This language -- loved, tended, and trained to every use -- now served as the basis of social intercourse. In northern countries, the nobles and the princes passed their leisure either in solitude, or in hunting, fighting, drinking, and the like; the burghers in games and bodily exercises, with a mixture of literary or festive amusements. In Italy there existed a neutral ground, where people of every origin, if they had the needful talent and culture, spent their time in conversation change of jest and earnest. As eating small part of such entertainments, it not difficult to keep at a distance those who sought society for these objects. If we are to take the writers of dialogues literally, the loftiest problems of human existence were not excluded from the conversation of thinking men, and the production of noble thoughts was not, as was commonly the case in the North, the work of solitude, but of society. But we must here limit ourselves to the less serious side of social intercourse -- to the side which existed only for the sake of amusement.
The Civilization of the Renaissance in Italy
by Jacob Burckhardt
Part Five: Society and Festivals
Chapter 3 - Language and Society: 1 2 3
Chapter 2 <<< Contents >>> Chapter 4
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