One of the younger I have as my playmate
(buffoncello), since children from the third to the fifth year are born
to tricks; the elder ones I treat as my companions, and, as they have
admirable voices, I take delight in hearing them sing and play on
different instruments. And I sing myself, and find my voice better,
clearer, and louder than ever. These are the pleasures of my last
years. My life, therefore, is alive, and not dead; nor would I exchange
my age for the youth of such as live in the service of their passions.'
In the 'Exhortation' which Cornaro added at a much later time, in his
ninety-fifth year, he reckons it among the elements of his happiness
that his 'Treatise' had made many converts. He died at Padua in 1565,
at the age of over a hundred years.
This national gift did not, however, confine itself to the criticism
and description of individuals, but felt itself competent to deal with
the qualities and characteristics of whole peoples. Throughout the
Middle Ages the cities, families, and nations of all Europe were in the
habit of making insulting and derisive attacks on one another, which,
with much caricature, contained commonly a kernel of truth. But from
the first the Italians surpassed all others in their quick apprehension
of the mental differences among cities and populations.
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