Pescetti’s pronounced bias is discernible from the very beginning. In his dedication[89] his fulsome flattery of Alfonso does not prevent him hinting that Caesar was no lawful ruler, nor from glancing at his excessive ambition, even though he afterward, in his drama, makes little mention of the one and none of the other. But perhaps most significant of his own feelings are the words he puts into the mouth of the Chorus of Citizens in his last act. The chorus sings the praises of Brutus in a manner which makes the immediately following praise of Caesar by the soldiers pale in comparison:
_Coro di Cittadini_: . . . . . . . O magnanimo Bruto, Vera stirpe di lui, Che cacciò i Rè, ch’uccise i figli sui: O vero Rè, ch’i regni Non pur sprezzi, ma spegni, Et, ucciso il Tiranno, Torni la libertà nel proprio scanno; Qual premio possiam darti Al tuo valor condegno? Qual lingua, qual ingegno È bastante a lodarti, Quanto se’ degno? O quanto sdegno Hò, che ’l mio stile Non giunga al segno Delle tuo lodi, ond’ io Portar potessi, al mio Desir conforme, il tuo nome gentile Dall’ aureo Gange alla rimota Tile. Dov’ è, dov’ è la Tromba Ond’ Achille, et Ulisse ancor rimbomba? Che con sonoro canto Celebri in ogni canto Il generoso, e pio Fatto, e tolga di mano al cieco oblio.—Pp. 140–141.
It is difficult to consider these utterances as impersonal. Such is Pescetti’s admiration for the assassin of Caesar that he speaks in his own person, apparently forgetting in his enthusiasm that he has assigned the words to the Chorus of Citizens.[90] A further remove from Dante’s conception of Brutus can hardly be imagined.
Such an exhibition of partiality could not have been lost on Shakespeare. Such an emphasis of Plutarch’s attitude could not have failed to confirm the favorable impression which he gathered from the biographer. Nor could Shakespeare, in those scenes in “Cesare” wherein Pescetti attempts to exhibit Brutus in action, have gathered any hints to shake the final opinion in his own play:
“This was the noblest Roman of them all.”
Like Shakespeare, Pescetti very carefully eliminates from his characterization anything which might reflect unfavorably upon the moral character of the protagonist. We hear nothing of his positive moral defects; of his divorce, of his rivalry with Cassius for offices within the gift of the Dictator, nor of his many obligations to Caesar. All is discreetly passed over. Whatever Pescetti’s intentions, he probably found it a dramatic necessity to exclude them, much for the same reason that Shakespeare, in all likelihood influenced by his example, was led to ignore them. Possibly it was the Italian’s purpose to portray the fruitless struggle of a hopeless, though noble and virtuous Republicanism against a condition of affairs whose existence had been preordained by the gods, and against which all the forces of an outraged idealism could not prevail. The mortal embodiment of this power might fall; a place was ready for him with the gods, while Tartarus enlarged its bounds to compass his foes.[91]