CASTI, Giambattista, an Italian poet, was born of humble parents in the year 1721, at Montefiascone, a small town in the States of the Church. It was there, too, that he commenced his studies, in which he made such rapid progress that he was appointed in early youth a professor of Greek and Latin in an academy of his native town; an employment which peculiarly directed his attention to classical poetry and literature. He soon, however, quitted this obscure situation, and repaired to Rome in search of more noble examples of emulation, and a higher recompense of public esteem, than his birth-place afforded him. His learning, acuteness, and agreeable disposition, recommended him to the notice and friendship of the most eminent individuals of that capital. He was admitted a member of the academy Degli Arcadi ; and it is believed he might easily have risen from a canonship in the cathedral of Montefiascone, which he had already obtained, to the enjoyment of much higher church benefices, had such been the chief objects of his ambition. But his love of freedom, and his restless inclination for travelling, which appears to have been characteristic of all the literary men of Italy, interfered with his ecclesiastical preferment. He gladly accepted the invitation of Prince Rosenberg (tutor to the Grand Duke Leopold), with whom he had become acquainted at Florence, to accompany him to Vienna, where he was presented to the Emperor Joseph. After this introduction, he visited almost all the capitals of Europe, from Petersburg to Lisbon, and from Constantinople to Stockholm, directing his particular attention to the manners and civil institutions of the various countries through which he passed. On his return to Vienna he was appointed Poeta Cesario or poet-laureate, in the room of Metastasio; a situation which he held till some time after the death of the Emperor Leopold, when he resigned it, and retired to Florence in 1796. During two years’ residence in that city, he composed a great number of his works. At the end of that period he went to live in Paris; and though now far advanced in life, neither his habitual gaiety nor the ardour of literary composition were in any degree abated. Scarcely a day passed in which he did not add something to his principal poem Gli Animali Parianti, [7:6:228]or write one of his poetical novels. At the same time he delighted the society with which he lived by the unceasing liveliness of his conversation, which was rendered highly entertaining and interesting by his knowledge of the world, and the extensive opportunities he had possessed of observing the manners and characters of mankind. Though in 1803 he had passed the age of eighty-two, the strength both of his mind and body still afforded the promise of a yet longer life; but he died during this year, in consequence of having caught a severe cold in returning home at a late hour from a house where he had spent the evening. His funeral was attended by a great concourse of French and Italians, distinguished by literary eminence; and an eloquent funeral oration was pronounced on this occasion, by Corona, an Italian physician.

The chief work of Casti is Gli Animali Parianti, Poema Epico Diviso in XXVI. Canti. In 1792 and 1793 the French revolution had attracted the attention and speculations of all Europe, and had introduced comparisons between new theories of government and ancient institutions. The rage of innovation, and dislike of established forms, having infected the minds of so large a proportion of the community, Casti resolved to exhibit, though under an allegorical veil, what he conceived to be the predominant feelings of the multitude, their avowed hopes, and secret designs. With this view, as he himself has expressed it in his preface, “he contrived a grand apologue, divided into parts, and forming a continued poem, in which animals being introduced as speakers and actors, a complete political story might be exhibited, exposing the defects of various political systems, and the absurdity of many institutions which had been from timeto time adopted.” Near the commencement of this apologue the beasts assemble to choose a king, and, after a good deal of intrigue and various harangues, the lion is elected. On his death, the folly of the lioness regent, and perversity of the royal cub, excite murmurs, cabals, and at length a successful insurrection, which is headed by the dog. By thus assigning to animals human speech and passions, the author has very happily parodied the usual appearances and events of political revolutions in general, but often with some allusion to the political events of the day, to the characters of the reigning princes of Europe, and to that most portentous of all revolutions, the consequences of which at the time occupied so large a portion of the thoughts of mankind.

Accordingly, we find that in this work Casti has portrayed and satirized the hypocrisy so often mixed in political pretensions; the secret ambition of leaders who alternately supplant and succeed each other; the intolerance of cabals and parties, who proscribe all who have not ranged themselves under their banners, and who regard the maxims which happen to be then in vogue as fixed and immutable principles. He has represented with peculiar felicity the democratic declamations of the dog once so loyal, the aristocratic surliness of the bear, the simple good-nature of Lion I., and the caprices of his cub Lion II., who is obviously intended for a late czar of Muscovy. It must, however, be confessed, that the pleasantry of an apologue of twenty-six cantos, each of about 600 lines, is too much prolonged; and the too frequent negligence of the style, with the repetition of trivial and obvious morals, like those at the bottom of the page in the English Aesops Fables, do not aid in sustaining the curiosity or interest.

This work of Casti, which raised him to a very high rank among the modern poets of his country, was begun at Vienna in 1794. His situation, however, as poet-laureate, was unfavourable to the freedom of political satire, and this obstacle to his favourite pursuit may have been one inducement to his resignation of that office. After his retirement, the poem was continued at Florence without interruption, and completed at Paris, where it was published in 1802, in 3 vols. 8vo; an impression which has been followed by various editions in Italy. It was translated into French, Spanish, and German, and we have also seen a free and abridged English version, executed with considerable vivacity and spirit. To most of the Italian editions four apologues have been added; but these have no relation to the subject of the Animali Parlanti. One of them, entitled Della Gatta e del Topo, written, we believe, before the author was poet-laureate, and published certainly after he had resigned that situation, is supposed to portray those sinister events which clouded the prospects of aggrandizement anticipated by Joseph from his formidable league with Russia against the Turks.

Casti having completed his great work of the Anirnali Parianti, anew directed his attention to the composition and publication of poetical novels. As far back as the year 1778 he had written eighteen of these Novelle Culanti, but his poetical avocations at the imperial court had interrupted his progress; and meanwhile those which he had composed were surreptitiously printed, both in Italy and France, in a manner so inaccurate, and so much altered from the way in which they had been originally written, that they could scarcely be recognised by the author, as we learn from the Protesta dell Autore.
Molti vi son che senza mio permesso
Sparser le mie novelle, e v’han cangiato
Ordine, senso, e versi, e strofe; e spesso
Mi fan dir cio che non ho mai pensato,
Che appena ornai mi vi conosco io stesso.

Some, too, as La Bella Circassa, and La Figlia che non ha Giudizio, which were not written by Casti, were added to these surreptitious publications:
Saran belle e leggiadre poesie,
Tutto quel che si vuol; ma non son mie.

In these circumstances, the injured poet assiduously prepared himself to enlarge the number of his novels, and to collect the whole in an edition which might be printed under his own immediate superintendence. He was prevented, however, by his sudden death; but his novels, which, at the period of his decease, amounted to forty-eight, were published by one of his Parisian friends, in 3 vols. 8vo, 1804, accompanied by a prefatory memoir of the author. The practice of tale-writing, which commenced with the author of the Cento Novelle Anticlie, and was brought to such perfection by Boccaccio, had prevailed in Italy for nearly five hundred years before the age of Casti. The Italian novelists invariably copied from each other, and from those inexhaustible stores of fiction, the Fabliaux of the Trouveurs. But the merit of Casti does not consist in the invention of his stories, all of which are borrowed, but in being the first among his countrymen who has clothed these tales in a poetical garb. His novels are founded either on mythological stories, or on preceding Italian tales. To the first class belong Aurora, E Origine di Homa, Diana ed Endimione, Pľometeo e Pandora. Almost all the rest are poetical versions from Boccaccio, Mas-succio di Salerno, and other Italian novelists. The longest, La Papessa, which is divided into three parts, is founded on the old story of Pope Joan. These tales are much admired by the Italians for purity of language and harmony of versification, and they contain many ingenious and sarcastic reflections on the hypocrisy, errors, and vices of men in every age and condition of life. They are disfigured, however, by an unpardonable licentiousness, which is carried much farther than that of almost any of the prior novelists of Italy. Some of them also terminate rather flatly, and the octave stanza, in which they are all written, [7:6:229]and which has a certain degree of heaviness, even in the hands of Ariosto and Berni, is ill adapted to the gaiety and levity of the lightest of all species of composition. One cannot mention the tales of Casti without being naturally led to compare them with those of Fontaine, which are founded on similar originals, and written in something of the same spirit. But, if there be more asperity and caustic raillery in Casti, he is infinitely inferior to the French poet in case, naivete, and grace. The language in which he was obliged to write, whatever may be its other excellencies, is less expressive of playfulness than the French; and the octave stanza, which he unfortunately chose, is not susceptible of the buoyancy and lightness of Fontaine’s versification.

The Animali Parianti and the Novelle are the best known and most popular works of Casti; but he is also author of the Poema Tartaro, a satiric poem, in twelve cantos, on the court of Catherine II. The scene of action, however, is laid in Asia, and all the names are fictitious. Russia is called Mogollia; St Petersburg, Caracora; the Empress, Cattuna; the Grand Duke Paul, afterwards Czar, Cajucco; Orloff, Cuslucco; and Potemkin, Toto Toctabei. The first sketch of this mock heroic poem was made by the author during his visit to St Petersburg, in the train of Count Kaunitz, the Austrian ambassador. On his return to Vienna, the Emperor Joseph having manifested a desire to hear it read, Casti new-modelled the composition, struck out whatever might be likely to prove offensive to crowned heads in general, and inserted a complimentary episode on the celebrated journey of his imperial patron into the Crimea. Notwithstanding the approbation which his poem met with from the Austrian court, Casti would not probably have published it during the life of the heroine; but numerous manuscripts of it having been circulated, some of them found their way to Italy, where it was repeatedly but very incorrectly printed, none of the impressions having ever been subjected to the revisal of the author.

In his capacity of poet-laureate, it was the duty of Casti to provide new dramatic entertainments at stated occasions and periods. The court and public of Vienna had probably grown weary, in the course of half a century, of the elegant moral monotony of Metastasio; and Casti, whose genius was diametrically opposite to that of his predecessor, could not have vied with him in the grand or serious opera. He therefore resolved to excite the mirth of the spectators by the revival of the Opera Buffa, in which he obtained great success. One of his productions in this line, entitled La Grata di Trofonio, is intended to ridicule the pretensions of false philosophers. The subject of another, Il lie Teodora in Venezia, suggested by an episode in Voltaire’s Candide, was assigned to him by the emperor himself, who is said to have been much entertained with the lines
Senza soldi e senza regno
Brutta cosa è l’esser Re.

A third burlesque opera, of which Cicero is the principal character, is founded on the plot of Catiline. Here the characters of the Roman senators and conspirators, with the orations against Catiline, are so parodied as to produce something of the same effect as our mock tragedies, or the ancient satiric drama of the Greeks.

On the whole, although neither the novel nor the apologue was by any means a new species of composition among the Italians, yet Casti may be regarded as an original author, in so far as he has bestowed a new form on the first, and has given to the second an extent which it had not yet received, as well as directed it to an object to which it had not been previously applied. (q.)