Scripta Mediterranea (E-Journal)

Pietropaolo, Domenico

English

The Institutionalisation of Scientific Thinking in the Tuscany of the Last Medici

Urbancic, Anne

Anne Urbancic 
The Duke of Athens: A Study of 
Niccolo Tommaseo's Medievalism 
From his earliest studies, Niccolo Tommaseo (1802-1874) had al-
ways professed a great admiration for the Middle Ages. A linguist, 
an author, a pedagogue and a politician, he considered that his own 
nineteenth century had much to learn from the dark and powerful 
Middle Ages. In this paper the development of Tommaseo' s interest 
in the period shall be outlined. The main focus will be on his novella 
The Duke of Athens in which, through various literary experiments, 
the author attempted to achieve a binary goal. First, he aspired to 
write the "ideal" historical novel and secondly, he wished to recreate 
a convincing medieval atmosphere. Finally, mention will be made 
of the critical reaction to Tommaseo's attempts. 
In 1827 Tommaseo was invited by publisher Giampietro Vieusseux 
to write articles for the journal Antologia in Florence. He spent 
seven years in that city initiating there the most active, and certainly 
the most innovative period of his life as writer. In 1834, after the 
political suppression of the Antologia, Tommaseo went into exile 
in France. This period, which lasted until 1839, was also a time 
of intense literary activity. Among his publications was the short 
historical novel The Duke of Athens (Baudry, 1837). 
As a student, Tommaseo linked his studies to the Classical au-
thors. At seventeen years of age, however, as he confesses in the 
Memorie poetiche, he discovered that there was a certain correspon-
dence between the sensual and the spiritual worlds. At that point 
he began to read the works of Dante, 1 and to memorize them.2 For 
Tommaseo, Dante was, in fact, a symbol of patriotism and an indi-
cation of Italy's future greatness.3 Furthermore, for Tommaseo the 
centuries in which Dante lived constituted the true Middle Ages and, 
in fact, in referring to the "Medioevo" Tommaseo generally limited 
himself to the period from the 12th to the 14th centuries. He did 
not concern himself with the fact that the term may have described 
a far more extended period of time, or that the scholarly tradition 
Scripta Mediterranea Volume VII, 1986 
22 Anne Urbancic 
may have understood it differently. In his dictionary he does define 
the Middle Ages as "the centuries that spanned the time from the 
fall of the Roman Empire to the fifteenth century.'"' However, that 
Tommaseo has a more limited period in mind is clear from the fact 
that his two major historical novellas deal with events of the 14th 
century. His interest in the Middle Ages, and more specifically in the 
time of Dante, is well in keeping with the Romantic fascination with 
the period. It manifested itself not only in the historical novellas but 
also in his numerous reviews of historical novels, including a crit-
ically provocation review of Alessandro Manzoni's The Betrothed 
published in the Antologia in 1827. In addition, Tommaseo also 
studied the works of Sir Waiter Scott in translation. Most important 
among the works that are evidence of his interest in and fascination 
with the Middle Ages is his commentary on Dante's Divina Corn-
media, a work that is still considered valid today. Significantly, it 
was first published in 1838, just after the publication of The Sacking 
of Lucca (/I Sacco di Lucca) in 1834 and The Duke of Athens (/I 
Duca d'Atene) in 1837. In the introduction to the Commentary on 
the Divina Commedia, Tommaseo explains his interest in the Middle 
Ages, or more specifically in the 'secolo di Dante,' in this way: 
It was an era of "passion which was not weak, of virture which was not 
insincere, of misdeeds which were not timid. The body was robust, the 
imagination ardent; the customs were varied and the language young and 
masculine. Woman was either despised as a less than human creature 
or venerated as an angel, or she was part of that masculine pride, com-
municating to man those qualities which render her divine. It was an 
era of misfortune alternating with joy, as do short days with long nights; 
government by few and government by too many were confused. . . . Re-
ligion was often abused, but not to the point of making its harmful aspects 
greater than its beneficial ones: vices were bared but without shame; cru-
elties were truly brutal, but not without remorse; misfortunes were grave 
but they carried the reward of resignation or hope or glory. The [com-
mon] people occupied themselves with new arts, with commerce, with 
the pursuit of civil liberties; nobles often worked for the good of all, but 
more often to the detriment of all, but at least they occupied themselves 
in undertakings and thus inertia, that plague of the State, and boredom, 
that hell for souls, were expelled from restless spirits and tired bodies. 
Religion was not divided from morality, nor knowledge from life, nor the 
word from the deed . . . "5 
Tommaseo' s fascination with the Middle Ages led him to contrast 
A Study of Niccolo Tommaseo' s M edievalism 23 
that era with those that followed, always to the disadvantage of the 
latter. He wrote in (Bel/ezza e civilta), for example, that he had 
observed "in the sculptures of the 14th and 15th centuries such a 
force of "affetto" (sentiment of affection) that hardly a century later 
could be found only with great difficulty in even the most powerful 
paintings. . . . And all the things of those centuries are depicted in 
masculine relief.6 The dichotomy between masculine and feminine 
is also found in Tommaseo's contrast of the Middle Ages and his 
own century, the former being dark and powerful while the latter 
was "soft, and with gas lamps."7 
We have previously stated that Tommaseo's interest in this period 
manifested itself in various works, most of which were written in the 
period from 1834 to 1838. These dates are significant in the writing 
career of this author because they represent the time span during 
which his best and most innovative works were written. After 1838, 
in fact, Tommaseo turned hs attention to literary experimentation 
in the controversial novel (Fede e bel/ezza), the work for which 
he is best known and which was published in 1840. By his own 
admission, both I/ Sacco di Lucca and I/ Duca d' Atene were also of 
a highly experimental nature, although different in literary aim from 
Fede e bellezza. In 1836, Tommaseo wrote to one of his closest 
friends, Gino Capponi in F1orence, that he had written The Duke of 
Athens; it was not a novel, he stated, but a painting with dialogue.8 
In a note appended to the novella in its second edition, published 
in 1858 in Milan, he outlined the specific aims that he had set for 
himself in writing the work. He commented that he had focussed 
much more on the use and abuse of victory in the story, rather than 
on the instruments of resistance and battle. He continued that his 
historical sources had been Villani and Machiavelli, and he appended 
the relevant passages to the novella inviting those readers who wished 
to do so to judge how, in his version, he had reproduced the colour 
of the times. He invited his readers to the historical events through 
the meditation of the imagination and through "affetto." He added 
that in writing the novella he had sought historical truth even in 
the language, making use of archaic terms and grammatical forms, 
which were better suited to the description of the century and the 
place. Nevertheless, he was careful to maintain the vividness of a 
living language. This, he wrote, was facilitated by the fact that the 
24 Anne Urbancic 
Tuscan dialects used in the novella contained many ancient terms.9 
Tommaseo had set himself another goal in writing The Duke of 
Athens, namely that of producing a historical novel that would serve 
as a good example of the genre. To corroborate this is the fact that in 
the note appended to the second edition, Tommaseo concerns himself 
with defending the genre to the reader. In other writings, especially 
in Della bellezza educatrice (1838), he laments the corruption that 
the genre had suffered at the hands of inept authors. He observes 
that they seem to have followed some terrible formula in order to 
produce what he facetiously calls a "good historical novel." This 
involves opening the story with a historical passage, followed by a 
dialogue in which the plot of the novel is revealed. It is better that 
the dialogue be trivial and long. The character must be presented 
in minutest detail, and if during the description of these details, the 
character should wrinkle his nose or forehead, that gesture should 
also be reported in a separate parenthesis. The number of hairs in a 
character's beard should be scrutinized to the same degree as his most 
intimate thoughts, for the more minute the detail, the more precious 
it becomes. If it should be necessary in the novel to refer back to a 
historical source, this also should be quoted in its entirety. Another 
necessary aspect of the "good historical novel," states Tommaseo sar-
castically, is a comic character who attaches himself to the principal 
heroes and who makes them laugh in the midst of fear or danger, 
or remorse or misfortune. The "good historical novel" should have 
more than one comic character; these should either have some ridicu-
lous fixations or appear from nowhere in order to lighten a scene. 
Depict the great and the lowly, monarchs and userers, men of letters 
and murderers with equal detail, he advises. Then, an author should 
add a mysterious character who keeps the reader in suspense. In this 
way he will have composed a "good historical novel" according to 
all the rules.10 
In a more serious vein, Tommaseo concludes that the purpose of 
the true historical novel was not to elaborate upon history, gathering 
minute particles of truth that had been cast aside by the Muse, and 
weaving from them a faded garland. Rather, it was to make better 
known great and important historical facts, illustrating them in an 
imaginative manner and commenting on them in such a way as to 
make plain their moral essence.u Authors ofthe historical novel have 
A Study of Niccolo Tommaseo' s Medievalism 25 
rather an important function since they must imbue history with the 
vital breath of poetry. In a sense, they must make the dead speak, 
they must repaint those hues faded by the years and bring closer to 
the heart of the reader those faraway faces so that the reader can 
judge them, listen to them and feel them live. 
These then, are the goals which Tommaseo had set for himself 
in writing the The Duke of Athens. The historical events which he 
had chosen to treat revolve around Waiter of Brienne, the Duke of 
Athens, who came to the military service of Florence in 1342. In the 
same year, he became Lord of the city, a title which he obtained with 
enormous help both from Florentine nobles and the common people. 
However, much stronger allegiance to the latter soon became evident. 
His military strength came from French mercenaries. It was not long 
before there was great resentment and opposition to the violence of 
the Duke's soldiers, his high taxes and his oppression of those who 
opposed him. This dissatisfaction gave rise to three conspiracies 
which in the end brought about the expulsion of the Duke from 
Florence. 
Tommaseo envisaged his novella as a series of vignettes dealing 
with the actions of the members of various conspiracies. His aim 
was, of course, to be as accurate as possible from the historical point 
of view. In fact, the character of the Archbishop Acciaiuoli in the 
first edition of the novella, was demoted, as it were, to Bishop in the 
second edition, when Tomaseo was reminded, in a letter from Gino 
Capponi, that Florence did not have an Archbishop until the end of 
the 14th century.12 Of greater importance to the author, however, was 
that portray, as plausibly as he could, the psychological atmoshpere 
in which his historical characters moved. An example of this is the 
description ofLucia Buondelmonte, desperately in love with Ippolito, 
son of the jailer, who was not only fourteen years her junior but also 
totally unworthy of her. Tommaseo describes her as a "loving and 
delicate woman, in whom the light of the once clear but now fleeting 
youth, was more alive and more ardent than ever .... " Beauty was 
renewed in her (because of her love) but this would render all the 
more bitter the moment in which she would sadly realize that time 
had passed and that earth blossomed with much younger love. She 
loved Ippolito as if she were devoted to a fatalistic necessity."13 
Another example is that of the confession of Filippo Brunelleschi 
26 Anne Urbancic 
who had inadvertently betrayed one of the conspiracies. Tommaseo 
writes that each word of the confession was as a wound inflicted by 
a sword piercing the hero's breast, but as his confession continued, 
he began to feel unburdened, and although he felt more despised by 
his eo-conspirators, he also felt less unworthy in the eyes of God 
and in his own eyes.14 
The action of the novella moves from conspiracy to conspiracy 
and then focuses on the crowds incited toward rebellion. It also 
moves behind the scenes to delicate descriptions of the fears and the 
prayers of those whose loved ones were participants in the fighting, 
and then to the surreptitious actions of the Duke's cowardly sup-
porters in their attempts to evade retribution for their actions. These 
are at times violent descriptions and overly graphic. Nevertheless, 
they do capture the atmosphere of rage, frustration, confusion and 
loss of social order which Tommaseo tried to evoke. The Duke of 
Athens himself appears in the novella only towards the end. Un-
til his appearance he is described as arrogant and strong. His brief 
entrance to grant honours and freedom to Antonio Adimari, one of 
his prisoners, in a last attempt to quell the rebellious Florentines, 
corroborates this. But when the author directly focusses upon him 
in the latter half of the novella, he presents him quite differently, as 
a broken man, asking mercy from the Bishop and begging him to 
advise the Florentines that he had mended his ways and his politics. 
The Bishop is so taken by this new attitude that he goes to implore 
the crowds to spare the Duke's life. Still later, Tommaseo shows 
the reader the human side of Duke Waiter of Brienne, thus making 
him much less of a villain than he had appeared up to this point. 
For Waiter, writes Tommaseo, every moment seemed to be an hour, 
so great was his anxiety (as he waited for news of the insurrection 
and its progress). Nor could the Floretines have imagined a greater 
torment than this agony of doubts, of delays and of new negotiations, 
even if they had wished. But then suddenly Tommaseo manipulates 
the readers' feelings again, as the Duke allows two of his supporters 
to be killed so that he himself may be spared. 
We have stated previously that Tommaseo attempted to recreate 
the atmosphere of the banishment of the Duke of Athens from Flo-
rence through the use of "authentic" vocabulary and sentence struc-
ture. In fact almost every modern edition of the Duke of Athens 
A Study of Niccolo Tommaseo' s Medievalism 27 
contains a glossary that explains some of the more archaic terms, 
which are far too numerous to be described in detail here. He also 
attempted to bring his historical characters back to life through the 
extensive use of dialogue and by keeping the omniscient authorial 
voice to minimal interruptions. Both of these techniques were praised 
by contemporary critics, such as Gino Capponi and Giovita Scalvini. 
On the other hand, almost all the critics found that the violence pre-
sented in the story was unnecessarily emphasized. In a letter to his 
friend, Cesare Cantu, who was also an author of historical novels, 
Tommaseo defended his work, saying: 
there are too many atrocities in the Duke; this is true. I did this in order 
to mask the aspects which are not so good.15 
He answered Capponi in this way: 
In the Duke the tortures are too many, it's true, but the fact is that the 
people did eat the roasted flesh (of the two men condemned by the Duke 
in order to save himself) .... Deliberated cruelty is not in the nature of 
the people, but in this case it was; and I toned it down by making only a 
few men guilty of it, rather than all of Florence ... 16 
Nevertheless, many of the more horrifying scenes of the novella 
were attenuated in the second edition. 
Despite the criticisms of Tommaseo's contemporaries, as valid as 
they may be, the modem reader of the Duke of Athens must admire 
not only the way in which this novella fulfills the author's criteria for 
a good historical novel but also his attempts to recreate linguistically 
the atmosphere of 14th-century F1orence. 
University ofToronto 
NOTES 
N. Tommaseo, memorie Poetiche. Edizione del 1838 con appendice di poesie 
e redazione del 1858 intitolata Educazione dell'ingegno. A cura di Marco 
Pecoraro (Bari: Laterza, 1964), p. 32. 
2 Ibid., p. 49) 
3 N. Tommaseo, Diario intimo a cura di R. Ciampini, 2a ed. (Torino: Einaudi, 
1939), p. 27. 
28 Anne Urbancic 
4 N. Tommaseo, Dizionario del/a lingua italiana nuovamente compilato dai 
signori Nicolo Tommaseo (sic) e Cav. Prof. Bernardo Bellini con oltre 100.00 
giunte ai precedenti Dizionarii (Torino-Napoli: UTET, 1872), Vol. 11, 610. 
5 N. Tommaseo, La Commedia di Dante Alighieri colcommento di Niccolo Tom-
maseo (Milano: Pagnoni, 1869), Vol. I, XIX. The translation is mine. 
6 N. Tommaseo, Bellezza e civiltd o Delle Arti del Bello sensible. (Firenze: Le 
Monnier, 1857), p. 365. 
7 N. Tommaseo, Fede e bellezza, a cura di Daniele Mattalia. (Milano: Rizzoli , 
1963), p. 137. 
8 N. Tommaseo and G. Capponi, Carteggio inedito dal1833 al1874. per cura 
di I. Del Lungo e P. Prunas (Bologna: Zanichelli, 1911- 1932), Vol I, 496. 
9 N. Tommaseo, Il Duca d'Atene (Milano: Francesco Sanvito, 1858), pp. 224-
232. 
10 N. Tommaseo, Della bellezza educatrice. Pensieri di Niccolo Tommaseo 
(Venezia: Gondoliere, 1838), pp. 190-91. 
11 Ibid., p. 197. 
12 N. Tommaseo and G. Capponi, Op. cit., Vol I, 586. 
13 N. Tommaseo, Due baci e altri racconti a cura di Carlo Bo (Milano: Bompiani, 
1943), pp. 86-87. The translation is mine. 
14 Ibid. , p. 81. 
15 Il Primo esilio di Nicolo Tommaseo, 1834-1839. Lettere di lui a Cesare Canru 
edite ed illustrate da Ettore Verga (Milano: Cogliati, 1904), p. 153. Some of 
the linguistic changes that Tommaseo made in order to attenuate the violence 
of The Duke of Athens are discussed in Mario Puppo, Tommaseo prosatore, 
2a, ed. (Roma: Studium, 1975), pp. 201- 222. 
16 N. Tommaseo and G. Capponi, Op. cit., vol. I, 577- 78. 
This paper was read at the The Twentieth International Congress on Medieval 
Studies, The Medieval Institute, Western Michigan University, May 1985. 


The Duke of Athens: A Study of Niccolo Tommaseo's Medievalism

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Review 
The Jews of Islam. Bernard Lewis. Princeton: Princeton UP, 1984. 
pp. xii + 245. Cloth $42.50, Paper $8.95. 
In the later 1940's, the arrival in Israel of many "Sephardim"-Jews from 
Muslim countries-provided the impetus for an investigation into their 
history and culture which was long overdue. The history of these people, 
who had attained the highest intellectual pinnacles during the medieval 
period, had previously been neglected by modern historiography, as a 
result of the prolonged period of decadence and obscurity which had kept 
them on the margins of mainstream Jewish history during the premodern 
and modern period. However, as a result of growing interest, a substantial 
body of research and publication has emerged during the last quarter of a 
century, which enables us to speak with greater confidence and authority, 
not only about the major cultural phenomena of these people, but also 
about their everyday life. In this book, Professor Lewis has attempted, by 
drawing on the current proliferation of literature and on his vast knowledge 
and understanding of Islamic history, to provide an overview of this chapter 
of Jewish history, a period which lasted for about 1400 years. He has also 
attempted an analysis of those factors which shaped its evolution, and, 
even more, of those which caused its decline. 
The book is divided into four chapters, arranged chronologically, and 
varied in length. The first chapter, "Islam and other religions," is in itself 
a well-rounded discussion of the major themes which are developed in 
more detail in the remaining chapters. The author describes numerous 
related problems concerning the attitude of Islam towards its non-Muslim 
citizens, in an attempt to define its particular relationship with Judaism 
and the Jews. While Islam's basic attitudes were determined by principles 
derived from the 7th and 8th centuries ' Qor'an and Sunna which ordained 
tolerance, yet second-class status, for Jews and Christians, the "People of 
the Book," historical conditions in their turn actually shaped everyday life. 
The author surveys Jewish limitations and prerogatives, occupations, and 
legal, fiscal, and social qualifications, periods of prosperity and security, 
and the periods of threat and persecution which came mostly from the 
Messianic and Millenarian Muslim movements. The long period of decline 
which would follow the medieval period is also referred to in this chapter. 
Its causes are linked to the Crusades and to the disappearance of the Middle 
Eastern bourgeoisie, of which Jews were respectable members. 
Scripta Mediterranea Volumes VIII-IX, 1987-88 
104 Reviews 
The second chapter, "The Judeo-Islamic Tradition," deals with the pro-
found influence of Islam, and the adoption, by the Jews living under its 
aegis, of Islamic modes of thought and culture, as well as patterns of 
behaviour. Given the highly intellectual and sophisticated nature of the 
Islamic culture during the medieval period, Lewis' discussion of the sur-
prisingly few cases of Jewish converts to Islam is extremely relevant. 
The third chapter, "Late Medieval and Early Modern Period," is devoted 
to the general decline in the status and conditions of the Jews, and the 
general decadence in the Muslim countries. This period coincided with the 
growth of a new political unit: the Ottoman Empire. The author describes 
here the reasons why Jewish life in the early days of the Ottoman Empire 
was happier than it was later on, or than it was in Iran and Morocco. 
The expulsion from Spain and Portugal first of the Jews and later of the 
Marranos, provided the expanding Ottoman Empire with highly desirable 
immigrants, who were skilled in finances, languages and technology, and 
who often owned considerable amounts of money, which greatly helped the 
economy of the new empire. Jewish physicians, merchants and translators 
were welcomed and encouraged to settle, and were sometimes even moved 
forcibly into newly-conquered areas. 
At this point, Lewis devotes some valuable space to discussing the pos-
sibilities for research which the Ottoman archives offer. These archives are 
outstanding both for their organization and for the wealth of information 
which they contain about this period. 
The Jews living in Muslim lands were not entirely responsible for the 
decline of their fortunes, although Lewis does mention the loss of their 
skills through withdrawal from Europe, and the cessation of Jewish im-
migration from Europe as contributory causes. However, the growing 
material and cultural impoverishment and the general weakening of the 
Ottoman Empire led to increasing segregation of the Jews, while reduced 
tolerance for them led to their diminished participation in the social and 
economic life of the empire. In contrast to the decline of the Jews, the rise 
of other minorities, particularly the Greeks and the Armenians, was even 
more dramatic. They came to occupy positions previously held by Jews, 
and achieved status through having European education. The protection 
which was offered to the Christians by the Great Powers provided these 
new minorities with a power base which was unavailable to the Jews. 
In the fourth and last chapter, "The End of Tradition," the author de-
scribes what he correctly perceives to be the final stage of the Jewish 
existence under Islam : the end of an era. Based on reports written by 
teachers from the Alliance Israelite, as well as by European travellers, 
the chapter provides a pretty accurate picture of the constant humiliation 
and threat, financial burden and material degradation which hundreds of 
Jews faced daily. The Muslims' intolerance of the Jews was reinforced 
at this stage, through an injection of elements of Christian antisemitism, 
Reviews 105 
notably the blood libel, which were imported from Europe by diplomats 
and clergymen serving in the Middle East. The political circumstances 
created at the beginning of the twentieth century gradually brought the 
relationship of Jews and Moslems into a new phase, that of confronta- · 
tion. The subsequent physical removal of the Jewish communities became 
inevitable. 
The book, based on a series of lectures delivered in 1981, has retained 
the vivid style and flow of a live presentation. Although meant to be 
a general synthesis, the book never loses sight of historical details, in 
spite of its many dimensions and the length of time which it covers. It 
provides these details within the text, and in the voluminous annotations 
and references. In this book, as in his previous works, Professor Lewis 
unfailingly displays his unique talent for combining the description of a 
long period of evolution with the detailed use of primary sources. With a 
light, yet authoritative hand, he guides us through a long, rich and troubled 
history, in a book which is a major contribution to an important historical 
debate, relevant to both Jewish and Islamic history. 
MAYA SHATZMILLER, 
University of Western Ontario 


Review: The Jews of Islam. Bernard Lewis. Princeton: Princeton UP, 1984. pp. xii+245. Cloth $42.50, Paper $8.95.

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