The Italian Renaissance had an impact on almost all of Europe. Culture, art, fashion, architecture, dance, horseback riding, music, writing, modus vivendi, and so on, were the focus of attention not only of the courts across the Alps, but also the emerging middle class and the people who came in contact with the ideas thanks also to the spread of printing with Gutenberg’s movable type. Italy was considered by some as a way of life: William Thomas, Welsh, stated in 1549 that “the nation Italy seems incomparably more civilized than all the others. Similarly Beccadelli recommended a friend of Ragusa (now Dubrovnik) to send him «for refinement in Italy»” (1). So the Italian customs were followed in England, towards the end of the reign of Elizabeth I, in France, remember Catherine de’ Medici on the throne, in Poland, Germany, Hungary, at the time of Matthias Corvinus, etc. etc. Technical terms of architecture, music, military entered common usage of other languages, as well as, for example, the use of the fork that came from Italy, which spread slowly in Europe, or as a way to cut the meat – remember the figure of the carving – or behave in everyday life. The book by Baldassare Castiglione, Il Cortigiano (The Courtier), was soon translated into many countries. Followed were even beautiful Renaissance gardens, the Boboli in Florence, those of Este in Tivoli, guides that served as inspiration elsewhere.
Yet, next to the attraction there is always a certain amount of waste and, with the passage of time, formed a band of italofobias, people who saw cultural development with a critical eye, and not only the “bel paese”. The Swedish humanist Olaus Magnus was used to stress the “softness” of the southern peoples; known in England was called “English Italian devil incarnate“; as well as France was said to “cover up like an Italian“; Henri Estienne, printer Calvinist was contrary to “Italianization of the French language“, not to forget that you used to say “effeminate like an Italian“. Even for some foreigners, Italy was a country of poisons, or, according to the German humanist Konrad Celtis, “Nos italicus luxus corrupti”, lust Italy there is corrupting.
In short, italophile and italofobias seemed, and were in fact, two sides of the same coin, the coin of that renaissance, launched in Italy, cross, affecting a large part of European lands.
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1. in Peter Burke, Il Rinascimento europeo, centri e periferie, Laterza, Roma-Bari, 1999, pag. 237.
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»»»here Italian article.
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