But a mania for titles of a curious
and ludicrous sort sometimes crossed and thwarted, especially among the
Florentines, the levelling influence of art and culture. This was the
passion hood, which became one of the most striking follies at a time
when the dignity itself had lost every significance.
'A few years ago,' writes Franco Sacchetti, towards the end of the
fourteenth century, 'everybody saw how all the workpeople down to the
bakers, how all the wool-carders, usurers money-changers and
blackguards of all description, became knights. Why should an official
need knighthood when he goes to preside over some little provincial
town? What has this title to do with any ordinary bread-winning
pursuit? How art thou sunken, unhappy dignity! Of all the long list of
knightly duties, what single one do these knights of ours discharge? I
wished to speak of these things that the reader might see that
knighthood is dead. And as we have gone so far as to confer the honour
upon dead men, why not upon figures of wood and stone, and why not upon
an ox?' The stories which Sacchetti tells by way of illustration speak
plainly enough. There we read how Bernabo Visconti knighted the victor
in a drunken brawl, and then did the same derisively to the vanquished;
how Ger- man knights with their decorated helmets and devices were
ridiculed--and more of the same kind.
Pages:
394
395
396
397
398
399
400
401
402
403
404
405
406
407
408
409
410
411
412
413
414
415
416
417
418