i. 598 sqq.), that the gods had announced his approaching death by thunderbolts, earthquakes, and other signs and wonders.

1201

Varchi, Stor. Fior. l. iv. (p. 174 (#x8_x_8_i29)); prophecies and premonitions were then as rife in Florence as at Jerusalem during the siege. Comp. ibid. iii. 143, 195; iv. 43, 177.

1202

Matarazzo, Archiv. Stor. xvi. ii. p. 208.

1203

Prato, Arch. Stor. iii. 324, for the year 1514.

1204

For the Madonna dell’Arbore in the Cathedral at Milan, and what she did in 1515, see Prato, l. c. p. 327. He also records the discovery of a dead dragon as thick as a horse in the excavations for a mortuary chapel near S. Nazaro. The head was taken to the Palace of the Triulzi for whom the chapel was built.

1205

‘Et fuit mirabile quod illico pluvia cessavit.’ Diar. Parmense in Murat. xxii. col. 280. The author shares the popular hatred of the usurers. Comp. col. 371.

1206

Conjurationis Pactianae Commentarius, in the appendices to Roscoe’s Lorenzo. Politian was in general an opponent of astrology. The saints were naturally able to cause the rain to cease. Comp. Æneas Sylvius, in his life of Bernadino da Siena (De Vir. Ill. p. 25): ‘jussit in virtute Jesu nubem abire, quo facto solutis absque pluvia nubibus, prior serenitas rediit’.

1207

Poggi Facetiae, fol. 174. Æn. Sylvius (De Europa, c. 53, 54, Opera, pp. 451, 455) mentions prodigies which may have really happened, such as combats between animals and strange appearances in the sky, and mentions them chiefly as curiosities, even when adding the results attributed to them. Similarly Antonio Ferrari (il Galateo), De Situ Iapygiae, p. 121, with the explanation: ‘Et hae, ut puto, species erant earum rerum quæ longe aberant atque ab eo loco in quo species visae sunt minime poterant.’

1208

Poggi Facetiae, fol. 160. Comp. Pausanias, ix. 20.

1209

Varchi, iii 195. Two suspected persons decided on flight in 1529, because they opened the Æneid at book iii. 44. Comp. Rabelais, Pantagruel, iii. 10.

1210

The imaginations of the scholars, such as the ‘splendor’ and the ‘spiritus’ of Cardanus, and the ‘dæmon familiaris’ of his father, may be taken for what they are worth. Comp. Cardanus, De Propria Vita, cap. 4, 38, 47. He was himself an opponent of magic; cap. 39. For the prodigies and ghosts he met with, see cap. 37, 41. For the terror of ghosts felt by the last Visconti, see Decembrio, in Murat. xx. col. 1016.

1211

‘Molte fiate i morti guastano le creature.’ Bandello, ii. nov. 1. We read (Galateo, p. 177) that the ‘animæ’ of wicked men rise from the grave, appear to their friends and acquaintances, ‘animalibus vexi, pueros sugere ac necare, deinde in sepulcra reverti.’

1212

Galateo, l. c. We also read (p. 119 (#x7_x_7_i6)) of the ‘Fata Morgana’ and other similar appearances.

1213

Bandello, iii. nov. 20. It is true that the ghost was only a lover wishing to frighten the occupier of the palace, who was also the husband of the beloved lady. The lover and his accomplices dressed themselves up as devils; one of them, who could imitate the cry of different animals, had been sent for from a distance.

1214

Graziani, Arch. Stor. xvi. i. p. 640, ad a. 1467. The guardian died of fright.

1215

Balth. Castilionii Carmina; Prosopopeja Lud. Pici.

1216

Alexandri ab Alexandro, Dierum Genialium, libri vi. (Colon. 1539), is an authority of the first rank for these subjects, the more so as the author, a friend of Pontanus and a member of his academy, asserts that what he records either happened to himself, or was communicated to him by thoroughly trustworthy witnesses. Lib. vi. cap. 19: two evil men and a monk are attacked by devils, whom they recognise by the shape of their feet, and put to flight, partly by force and partly by the sign of the cross. Lib. vi. cap. 21: A servant, cast into prison by a cruel prince on account of a small offence, calls upon the devil, is miraculously brought out of the prison and back again, visits meanwhile the nether world, shows the prince his hand scorched by the flames of Hell, tells him on behalf of a departed spirit certain secrets which had been communicated to the latter, exhorts him to lay aside his cruelty, and dies soon after from the effects of the fright. Lib. ii. c. 19, iii. 15, v. 23: Ghosts of departed friends, of St. Cataldus, and of unknown beings in Rome, Arezzo and Naples. Lib. ii. 22, iii. 8: Appearances of mermen and mermaids at Naples, in Spain, and in the Peloponnesus; in the latter case guaranteed by Theodore Gaza and George of Trebizond.

1217

Gio. Villani, xi. 2. He had it from the Abbot of Vallombrosa, to whom the hermit had communicated it.

1218

Another view of the Dæmons was given by Gemisthos Pletho, whose great philosophical work οἱ νὁμοι, of which only fragments are now left (ed. Alexander, Paris, 1858), was probably known more fully to the Italians of the fifteenth century, either by means of copies or of tradition, and exercised undoubtedly a great influence on the philosophical, political, and religious culture of the time. According to him the dæmons, who belong to the third order of the gods, are preserved from all error, and are capable of following in the steps of the gods who stand above them; they are spirits who bring to men the good things ‘which come down from Zeus through the other gods in order; they purify and watch over man, they raise and strengthen his heart.’ Comp. Fritz Schultze, Gesch. der Philosophie der Renaissance, Jena, 1874.

1219

Yet but little remained of the wonders attributed to her. For probably the last metamorphosis of a man into an ass, in the eleventh century under Leo IX., see Giul. Malmesbur. ii. 171.

1220

This was probably the case with the possessed woman, who in 1513 at Ferrara and elsewhere was consulted by distinguished Lombards as to future events. Her name was Rodogine. See Rabelais, Pantagruel, iv. 58.

1221

Jovian. Pontan. Antonius.

1222

How widespread the belief in witches then was, is shown by the fact that in 1483 Politian gave a ‘praelectio’ ‘in priora Aristotelis Analytica cui titulus Lamia’ (Italian trans. by Isidore del Lungo, Flor. 1864) Comp. Reumont, Lorenzo, ii. 75-77. Fiesole, according to this, was, in a certain sense, a witches’ nest.

1223

Graziani, Arch. Stor. xvi. i. p. 565, ad a. 1445, speaking of a witch at Nocera, who only offered half the sum, and was accordingly burnt. The law was aimed at such persons as ‘facciono le fature overo venefitie overo encantatione d’ommunde spirite a nuocere,’ l. c. note 1, 2.

1224

Lib. i. ep. 46, Opera, p. 531 sqq. For ‘umbra’ p. 552 read ‘Umbria,’ and for ‘lacum’ read ‘locum.’