d’ Este.  In 1508 the carnival shows at Ferrara included three eclogues, the work respectively of Ercolo Pio, Antonio dall’ Ongano. and Antonio Tebaldeo[383].  At Venice we have note of similar performances, and even find ecloghe mentioned among the forms of dramatic spectacle recognized by the laws of the state.  I may also call attention in this connexion, and as illustrating the habituai introduction of acted eclogues in all forms of festival, to the occurrence of such a performance in a chivalrous romance by Cassio da Narni, entitled La morte del Danese[384].  The piece is, however, of the most primitive form, and must not be taken as typical of its date, just as the masques introduced into the plays of the Elizabethan drama are commonly of a far simpler order than actually represented at court.  It may also not improbably have been influenced by the more popular form of rustic shows, as its description as a ‘festa in atti rusticali’ would seem to indicate.

Meanwhile the rustic eclogue was developing upon lines of its own, though rather in arrear of the courtly variety.  In 1508 we find a piece in terza rima, exhibiting traces of Paduan dialect, composed or transcribed by one Cesare Nappi of Bologna, in which no less than fourteen ‘villani’ appear with their sweethearts to honour the feast of San Pancrazio[385].  Eating and dancing form the mainstay of the composition, and since the female characters are described but do not speak, it may be questioned whether the piece was intended for representation.  Not till five years later have we any evidence of a rustic eclogue forming part of an actual show.  In 1513, Giuliano de’ Medici was at Rome, and in the entertainment provided at the Capitol on the occasion of his receiving the freedom of the city was included an eclogue by a certain ‘Blosio,’ otherwise Biagio Pallai delia Sabina, of the Roman Academy.  The argument alone has come down to us.  A rustic, who has first suffered at the hands of the foreign soldiers then overrunning Italy, and has afterwards been plundered by the sharper citizens of Rome, meets a friend with whom it has fared similarly, and the two determine to seek justice of the Conservators, as a last chance before retiring to live among the Turks, since a man may not abide in peace in a Christian land.  They find the Capitol en fete, and the piece ends with a song in praise of Giuliano and Leo X[386].  Of the same year is the ’Egloga pastorale di Justitia,’ the earliest extant specimen of the rustic dramatic eclogue proper.  It is a satirical piece concerning a countryman, who fails to obtain justice because he is poor.  He at last appeals to the king himself, but is again repulsed because he is accompanied by Truth in place of Adulation[387].  This form of composition, recalling as it does the allegories of Langland and other satirists of the middle ages, differs widely from that usually found in the courtly eclogues, nor is it typical of rustic representations.