Icame across an interesting
essay by Benedetto Croce called I 'Rinaldi' o i
Cantastorie di Napoli in his La Critica. Rivista di
Letteratura, Storia e Filosofia [Journal
of Literature, History and Philosophy], 34, 1936.
What follows is my translation plus an introduction and
a few explanations for those who may know as little as I
did before I started this. My comments are in square
brackets and in a bold, smaller font than the
surrounding text and are marked 'ed.note' [ed.
note: Just like this!] For reasons of formatting,
I have renumbered Croce's original footnotes and put
them at the end of the entire essay in a smaller font.
The numbered links in the text are in line and not
superscript.
[ed. note]:
Introduction. Rinaldi
is the plural of Rinaldo,
the Italian name forRenaud de Montauban,
the fictional hero and knight in a 12th century epic
poem in Old French. The tale was popular
throughout Europe in the Middle Ages. Rinaldo is an
important character in Italian Renaissance epics,
including Orlando
Innamorato by Boiardo and Orlando Furioso by
Ariosto. In Neapolitan and Sicilian story telling, since
much story telling has had to do with medieval chivalry,
the name Rinaldo
became the eponym for the itinerant story teller,
himself, the cantastorie—lit.
'story singers'. The story singer, the
cantastorie is a 'Rinaldo'. Story tellers have
been popular for thousands of year across all human
cultures; importantly, this oral tradition before the
age of literacy was the transmitter of culture down
through the generations. The image, right (below), was
not in the original Croce journal article. It is part of
a collection of drawings of largely extint 19th-century
professions. It is labelled Il Cantastorie, "C. Martorano inc."
and "F.P. Diresse."] The English translation is mine. jm
The "Rinaldi"
or the "Cantastorie" of Naples
by Benedetto Croce
The Neapolitan
story-singers or "Rinaldi", the last heirs of
those in the 1300s and 1400s who sang tales of knights and
champions, were observed and studied by Rajna [ed. note:
refers to Pio Ranja, 1847-1930, Italian scholar] a
specialist in the history of the age of chivalry, in his
visit to Naples. (1) There were three Rinaldi: one
performed at the port [ed. note: at Molo Beverello],
another at Porta Capuana, and the third at the Carmine
castle. Of the three, the principal one, the most
authoritative, was the Rinaldo at the port. His name was
Cosimo Salvatore; it was his printed material that Rajna
examined. Most of the material was attributed to an old
blind sailor, Andrea Auriemma, who died around 1846.
The Rinaldo would recite with an open book in his
right hand while he waved a baton—almost a scepter—with
his left hand, perhaps reminiscent of the bow that his
medieval predecessors used to accompany their tales with
music. The beginning of the recitation conformed to
ancient tradition, starting with a prayer in ottova rima[ed. note: a form of rhyming stanzas] and continuing with a
traditional melody, sung with mime and gestures. Within just a few years, however, those three had
been reduced to only one if we can believe the witty
dialect poet, Ferdinado Russo, who, in 1885, reworked the
recitations of the Rinaldi into six sonnets entitled Gano 'e Maganza. (2) He says that "near the market at
Porta Capuana, the cantastorie
recite to the wide-eyed public the marvelous adventures of Rinaldo." The
same Russo, in 1888, continued with forty new sonnets,
saying in his introduction (3) that traditional customs such as
the cantastorie
were already things of the past. He adds: "You don't see
Rinaldo down at the port anymore unless he is drawn in
chalk, his sword raised high in the act of striking.
Another has usurped his place, one who with a clucking,
unpleasant voice reads the stories of don Ciccio
Mastriani, i misteri di
Napoli and il
Campanello dei Luizzi." [ed. note: the reference is to Francesco Mastriani.]
For at least four centuries one story singer after
another frequented these popular venues (4),
but perhaps Giannbattista Vico was the first man of
letters to turn his attention to the subject. He noted
"men who still read Orlando
furioso or innamorato
or other rhymed romances to amuse the large, vile
crowds of idle people, and then after reciting each
stanza, explain it all to them again in wordy prose." Vico related them to "the
'cyclic poets', ...idiots (uomini idioti) singing tales to the
common folk gathered around on the day of the festival." (5)
[ed. note: Cyclic
Poets were early Greek epic poets, approximate
contemporaries of Homer, who collectively composed and
orally transmitted the Epic Cycle, ancient Greek poems
that related the story of the Trojan War. Aside from The Odyssey and The Iliad, the cyclic
epics survive only in fragments. As noted at Homer,
Giambattista Vico was among the first to represent the
view that The Iliad
and The Odyssey
were not only not written by one
Homer, but not even by two, three or ten, but rather by
the Greek people, themselves; these epics and others were
written down only after generations of oral transmission.
Vico applied the same principle to Biblical tales and the
epics of religious literature in general. Also, Vico is
not calling the cyclic poets and cantastorie idiots in the modern sense
of the word; he is using "idiot" in the obsolete sense of
unlettered or simple. That is how "idiot" is used in
the language of the Greek New Testament, for example (Acts
4.13; 1 Corinthians 14.16). It is usually translated as
"unlearned".]
Later, in1783, Mario Pagano, a follower of Vico,
used the same example to shed light on the excitement
generated by the telling of these epic tales. "The
Neapolitan masses are absolutely mad for tales of Orlando
and Rinaldo, who managed to combine war, love, the fates
and magic spells. They get so carried away that I remember
defending one not too long who had killed a man who dared insult his hero,
Rinaldo. Homer, Virgil and Tasso provoked passion, too,
but not to those extremes." (6) It
was the first mention of the maniacal emotion that gave
rise to the term "patiti
di Rinaldo" (patute
'e Renalde in dialect) [ed. note: fans of Rinaldo]: they
could not only work themselves into a frenzy for a
knife-fight but even fall to the ground in epileptic-like
seizures. (7)
Interest in popular customs was great among travel
writers of the 1700s and continued with even greater vigor
into the age of Romanticism, such that the Neapolitan
story singer was a common feature in almost any description in both
literature and art of popular life in Naples of the day. (8) I shall limit myself, here, to a
single page of a rather rare book, Fragmens. Naples et Venise
(Paris, Laisné, 1836). It
was published anonymously but was actually written by the
countess of Montaran (9); the work
contains a lithograph image of the cantastorie.
"I move forward" she writes "into an attentive
crowd surrounding a man shabbily dressed in a threadbare
black coat. He recites, and his delivery sounds like that
of our players of old. The battles, the feats of medieval
chivalry, the enchanted princesses and wizards play an
important role in his picturesque improvisations: then he
repeats the verses of Tasso and Ariosto; lazzaroni listen
drunk with pride because these are the songs of their
national poets. [ed.
note: lazzarone/i
was a term for those of the lower classes. It comes from
"Lazzarus." Today the term is an anachronism.] I watch the men with interest;
usually brutal and indolent, here they are silent and
attentive! The improviser moves them to tears, makes them
jump for joy or swoon in terror and delight. Are there,
then, in these souls, strings that still vibrate such as
to produce emotions like these? Poetry speaks to them
aloud. Poetry among some
peoples was the daughter of Liberty; among others, she
became the mother."... (10)
We note here that vivid recitation and passion for Rinaldo also
provided the material for a beautiful noveletta by Di
Giacomo.(11) The cantastorie
were not just actors; they were also poets, and some of
our popular stories in verse, well familiar to scholars of
popular poetry, can be traced back to them. (12) Not a few these tales, even the
epic ones, were about banditry.
In around 1780 the name of the Rinaldo at the port
was Minichiello or Domenico (13);
in 1794 we find the name of Nicola Bruno. I found an Istoria at the end of
which—after Fine—we
find "Composed for your consideration: Nicola Bruno, who
sings Rinaldo."
The small pamphlet (only 4 pages) that contains
that line is entitled, "A new history of a stupendous case
involving the person of Tomaso Amato of Messina, who was
heard to speak sacrilege in a loud voice while the priest
was performing the sacred mass on the day of May 11, 1794.
He was hanged on the 17th of the same month, this current
year of 1794."
The case is well known and is also told by Colletta
[ed note: refers to Pietro Colletta] and other historians. (14) On May 11, 1794, in the church
of the Carmine, Amato, a lawyer from Messina, having
worked his way to the front of a throng of the faithful to
a point directly before the altar, started shouting, "I am
a Jacobin [ed.
note: supporter of the French revolution] for life. Long live the sacred
French Assembly! Long live liberty!" and added curses and
insults directed at God, the Virgin, the king and others.
He was arrested, tried speedily and sentenced to death.
Priests, brothers of the Bianchi [ed. note: religious order], and even the archbishop of
Naples visited him and implored him to show some signs of
contrition, all to no avail. Thus, energetically venting
his opinions, he went to his death. This Amato from
Messina might well have been the first to proclaim liberty
in Italy, as well as the first martyr in that cause, had
he not been simply a poor deranged fellow as even some of
his judges suspected and which was clear to any thoughtful
observer. Colletta says that a few days after the hasty
execution, a letter arrived in Naples from general Danero,
the governor of Messina, saying that "Amato suffered
periodic bouts of madness and a short time ago escaped
from an insane asylum." Evidently events in France caused
this poor man's brain to boil over; no one knows how or
why he wound up in Naples to wander the streets alone. But
Caroline of Austria [ed. note: queen
consort of Naples], a woman with no scruples or
moral conscience whatsoever, but with the true instincts
of a criminal, referred
to Amato in a letter of May 13, 1793; she cynically wrote
to the ambassador, the Marquis di Gallo: "I am much
obliged to him for mixing us in with divinity and
religion."! (15)
This mixture then produced a bloody and dark
manifestation of the Holy Faith in the coming years and
gave rise to these lines of the cantastorie in the introduction (also
repeated at the end) of his retelling of the episode:
Our lord, the king, rules
with his sons, with double honor,
together with our queen;
may divine grace save them all;
our eminent cardinal,
with ministers and Regent,
that they may defend
Jesus and the Holy Church.
We can draw some anecdotal details from this
version of the episode: as Amato shouted before the altar,
the first to react was a "captain from the customs
station" by the name of Nicola Scuotto. He shouted "Long
live Christian law!" and arrested Amato. Also, there are
these details of Amato's final torment:
They finally got to the market place
with this unworthy, wicked man of
unworthy, traitorous words;
they didn't take off the shackles
and he went to his death like a beast
strung up by the hangman;
they cut off his head,
pulled out the tongue
and showed it around;
they cut off his hands
and threw them down;
then along with the body
they burned it all.
Out of spite and fear,
the ashes were strewn to the wind
and the people shouted with joy:
"Praise to God and justice."
You may find elsewhere in my writings (16) two other stories in verse
composed in Naples about the events of those years: the
first is from 1793 and is about the taking of Toulon and
the Neapolitan troops that were present; the other is from
1795 and is about the battle of Capo Noli and the part it
played in the defeat of the French fleet by the Neapolitan
naval division commanded by Caracciolo. Perhaps these,
too, were verses composed by some "Rinaldo."
notes: (1) See his article: "I Rinaldi le cantastorie di
Napoli", in Nuova
antologia, 15 December 1878, pp. 557-79. ^up (2) Gano
'e Maganza, costumi napoletani, sonetti. Naples,
printed by Iride, I885. ^up (3) Rinaldo,
costumi napoletani, Naples, Pierro, 1888. ^up (4) Apparently these recitations of epic adventure
were introduced into Naples in the second half of the
1400s, at the time of Pontano, who, in his description of
one performance, though he changed the language from
medieval to ancient Roman, in the Antonius dialogue
says that the custom was a new one recently
introduced from northern Italy. ("...et hoc quoque recens a Cisalpina Gallia
allatum est.") ^up (5) Scienza nuova
seconda, 1. 111, sez. I, cap. VI (Nicolini
edition, pp. 762-63). ^up (6) "Del gusto e
delle belle arti"(1753), cap. 16, in Opere, Naples, 1845,
p. 303. Also, Vincenzo Cuoco, in his article from 1807,
noted the close comparison drawn by Vico between the
"cyclic poets" and the "rinaldists") Scritti vari, Cortese
and Nicolini, 11, 260-62. ^up (7) See, among others, Russo, in the cited preface to
his Rinaldo. ^up (8) For example, M. Lombardin, Napoli in miniatura
(Naples, 1847), p. 295; or better yet, F. de Bourcardu, Usi e costumi di Napoli,
vol. I (Naples, 1853) pp. 49-56. Both works have
engravings of the cantastorie.
^up (9) Barbier. Anonymes
3, II, 494. ^up (10) Op. cit., pp. 167-68. ^up (11) Salvatore Di Giacomo. Novelle napoletane (ed. di Milano,
Treves, 1914): the novella Per Rinaldo was certainly written before
1884. ^up (12) Winspeare, Abusi
feudali (Naples, 1811, note, pp. 107-08), speaks
of these as having been written by "the 'cyclic' poets of
the public square." ^up (13) Croce. Teatri
di Napoli 3, Bari, 1926, p. 249. ^up (14) The most recent and best informed of these is
Simioni, Le origini del
risorgimento politico nell'Italia meridionale, II
(Messina, 1929) pp.99-103. Note additional account told by
an Englishman who was present in Naples at the time: N.
Brooke, Voyage a Naples
et en Toscane (French translation, Paris, Year
VII), pp. 131-35. ^up (15) Correspondance
inédite de Marie-Caroline reine de Naples et de Sicile
avec le Marquis de Gallo, ed. Weil-di-Somma
(Paris 1911), II, 202-3.^up (16) Curiosità
storiche, 2, Napoli, Ricciardi, 1922, pp. 133-5.^up