' Now and then the latter combine to pluck a young spendthrift,
but in general they are treated and despised as parasites, while wits
of higher position bear themselves like princes, and consider their
talent as something sovereign. Dolcibene, whom Charles IV had
pronounced to be the 'king of Italian jesters,' said to him at Ferrara:
'You will conquer the world, since you are my friend and the Pope's;
you fight with the sword, the Pope with his bulls, and I with my
tongue.' This is no mere jest, but the foreshadowing of Pietro Aretino.
The two most famous jesters about the middle of the fifteenth century
were a priest near Florence, Arlotto (1483), for more refined wit
('facezie'), and the court-fool of Ferrara, Gonnella, for buffoonery.
We can hardly compare their stories with those of the Parson of
Kalenberg and Till Eulenspiegel, since the latter arose in a different
and half-mythical manner, as fruits of the imagination of a whole
people, and touch rather on what is general and intelligible to all,
while Arlotto and Gonnella were historical beings, colored and shaped
by local influences. But if the comparison be allowed, and extended to
the jests of the non-Italian nations, we shall find in general that the
joke in the French _fabliaux, _as among the Germans, is chiefly
directed to the attainment of some advantage or enjoyment; while the
wit of Arlotto and the practical jokes of Gonnella are an end in
themselves, and exist simply for the sake of the triumph of production.
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