'A few years ago,' writes Franco Sacchetti, towards the end of the fourteenth century, 'everybody saw how all the workpeople down to the bakers, how all the wool-carders, usurers money-changers and blackguards of all description, became knights.Why should an official need knighthood when he goes to preside over some little provincial town? What has this title to do with any ordinary bread-winning pursuit? How art thou sunken, unhappy dignity! Of all the long list of knightly duties, what single one do these knights of ours discharge? Iwished to speak of these things that the reader might see that knighthood is dead.And as we have gone so far as to confer the honour upon dead men, why not upon figures of wood and stone, and why not upon an ox?' The stories which Sacchetti tells by way of illustration speak plainly enough.There we read how Bernabo Visconti knighted the victor in a drunken brawl, and then did the same derisively to the vanquished;how Ger- man knights with their decorated helmets and devices were ridiculed--and more of the same kind.At a later period Poggio makes merry over the many knights of his day without a horse and without military training.Those who wished to assert the privilege of the order, and ride out with lance and colors, found in Florence that they might have to face the government as well as the jokers.
On considering the matter more closely, we shall find that this belated chivalry, independent of all nobility of birth, though partly the fruit of an insane passion for titles, had nevertheless another and a better side.Tournaments had not yet ceased to be practiced, and no one could take part in them who was not a knight.But the combat in the lists, and especially the difficult and perilous tilting with the lance, offered a favourable opportunity for the display of strength, skill, and courage, which no one, whatever might be his origin, would willingly neglect in an age which laid such stress on personal merit.
It was in vain that from the time of Petrarch downwards the tournament was denounced as a dangerous folly.No one was converted by the pathetic appeal of the poet: 'In what book do we read that Scipio and Caesar were skilled at the joust?' The practice became more and more popular in Florence.Every honest citizen came to consider his tournament-- now, no doubt, less dangerous than formerly--as a fashionable sport.Franco Sacchetti has left us a ludicrous picture of one of these holiday cavaliers--a notary seventy years old.He rides out on horseback to Peretola, where the tournament was cheap, on a jade hired from a dyer.A thistle is stuck by some wag under the tail of the steed, who takes fright, runs away, and carries the helmeted rider, bruised and shaken, back into the city.The inevitable conclusion of the story is a severe curtain-lecture from the wife, who is not a little enraged at these break-neck follies of her husband.
It may be mentioned in conclusion that a passionate interest in this sport was displayed by the Medici, as if they wished to show-- private citizens as they were, without noble blood in their veins-- that the society which surrounded them was in no respect inferior to a Court.
Even under Cosimo (1459), and afterwards under the elder Pietro, brilliant tournaments were held at Florence.The younger Pietro neglected the duties of government for these amusements and would never suffer himself to be painted except clad in armor.The same practice prevailed at the Court of Alexander VI, and when the Cardinal Ascanio Sforza asked the Turkish Prince Djem how he liked the spectacle, the barbarian replied with much discretion that such combats in his country only took place among slaves, since then, in the case of accident, nobody was the worse for it.The Oriental was unconsciously in accord with the old Romans in condemning the manners of the Middle Ages.
Apart, however, from this particular prop of knighthood, we find here and there in Italy, for example at Ferrara, orders of courtiers whose members had a right to the title of _Cavaliere.
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But, great as were individual ambitions, and the vanities of nobles and knights, it remains a fact that the Italian nobility took its place in the centre of social life, and not at the extremity.We find it habitually mixing with other classes on a footing of perfect equality, and seeking its natural allies in culture and intelligence.It is true that for the courtier a cer- tain rank of nobility was required, but this exigence is expressly declared to be caused by a prejudice rooted in the public mind-- 'per l'opinion universale'--and never was held to imply the belief that the personal worth of one who was not of noble blood was in any degree lessened thereby, nor did it follow from this rule that the prince was limited to the nobility for his society.It meant simply that the perfect man--the true courtier--should not be wanting in any conceivable advantage, and therefore not in this.If in all the relations of life he was specially bound to maintain a dignified and reserved demeanor, the reason was not found in the blood which flowed in h-s veins, but in the perfection of manner which was demanded from him.We are here in the presence of a modern distinctiori, based on culture and on wealth, but on the latter solely because it enables men to devote their life to the former, and effectually to promote its interests and advancement.
Costumes and Fashions But in proportion as distinctions of birth ceased to confer any special privilege, was the individual himself compelled to make the most of his personal qualities, and society to find its worth and charm in itself.
The demeanor of individuals, and all the higher forms of social intercourse, became ends pursued a deliberate and artistic purpose.
