William Thomas describes the "infinite resorte of all nacions
that continually is seen there.
And I thinke verilie, that in one region
of all the worlde againe, are not halfe so many straungers as in Italie;
specially of gentilmen, whose resorte thither is principallie under
pretence of studie ... all kyndes of vertue maie there be learned: and
therfore are those places accordyngly furnisshed: not of suche students
alone, as moste commonly are brought up in our universitees (meane mens
children set to schole in hope to live upon hyred learnyng) but for the
more parte of noble mens sonnes, and of the best gentilmen: that studie
more for knowledge and pleasure than for curiositee or luker: ... This
last wynter living in Padoa, with diligent serche I learned, that the
noumbre of scholers there was little lesse than fiftene hundreth;
whereof I dare saie, a thousande at the lest were gentilmen."[110]
The life of a student at Padua was much livelier than the monastic
seclusion of an English university. He need not attend many lectures,
for, as Thomas Hoby explains, after a scholar has been elected by the
rectors, "He is by his scholarship bound to no lectures, nor nothing
elles but what he lyst himselfe to go to."[111] So being a gentleman and
not a clerk, he was more likely to apply himself to fencing or riding:
For at Padua "there passeth no shrof-tide without rennyng at the tilte,
tourneiyng, fighting at the barriers and other like feates of armes,
handled and furnisshed after the best sort: the greatest dooers wherof
are scholers."[112]
Then, too, the scholar diversified his labours by excursions to Venice,
in one of those passenger boats which plied daily from Padua, of which
was said "that the boat shall bee drowned, when it carries neither
Monke, nor Student, nor Curtesan.... the passengers being for the most
part of these kinds"[113] and, as Moryson points out, if he did not, by
giving offence, receive a dagger in his ribs from a fellow-student, he
was likely to have pleasant discourse on the way.[114] Hoby took several
trips from Padua to Venice to see such things as the "lustie yong Duke
of Ferrandin, well accompanied with noble menn and gentlemen ... running
at the ring with faire Turks and cowrsars, being in a maskerie after the
Turkishe maner, and on foote casting of eggs into the wyndowes among the
ladies full of sweete waters and damaske Poulders," or like the Latin
Quarter students who frequent "La Morgue," went to view the body of a
gentleman slain in a feud, laid out in state in his house - "to be seen
of all men."[115] In the outlandish mixture of nations swarming at
Venice, a student could spend all day watching mountebanks, and bloody
street fights, and processions. In the renowned freedom of that city
where "no man marketh anothers dooynges, or meddleth with another mans
livyng,"[116] it was no wonder if a young man fresh from an English
university and away from those who knew him, was sometimes "enticed by
lewd persons:" and, once having lost his innocence, outdid even the
students of Padua. For, as Greene says, "as our wits be as ripe as any,
so our willes are more ready than they all, to put into effect any of
their licentious abuses."[117] Thus arose the famous proverb, "An
Englishman Italianate is a devil incarnate."
Hence the warnings against Circes by even those authors most loud in
praise of travel. Lipsius bids his noble pupil beware of Italian women:
" ... inter faeminas, formae conspicuae, sed lascivae et procaces."[118]
Turler must acknowledge "an auntient complaint made by many that our
countrymen usually bring three thinges with them out of Italye: a
naughty conscience, an empty purse, and a weak stomache: and many times
it chaunceth so indeede." For since "youth and flourishing yeeres are
most commonly employed in traveill, which of their owne course and
condicion are inclined unto vice, and much more earnestly imbrace the
same if it be enticed thereto," ... "many a time pleasures make a man
not thinke on his returne," ... but he is caught by the songs of
Mermaids, "so to returne home with shame and shame enough."[119]
It was necessary also to warn the traveller against those more harmless
sins which we have already mentioned: against an arrogant bearing on his
return to his native land, or a vanity which prompted him at all times
to show that he had been abroad, and was not like the common herd.
Perhaps it was an intellectual affectation of atheism or a cultivated
taste for Machiavelli with which he was inclined to startle his
old-fashioned countrymen. Almost the only book Sir Edward Unton seems to
have brought back with him from Venice was the Historie of Nicolo
Machiavelli, Venice, 1537. On the title page he has written:
"Macchavelli Maxima / Qui nescit dissimulare / nescit vivere / Vive et
vivas / Edw. Unton. /"[120] Perhaps it was only his display of Italian
clothes - "civil, because black, and comely because fitted to the
body,"[121] or daintier table manners than Englishmen used which called
down upon him the ridicule of his enemies. No doubt there was in the
returned traveller a certain degree of condescension which made him
disagreeable - especially if he happened to be a proud and insolent
courtier, who attracted the Queen's notice by his sharpened wits and
novelties of discourse, or if he were a vain boy of the sort that
cumbered the streets of London with their rufflings and struttings.
In making surmises as to whom Ascham had in his mind's eye when he said
that he knew men who came back from Italy with "less learning and worse
manners," I guessed that one might be Arthur Hall, the first translator
of Homer into English. Hall was a promising Grecian at Cambridge, and
began his translation with Ascham's encouragement.[122] Between 1563 and
1568, when Ascham was writing The Scolemaster, Hall, without finishing
for a degree, or completing the Homer, went to Italy.
Enter page number
PreviousNext
Page 12 of 54
Words from 11219 to 12239
of 55513
