But by the side of all this there appeared in Italian poetry, towards
the close of the fifteenth century, signs of a more realistic treatment
of rustic life. This was not possible out of Italy; for here only did
the peasant, whether laborer or proprietor, possess human dignity,
personal freedom, and the right of settlement, hard as his lot might
sometimes be in other respects. The difference between town and country
is far from being so marked here as in northern countries. Many of the
smaller towns are peopled almost exclusively by peasants who, on coming
home at nightfall from their work, are transformed into townsfolk. The
masons of Como wandered over nearly all Italy; the child Giotto was
free to leave his sheep and join a guild at Florence; everywhere there
was a human stream flowing from the country into the cities, and some
mountain populations seemed born to supply this current. It is true
that the pride and local conceit supplied poets and novelists with
abundant motives for making game of the 'villano,' and what they left
undone was taken charge of by the comic improvisers. But nowhere do we
find a trace of that brutal and contemptuous class-hatred against the
'vilains' which inspired the aristocratic poets of Provence, and often,
too, the French chroniclers. On the contrary, Italian authors of every
sort gladly recognize and accentuate what is great or remarkable in the
life of the peasant.
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