The Frenchified Traveller Came In For A Good Share Of Satire, But Darker
Things Were Said Of The Italianate Englishman.
He was an atheist - a
creature hitherto unknown in England - who boldly laughed to scorn both
Protestant and Papist.
He mocked the Pope, railed on Luther, and liked
none, but only himself.[104] "I care not," he said, "what you talk to me
of God, so as I may have the prince and the laws of the realm on my
side."[105] In politics he allied himself with the Papists, they being
more of his way of living than the Puritans, but he was faithless to all
parties.[106] In private life he was vicious, and practised "such
villainy as is abominable to declare," for in Italy he had served
Circes, who turns men into beasts.[107] "But I am afraid," says Ascham,
"that over many of our travellers unto Italy do not eschew the way to
Circe's Court: but go and ryde and runne and flie thether, they make
great hast to cum to her; they make great sute to serve her: yea, I
could point out some with my finger that never had gone out of England,
but onlie to serve Circes in Italie. Vanitie and vice and any licence to
ill living in England was counted stale and rude unto them."[108]
It is likely that some of these accusations were true. Italy more than
any other country charmed the Elizabethan Englishman, partly because the
climate and the people and the look of things were so unlike his own
grey home. Particularly Venice enchanted him. The sun, the sea, the
comely streets, "so clean that you can walk in a Silk Stockin and Sattin
Slippes,"[109] the tall palaces with marble balconies, and golden-haired
women, the flagellants flogging themselves, the mountebanks, the Turks,
the stately black-gowned gentlemen, were new and strange, and satisfied
his sense of romance. Besides, the University of Padua was still one of
the greatest universities in Europe. Students from all nations crowded
to it. 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.
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