Often the place of wit is taken by
mere insolence, clumsy trickery, blasphemy, and obscenity; one or two
jokes told of Condottieri are among the most brutal and malicious which
are recorded. Many of the 'burle' are thoroughly comic, but many are
only real or supposed evidence of personal superiority, of triumph over
another. How much people were willing to put up with, how often the
victim was satisfied with getting the laugh on his side by a
retaliatory trick, cannot be said; there was much heartless and
pointless malice mixed up with it all, and life in Florence was no
doubt often made unpleasant enough from this cause. The inventors and
retailers of jokes soon became inevitable figures, and among them there
must have been some who were classical-- far superior to all the mere
court-jesters, to whom competition, a changing public, and the quick
apprehension of the audience, all advantages of life in Florence, were
wanting. Some Florentine wits went starring among the despotic courts
of Lombardy and Romagna, and found themselves much better rewarded than
at home, where their talent was cheap and plentiful. The better type of
these people is the amusing man (l'uomo piacevole), the worse is the
buffoon and the vulgar parasite who presents himself at weddings and
banquets with the argument, 'If I am not invited, the fault is not
mine.
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