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diff --git a/.gitattributes b/.gitattributes new file mode 100644 index 0000000..6833f05 --- /dev/null +++ b/.gitattributes @@ -0,0 +1,3 @@ +* text=auto +*.txt text +*.md text diff --git a/14634-0.txt b/14634-0.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..8d4c0eb --- /dev/null +++ b/14634-0.txt @@ -0,0 +1,12120 @@ +*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 14634 *** + +SKETCHES AND STUDIES IN ITALY AND GREECE + + + + + + +BY JOHN ADDINGTON SYMONDS + + +AUTHOR OF "RENAISSANCE IN ITALY" "STUDIES OF THE GREEK POETS," ETC + + + + + + +SECOND SERIES + +LONDON JOHN MURRAY, ALBEMARLE STREET, W. + +1914 + +_All rights reserved_ + + + + + FIRST EDITION (_Smith, Elder & Co._) _October, 1898_ + _Reprinted_ _May, 1900_ + _Reprinted_ _June, 1902_ + _Reprinted_ _November, 1905_ + _Reprinted_ _December, 1907_ + _Reprinted_ _February, 1914_ + _Taken over by John Murray_ _January, 1917_ + + + +_Printed in Great Britain at_ THE BALLANTYNE PRESS _by_ SPOTTISWOODE, +BALLANTYNE & Co. LTD. _Colchester, London & Eton_ + + + + +CONTENTS + + PAGE + + RAVENNA 1 + RIMINI 14 + MAY IN UMBRIA 32 + THE PALACE OF URBINO 50 + VITTORIA ACCORAMBONI 88 + AUTUMN WANDERINGS 127 + PARMA 147 + CANOSSA 163 + FORNOVO 180 + FLORENCE AND THE MEDICI 201 + THE DEBT OF ENGLISH TO ITALIAN LITERATURE 258 + POPULAR SONGS OF TUSCANY 276 + POPULAR ITALIAN POETRY OF THE RENAISSANCE 305 + THE 'ORFEO' OF POLIZIANO 345 + EIGHT SONNETS OF PETRARCH 365 + + + + + + + +SKETCHES AND STUDIES IN ITALY AND GREECE + + + + +_RAVENNA_ + + +The Emperor Augustus chose Ravenna for one of his two naval stations, +and in course of time a new city arose by the sea-shore, which +received the name of Portus Classis. Between this harbour and the +mother city a third town sprang up, and was called Cæsarea. Time and +neglect, the ravages of war, and the encroaching powers of Nature have +destroyed these settlements, and nothing now remains of the three +cities but Ravenna. It would seem that in classical times Ravenna +stood, like modern Venice, in the centre of a huge lagune, the fresh +waters of the Ronco and the Po mixing with the salt waves of the +Adriatic round its very walls. The houses of the city were built on +piles; canals instead of streets formed the means of communication, +and these were always filled with water artificially conducted from +the southern estuary of the Po. Round Ravenna extended a vast morass, +for the most part under shallow water, but rising at intervals into +low islands like the Lido or Murano or Torcello which surround Venice. +These islands were celebrated for their fertility: the vines and +fig-trees and pomegranates, springing from a fat and fruitful soil, +watered with constant moisture, and fostered by a mild sea-wind and +liberal sunshine, yielded crops that for luxuriance and quality +surpassed the harvests of any orchards on the mainland. All the +conditions of life in old Ravenna seem to have resembled those of +modern Venice; the people went about in gondolas, and in the early +morning barges laden with fresh fruit or meat and vegetables flocked +from all quarters to the city of the sea.[1] Water also had to be +procured from the neighbouring shore, for, as Martial says, a well at +Ravenna was more valuable than a vineyard. Again, between the city and +the mainland ran a long low causeway all across the lagune like that +on which the trains now glide into Venice. Strange to say, the air of +Ravenna was remarkably salubrious: this fact, and the ease of life +that prevailed there, and the security afforded by the situation of +the town, rendered it a most desirable retreat for the monarchs of +Italy during those troublous times in which the empire nodded to its +fall. Honorius retired to its lagunes for safety; Odoacer, who +dethroned the last Cæsar of the West, succeeded him; and was in turn, +supplanted by Theodoric the Ostrogoth. Ravenna, as we see it now, +recalls the peaceful and half-Roman rule of the great Gothic king. His +palace, his churches, and the mausoleums in which his daughter +Amalasuntha laid the hero's bones, have survived the sieges of +Belisarius and Astolphus, the conquest of Pepin, the bloody quarrels +of Iconoclasts with the children of the Roman Church, the mediæval +wars of Italy, the victory of Gaston de Foix, and still stand gorgeous +with marbles and mosaics in spite of time and the decay of all around +them. + +As early as the sixth century, the sea had already retreated to such a +distance from Ravenna that orchards and gardens were cultivated on +the spot where once the galleys of the Cæsars rode at anchor. Groves +of pines sprang up along the shore, and in their lofty tops the music +of the wind moved like the ghost of waves and breakers plunging upon +distant sands. This Pinetum stretches along the shore of the Adriatic +for about forty miles, forming a belt of variable width between the +great marsh and the tumbling sea. From a distance the bare stems and +velvet crowns of the pine-trees stand up like palms that cover an +oasis on Arabian sands; but at a nearer view the trunks detach +themselves from an inferior forest-growth of juniper and thorn and ash +and oak, the tall roofs of the stately firs shooting their breadth of +sheltering greenery above the lower and less sturdy brushwood. It is +hardly possible to imagine a more beautiful and impressive scene than +that presented by these long alleys of imperial pines. They grow so +thickly one behind another, that we might compare them to the pipes of +a great organ, or the pillars of a Gothic church, or the basaltic +columns of the Giant's Causeway. Their tops are evergreen and laden +with the heavy cones, from which Ravenna draws considerable wealth. +Scores of peasants are quartered on the outskirts of the forest, whose +business it is to scale the pines and rob them of their fruit at +certain seasons of the year. Afterwards they dry the fir-cones in the +sun, until the nuts which they contain fall out. The empty husks are +sold for firewood, and the kernels in their stony shells reserved for +exportation. You may see the peasants, men, women, and boys, sorting +them by millions, drying and sifting them upon the open spaces of the +wood, and packing them in sacks to send abroad through Italy. The +_pinocchi_ or kernels of the stone-pine are largely used in cookery, +and those of Ravenna are prized for their good quality and aromatic +flavour. When roasted or pounded, they taste like a softer and more +mealy kind of almonds. The task of gathering this harvest is not a +little dangerous. Men have to cut notches in the straight shafts, and +having climbed, often to the height of eighty feet, to lean upon the +branches, and detach the fir-cones with a pole--and this for every +tree. Some lives, they say, are yearly lost in the business. + +As may be imagined, the spaces of this great forest form the haunt of +innumerable living creatures. Lizards run about by myriads in the +grass. Doves coo among the branches of the pines, and nightingales +pour their full-throated music all day and night from thickets of +white-thorn and acacia. The air is sweet with aromatic scents: the +resin of the pine and juniper, the mayflowers and acacia-blossoms, the +violets that spring by thousands in the moss, the wild roses and faint +honeysuckles which throw fragrant arms from bough to bough of ash or +maple, join to make one most delicious perfume. And though the air +upon the neighbouring marsh is poisonous, here it is dry, and spreads +a genial health. The sea-wind murmuring through these thickets at +nightfall or misty sunrise, conveys no fever to the peasants stretched +among their flowers. They watch the red rays of sunset flaming through +the columns of the leafy hall, and flaring on its fretted rafters of +entangled boughs; they see the stars come out, and Hesper gleam, an +eye of brightness, among dewy branches; the moon walks silver-footed +on the velvet tree-tops, while they sleep beside the camp-fires; fresh +morning wakes them to the sound of birds and scent of thyme and +twinkling of dewdrops on the grass around. Meanwhile ague, fever, and +death have been stalking all night long about the plain, within a few +yards of their couch, and not one pestilential breath has reached the +charmed precincts of the forest. + +You may ride or drive for miles along green aisles between the pines +in perfect solitude; and yet the creatures of the wood, the sunlight +and the birds, the flowers and tall majestic columns at your side, +prevent all sense of loneliness or fear. Huge oxen haunt the +wilderness--grey creatures, with mild eyes and spreading horns and +stealthy tread. Some are patriarchs of the forest, the fathers and +the mothers of many generations who have been carried from their sides +to serve in ploughs or waggons on the Lombard plain. Others are +yearling calves, intractable and ignorant of labour. In order to +subdue them to the yoke, it is requisite to take them very early from +their native glades, or else they chafe and pine away with weariness. +Then there is a sullen canal, which flows through the forest from the +marshes to the sea; it is alive with frogs and newts and snakes. You +may see these serpents basking on the surface among thickets of the +flowering rush, or coiled about the lily leaves and flowers--lithe +monsters, slippery and speckled, the tyrants of the fen. + +It is said that when Dante was living at Ravenna he would spend whole +days alone among the forest glades, thinking of Florence and her civil +wars, and meditating cantos of his poem. Nor have the influences of +the pine-wood failed to leave their trace upon his verse. The charm of +its summer solitude seems to have sunk into his soul; for when he +describes the whispering of winds and singing birds among the boughs +of his terrestrial paradise, he says:-- + + Non però dal lor esser dritto sparte + Tanto, che gli augelletti per le cime + Lasciasser d' operare ogni lor arte: + Ma con piena letizia l' aure prime, + Cantando, ricevano intra le foglie, + Che tenevan bordone alle sue rime + Tal, qual di ramo in ramo si raccoglie + Per la pineta in sul lito di Chiassi + Quand' Eolo Scirocco fuor discioglie. + +With these verses in our minds, while wandering down the grassy +aisles, beside the waters of the solitary place, we seem to meet that +lady singing as she went, and plucking flower by flower, 'like +Proserpine when Ceres lost a daughter, and she lost her spring.' +There, too, the vision of the griffin and the car, of singing +maidens, and of Beatrice descending to the sound of Benedictus and of +falling flowers, her flaming robe and mantle green as grass, and veil +of white, and olive crown, all flashed upon the poet's inner eye, and +he remembered how he bowed before her when a boy. There is yet another +passage in which it is difficult to believe that Dante had not the +pine-forest in his mind. When Virgil and the poet were waiting in +anxiety before the gates of Dis, when the Furies on the wall were +tearing their breasts and crying, 'Venga Medusa, e si 'l farem di +smalto,' suddenly across the hideous river came a sound like that +which whirlwinds make among the shattered branches and bruised stems +of forest-trees; and Dante, looking out with fear upon the foam and +spray and vapour of the flood, saw thousands of the damned flying +before the face of one who forded Styx with feet unwet. 'Like frogs,' +he says, 'they fled, who scurry through the water at the sight of +their foe, the serpent, till each squats and hides himself close to +the ground.' The picture of the storm among the trees might well have +occurred to Dante's mind beneath the roof of pine-boughs. Nor is there +any place in which the simile of the frogs and water-snake attains +such dignity and grandeur. I must confess that till I saw the ponds +and marshes of Ravenna, I used to fancy that the comparison was +somewhat below the greatness of the subject; but there so grave a note +of solemnity and desolation is struck, the scale of Nature is so +large, and the serpents coiling in and out among the lily leaves and +flowers are so much in their right place, that they suggest a scene by +no means unworthy of Dante's conception. + +Nor is Dante the only singer who has invested this wood with poetical +associations. It is well known that Boccaccio laid his story of +'Honoria' in the pine-forest, and every student of English literature +must be familiar with the noble tale in verse which Dryden has founded +on this part of the 'Decameron.' We all of us have followed Theodore, +and watched with him the tempest swelling in the grove, and seen the +hapless ghost pursued by demon hounds and hunter down the glades. This +story should be read while storms are gathering upon the distant sea, +or thunderclouds descending from the Apennines, and when the pines +begin to rock and surge beneath the stress of labouring winds. Then +runs the sudden flash of lightning like a rapier through the boughs, +the rain streams hissing down, and the thunder 'breaks like a whole +sea overhead.' + +With the Pinetum the name of Byron will be for ever associated. During +his two years' residence in Ravenna he used to haunt its wilderness, +riding alone or in the company of friends. The inscription placed +above the entrance to the house he occupied alludes to it as one of +the objects which principally attracted the poet to the neighbourhood +of Ravenna: 'Impaziente di visitare l' antica selva, che inspirò già +il Divino e Giovanni Boccaccio.' We know, however, that a more +powerful attraction, in the person of the Countess Guiccioli, +maintained his fidelity to 'that place of old renown, once in the +Adrian Sea, Ravenna.' + +Between the Bosco, as the people of Ravenna call this pine-wood, and +the city, the marsh stretches for a distance of about three miles. It +is a plain intersected by dykes and ditches, and mapped out into +innumerable rice-fields. For more than half a year it lies under +water, and during the other months exhales a pestilential vapour, +which renders it as uninhabitable as the Roman Campagna; yet in +springtime this dreary flat is even beautiful. The young blades of the +rice shoot up above the water, delicately green and tender. The +ditches are lined with flowering rush and golden flags, while white +and yellow lilies sleep in myriads upon the silent pools. Tamarisks +wave their pink and silver tresses by the road, and wherever a plot of +mossy earth emerges from the marsh, it gleams with purple orchises and +flaming marigolds; but the soil beneath is so treacherous and spongy, +that these splendid blossoms grow like flowers in dreams or fairy +stories. You try in vain to pick them; they elude your grasp, and +flourish in security beyond the reach of arm or stick. + +Such is the sight of the old town of Classis. Not a vestige of the +Roman city remains, not a dwelling or a ruined tower, nothing but the +ancient church of S. Apollinare in Classe. Of all desolate buildings +this is the most desolate. Not even the deserted grandeur of S. Paolo +beyond the walls of Rome can equal it. Its bare round campanile gazes +at the sky, which here vaults only sea and plain--a perfect dome, +star-spangled like the roof of Galla Placidia's tomb. Ravenna lies low +to west, the pine-wood stretches away in long monotony to east. There +is nothing else to be seen except the spreading marsh, bounded by dim +snowy Alps and purple Apennines, so very far away that the level rack +of summer clouds seem more attainable and real. What sunsets and +sunrises that tower must see; what glaring lurid afterglows in August, +when the red light scowls upon the pestilential fen; what sheets of +sullen vapour rolling over it in autumn; what breathless heats, and +rainclouds big with thunder; what silences; what unimpeded blasts of +winter winds! One old monk tends this deserted spot. He has the huge +church, with its echoing aisles and marble columns and giddy +bell-tower and cloistered corridors, all to himself. At rare +intervals, priests from Ravenna come to sing some special mass at +these cold altars; pious folk make vows to pray upon their mouldy +steps and kiss the relics which are shown on great occasions. But no +one stays; they hurry, after muttering their prayers, from the +fever-stricken spot, reserving their domestic pieties and customary +devotions for the brighter and newer chapels of the fashionable +churches in Ravenna. So the old monk is left alone to sweep the marsh +water from his church floor, and to keep the green moss from growing +too thickly on its monuments. A clammy conferva covers everything +except the mosaics upon tribune, roof, and clerestory, which defy the +course of age. Christ on His throne _sedet aternumque sedebit_: the +saints around him glitter with their pitiless uncompromising eyes and +wooden gestures, as if twelve centuries had not passed over them, and +they were nightmares only dreamed last night, and rooted in a sick +man's memory. For those gaunt and solemn forms there is no change of +life or end of days. No fever touches them; no dampness of the wind +and rain loosens their firm cement. They stare with senseless faces in +bitter mockery of men who live and die and moulder away beneath. Their +poor old guardian told us it was a weary life. He has had the fever +three times, and does not hope to survive many more Septembers. The +very water that he drinks is brought him from Ravenna; for the vast +fen, though it pours its overflow upon the church floor, and spreads +like a lake around, is death to drink. The monk had a gentle woman's +voice and mild brown eyes. What terrible crime had consigned him to +this living tomb? For what past sorrow is he weary of his life? What +anguish of remorse has driven him to such a solitude? Yet he looked +simple and placid; his melancholy was subdued and calm, as if life +were over for him, and he were waiting for death to come with a +friend's greeting upon noiseless wings some summer night across the +fen-lands in a cloud of soft destructive fever-mist. + +Another monument upon the plain is worthy of a visit. It is the +so-called Colonna dei Francesi, a _cinquecento_ pillar of Ionic +design, erected on the spot where Gaston de Foix expired victorious +after one of the bloodiest battles ever fought. The Ronco, a straight +sluggish stream, flows by the lonely spot; mason bees have covered +with laborious stucco-work the scrolls and leafage of its ornaments, +confounding epitaphs and trophies under their mud houses. A few +cypress-trees stand round it, and the dogs and chickens of a +neighbouring farmyard make it their rendezvous. Those mason bees are +like posterity, which settles down upon the ruins of a Baalbec or a +Luxor, setting up its tents, and filling the fair spaces of Hellenic +or Egyptian temples with clay hovels. Nothing differs but the scale; +and while the bees content themselves with filling up and covering, +man destroys the silent places of the past which he appropriates. + +In Ravenna itself, perhaps what strikes us most is the abrupt +transition everywhere discernible from monuments of vast antiquity to +buildings of quite modern date. There seems to be no interval between +the marbles and mosaics of Justinian or Theodoric and the +insignificant frippery of the last century. The churches of +Ravenna--S. Vitale, S. Apollinare, and the rest--are too well known, +and have been too often described by enthusiastic antiquaries, to need +a detailed notice in this place. Every one is aware that the +ecclesiastical customs and architecture of the early Church can be +studied in greater perfection here than elsewhere. Not even the +basilicas and mosaics of Rome, nor those of Palermo and Monreale, are +equal for historical interest to those of Ravenna. Yet there is not +one single church which remains entirely unaltered and unspoiled. The +imagination has to supply the atrium or outer portico from one +building, the vaulted baptistery with its marble font from another, +the pulpits and ambones from a third the tribune from a fourth, the +round brick bell-tower from a fifth, and then to cover all the concave +roofs and chapel walls with grave and glittering mosaics. + +There is nothing more beautiful in decorative art than the mosaics of +such tiny buildings as the tomb of Galla Placidia or the chapel of the +Bishop's Palace. They are like jewelled and enamelled cases; not an +inch of wall can be seen which is not covered with elaborate patterns +of the brightest colours. Tall date-palms spring from the floor with +fruit and birds among their branches, and between them stand the +pillars and apostles of the Church. In the spandrels and lunettes +above the arches and the windows angels fly with white extended wings. +On every vacant place are scrolls and arabesques of foliage,--birds +and beasts, doves drinking from the vase, and peacocks spreading +gorgeous plumes--a maze of green and gold and blue. Overhead, the +vault is powdered with stars gleaming upon the deepest azure, and in +the midst is set an aureole embracing the majestic head of Christ, or +else the symbol of the sacred fish, or the hand of the Creator +pointing from a cloud. In Galla Placidia's tomb these storied vaults +spring above the sarcophagi of empresses and emperors, each lying in +the place where he was laid more than twelve centuries ago. The light +which struggles through the narrow windows serves to harmonise the +brilliant hues and make a gorgeous gloom. + +Besides these more general and decorative subjects, many of the +churches are adorned with historical mosaics, setting forth the Bible +narrative or incidents from the life of Christian emperors and kings. +In S. Apollinare Nuovo there is a most interesting treble series of +such mosaics extending over both walls of the nave. On the left hand, +as we enter, we see the town of Classis; on the right the palace of +Theodoric, its doors and loggie rich with curtains, and its friezes +blazing with coloured ornaments. From the city gate of Classis virgins +issue, and proceed in a long line until they reach Madonna seated on a +throne, with Christ upon her knees, and the three kings in adoration +at her feet. From Theodoric's palace door a similar procession of +saints and martyrs carry us to Christ surrounded by archangels. Above +this double row of saints and virgins stand the fathers and prophets +of the Church, and highest underneath the roof are pictures from the +life of our Lord. It will be remembered in connection with these +subjects that the women sat upon the left and the men upon the right +side of the church. Above the tribune, at the east end of the church, +it was customary to represent the Creative Hand, or the monogram of +the Saviour, or the head of Christ with the letters A and [Greek Ô]. +Moses and Elijah frequently stand on either side to symbolise the +transfiguration, while the saints and bishops specially connected with +the church appeared upon a lower row. Then on the side walls were +depicted such subjects as Justinian and Theodora among their +courtiers, or the grant of the privileges of the church to its first +founder from imperial patrons, with symbols of the old Hebraic +ritual--Abel's lamb, the sacrifice of Isaac, Melchisedec's offering of +bread and wine,--which were regarded as the types of Christian +ceremonies. The baptistery was adorned with appropriate mosaics +representing Christ's baptism in Jordan. + +Generally speaking, one is struck with the dignity of these designs, +and especially with the combined majesty and sweetness of the face of +Christ. The sense for harmony of hue displayed in their composition is +marvellous. It would be curious to trace in detail the remnants of +classical treatment which may be discerned--Jordan, for instance, +pours his water from an urn like a river-god crowned with sedge--or to +show what points of ecclesiastical tradition are established these +ancient monuments. We find Mariolatry already imminent, the names of +the three kings, Kaspar, Melchior, and Balthazar, the four evangelists +as we now recognise them, and many of the rites and vestments which +Ritualists of all denominations regard with superstitious reverence. + +There are two sepulchral monuments in Ravenna which cannot be passed +over unnoticed. The one is that of Theodoric the Goth, crowned by its +semisphere of solid stone, a mighty tomb, well worthy of the conqueror +and king. It stands in a green field, surrounded by acacias, where the +nightingales sing ceaselessly in May. The mason bees have covered it, +and the water has invaded its sepulchral vaults. In spite of many +trials, it seems that human art is unable to pump out the pond and +clear the frogs and efts from the chamber where the great Goth was +laid by Amalasuntha. + +The other is Dante's temple, with its basrelief and withered garlands. +The story of his burial, and of the discovery of his real tomb, is +fresh in the memory of every one. But the 'little cupola, more neat +than solemn,' of which Lord Byron speaks, will continue to be the goal +of many a pilgrimage. For myself--though I remember Chateaubriand's +bareheaded genuflection on its threshold, Alfieri's passionate +prostration at the altar-tomb, and Byron's offering of poems on the +poet's shrine--I confess that a single canto of the 'Inferno,' a +single passage of the 'Vita Nuova,' seems more full of soul-stirring +associations than the place where, centuries ago, the mighty dust was +laid. It is the spirit that lives and makes alive. And Dante's spirit +seems more present with us under the pine-branches of the Bosco than +beside his real or fancied tomb. 'He is risen,'--'Lo, I am with you +alway'--these are the words that ought to haunt us in a +burying-ground. There is something affected and self-conscious in +overpowering grief or enthusiasm or humiliation at a tomb. + + * * * * * + + + + +_RIMINI_ + +SIGISMONDO PANDOLFO MALATESTA AND LEO BATTISTA ALBERTI + + +Rimini is a city of about 18,000 souls, famous for its Stabilmento de' +Bagni and its antiquities, seated upon the coast of the Adriatic, a +little to the south-east of the world-historical Rubicon. It is our +duty to mention the baths first among its claims to distinction, +since the prosperity and cheerfulness of the little town depend on +them in a great measure. But visitors from the north will fly from +these, to marvel at the bridge which Augustus built and Tiberius +completed, and which still spans the Marecchia with five gigantic +arches of white Istrian limestone, as solidly as if it had not borne +the tramplings of at least three conquests. The triumphal arch, too, +erected in honour of Augustus, is a notable monument of Roman +architecture. Broad, ponderous, substantial, tufted here and there +with flowering weeds, and surmounted with mediaeval machicolations, +proving it to have sometimes stood for city gate or fortress, it +contrasts most favourably with the slight and somewhat gimcrack arch +of Trajan in the sister city of Ancona. Yet these remains of the +imperial pontifices, mighty and interesting as they are, sink into +comparative insignificance beside the one great wonder of Rimini, the +cathedral remodelled for Sigismondo Pandolfo Malatesta by Leo Battista +Alberti in 1450. This strange church, one of the earliest extant +buildings in which the Neopaganism of the Renaissance showed itself in +full force, brings together before our memory two men who might be +chosen as typical in their contrasted characters of the transitional +age which gave them birth. + +No one with any tincture of literary knowledge is ignorant of the fame +at least of the great Malatesta family--the house of the Wrongheads, +as they were rightly called by some prevision of their future part in +Lombard history. The readers of the twenty-seventh and twenty-eighth +cantos of the 'Inferno' have all heard of + + E il mastin vecchio e il nuovo da Verucchio + Che fecer di Montagna il mal governo, + +while the story of Francesca da Polenta, who was wedded to the +hunchback Giovanni Malatesta and murdered by him with her lover Paolo, +is known not merely to students of Dante, but to readers of Byron and +Leigh Hunt, to admirers of Flaxman, Ary Scheffer, Doré--to all, in +fact, who have of art and letters any love. + +The history of these Malatesti, from their first establishment under +Otho III. as lieutenants for the Empire in the Marches of Ancona, down +to their final subjugation by the Papacy in the age of the +Renaissance, is made up of all the vicissitudes which could befall a +mediaeval Italian despotism. Acquiring an unlawful right over the +towns of Rimini, Cesena, Sogliano, Ghiacciuolo, they ruled their petty +principalities like tyrants by the help of the Guelf and Ghibelline +factions, inclining to the one or the other as it suited their humour +or their interest, wrangling among themselves, transmitting the +succession of their dynasty through bastards and by deeds of force, +quarrelling with their neighbours the Counts of Urbino, alternately +defying and submitting to the Papal legates in Romagna, serving as +condottieri in the wars of the Visconti and the state of Venice, and +by their restlessness and genius for military intrigues contributing +in no slight measure to the general disturbance of Italy. The +Malatesti were a race of strongly marked character: more, perhaps, +than any other house of Italian tyrants, they combined for generations +those qualities of the fox and the lion, which Machiavelli thought +indispensable to a successful despot. Son after son, brother with +brother, they continued to be fierce and valiant soldiers, cruel in +peace, hardy in war, but treasonable and suspicious in all +transactions that could not be settled by the sword. Want of union, +with them as with the Baglioni and many other of the minor noble +families in Italy, prevented their founding a substantial dynasty. +Their power, based on force, was maintained by craft and crime, and +transmitted through tortuous channels by intrigue. While false in +their dealings with the world at large, they were diabolical in the +perfidy with which they treated one another. No feudal custom, no +standard of hereditary right, ruled the succession in their family. +Therefore the ablest Malatesta for the moment clutched what he could +of the domains that owned his house for masters. Partitions among sons +or brothers, mutually hostile and suspicious, weakened the whole +stock. Yet they were great enough to hold their own for centuries +among the many tyrants who infested Lombardy. That the other princely +families of Romagna, Emilia, and the March were in the same state of +internal discord and dismemberment, was probably one reason why the +Malatesti stood their ground so firmly as they did. + +So far as Rimini is concerned, the house of Malatesta culminated in +Sigismondo Pandolfo, son of Gian Galeazzo Visconti's general, the +perfidious Pandolfo. It was he who built the Rocca, or castle of the +despots, which stands a little way outside the town, commanding a fair +view of Apennine tossed hill-tops and broad Lombard plain, and who +remodelled the Cathedral of S. Francis on a plan suggested by the +greatest genius of the age. Sigismondo Pandolfo Malatesta was one of +the strangest products of the earlier Renaissance. To enumerate the +crimes which he committed within the sphere of his own family, +mysterious and inhuman outrages which render the tale of the Cenci +credible, would violate the decencies of literature. A thoroughly +bestial nature gains thus much with posterity that its worst qualities +must be passed by in silence. It is enough to mention that he murdered +three wives in succession,[2] Bussoni di Carmagnuola, Guinipera +d'Este, and Polissena Sforza, on various pretexts of infidelity, and +carved horns upon his own tomb with this fantastic legend +underneath:-- + + Porto le corna ch' ognuno le vede, + E tal le porta che non se lo crede. + +He died in wedlock with the beautiful and learned Isotta degli Atti, +who had for some time been his mistress. But, like most of the +Malatesti, he left no legitimate offspring. Throughout his life he was +distinguished for bravery and cunning, for endurance of fatigue and +rapidity of action, for an almost fretful rashness in the execution of +his schemes, and for a character terrible in its violence. He was +acknowledged as a great general; yet nothing succeeded with him. The +long warfare which he carried on against the Duke of Montefeltro ended +in his discomfiture. Having begun by defying the Holy See, he was +impeached at Rome for heresy, parricide, incest, adultery, rape, and +sacrilege, burned in effigy by Pope Pius II., and finally restored to +the bosom of the Church, after suffering the despoliation of almost +all his territories, in 1463. The occasion on which this fierce and +turbulent despiser of laws human and divine was forced to kneel as a +penitent before the Papal legate in the gorgeous temple dedicated to +his own pride, in order that the ban of excommunication might be +removed from Rimini, was one of those petty triumphs, interesting +chiefly for their picturesqueness, by which the Popes confirmed their +questionable rights over the cities of Romagna. Sigismondo, shorn of +his sovereignty, took the command of the Venetian troops against the +Turks in the Morea, and returned in 1465, crowned with laurels, to die +at Rimini in the scene of his old splendour. + +A very characteristic incident belongs to this last act of his life. +Dissolute, treacherous, and inhuman as he was, the tyrant of Rimini +had always encouraged literature, and delighted in the society of +artists. He who could brook no contradiction from a prince or soldier, +allowed the pedantic scholars of the sixteenth century to dictate to +him in matters of taste, and sat with exemplary humility at the feet +of Latinists like Porcellio, Basinio, and Trebanio. Valturio, the +engineer, and Alberti, the architect, were his familiar friends; and +the best hours of his life were spent in conversation with these men. +Now that he found himself upon the sacred soil of Greece, he was +determined not to return to Italy empty-handed. Should he bring +manuscripts or marbles, precious vases or inscriptions in half-legible +Greek character? These relics were greedily sought for by the +potentates of Italian cities; and no doubt Sigismondo enriched his +library with some such treasures. But he obtained a nobler +prize--nothing less than the body of a saint of scholarship, the +authentic bones of the great Platonist, Gemisthus Pletho.[3] These he +exhumed from their Greek grave and caused them to be deposited in a +stone sarcophagus outside the cathedral of his building in Rimini. The +Venetians, when they stole the body of S. Mark from Alexandria, were +scarcely more pleased than was Sigismondo with the acquisition of this +Father of the Neopagan faith. Upon the tomb we still may read this +legend: 'Jemisthii Bizantii philosopher sua temp principis reliquum +Sig. Pan. Mal. Pan. F. belli Pelop adversus Turcor regem Imp ob +ingentem eruditorum quo flagrat amorem huc afferendum introque +mittendum curavit MCCCCLXVI.' Of the Latinity of the inscription much +cannot be said; but it means that 'Sigismondo Pandolfo Malatesta, +having served as general against the Turks in the Morea, induced by +the great love with which he burns for all learned men, brought and +placed here the remains of Gemisthus of Byzantium, the prince of the +philosophers of his day.' + +Sigismondo's portrait, engraved on medals, and sculptured upon every +frieze and point of vantage in the Cathedral of Rimini, well denotes +the man. His face is seen in profile. The head, which is low and flat +above the forehead, rising swiftly backward from the crown, carries a +thick bushy shock of hair curling at the ends, such as the Italians +call a _zazzera_. The eye is deeply sunk, with long venomous flat +eyelids, like those which Leonardo gives to his most wicked faces. The +nose is long and crooked, curved like a vulture's over a petulant +mouth, with lips deliberately pressed together, as though it were +necessary to control some nervous twitching. The cheek is broad, and +its bone is strongly marked. Looking at these features in repose, we +cannot but picture to our fancy what expression they might assume +under a sudden fit of fury, when the sinews of the face were +contracted with quivering spasms, and the lips writhed in sympathy +with knit forehead and wrinkled eyelids. + +Allusion has been made to the Cathedral of S. Francis at Rimini, as +the great ornament of the town, and the chief monument of Sigismondo's +fame. It is here that all the Malatesti lie. Here too is the chapel +consecrated to Isotta, 'Divæ Isottæ Sacrum;' and the tombs of the +Malatesta ladies, 'Malatestorum domûs heroidum sepulchrum;' and +Sigismondo's own grave with the cuckold's horns and scornful epitaph. +Nothing but the fact that the church is duly dedicated to S. Francis, +and that its outer shell of classic marble encases an old Gothic +edifice, remains to remind us that it is a Christian place of +worship.[4] It has no sanctity, no spirit of piety. The pride of the +tyrant whose legend--'Sigismundus Pandulphus Malatesta Pan. F. Fecit +Anno Gratiæ MCCCCL'--occupies every arch and stringcourse of the +architecture, and whose coat-of-arms and portrait in medallion, with +his cipher and his emblems of an elephant and a rose, are wrought in +every piece of sculptured work throughout the building, seems so to +fill this house of prayer that there is no room left for God. Yet the +Cathedral of Rimini remains a monument of first-rate importance for +all students who seek to penetrate the revived Paganism of the +fifteenth century. It serves also to bring a far more interesting +Italian of that period than the tyrant of Rimini himself, before our +notice. + +In the execution of his design, Sigismondo received the assistance of +one of the most remarkable men of this or any other age. Leo Battista +Alberti, a scion of the noble Florentine house of that name, born +during the exile of his parents, and educated in the Venetian +territory, was endowed by nature with aptitudes, faculties, and +sensibilities so varied, as to deserve the name of universal genius. +Italy in the Renaissance period was rich in natures of this sort, to +whom nothing that is strange or beautiful seemed unfamiliar, and who, +gifted with a kind of divination, penetrated the secrets of the world +by sympathy. To Pico della Mirandola, Lionardo da Vinci, and Michel +Agnolo Buonarroti may be added Leo Battista Alberti. That he achieved +less than his great compeers, and that he now exists as the shadow of +a mighty name, was the effect of circumstances. He came half a century +too early into the world, and worked as a pioneer rather than a +settler of the realm which Lionardo ruled as his demesne. Very early +in his boyhood Alberti showed the versatility of his talents. The use +of arms, the management of horses, music, painting, modelling for +sculpture, mathematics, classical and modern literature, physical +science as then comprehended, and all the bodily exercises proper to +the estate of a young nobleman, were at his command. His biographer +asserts that he was never idle, never subject to ennui or fatigue. He +used to say that books at times gave him the same pleasure as +brilliant jewels or perfumed flowers: hunger and sleep could not keep +him from them then. At other times the letters on the page appeared to +him like twining and contorted scorpions, so that he preferred to gaze +on anything but written scrolls. He would then turn to music or +painting, or to the physical sports in which he excelled. The language +in which this alternation of passion and disgust for study is +expressed, bears on it the stamp of Alberti's peculiar temperament, +his fervid and imaginative genius, instinct with subtle sympathies and +strange repugnances. Flying from his study, he would then betake +himself to the open air. No one surpassed him in running, in +wrestling, in the force with which he cast his javelin or discharged +his arrows. So sure was his aim and so skilful his cast, that he could +fling a farthing from the pavement of the square, and make it ring +against a church roof far above. When he chose to jump, he put his +feet together and bounded over the shoulders of men standing erect +upon the ground. On horseback he maintained perfect equilibrium, and +seemed incapable of fatigue. The most restive and vicious animals +trembled under him and became like lambs. There was a kind of +magnetism in the man. We read, besides these feats of strength and +skill, that he took pleasure in climbing mountains, for no other +purpose apparently than for the joy of being close to nature. + +In this, as in many other of his instincts, Alberti was before his +age. To care for the beauties of landscape unadorned by art, and to +sympathise with sublime or rugged scenery, was not in the spirit of +the Renaissance. Humanity occupied the attention of poets and +painters; and the age was yet far distant when the pantheistic feeling +for the world should produce the art of Wordsworth and of Turner. Yet +a few great natures even then began to comprehend the charm and +mystery which the Greeks had imaged in their Pan, the sense of an +all-pervasive spirit in wild places, the feeling of a hidden want, the +invisible tie which makes man a part of rocks and woods and streams +around him. Petrarch had already ascended the summit of Mont Ventoux, +to meditate, with an exaltation of the soul he scarcely understood, +upon the scene spread at his feet and above his head. Æneas Sylvius +Piccolomini delighted in wild places for no mere pleasure of the +chase, but for the joy he took in communing with nature. How S. +Francis found God in the sun and the air, the water and the stars, we +know by his celebrated hymn; and of Dante's acute observation, every +canto of the 'Divine Comedy' is witness. + +Leo Alberti was touched in spirit by even a deeper and a stranger +pathos than any of these men: 'In the early spring, when he beheld the +meadows and hills covered with flowers, and saw the trees and plants +of all kinds bearing promise of fruit, his heart became exceeding +sorrowful; and when in autumn he looked on fields heavy with harvest +and orchards apple-laden, he felt such grief that many even saw him +weep for the sadness of his soul.' It would seem that he scarcely +understood the source of this sweet trouble: for at such times he +compared the sloth and inutility of men with the industry and +fertility of nature; as though this were the secret of his melancholy. +A poet of our century has noted the same stirring of the spirit, and +has striven to account for it:-- + + Tears from the depth of some divine despair + Rise in the heart, and gather to the eyes, + In looking on the happy autumn fields, + And thinking of the days that are no more. + +Both Alberti and Tennyson have connected the _mal du pays_ of the +human soul for that ancient country of its birth, the mild Saturnian +earth from which we sprang, with a sense of loss. It is the waste of +human energy that affects Alberti; the waste of human life touches the +modern poet. Yet both perhaps have scarcely interpreted their own +spirit; for is not the true source of tears deeper and more secret? +Man is a child of nature in the simplest sense; and the stirrings of +the secular breasts that gave him suck, and on which he even now must +hang, have potent influences over his emotions. + +Of Alberti's extraordinary sensitiveness to all such impressions many +curious tales are told. The sight of refulgent jewels, of flowers, and +of fair landscapes, had the same effect upon his nerves as the sound +of the Dorian mood upon the youths whom Pythagoras cured of passion by +music. He found in them an anodyne for pain, a restoration from +sickness. Like Walt Whitman, who adheres to nature by closer and more +vital sympathy than any other poet of the modern world, Alberti felt +the charm of excellent old age no less than that of florid youth. 'On +old men gifted with a noble presence and hale and vigorous, he gazed +again and again, and said that he revered in them the delights of +nature (_naturæ delitias_).' Beasts and birds and all living creatures +moved him to admiration for the grace with which they had been gifted, +each in his own kind. It is even said that he composed a funeral +oration for a dog which he had loved and which died. + +To this sensibility for all fair things in nature, Alberti added the +charm of a singularly sweet temper and graceful conversation. The +activity of his mind, which was always being exercised on subjects of +grave speculation, removed him from the noise and bustle of +commonplace society. He was somewhat silent, inclined to solitude, +and of a pensive countenance; yet no man found him difficult of +access: his courtesy was exquisite, and among familiar friends he was +noted for the flashes of a delicate and subtle wit. Collections were +made of his apophthegms by friends, and some are recorded by his +anonymous biographer.[5] Their finer perfume, as almost always happens +with good sayings which do not certain the full pith of a proverb, but +owe their force, in part at least, to the personality of their author, +and to the happy moment of their production, has evanesced. Here, +however, is one which seems still to bear the impress of Alberti's +genius: 'Gold is the soul of labour, and labour the slave of +pleasure.' Of women he used to say that their inconstancy was an +antidote to their falseness; for if a woman could but persevere in +what she undertook, all the fair works of men would be ruined. One of +his strongest moral sentences is aimed at envy, from which he suffered +much in his own life, and against which he guarded with a curious +amount of caution. His own family grudged the distinction which his +talents gained for him, and a dark story is told of a secret attempt +made by them to assassinate him through his servants. Alberti met +these ignoble jealousies with a stately calm and a sweet dignity of +demeanour, never condescending to accuse his relatives, never seeking +to retaliate, but acting always for the honour of his illustrious +house. In the same spirit of generosity he refused to enter into wordy +warfare with detractors and calumniators, sparing the reputation even +of his worst enemy when chance had placed him in his power. This +moderation both of speech and conduct was especially distinguished in +an age which tolerated the fierce invectives of Filelfo, and applauded +the vindictive courage of Cellini. To money Alberti showed a calm +indifference. He committed his property to his friends and shared with +them in common. Nor was he less careless about vulgar fame, spending +far more pains in the invention of machinery and the discovery of +laws, than in their publication to the world. His service was to +knowledge, not to glory. Self-control was another of his eminent +qualities. With the natural impetuosity of a large heart, and the +vivacity of a trained athlete, he yet never allowed himself to be +subdued by anger or by sensual impulses, but took pains to preserve +his character unstained and dignified before the eyes of men. A story +is told of him which may remind us of Goethe's determination to +overcome his giddiness. In his youth his head was singularly sensitive +to changes of temperature; but by gradual habituation he brought +himself at last to endure the extremes of heat and cold bareheaded. In +like manner he had a constitutional disgust for onions and honey; so +powerful, that the very sight of these things made him sick. Yet by +constantly viewing and touching what was disagreeable, he conquered +these dislikes; and proved that men have a complete mastery over what +is merely instinctive in their nature. His courage corresponded to his +splendid physical development. When a boy of fifteen, he severely +wounded himself in the foot. The gash had to be probed and then sewn +up. Alberti not only bore the pain of this operation without a groan, +but helped the surgeon with his own hands; and effected a cure of the +fever which succeeded by the solace of singing to his cithern. For +music he had a genius of the rarest order; and in painting he is said +to have achieved success. Nothing, however, remains of his work and +from what Vasari says of it, we may fairly conclude that he gave less +care to the execution of finished pictures, than to drawings +subsidiary to architectural and mechanical designs. His biographer +relates that when he had completed a painting, he called children and +asked them what it meant. If they did not know, he reckoned it a +failure. He was also in the habit of painting from memory. While at +Venice, he put on canvas the faces of friends at Florence whom he had +not seen for months. That the art of painting was subservient in his +estimation to mechanics, is indicated by what we hear about the +camera, in which he showed landscapes by day and the revolutions of +the stars by night, so lively drawn that the spectators were affected +with amazement. The semi-scientific impulse to extend man's mastery +over nature, the magician's desire to penetrate secrets, which so +powerfully influenced the development of Lionardo's genius, seems to +have overcome the purely æsthetic instincts of Alberti, so that he +became in the end neither a great artist like Raphael, nor a great +discoverer like Galileo, but rather a clairvoyant to whom the miracles +of nature and of art lie open. + +After the first period of youth was over, Leo Battista Alberti devoted +his great faculties and all his wealth of genius to the study of the +law--then, as now, the quicksand of the noblest natures. The industry +with which he applied himself to the civil and ecclesiastical codes +broke his health. For recreation he composed a Latin comedy called +'Philodoxeos,' which imposed upon the judgment of scholars, and was +ascribed as a genuine antique to Lepidus, the comic poet. Feeling +stronger, Alberti returned at the age of twenty to his law studies, +and pursued them in the teeth of disadvantages. His health was still +uncertain, and the fortune of an exile reduced him to the utmost want. +It was no wonder that under these untoward circumstances even his +Herculean strength gave way. Emaciated and exhausted, he lost the +clearness of his eyesight, and became subject to arterial +disturbances, which filled his ears with painful sounds. This nervous +illness is not dissimilar to that which Rousseau describes in the +confessions of his youth. In vain, however, his physicians warned +Alberti of impending peril. A man of so much stanchness, accustomed +to control his nature with an iron will, is not ready to accept +advice. Alberti persevered in his studies, until at last the very seat +of intellect was invaded. His memory began to fail him for names, +while he still retained with wonderful accuracy whatever he had seen +with his eyes. It was now impossible to think of law as a profession. +Yet since he could not live without severe mental exercise, he had +recourse to studies which tax the verbal memory less than the +intuitive faculties of the reason. Physics and mathematics became his +chief resource; and he devoted his energies to literature. His +'Treatise on the Family' may be numbered among the best of those +compositions on social and speculative subjects in which the Italians +of the Renaissance sought to rival Cicero. His essays on the arts are +mentioned by Vasari with sincere approbation. Comedies, interludes, +orations, dialogues, and poems flowed with abundance from his facile +pen. Some were written in Latin, which he commanded more than fairly; +some in the Tuscan tongue, of which owing to the long exile of his +family in Lombardy, he is said to have been less a master. It was +owing to this youthful illness, from which apparently his constitution +never wholly recovered, that Alberti's genius was directed to +architecture. + +Through his friendship with Flavio Biondo, the famous Roman antiquary, +Alberti received an introduction to Nicholas V. at the time when this, +the first great Pope of the Renaissance, was engaged in rebuilding the +palaces and fortifications of Rome. Nicholas discerned the genius of +the man, and employed him as his chief counsellor in all matters of +architecture. When the Pope died, he was able, while reciting his long +Latin will upon his deathbed, to boast that he had restored the Holy +See to its due dignity, and the Eternal City to the splendour worthy +of the seat of Christendom. The accomplishment of the second part of +his work he owed to the genius of Alberti. After doing thus much for +Rome under Thomas of Sarzana, and before beginning to beautify +Florence at the instance of the Rucellai family, Alberti entered the +service of the Malatesta, and undertook to remodel the Cathedral of S. +Francis at Rimini. He found it a plain Gothic structure with apse and +side chapels. Such churches are common enough in Italy, where pointed +architecture never developed its true character of complexity and +richness, but was doomed to the vast vacuity exemplified in S. +Petronio of Bologna. He left it a strange medley of mediæval and +Renaissance work, a symbol of that dissolving scene in the world's +pantomime, when the spirit of classic art, as yet but little +comprehended, was encroaching on the early Christian taste. Perhaps +the mixture of styles so startling in S. Francesco ought not to be +laid to the charge of Alberti, who had to execute the task of turning +a Gothic into a classic building. All that he could do was to alter +the whole exterior of the church, by affixing a screen-work of Roman +arches and Corinthian pilasters, so as to hide the old design and yet +to leave the main features of the fabric, the windows and doors +especially, _in statu quo_. With the interior he dealt upon the same +general principle, by not disturbing its structure, while he covered +every available square inch of surface with decorations alien to the +Gothic manner. Externally, S. Francesco is perhaps the most original +and graceful of the many attempts made by Italian builders to fuse the +mediæval and the classic styles. For Alberti attempted nothing less. A +century elapsed before Palladio, approaching the problem from a +different point of view, restored the antique in its purity, and +erected in the Palazzo della Ragione of Vicenza an almost unique +specimen of resuscitated Roman art. + +Internally, the beauty of the church is wholly due to its exquisite +wall-ornaments. These consist for the most part of low reliefs in a +soft white stone, many of them thrown out upon a blue ground in the +style of Della Robbia. Allegorical figures designed with the purity of +outline we admire in Botticelli, draperies that Burne-Jones might +copy, troops of singing boys in the manner of Donatello, great angels +traced upon the stone so delicately that they seem to be rather drawn +than sculptured, statuettes in niches, personifications of all arts +and sciences alternating with half-bestial shapes of satyrs and +sea-children:--such are the forms which fill the spaces of the chapel +walls, and climb the pilasters, and fret the arches, in such abundance +that had the whole church been finished as it was designed, it would +have presented one splendid though bizarre effect of incrustation. +Heavy screens of Verona marble, emblazoned in open arabesques with the +ciphers of Sigismondo and Isotta, with coats-of-arms, emblems, and +medallion portraits, shut the chapels from the nave. Who produced all +this sculpture it is difficult to say. Some of it is very good: much +is indifferent. We may hazard the opinion that, besides Bernardo +Ciuffagni, of whom Vasari speaks, some pupils of Donatello and +Benedetto da Majano worked at it. The influence of the sculptors of +Florence is everywhere perceptible. + +Whatever be the merit of these reliefs, there is no doubt that they +fairly represent one of the most interesting moments in the history of +modern art. Gothic inspiration had failed; the early Tuscan style of +the Pisani had been worked out; Michelangelo was yet far distant, and +the abundance of classic models had not overwhelmed originality. The +sculptors of the school of Ghiberti and Donatello, who are represented +in this church, were essentially pictorial, preferring low to high +relief, and relief in general to detached figures. Their style, like +the style of Boiardo in poetry, of Botticelli in painting, is specific +to Italy in the middle of the fifteenth century. Mediæval standards of +taste were giving way to classical, Christian sentiment to Pagan; yet +the imitation of the antique had not been carried so far as to efface +the spontaneity of the artist, and enough remained of Christian +feeling to tinge the fancy with a grave and sweet romance. The +sculptor had the skill and mastery to express his slightest shade of +thought with freedom, spirit, and precision. Yet his work showed no +sign of conventionality, no adherence to prescribed rules. Every +outline, every fold of drapery, every attitude was pregnant, to the +artist's own mind at any rate, with meaning. In spite of its +symbolism, what he wrought was never mechanically figurative, but +gifted with the independence of its own beauty, vital with an +inbreathed spirit of life. It was a happy moment, when art had reached +consciousness, and the artist had not yet become self-conscious. The +hand and the brain then really worked together for the procreation of +new forms of grace, not for the repetition of old models, or for the +invention of the strange and startling. 'Delicate, sweet, and +captivating,' are good adjectives to express the effect produced upon +the mind by the contemplation even of the average work of this period. + +To study the flowing lines of the great angels traced upon the walls +of the Chapel of S. Sigismund in the Cathedral of Rimini, to follow +the undulations of their drapery that seems to float, to feel the +dignified urbanity of all their gestures, is like listening to one of +those clear early Italian compositions for the voice, which surpasses +in suavity of tone and grace of movement all that Music in her +full-grown vigour has produced. There is indeed something infinitely +charming in the crepuscular moments of the human mind. Whether it be +the rathe loveliness of an art still immature, or the beauty of art +upon the wane--whether, in fact, the twilight be of morning or of +evening, we find in the masterpieces of such periods a placid calm and +chastened pathos, as of a spirit self-withdrawn from vulgar cares, +which in the full light of meridian splendour is lacking. In the +Church of S. Francesco at Rimini the tempered clearness of the dawn is +just about to broaden into day. + + * * * * * + + + + +_MAY IN UMBRIA_ + +FROM ROME TO TERNI + + +We left Rome in clear sunset light. The Alban Hills defined themselves +like a cameo of amethyst upon a pale blue distance; and over the +Sabine Mountains soared immeasurable moulded domes of alabaster +thunderclouds, casting deep shadows, purple and violet, across the +slopes of Tivoli. To westward the whole sky was lucid, like some +half-transparent topaz, flooded with slowly yellowing sunbeams. The +Campagna has often been called a garden of wild-flowers. Just now +poppy and aster, gladiolus and thistle, embroider it with patterns +infinite and intricate beyond the power of art. They have already mown +the hay in part; and the billowy tracts of greyish green, where no +flowers are now in bloom, supply a restful groundwork to those +brilliant patches of diapered _fioriture_. These are like +praying-carpets spread for devotees upon the pavement of a mosque +whose roof is heaven. In the level light the scythes of the mowers +flash as we move past. From their bronzed foreheads the men toss +masses of dark curls. Their muscular flanks and shoulders sway +sideways from firm yet pliant reins. On one hill, fronting the sunset, +there stands a herd of some thirty huge grey oxen, feeding and raising +their heads to look at us, with just a flush of crimson on their +horns and dewlaps. This is the scale of Mason's and of Costa's +colouring. This is the breadth and magnitude of Rome. + +Thus, through dells of ilex and oak, yielding now a glimpse of Tiber +and S. Peter's, now opening on a purple section of the distant Sabine +Hills, we came to Monte Rotondo. The sun sank; and from the flames +where he had perished, Hesper and the thin moon, very white and keen, +grew slowly into sight. Now we follow the Tiber, a swollen, hurrying, +turbid river, in which the mellowing Western sky reflects itself. This +changeful mirror of swift waters spreads a dazzling foreground to +valley, hill, and lustrous heaven. There is orange on the far horizon, +and a green ocean above, in which sea-monsters fashioned from the +clouds are floating. Yonder swims an elf with luminous hair astride +upon a sea-horse, and followed by a dolphin plunging through the fiery +waves. The orange deepens into dying red. The green divides into +daffodil and beryl. The blue above grows fainter, and the moon and +stars shine stronger. + +Through these celestial changes we glide into a landscape fit for +Francia and the early Umbrian painters. Low hills to right and left; +suavely modelled heights in the far distance; a very quiet width of +plain, with slender trees ascending into the pellucid air; and down in +the mystery of the middle distance a glimpse of heaven-reflecting +water. The magic of the moon and stars lends enchantment to this +scene. No painting could convey their influences. Sometimes both +luminaries tremble, all dispersed and broken, on the swirling river. +Sometimes they sleep above the calm cool reaches of a rush-grown mere. +And here and there a ruined turret, with a broken window and a tuft +of shrubs upon the rifted battlement, gives value to the fading pallor +of the West. The last phase in the sunset is a change to blue-grey +monochrome, faintly silvered with starlight; hills, Tiber, fields and +woods, all floating in aërial twilight. There is no definition of +outline now. The daffodil of the horizon has faded into scarcely +perceptible pale greenish yellow. + +We have passed Stimigliano. Through the mystery of darkness we hurry +past the bridges of Augustus and the lights of Narni. + + +THE CASCADES OF TERNI + + +The Velino is a river of considerable volume which rises in the +highest region of the Abruzzi, threads the upland valley of Rieti, and +precipitates itself by an artificial channel over cliffs about seven +hundred feet in height into the Nera. The water is densely charged +with particles of lime. This calcareous matter not only tends +continually to choke its bed, but clothes the precipices over which +the torrent thunders with fantastic drapery of stalactite; and, +carried on the wind in foam, incrusts the forests that surround the +falls with fine white dust. These famous cascades are undoubtedly the +most sublime and beautiful which Europe boasts; and their situation is +worthy of so great a natural wonder. We reach them through a noble +mid-Italian landscape, where the mountain forms are austere and boldly +modelled, but the vegetation, both wild and cultivated, has something +of the South-Italian richness. The hillsides are a labyrinth of box +and arbutus, with coronilla in golden bloom. The turf is starred with +cyclamens and orchises. Climbing the staircase paths beside the falls +in morning sunlight, or stationed on the points of vantage that +command their successive cataracts, we enjoyed a spectacle which might +be compared in its effect upon the mind to the impression left by a +symphony or a tumultuous lyric. The turbulence and splendour, the +swiftness and resonance, the veiling of the scene in smoke of +shattered water-masses, the withdrawal of these veils according as the +volume of the river slightly shifted in its fall, the rainbows +shimmering on the silver spray, the shivering of poplars hung above +impendent precipices, the stationary grandeur of the mountains keeping +watch around, the hurry and the incoherence of the cataracts, the +immobility of force and changeful changelessness in nature, were all +for me the elements of one stupendous poem. It was like an ode of +Shelley translated into symbolism, more vivid through inarticulate +appeal to primitive emotion than any words could be. + + +MONTEFALCO + + +The rich land of the Clitumnus is divided into meadows by transparent +watercourses, gliding with a glassy current over swaying reeds. +Through this we pass, and leave Bevagna to the right, and ascend one +of those long gradual roads which climb the hills where all the cities +of the Umbrians perch. The view expands, revealing Spello, Assisi, +Perugia on its mountain buttress, and the far reaches northward of the +Tiber valley. Then Trevi and Spoleto came into sight, and the severe +hill-country above Gubbio in part disclosed itself. Over Spoleto the +fierce witch-haunted heights of Norcia rose forbidding. This is the +kind of panorama that dilates the soul. It is so large, so dignified, +so beautiful in tranquil form. The opulent abundance of the plain +contrasts with the severity of mountain ranges desolately grand; and +the name of each of all those cities thrills the heart with memories. + +The main object of a visit to Montefalco is to inspect its many +excellent frescoes; painted histories of S. Francis and S. Jerome, by +Benozzo Gozzoli; saints, angels, and Scripture episodes by the gentle +Tiberio d'Assisi. Full justice had been done to these, when a little +boy, seeing us lingering outside the church of S. Chiara, asked +whether we should not like to view the body of the saint. This +privilege could be purchased at the price of a small fee. It was only +necessary to call the guardian of her shrine at the high altar. +Indolent, and in compliant mood, with languid curiosity and half an +hour to spare, we assented. A handsome young man appeared, who +conducted us with decent gravity into a little darkened chamber behind +the altar. There he lighted wax tapers, opened sliding doors in what +looked like a long coffin, and drew curtains. Before us in the dim +light there lay a woman covered with a black nun's dress. Only her +hands, and the exquisitely beautiful pale contour of her face +(forehead, nose, mouth, and chin, modelled in purest outline, as +though the injury of death had never touched her) were visible. Her +closed eyes seemed to sleep. She had the perfect peace of Luini's S. +Catherine borne by the angels to her grave on Sinai. I have rarely +seen anything which surprised and touched me more. The religious +earnestness of the young custode, the hushed adoration of the +country-folk who had silently assembled round us, intensified the +sympathy-inspiring beauty of the slumbering girl. Could Julia, +daughter of Claudius, have been fairer than this maiden, when the +Lombard workmen found her in her Latin tomb, and brought her to be +worshipped on the Capitol? S. Chiara's shrine was hung round with her +relics; and among these the heart extracted from her body was +suspended. Upon it, apparently wrought into the very substance of the +mummied flesh, were impressed a figure of the crucified Christ, the +scourge, and the five stigmata. The guardian's faith in this +miraculous witness to her sainthood, the gentle piety of the men and +women who knelt before it, checked all expressions of incredulity. We +abandoned ourselves to the genius of the place; forgot even to ask +what Santa Chiara was sleeping here; and withdrew, toned to a not +unpleasing melancholy. The world-famous S. Clair, the spiritual sister +of S. Francis, lies in Assisi. I have often asked myself, Who, then, +was this nun? What history had she? And I think now of this girl as of +a damsel of romance, a Sleeping Beauty in the wood of time, secluded +from intrusive elements of fact, and folded in the love and faith of +her own simple worshippers. Among the hollows of Arcadia, how many +rustic shrines in ancient days held saints of Hellas, apocryphal, +perhaps, like this, but hallowed by tradition and enduring homage![6] + + +FOLIGNO + + +In the landscape of Raphael's votive picture, known as the Madonna di +Foligno, there is a town with a few towers, placed upon a broad plain +at the edge of some blue hills. Allowing for that license as to +details which imaginative masters permitted themselves in matters of +subordinate importance, Raphael's sketch is still true to Foligno. The +place has not materially changed since the beginning of the sixteenth +century. Indeed, relatively to the state of Italy at large, it is +still the same as in the days of ancient Rome. Foligno forms a station +of commanding interest between Rome and the Adriatic upon the great +Flaminian Way. At Foligno the passes of the Apennines debouch into the +Umbrian plain, which slopes gradually toward the valley of the Tiber, +and from it the valley of the Nera is reached by an easy ascent +beneath the walls of Spoleto. An army advancing from the north by the +Metaurus and the Furlo Pass must find itself at Foligno; and the level +champaign round the city is well adapted to the maintenance and +exercises of a garrison. In the days of the Republic and the Empire, +the value of this position was well understood; but Foligno's +importance, as the key to the Flaminian Way, was eclipsed by two +flourishing cities in its immediate vicinity, Hispellum and Mevania, +the modern Spello and Bevagna. We might hazard a conjecture that the +Lombards, when they ruled the Duchy of Spoleto, following their usual +policy of opposing new military centres to the ancient Roman +municipia, encouraged Fulginium at the expense of her two neighbours. +But of this there is no certainty to build upon. All that can be +affirmed with accuracy is that in the Middle Ages, while Spello and +Bevagna declined into the inferiority of dependent burghs, Foligno +grew in power and became the chief commune of this part of Umbria. It +was famous during the last centuries of struggle between the Italian +burghers and their native despots, for peculiar ferocity in civil +strife. Some of the bloodiest pages in mediæval Italian history are +those which relate the vicissitudes of the Trinci family, the +exhaustion of Foligno by internal discord, and its final submission to +the Papal power. Since railways have been carried from Rome through +Narni and Spoleto to Ancona and Perugia, Foligno has gained +considerably in commercial and military status. It is the point of +intersection for three lines; the Italian government has made it a +great cavalry depôt, and there are signs of reviving traffic in its +decayed streets. Whether the presence of a large garrison has already +modified the population, or whether we may ascribe something to the +absence of Roman municipal institutions in the far past, and to the +savagery of the mediæval period, it is difficult to say. Yet the +impression left by Foligno upon the mind is different from that of +Assisi, Spello, and Montefalco, which are distinguished for a certain +grace and gentleness in their inhabitants. + +My window in the city wall looks southward across the plain to +Spoleto, with Montefalco perched aloft upon the right, and Trevi on +its mountain-bracket to the left. From the topmost peaks of the Sabine +Apennines, gradual tender sloping lines descend to find their quiet in +the valley of Clitumnus. The space between me and that distance is +infinitely rich with every sort of greenery, dotted here and there +with towers and relics of baronial houses. The little town is in +commotion; for the working men of Foligno and its neighbourhood have +resolved to spend their earnings on a splendid festa--horse-races, and +two nights of fireworks. The acacias and paulownias on the ramparts +are in full bloom of creamy white and lilac. In the glare of Bengal +lights these trees, with all their pendulous blossoms, surpassed the +most fantastic of artificial decorations. The rockets sent aloft into +the sky amid that solemn Umbrian landscape were nowise out of harmony +with nature. I never sympathised with critics who resent the intrusion +of fireworks upon scenes of natural beauty. The Giessbach, lighted up +at so much per head on stated evenings, with a band playing and a +crowd of cockneys staring, presents perhaps an incongruous spectacle. +But where, as here at Foligno, a whole city has made itself a +festival, where there are multitudes of citizens and soldiers and +country-people slowly moving and gravely admiring, with the decency +and order characteristic of an Italian crowd, I have nothing but a +sense of satisfaction. + +It is sometimes the traveller's good fortune in some remote place to +meet with an inhabitant who incarnates and interprets for him the +_genius loci_ as he has conceived it. Though his own subjectivity will +assuredly play a considerable part in such an encounter, transferring +to his chance acquaintance qualities he may not possess, and +connecting this personality in some purely imaginative manner with +thoughts derived from study, or impressions made by nature; yet the +stranger will henceforth become the meeting-point of many memories, +the central figure in a composition which derives from him its +vividness. Unconsciously and innocently he has lent himself to the +creation of a picture, and round him, as around the hero of a myth, +have gathered thoughts and sentiments of which he had himself no +knowledge. On one of these nights I had been threading the aisles of +acacia-trees, now glaring red, now azure, as the Bengal lights kept +changing. My mind instinctively went back to scenes of treachery and +bloodshed in the olden time, when Gorrado Trinci paraded the mangled +remnants of three hundred of his victims, heaped on mule-back, through +Foligno, for a warning to the citizens. As the procession moved along +the ramparts, I found myself in contest with a young man, who readily +fell into conversation. He was very tall, with enormous breadth of +shoulders, and long sinewy arms, like Michelangelo's favourite models. +His head was small, curled over with crisp black hair. Low forehead, +and thick level eyebrows absolutely meeting over intensely bright +fierce eyes. The nose descending straight from the brows, as in a +statue of Hadrian's age. The mouth full-lipped, petulant, and +passionate above a firm round chin. He was dressed in the shirt, white +trousers, and loose white jacket of a contadino; but he did not move +with a peasant's slouch, rather with the elasticity and alertness of +an untamed panther. He told me that he was just about to join a +cavalry regiment; and I could well imagine, when military dignity was +added to that gait, how grandly he would go. This young man, of whom I +heard nothing more after our half-hour's conversation among the +crackling fireworks and roaring cannon, left upon my mind an +indescribable impression of dangerousness--of 'something fierce and +terrible, eligible to burst forth.' Of men like this, then, were +formed the Companies of Adventure who flooded Italy with villany, +ambition, and lawlessness in the fifteenth century. Gattamelata, who +began life as a baker's boy at Narni and ended it with a bronze statue +by Donatello on the public square in Padua, was of this breed. Like +this were the Trinci and their bands of murderers. Like this were the +bravi who hunted Lorenzaccio to death at Venice. Like this was Pietro +Paolo Baglioni, whose fault, in the eyes of Machiavelli, was that he +could not succeed in being 'perfettamente tristo.' Beautiful, but +inhuman; passionate, but cold; powerful, but rendered impotent for +firm and lofty deeds by immorality and treason; how many centuries of +men like this once wasted Italy and plunged her into servitude! Yet +what material is here, under sterner discipline, and with a nobler +national ideal, for the formation of heroic armies. Of such stuff, +doubtless, were the Roman legionaries. When will the Italians learn to +use these men as Fabius or as Cæsar, not as the Vitelli and the Trinci +used them? In such meditations, deeply stirred by the meeting of my +own reflections with one who seemed to represent for me in life and +blood the spirit of the place which had provoked them, I said farewell +to Cavallucci, and returned to my bedroom on the city wall. The last +rockets had whizzed and the last cannons had thundered ere I fell +asleep. + + +SPELLO + + +Spello contains some not inconsiderable antiquities--the remains of a +Roman theatre, a Roman gate with the heads of two men and a woman +leaning over it, and some fragments of Roman sculpture scattered +through its buildings. The churches, especially those of S.M. Maggiore +and S. Francesco, are worth a visit for the sake of Pinturicchio. +Nowhere, except in the Piccolomini Library at Siena, can that master's +work in fresco be better studied than here. The satisfaction with +which he executed the wall paintings in S. Maria Maggiore is testified +by his own portrait introduced upon a panel in the decoration of the +Virgin's chamber. The scrupulously rendered details of books, chairs, +window seats, &c., which he here has copied, remind one of Carpaccio's +study of S. Benedict at Venice. It is all sweet, tender, delicate, and +carefully finished; but without depth, not even the depth of +Perugino's feeling. In S. Francesco, Pinturicchio, with the same +meticulous refinement, painted a letter addressed to him by Gentile +Baglioni. It lies on a stool before Madonna and her court of saints. +Nicety of execution, technical mastery of fresco as a medium for Dutch +detail-painting, prettiness of composition, and cheerfulness of +colouring, are noticeable throughout his work here rather than either +thought or sentiment. S. Maria Maggiore can boast a fresco of Madonna +between a young episcopal saint and Catherine of Alexandria from the +hand of Perugino. The rich yellow harmony of its tones, and the +graceful dignity of its emotion, conveyed no less by a certain +Raphaelesque pose and outline than by suavity of facial expression, +enable us to measure the distance between this painter and his +quasi-pupil Pinturicchio. + +We did not, however, drive to Spello to inspect either Roman +antiquities or frescoes, but to see an inscription on the city walls +about Orlando. It is a rude Latin elegiac couplet, saying that, 'from +the sign below, men may conjecture the mighty members of Roland, +nephew of Charles; his deeds are written in history.' Three agreeable +old gentlemen of Spello, who attended us with much politeness, and +were greatly interested in my researches, pointed out a mark +waist-high upon the wall, where Orlando's knee is reported to have +reached. But I could not learn anything about a phallic monolith, +which is said by Guerin or Panizzi to have been identified with the +Roland myth at Spello. Such a column either never existed here, or +had been removed before the memory of the present generation. + + +EASTER MORNING AT ASSISI + + +We are in the lower church of S. Francesco. High mass is being sung, +with orchestra and organ and a choir of many voices. Candles are +lighted on the altar, over-canopied with Giotto's allegories. From the +low southern windows slants the sun, in narrow bands, upon the +many-coloured gloom and embrowned glory of these painted aisles. Women +in bright kerchiefs kneel upon the stones, and shaggy men from the +mountains stand or lean against the wooden benches. There is no moving +from point to point. Where we have taken our station, at the +north-western angle of the transept, there we stay till mass be over. +The whole low-vaulted building glows duskily; the frescoed roof, the +stained windows, the figure-crowded pavements blending their rich but +subdued colours, like hues upon some marvellous moth's wings, or like +a deep-toned rainbow mist discerned in twilight dreams, or like such +tapestry as Eastern queens, in ancient days, wrought for the pavilion +of an empress. Forth from this maze of mingling tints, indefinite in +shade and sunbeams, lean earnest, saintly faces--ineffably +pure--adoring, pitying, pleading; raising their eyes in ecstasy to +heaven, or turning them in ruth toward earth. Men and women of whom +the world was not worthy--at the hands of those old painters they have +received the divine grace, the dovelike simplicity, whereof Italians +in the fourteenth century possessed the irrecoverable secret. Each +face is a poem; the counterpart in painting to a chapter from the +Fioretti di San Francesco. Over the whole scene--in the architecture, +in the frescoes, in the coloured windows, in the gloom, on the +people, in the incense, from the chiming bells, through the +music--broods one spirit: the spirit of him who was 'the co-espoused, +co-transforate with Christ;' the ardent, the radiant, the beautiful in +soul; the suffering, the strong, the simple, the victorious over self +and sin; the celestial who trampled upon earth and rose on wings of +ecstasy to heaven; the Christ-inebriated saint of visions supersensual +and life beyond the grave. Far down below the feet of those who +worship God through him, S. Francis sleeps; but his soul, the +incorruptible part of him, the message he gave the world, is in the +spaces round us. This is his temple. He fills it like an unseen god. +Not as Phoebus or Athene, from their marble pedestals; but as an +abiding spirit, felt everywhere, nowhere seized, absorbing in itself +all mysteries, all myths, all burning exaltations, all abasements, all +love, self-sacrifice, pain, yearning, which the thought of Christ, +sweeping the centuries, hath wrought for men. Let, therefore, choir +and congregation raise their voices on the tide of prayers and +praises; for this is Easter morning--Christ is risen! Our sister, +Death of the Body, for whom S. Francis thanked God in his hymn, is +reconciled to us this day, and takes us by the hand, and leads us to +the gate whence floods of heavenly glory issue from the faces of a +multitude of saints. Pray, ye poor people; chant and pray. If all be +but a dream, to wake from this were loss for you indeed! + + +PERUSIA AUGUSTA + + +The piazza in front of the Prefettura is my favourite resort on these +nights of full moon. The evening twilight is made up partly of sunset +fading over Thrasymene and Tuscany; partly of moonrise from the +mountains of Gubbio and the passes toward Ancona. The hills are capped +with snow, although the season is so forward. Below our parapets the +bulk of S. Domenico, with its gaunt perforated tower, and the finer +group of S. Pietro, flaunting the arrowy 'Pennacchio di Perugia,' jut +out upon the spine of hill which dominates the valley of the Tiber. As +the night gloom deepens, and the moon ascends the sky, these buildings +seem to form the sombre foreground to some French etching. Beyond them +spreads the misty moon-irradiated plain of Umbria. Over all rise +shadowy Apennines, with dim suggestions of Assisi, Spello, Foligno, +Montefalco, and Spoleto on their basements. Little thin whiffs of +breezes, very slight and searching, flit across, and shiver as they +pass from Apennine to plain. The slowly moving population--women in +veils, men winter-mantled--pass to and fro between the buildings and +the grey immensity of sky. Bells ring. The bugles of the soldiers blow +retreat in convents turned to barracks. Young men roam the streets +beneath, singing May songs. Far, far away upon the plain, red through +the vitreous moonlight ringed with thundery gauze, fires of unnamed +castelli smoulder. As we lean from ledges eighty feet in height, gas +vies with moon in chequering illuminations on the ancient walls; +Etruscan mouldings, Roman letters, high-piled hovels, suburban +world-old dwellings plastered like martins' nests against the masonry. + +Sunlight adds more of detail to this scene. To the right of Subasio, +where the passes go from Foligno towards Urbino and Ancona, heavy +masses of thundercloud hang every day; but the plain and +hill-buttresses are clear in transparent blueness. First comes Assisi, +with S.M. degli Angeli below; then Spello; then Foligno; then Trevi; +and, far away, Spoleto; with, reared against those misty battlements, +the village height of Montefalco--the 'ringhiera dell' Umbria,' as +they call it in this country. By daylight, the snow on yonder peaks is +clearly visible, where the Monti della Sibilla tower up above the +sources of the Nera and Velino from frigid wastes of Norcia. The lower +ranges seem as though painted, in films of airiest and palest azure, +upon china; and then comes the broad green champaign, flecked with +villages and farms. Just at the basement of Perugia winds Tiber, +through sallows and grey poplar-trees, spanned by ancient arches of +red brick, and guarded here and there by castellated towers. The mills +beneath their dams and weirs are just as Raphael drew them; and the +feeling of air and space reminds one, on each coign of vantage, of +some Umbrian picture. Every hedgerow is hoary with May-bloom and +honeysuckle. The oaks hang out their golden-dusted tassels. Wayside +shrines are decked with laburnum boughs and iris blossoms plucked from +the copse-woods, where spires of purple and pink orchis variegate the +thin, fine grass. The land waves far and wide with young corn, emerald +green beneath the olive-trees, which take upon their under-foliage +tints reflected from this verdure or red tones from the naked earth. A +fine race of _contadini_, with large, heroically graceful forms, and +beautiful dark eyes and noble faces, move about this garden, intent on +ancient, easy tillage of the kind Saturnian soil. + + +LA MAGIONE + + +On the road from Perugia to Cortona, the first stage ends at La +Magione, a high hill-village commanding the passage from the Umbrian +champaign to the lake of Thrasymene. + +It has a grim square fortalice above it, now in ruins, and a stately +castle to the south-east, built about the time of Braccio. Here took +place that famous diet of Cesare Borgia's enemies, when the son of +Alexander VI. was threatening Bologna with his arms, and bidding fair +to make himself supreme tyrant of Italy in 1502. It was the policy of +Cesare to fortify himself by reducing the fiefs of the Church to +submission, and by rooting out the dynasties which had acquired a +sort of tyranny in Papal cities. The Varani of Camerino and the +Manfredi of Faenza had been already extirpated. There was only too +good reason to believe that the turn of the Vitelli at Città di +Castello, of the Baglioni at Perugia, and of the Bentivogli at Bologna +would come next. Pandolfo Petrucci at Siena, surrounded on all sides +by Cesare's conquests, and specially menaced by the fortification of +Piombino, felt himself in danger. The great house of the Orsini, who +swayed a large part of the Patrimony of S. Peter's, and were closely +allied to the Vitelli, had even graver cause for anxiety. But such was +the system of Italian warfare, that nearly all these noble families +lived by the profession of arms, and most of them were in the pay of +Cesare. When, therefore, the conspirators met at La Magione, they were +plotting against a man whose money they had taken, and whom they had +hitherto aided in his career of fraud and spoliation. + +The diet consisted of the Cardinal Orsini, an avowed antagonist of +Alexander VI.; his brother Paolo, the chieftain of the clan; +Vitellozzo Vitelli, lord of Città di Castello; Gian-Paolo Baglioni, +made undisputed master of Perugia by the recent failure of his cousin +Grifonetto's treason; Oliverotto, who had just acquired the March of +Fermo by the murder of his uncle Giovanni da Fogliani; Ermes +Bentivoglio, the heir of Bologna; and Antonio da Venafro, the +secretary of Pandolfo Petrueci. These men vowed hostility on the basis +of common injuries and common fear against the Borgia. But they were +for the most part stained themselves with crime, and dared not trust +each other, and could not gain the confidence of any respectable power +in Italy except the exiled Duke of Urbino. Procrastination was the +first weapon used by the wily Cesare, who trusted that time would sow +among his rebel captains suspicion and dissension. He next made +overtures to the leaders separately, and so far succeeded in his +perfidious policy as to draw Vitellozzo Vitelli, Oliverotto da Fermo, +Paolo Orsini, and Francesco Orsini, Duke of Gravina, into his nets at +Sinigaglia. Under pretext of fair conference and equitable settlement +of disputed claims, he possessed himself of their persons, and had +them strangled--two upon December 31, and two upon January 18, 1503. +Of all Cesare's actions, this was the most splendid for its successful +combination of sagacity and policy in the hour of peril, of persuasive +diplomacy, and of ruthless decision when the time to strike his blow +arrived. + + +CORTONA + + +After leaving La Magione, the road descends upon the lake of +Thrasymene through oak-woods full of nightingales. The lake lay +basking, leaden-coloured, smooth and waveless, under a misty, +rain-charged, sun-irradiated sky. At Passignano, close beside its +shore, we stopped for mid-day. This is a little fishing village of +very poor people, who live entirely by labour on the waters. They +showed us huge eels coiled in tanks, and some fine specimens of the +silver carp--Reina del Lago. It was off one of the eels that we made +our lunch; and taken, as he was, alive from his cool lodging, he +furnished a series of dishes fit for a king. + +Climbing the hill of Cortona seemed a quite interminable business. It +poured a deluge. Our horses were tired, and one lean donkey, who, +after much trouble, was produced from a farmhouse and yoked in front +of them, rendered but little assistance. + +Next day we duly saw the Muse and Lamp in the Museo, the Fra +Angelicos, and all the Signorellis. One cannot help thinking that too +much fuss is made nowadays about works of art--running after them for +their own sakes, exaggerating their importance, and detaching them as +objects of study, instead of taking them with sympathy and +carelessness as pleasant or instructive adjuncts to our actual life. +Artists, historians of art, and critics are forced to isolate +pictures; and it is of profit to their souls to do so. But simple +folk, who have no aesthetic vocation, whether creative or critical, +suffer more than is good for them by compliance with mere fashion. +Sooner or later we shall return to the spirit of the ages which +produced these pictures, and which regarded them with less of an +industrious bewilderment than they evoke at present. + +I am far indeed from wishing to decry art, the study of art, or the +benefits to be derived from its intelligent enjoyment. I only mean to +suggest that we go the wrong way to work at present in this matter. +Picture and sculpture galleries accustom us to the separation of art +from life. Our methods of studying art, making a beginning of +art-study while traveling, tend to perpetuate this separation. It is +only on reflection, after long experience, that we come to perceive +that the most fruitful moments in our art education have been casual +and unsought, in quaint nooks and unexpected places, where nature, +art, and life are happily blent. + +The Palace of the Commune at Cortona is interesting because of the +shields of Florentine governors, sculptured on blocks of grey stone, +and inserted in its outer walls--Peruzzi, Albizzi, Strozzi, Salviati, +among the more ancient--de' Medici at a later epoch. The revolutions +in the Republic of Florence may be read by a herald from these +coats-of-arms and the dates beneath them. + +The landscape of this Tuscan highland satisfies me more and more with +sense of breadth and beauty. From S. Margherita above the town the +prospect is immense and wonderful and wild--up into those brown, +forbidding mountains; down to the vast plain; and over to the cities +of Chiusi, Montepulciano, and Foiano. The jewel of the view is +Trasimeno, a silvery shield encased with serried hills, and set upon +one corner of the scene, like a precious thing apart and meant for +separate contemplation. There is something in the singularity and +circumscribed completeness of the mountain-girded lake, diminished by +distance, which would have attracted Lionardo da Vinci's pencil, had +he seen it. + +Cortona seems desperately poor, and the beggars are intolerable. One +little blind boy, led by his brother, both frightfully ugly and ragged +urchins, pursued us all over the city, incessantly whining 'Signore +Padrone!' It was only on the threshold of the inn that I ventured to +give them a few coppers, for I knew well that any public beneficence +would raise the whole swarm of the begging population round us. +Sitting later in the day upon the piazza of S. Domenico, I saw the +same blind boy taken by his brother to play. The game consists, in the +little creature throwing his arms about the trunk of a big tree, and +running round and round it, clasping it. This seemed to make him quite +inexpressibly happy. His face lit up and beamed with that inner +beatitude blind people show--a kind of rapture shining over it, as +though nothing could be more altogether delightful. This little boy +had the smallpox at eight months, and has never been able to see +since. He looks sturdy, and may live to be of any age--doomed always, +is that possible, to beg? + + +CHIUSI + + +What more enjoyable dinner can be imagined than a flask of excellent +Montepulciano, a well-cooked steak, and a little goat's cheese in the +inn of the Leone d'Oro at Chiusi? The windows are open, and the sun is +setting. Monte Cetona bounds the view to the right, and the wooded +hills of Città della Pieve to the left. The deep green dimpled valley +goes stretching away toward Orvieto; and at its end a purple mountain +mass, distinct and solitary, which may peradventure be Soracte! The +near country is broken into undulating hills, forested with fine +olives and oaks; and the composition of the landscape, with its +crowning villages, is worthy of a background to an Umbrian picture. +The breadth and depth and quiet which those painters loved, the space +of lucid sky, the suggestion of winding waters in verdant fields, all +are here. The evening is beautiful--golden light streaming softly from +behind us on this prospect, and gradually mellowing to violet and blue +with stars above. + +At Chiusi we visited several Etruscan tombs, and saw their red and +black scrawled pictures. One of the sepulchres was a well-jointed +vault of stone with no wall-paintings. The rest had been scooped out +of the living tufa. This was the excuse for some pleasant hours spent +in walking and driving through the country. Chiusi means for me the +mingling of grey olives and green oaks in limpid sunlight; deep leafy +lanes; warm sandstone banks; copses with nightingales and cyclamens +and cuckoos; glimpses of a silvery lake; blue shadowy distances; the +bristling ridge of Monte Cetona; the conical towers, Becca di Questo +and Becca di Quello, over against each other on the borders; ways +winding among hedgerows like some bit of England in June, but not so +full of flowers. It means all this, I fear, for me far more than +theories about Lars Porsenna and Etruscan ethnology. + + +GUBBIO + + +Gubbio ranks among the most ancient of Italian hill-towns. With its +back set firm against the spine of central Apennines, and piled, house +over house, upon the rising slope, it commands a rich tract of upland +champaign, bounded southward toward Perugia and Foligno by peaked and +rolling ridges. This amphitheatre, which forms its source of wealth +and independence, is admirably protected by a chain of natural +defences; and Gubbio wears a singularly old-world aspect of antiquity +and isolation. Houses climb right to the crests of gaunt bare peaks; +and the brown mediæval walls with square towers which protected them +upon the mountain side, following the inequalities of the ground, are +still a marked feature in the landscape. It is a town of steep streets +and staircases, with quaintly framed prospects, and solemn vistas +opening at every turn across the lowland. One of these views might be +selected for especial notice. In front, irregular buildings losing +themselves in country as they straggle by the roadside; then the open +post-road with a cypress to the right; afterwards, the rich green +fields, and on a bit of rising ground an ancient farmhouse with its +brown dependencies; lastly, the blue hills above Fossato, and far away +a wrack of tumbling clouds. All this enclosed by the heavy archway of +the Porta Romana, where sunlight and shadow chequer the mellow tones +of a dim fresco, indistinct with age, but beautiful. + +Gubbio has not greatly altered since the middle ages. But poor people +are now living in the palaces of noblemen and merchants. These new +inhabitants have walled up the fair arched windows and slender portals +of the ancient dwellers, spoiling the beauty of the streets without +materially changing the architectural masses. In that witching hour +when the Italian sunset has faded, and a solemn grey replaces the +glowing tones of daffodil and rose, it is not difficult, here dreaming +by oneself alone, to picture the old noble life--the ladies moving +along those open loggias, the young men in plumed caps and curling +hair with one foot on those doorsteps, the knights in armour and the +sumpter mules and red-robed Cardinals defiling through those gates +into the courts within. The modern bricks and mortar with which that +picturesque scene has been overlaid, the ugly oblong windows and +bright green shutters which now interrupt the flowing lines of arch +and gallery; these disappear beneath the fine remembered touch of a +sonnet sung by Folgore, when still the Parties had their day, and this +deserted city was the centre of great aims and throbbing aspirations. + +The names of the chief buildings in Gubbio are strongly suggestive of +the middle ages. They abut upon a Piazza de' Signori. One of them, the +Palazzo del Municipio, is a shapeless unfinished block of masonry. It +is here that the Eugubine tables, plates of brass with Umbrian and +Roman incised characters, are shown. The Palazzo de' Consoli has +higher architectural qualities, and is indeed unique among Italian +palaces for the combination of massiveness with lightness in a +situation of unprecedented boldness. Rising from enormous +substructures mortised into the solid hillside, it rears its vast +rectangular bulk to a giddy height above the town; airy loggias +imposed on great forbidding masses of brown stone, shooting aloft into +a light aërial tower. The empty halls inside are of fair proportions +and a noble size, and the views from the open colonnades in all +directions fascinate. But the final impression made by the building is +one of square, tranquil, massive strength--perpetuity embodied in +masonry--force suggesting facility by daring and successful addition +of elegance to hugeness. Vast as it is, this pile is not forbidding, +as a similarly weighty structure in the North would be. The fine +quality of the stone and the delicate though simple mouldings of the +windows give it an Italian grace. + +These public palaces belong to the age of the Communes, when Gubbio +was a free town, with a policy of its own, and an important part to +play in the internecine struggles of Pope and Empire, Guelf and +Ghibelline. The ruined, deserted, degraded Palazzo Ducale reminds us +of the advent of the despots. It has been stripped of all its +tarsia-work and sculpture. Only here and there a Fe.D., with the +cupping-glass of Federigo di Montefeltro, remains to show that Gubbio +once became the fairest fief of the Urbino duchy. S. Ubaldo, who gave +his name to this duke's son, was the patron of Gubbio, and to him the +cathedral is dedicated--one low enormous vault, like a cellar or +feudal banqueting hall, roofed with a succession of solid Gothic +arches. This strange old church, and the House of Canons, buttressed +on the hill beside it, have suffered less from modernisation than most +buildings in Gubbio. The latter, in particular, helps one to +understand what this city of grave palazzi must have been, and how the +mere opening of old doors and windows would restore it to its +primitive appearance. The House of the Canons has, in fact, not yet +been given over to the use of middle-class and proletariate. + +At the end of a day in Gubbio, it is pleasant to take our ease in the +primitive hostelry, at the back of which foams a mountain-torrent, +rushing downward from the Apennines. The Gubbio wine is very fragrant, +and of a rich ruby colour. Those to whom the tints of wine and jewels +give a pleasure not entirely childish, will take delight in its +specific blending of tawny hues with rose. They serve the table still, +at Gubbio, after the antique Italian fashion, covering it with a +cream-coloured linen cloth bordered with coarse lace--the creases of +the press, the scent of old herbs from the wardrobe, are still upon +it--and the board is set with shallow dishes of warm, white +earthenware, basket-worked in open lattice at the edge, which contain +little separate messes of meat, vegetables, cheese, and comfits. The +wine stands in strange, slender phials of smooth glass, with stoppers; +and the amber-coloured bread lies in fair round loaves upon the cloth. +Dining thus is like sitting down to the supper at Emmaus, in some +picture of Gian Bellini or of Masolino. The very bareness of the +room--its open rafters, plastered walls, primitive settees, and +red-brick floor, on which a dog sits waiting for a bone--enhances the +impression of artistic delicacy in the table. + + +FROM GUBBIO TO FANO + + +The road from Gubbio, immediately after leaving the city, enters a +narrow Alpine ravine, where a thin stream dashes over dark, red rocks, +and pendent saxifrages wave to the winds. The carriage in which we +travelled at the end of May, one morning, had two horses, which our +driver soon supplemented with a couple of white oxen. Slowly and +toilsomely we ascended between the flanks of barren hills--gaunt +masses of crimson and grey crag, clothed at their summits with short +turf and scanty pasture. The pass leads first to the little town of +Scheggia, and is called the Monte Calvo, or bald mountain. At +Scheggia, it joins the great Flaminian Way, or North road of the Roman +armies. At the top there is a fine view over the conical hills that +dominate Gubbio, and, far away, to noble mountains above the Furlo and +the Foligno line of railway to Ancona. Range rises over range, +crossing at unexpected angles, breaking into sudden precipices, and +stretching out long, exquisitely modelled outlines, as only Apennines +can do, in silvery sobriety of colours toned by clearest air. Every +square piece of this austere, wild landscape forms a varied picture, +whereof the composition is due to subtle arrangements of lines always +delicate; and these lines seem somehow to have been determined in +their beauty by the vast antiquity of the mountain system, as though +they all had taken time to choose their place and wear down into +harmony. The effect of tempered sadness was heightened for us by +stormy lights and dun clouds, high in air, rolling vapours and flying +shadows, over all the prospect, tinted in ethereal grisaille. + +After Scheggia, one enters a land of meadow and oak-trees. This is the +sacred central tract of Jupiter Apenninus, whose fane-- + + Delubra Jovis saxoque minantes + Apenninigenis cultae pastoribus arae + +--once rose behind us on the bald Iguvian summits. A second little +pass leads from this region to the Adriatic side of the Italian +watershed, and the road now follows the Barano downward toward the +sea. The valley is fairly green with woods, where mistletoe may here +and there be seen on boughs of oak, and rich with cornfields. Cagli is +the chief town of the district, and here they show one of the best +pictures left to us by Raphael's father, Giovanni Santi. It is a +Madonna, attended by S. Peter, S. Francis, S. Dominic, S. John, and +two angels. One of the angels is traditionally supposed to have been +painted from the boy Raphael, and the face has something which reminds +us of his portraits. The whole composition, excellent in modelling, +harmonious in grouping, soberly but strongly coloured, with a peculiar +blending of dignity and sweetness, grace and vigour, makes one wonder +why Santi thought it necessary to send his son from his own workshop +to study under Perugino. He was himself a master of his art, and this, +perhaps the most agreeable of his paintings, has a masculine sincerity +which is absent from at least the later works of Perugino. + +Some miles beyond Cagli, the real pass of the Furlo begins. It owes +its name to a narrow tunnel bored by Vespasian in the solid rock, +where limestone crags descend on the Barano. The Romans called this +gallery Petra Pertusa, or Intercisa, or more familiarly Forulus, +whence comes the modern name. Indeed, the stations on the old +Flaminian Way are still well marked by Latin designations; for Cagli +is the ancient Calles, and Fossombrone is Forum Sempronii, and Fano +the Fanum Fortunæ. Vespasian commemorated this early achievement in +engineering by an inscription carved on the living stone, which still +remains; and Claudian, when he sang the journey of his Emperor +Honorius from Rimini to Rome, speaks thus of what was even then an +object of astonishment to travellers:-- + + Laetior hinc fano recipit fortuna vetusto, + Despiciturque vagus praerupta valle Metaurus, + Qua mons arte patens vivo se perforat arcu + Admittitque viam sectae per viscera rupis. + +The Forulus itself may now be matched, on any Alpine pass, by several +tunnels of far mightier dimensions; for it is narrow, and does not +extend more than 126 feet in length. But it occupies a fine position +at the end of a really imposing ravine. The whole Furlo Pass might, +without too much exaggeration, be described as a kind of Cheddar on +the scale of the Via Mala. The limestone rocks, which rise on either +hand above the gorge to an enormous height, are noble in form and +solemn, like a succession of gigantic portals, with stupendous +flanking obelisks and pyramids. Some of these crag-masses rival the +fantastic cliffs of Capri, and all consist of that southern mountain +limestone which changes from pale yellow to blue grey and dusky +orange. A river roars precipitately through the pass, and the +roadsides wave with many sorts of campanulas--a profusion of azure and +purple bells upon the hard white stone. Of Roman remains there is +still enough (in the way of Roman bridges and bits of broken masonry) +to please an antiquary's eye. But the lover of nature will dwell +chiefly on the picturesque qualities of this historic gorge, so alien +to the general character of Italian scenery, and yet so remote from +anything to which Swiss travelling accustoms one. + +The Furlo breaks out into a richer land of mighty oaks and waving +cornfields, a fat pastoral country, not unlike Devonshire in detail, +with green uplands, and wild-rose tangled hedgerows, and much running +water, and abundance of summer flowers. At a point above Fossombrone, +the Barano joins the Metauro, and here one has a glimpse of faraway +Urbino, high upon its mountain eyrie. It is so rare, in spite of +immemorial belief, to find in Italy a wilderness of wild flowers, that +I feel inclined to make a list of those I saw from our carriage +windows as we rolled down lazily along the road to Fossombrone. Broom, +and cytisus, and hawthorn mingled with roses, gladiolus, and sainfoin. +There were orchises, and clematis, and privet, and wild-vine, vetches +of all hues, red poppies, sky-blue cornflowers, and lilac pimpernel. +In the rougher hedges, dogwood, honeysuckle, pyracanth, and acacia +made a network of white bloom and blushes. Milk-worts of all bright +and tender tints combined with borage, iris, hawkweeds, harebells, +crimson clover, thyme, red snap-dragon, golden asters, and dreamy +love-in-a-mist, to weave a marvellous carpet such as the looms of +Shiraz or of Cashmere never spread. Rarely have I gazed on Flora in +such riot, such luxuriance, such self-abandonment to joy. The air was +filled with fragrances. Songs of cuckoos and nightingales echoed from +the copses on the hillsides. The sun was out, and dancing over all the +landscape. + +After all this, Fano was very restful in the quiet sunset. It has a +sandy stretch of shore, on which the long, green-yellow rollers of the +Adriatic broke into creamy foam, beneath the waning saffron light over +Pesaro and the rosy rising of a full moon. This Adriatic sea carries +an English mind home to many a little watering-place upon our coast. +In colour and the shape of waves it resembles our Channel. + +The sea-shore is Fano's great attraction; but the town has many +churches, and some creditable pictures, as well as Roman antiquities. +Giovanni Santi may here be seen almost as well as at Cagli; and of +Perugino there is one truly magnificent altar-piece--lunette, great +centre panel, and predella--dusty in its present condition, but +splendidly painted, and happily not yet restored or cleaned. It is +worth journeying to Fano to see this. Still better would the journey +be worth the traveller's while if he could be sure to witness such a +game of _Pallone_ as we chanced upon in the Via dell' Arco di +Augusto--lads and grown-men, tightly girt, in shirt sleeves, driving +the great ball aloft into the air with cunning bias and calculation of +projecting house-eaves. I do not understand the game; but it was +clearly played something after the manner of our football, that is to +say; with sides, and front and back players so arranged as to cover +the greatest number of angles of incidence on either wall. + +Fano still remembers that it is the Fane of Fortune. On the fountain +in the market-place stands a bronze Fortuna, slim and airy, offering +her veil to catch the wind. May she long shower health and prosperity +upon the modern watering-place of which she is the patron saint! + + * * * * * + + + + +_THE PALACE OF URBINO_ + + +I + +At Rimini, one spring, the impulse came upon my wife and me to make +our way across San Marino to Urbino. In the Piazza, called +apocryphally after Julius Cæsar, I found a proper _vetturino_, with a +good carriage and two indefatigable horses. He was a splendid fellow, +and bore a great historic name, as I discovered when our bargain was +completed. 'What are you called?' I asked him. '_Filippo Visconti, per +servirla!_' was the prompt reply. Brimming over with the darkest +memories of the Italian Renaissance, I hesitated when I heard this +answer. The associations seemed too ominous. And yet the man himself +was so attractive--tall, stalwart, and well looking--no feature of his +face or limb of his athletic form recalling the gross tyrant who +concealed worse than Caligula's ugliness from sight in secret +chambers--that I shook this preconception from my mind. As it turned +out, Filippo Visconti had nothing in common with his infamous namesake +but the name. On a long and trying journey, he showed neither sullen +nor yet ferocious tempers; nor, at the end of it, did he attempt by +any master-stroke of craft to wheedle from me more than his fair pay; +but took the meerschaum pipe I gave him for a keepsake, with the frank +goodwill of an accomplished gentleman. The only exhibition of his hot +Italian blood which I remember did his humanity credit. + +While we were ascending a steep hillside, he jumped from his box to +thrash a ruffian by the roadside for brutal treatment to a little boy. +He broke his whip, it is true, in this encounter; risked a dangerous +quarrel; and left his carriage, with myself and wife inside it, to the +mercy of his horses in a somewhat perilous position. But when he came +back, hot and glowing, from this deed of justice, I could only applaud +his zeal. + +An Italian of this type, handsome as an antique statue, with the +refinement of a modern gentleman and that intelligence which is innate +in a race of immemorial culture, is a fascinating being. He may be +absolutely ignorant in all book-learning. He may be as ignorant as a +Bersagliere from Montalcino with whom I once conversed at Rimini, who +gravely said that he could walk in three months to North America, and +thought of doing it when his term of service was accomplished. But he +will display, as this young soldier did, a grace and ease of address +which are rare in London drawing-rooms; and by his shrewd remarks upon +the cities he has visited, will show that he possesses a fine natural +taste for things of beauty. The speech of such men, drawn from the +common stock of the Italian people, is seasoned with proverbial +sayings, the wisdom of centuries condensed in a few nervous words. +When emotion fires their brain, they break into spontaneous eloquence, +or suggest the motive of a poem by phrases pregnant with imagery. + +For the first stage of the journey out of Rimini, Filippo's two horses +sufficed. The road led almost straight across the level between +quickset hedges in white bloom. But when we reached the long steep +hill which ascends to San Marino, the inevitable oxen were called out, +and we toiled upwards leisurely through cornfields bright with red +anemones and sweet narcissus. At this point pomegranate hedges +replaced the May-thorns of the plain. In course of time our _bovi_ +brought us to the Borgo, or lower town, whence there is a further +ascent of seven hundred feet to the topmost hawk's-nest or acropolis +of the republic. These we climbed on foot, watching the view expand +around us and beneath. Crags of limestone here break down abruptly to +the rolling hills, which go to lose themselves in field and shore. +Misty reaches of the Adriatic close the world to eastward. Cesena, +Rimini, Verucchio, and countless hill-set villages, each isolated on +its tract of verdure conquered from the stern grey soil, define the +points where Montefeltri wrestled with Malatestas in long bygone +years. Around are marly mountain-flanks in wrinkles and gnarled +convolutions like some giant's brain, furrowed by rivers crawling +through dry wasteful beds of shingle. Interminable ranges of gaunt +Apennines stretch, tier by tier, beyond; and over all this landscape, +a grey-green mist of rising crops and new-fledged oak-trees lies like +a veil upon the nakedness of Nature's ruins. + +Nothing in Europe conveys a more striking sense of geological +antiquity than such a prospect. The denudation and abrasion of +innumerable ages, wrought by slow persistent action of weather and +water on an upheaved mountain mass, are here made visible. Every wave +in that vast sea of hills, every furrow in their worn flanks, tells +its tale of a continuous corrosion still in progress. The dominant +impression is one of melancholy. We forget how Romans, countermarching +Carthaginians, trod the land beneath us. The marvel of San Marino, +retaining independence through the drums and tramplings of the last +seven centuries, is swallowed in a deeper sense of wonder. We turn +instinctively in thought to Leopardi's musings on man's destiny at war +with unknown nature-forces and malignant rulers of the universe. + + + Omai disprezza + Te, la natura, il brutto + Poter che, ascoso, a comun danno impera, + E l' infinita vanità del tutto. + +And then, straining our eyes southward, we sweep the dim blue distance +for Recanati, and remember that the poet of modern despair and +discouragement was reared in even such a scene as this. + +The town of San Marino is grey, narrow-streeted, simple; with a great, +new, decent, Greek-porticoed cathedral, dedicated to the eponymous +saint. A certain austerity defines it from more picturesque +hill-cities with a less uniform history. There is a marble statue of +S. Marino in the choir of his church; and in his cell is shown the +stone bed and pillow on which he took austere repose. One narrow +window near the saint's abode commands a proud but melancholy +landscape of distant hills and seaboard. To this, the great absorbing +charm of San Marino, our eyes instinctively, recurrently, take +flight. It is a landscape which by variety and beauty thralls +attention, but which by its interminable sameness might grow almost +overpowering. There is no relief. The gladness shed upon far humbler +Northern lands in May is ever absent here. The German word +_Gemüthlichkeit_, the English phrase 'a home of ancient peace,' are +here alike by art and nature untranslated into visibilities. And yet +(as we who gaze upon it thus are fain to think) if peradventure the +intolerable _ennui_ of this panorama should drive a citizen of San +Marino into out-lands, the same view would haunt him whithersoever he +went--the swallows of his native eyrie would shrill through his +sleep--he would yearn to breathe its fine keen air in winter, and to +watch its iris-hedges deck themselves with blue in spring;--like +Virgil's hero, dying, he would think of San Marino: _Aspicit, et +dulces moriens reminiscitur Argos_. Even a passing stranger may feel +the mingled fascination and oppression of this prospect--the monotony +which maddens, the charm which at a distance grows upon the mind, +environing it with memories. + +Descending to the Borgo, we found that Filippo Visconti had ordered a +luncheon of excellent white bread, pigeons, and omelette, with the +best red muscat wine I ever drank, unless the sharp air of the hills +deceived my appetite. An Italian history of San Marino, including its +statutes, in three volumes, furnished intellectual food. But I confess +to having learned from these pages little else than this: first, that +the survival of the Commonwealth through all phases of European +politics had been semi-miraculous; secondly, that the most eminent San +Marinesi had been lawyers. It is possible on a hasty deduction from +these two propositions (to which, however, I am far from wishing to +commit myself), that the latter is a sufficient explanation of the +former. + +From San Marino the road plunges at a break-neck pace. We are now in +the true Feltrian highlands, whence the Counts of Montefeltro issued +in the twelfth century. Yonder eyrie is San Leo, which formed the key +of entrance to the duchy of Urbino in campaigns fought many hundred +years ago. Perched on the crest of a precipitous rock, this fortress +looks as though it might defy all enemies but famine. And yet San Leo +was taken and re-taken by strategy and fraud, when Montefeltro, +Borgia, Malatesta, Rovere, contended for dominion in these valleys. +Yonder is Sta. Agata, the village to which Guidobaldo fled by night +when Valentino drove him from his dukedom. A little farther towers +Carpegna, where one branch of the Montefeltro house maintained a +countship through seven centuries, and only sold their fief to Rome in +1815. Monte Coppiolo lies behind, Pietra Rubia in front: two other +eagles' nests of the same brood. What a road it is! + +It beats the tracks on Exmoor. The uphill and downhill of Devonshire +scorns compromise or mitigation by _détour_ and zigzag. But here +geography is on a scale so far more vast, and the roadway is so far +worse metalled than with us in England--knotty masses of talc and +nodes of sandstone cropping up at dangerous turnings--that only +Dante's words describe the journey:-- + + Vassi in Sanleo, e discendesi in Noli, + Montasi su Bismantova in cacume + Con esso i piè; ma qui convien ch' uom voli. + +Of a truth, our horses seemed rather to fly than scramble up and down +these rugged precipices; Visconti cheerily animating them with the +brave spirit that was in him, and lending them his wary driver's help +of hand and voice at need. + +We were soon upon a cornice-road between the mountains and the +Adriatic: following the curves of gulch and cleft ravine; winding +round ruined castles set on points of vantage; the sea-line high +above their grass-grown battlements, the shadow-dappled champaign +girdling their bastions mortised on the naked rock. Except for the +blue lights across the distance, and the ever-present sea, these +earthy Apennines would be too grim. Infinite air and this spare veil +of spring-tide greenery on field and forest soothe their sternness. +Two rivers, swollen by late rains, had to be forded. Through one of +these, the Foglia, bare-legged peasants led the way. The horses waded +to their bellies in the tawny water. Then more hills and vales; green +nooks with rippling corn-crops; secular oaks attired in golden +leafage. The clear afternoon air rang with the voices of a thousand +larks overhead. The whole world seemed quivering with light and +delicate ethereal sound. And yet my mind turned irresistibly to +thoughts of war, violence, and pillage. How often has this +intermediate land been fought over by Montefeltro and Brancaleoni, by +Borgia and Malatesta, by Medici and Della Rovere! Its _contadini_ are +robust men, almost statuesque in build, and beautiful of feature. No +wonder that the Princes of Urbino, with such materials to draw from, +sold their service and their troops to Florence, Rome, S. Mark, and +Milan. The bearing of these peasants is still soldierly and proud. Yet +they are not sullen or forbidding like the Sicilians, whose habits of +life, for the rest, much resemble theirs. The villages, there as here, +are few and far between, perched high on rocks, from which the folk +descend to till the ground and reap the harvest. But the southern +_brusquerie_ and brutality are absent from this district. The men have +something of the dignity and slow-eyed mildness of their own huge +oxen. As evening fell, more solemn Apennines upreared themselves to +southward. The Monte d'Asdrubale, Monte Nerone, and Monte Catria hove +into sight. At last, when light was dim, a tower rose above the +neighbouring ridge, a broken outline of some city barred the sky-line. +Urbino stood before us. Our long day's march was at an end. + +The sunset was almost spent, and a four days' moon hung above the +western Apennines, when we took our first view of the palace. It is a +fancy-thralling work of wonder seen in that dim twilight; like some +castle reared by Atlante's magic for imprisonment of Ruggiero, or +palace sought in fairyland by Astolf winding his enchanted horn. Where +shall we find its like, combining, as it does, the buttressed +battlemented bulk of mediæval strongholds with the airy balconies, +suspended gardens, and fantastic turrets of Italian pleasure-houses? +This unique blending of the feudal past with the Renaissance spirit of +the time when it was built, connects it with the art of Ariosto--or +more exactly with Boiardo's epic. Duke Federigo planned his palace at +Urbino just at the moment when the Count of Scandiano had began to +chaunt his lays of Roland in the Castle of Ferrara. Chivalry, +transmuted by the Italian genius into something fanciful and quaint, +survived as a frail work of art. The men-at-arms of the Condottieri +still glittered in gilded hauberks. Their helmets waved with plumes +and bizarre crests. Their surcoats blazed with heraldries; their +velvet caps with medals bearing legendary emblems. The pomp and +circumstance of feudal war had not yet yielded to the cannon of the +Gascon or the Switzer's pike. The fatal age of foreign invasions had +not begun for Italy. Within a few years Charles VIII.'s holiday +excursion would reveal the internal rottenness and weakness of her +rival states, and the peninsula for half a century to come would be +drenched in the blood of Frenchmen, Germans, Spaniards, fighting for +her cities as their prey. But now Lorenzo de' Medici was still alive. +The famous policy which bears his name held Italy suspended for a +golden time in false tranquillity and independence. The princes who +shared his culture and his love of art were gradually passing into +modern noblemen, abandoning the savage feuds and passions of more +virile centuries, yielding to luxury and scholarly enjoyments. The +castles were becoming courts, and despotisms won by force were +settling into dynasties. + +It was just at this epoch that Duke Federigo built his castle at +Urbino. One of the ablest and wealthiest Condottieri of his time, one +of the best instructed and humanest of Italian princes, he combined in +himself the qualities which mark that period of transition. And these +he impressed upon his dwelling-house, which looks backward to the +mediæval fortalice and forward to the modern palace. This makes it the +just embodiment in architecture of Italian romance, the perfect +analogue of the 'Orlando Innamorato.' By comparing it with the castle +of the Estes at Ferrara and the Palazzo del Te of the Gonzagas at +Mantua, we place it in its right position between mediæval and +Renaissance Italy, between the age when principalities arose upon the +ruins of commercial independence and the age when they became dynastic +under Spain. + +The exigencies of the ground at his disposal forced Federigo to give +the building an irregular outline. The fine façade, with its embayed +_loggie_ and flanking turrets, is placed too close upon the city +ramparts for its due effect. We are obliged to cross the deep ravine +which separates it from a lower quarter of the town, and take our +station near the Oratory of S. Giovanni Battista, before we can +appreciate the beauty of its design, or the boldness of the group it +forms with the cathedral dome and tower and the square masses of +numerous out-buildings. Yet this peculiar position of the palace, +though baffling to a close observer of its details, is one of singular +advantage to the inhabitants. Set on the verge of Urbino's towering +eminence, it fronts a wave-tossed sea of vales and mountain summits +toward the rising and the setting sun. There is nothing but +illimitable air between the terraces and loggias of the Duchess's +apartments and the spreading pyramid of Monte Catria. + +A nobler scene is nowhere swept from palace windows than this, which +Castiglione touched in a memorable passage at the end of his +'Cortegiano.' To one who in our day visits Urbino, it is singular how +the slight indications of this sketch, as in some silhouette, bring +back the antique life, and link the present with the past--a hint, +perhaps, for reticence in our descriptions. The gentlemen and ladies +of the court had spent a summer night in long debate on love, rising +to the height of mystical Platonic rapture on the lips of Bembo, when +one of them exclaimed, 'The day has broken!' 'He pointed to the light +which was beginning to enter by the fissures of the windows. Whereupon +we flung the casements wide upon that side of the palace which looks +toward the high peak of Monte Catria, and saw that a fair dawn of rosy +hue was born already in the eastern skies, and all the stars had +vanished except the sweet regent of the heaven of Venus, who holds the +borderlands of day and night; and from her sphere it seemed as though +a gentle wind were breathing, filling the air with eager freshness, +and waking among the numerous woods upon the neighbouring hills the +sweet-toned symphonies of joyous birds.' + + +II + +The House of Montefeltro rose into importance early in the twelfth +century. Frederick Barbarossa erected their fief into a county in +1160. Supported by imperial favour, they began to exercise an +undefined authority over the district, which they afterwards converted +into a duchy. But, though Ghibelline for several generations, the +Montefeltri were too near neighbours of the Papal power to free +themselves from ecclesiastical vassalage. Therefore in 1216 they +sought and obtained the title of Vicars of the Church. Urbino +acknowledged them as semi-despots in their double capacity of Imperial +and Papal deputies. Cagli and Gubbio followed in the fourteenth +century. In the fifteenth, Castel Durante was acquired from the +Brancaleoni by warfare, and Fossombrone from the Malatestas by +purchase. Numerous fiefs and villages fell into their hands upon the +borders of Rimini in the course of a continued struggle with the House +of Malatesta: and when Fano and Pesaro were added at the opening of +the sixteenth century, the domain over which they ruled was a compact +territory, some forty miles square, between the Adriatic and the +Apennines. From the close of the thirteenth century they bore the +title of Counts of Urbino. The famous Conte Guido, whom Dante placed +among the fraudulent in hell, supported the honours of the house and +increased its power by his political action, at this epoch. But it was +not until the year 1443 that the Montefeltri acquired their ducal +title. This was conferred by Eugenius IV. upon Oddantonio, over whose +alleged crimes and indubitable assassination a veil of mystery still +hangs. He was the son of Count Guidantonio, and at his death the +Montefeltri of Urbino were extinct in the legitimate line. A natural +son of Guidantonio had been, however, recognised in his father's +lifetime, and married to Gentile, heiress of Mercatello. This was +Federigo, a youth of great promise, who succeeded his half-brother in +1444 as Count of Urbino. It was not until 1474 that the ducal title +was revived for him. + +Duke Frederick was a prince remarkable among Italian despots for +private virtues and sober use of his hereditary power. He spent his +youth at Mantua, in that famous school of Vittorino da Feltre, where +the sons and daughters of the first Italian nobility received a model +education in humanities, good manners, and gentle physical +accomplishments. More than any of his fellow-students Frederick +profited by this rare scholar's discipline. On leaving school he +adopted the profession of arms, as it was then practised, and joined +the troop of the Condottiere Niccolò Piccinino. Young men of his own +rank, especially the younger sons and bastards of ruling families, +sought military service under captains of adventure. If they +succeeded they were sure to make money. The coffers of the Church and +the republics lay open to their not too scrupulous hands; the wealth +of Milan and Naples was squandered on them in retaining-fees and +salaries for active service. There was always the further possibility +of placing a coronet upon their brows before they died, if haply they +should wrest a town from their employers, or obtain the cession of a +province from a needy Pope. The neighbours of the Montefeltri in +Umbria, Romagna, and the Marches of Ancona were all of them +Condottieri. Malatestas of Rimini and Pesaro, Vitelli of Città di +Castello, Varani of Camerino, Baglioni of Perugia, to mention only a +few of the most eminent nobles, enrolled themselves under the banners +of plebeian adventurers like Piccinino and Sforza Attendolo. Though +their family connections gave them a certain advantage, the system was +essentially democratic. Gattamelata and Carmagnola sprang from +obscurity by personal address and courage to the command of armies. +Colleoni fought his way up from the grooms to princely station and the +_bâton_ of S. Mark. Francesco Sforza, whose father had begun life as a +tiller of the soil, seized the ducal crown of Milan, and founded a +house which ranked among the first in Europe. + +It is not needful to follow Duke Frederick in his military career. We +may briefly remark that when he succeeded to Urbino by his brother's +death in 1444, he undertook generalship on a grand scale. His own +dominions supplied him with some of the best troops in Italy. He was +careful to secure the goodwill of his subjects by attending personally +to their interests, relieving them of imposts, and executing equal +justice. He gained the then unique reputation of an honest prince, +paternally disposed toward his dependents. Men flocked to his +standards willingly, and he was able to bring an important contingent +into any army. These advantages secured for him alliances with +Francesco Sforza, and brought him successively into connection with +Milan, Venice, Florence, the Church of Naples. As a tactician in the +field he held high rank among the generals of the age, and so +considerable were his engagements that he acquired great wealth in the +exercise of his profession. We find him at one time receiving 8000 +ducats a month as war-pay from Naples, with a peace pension of 6000. +While Captain-General of the League, he drew for his own use in war +45,000 ducats of annual pay. Retaining-fees and pensions in the name +of past services swelled his income, the exact extent of which has +not, so far as I am aware, been estimated, but which must have made +him one of the richest of Italian princes. All this wealth he spent +upon his duchy, fortifying and beautifying its cities, drawing youths +of promise to his court, maintaining a great train of life, and +keeping his vassals in good-humour by the lightness of a rule which +contrasted favourably with the exactions of needier despots. + +While fighting for the masters who offered him _condotta_ in the +complicated wars of Italy, Duke Frederick used his arms, when occasion +served, in his own quarrels. Many years of his life were spent in a +prolonged struggle with his neighbour Sigismondo Pandolfo Malatesta, +the bizarre and brilliant tyrant of Rimini, who committed the fatal +error of embroiling himself beyond all hope of pardon with the Church, +and who died discomfited in the duel with his warier antagonist. +Urbino profited by each mistake of Sigismondo, and the history of this +long desultory strife with Rimini is a history of gradual +aggrandisement and consolidation for the Montefeltrian duchy. + +In 1459 Duke Frederick married his second wife, Battista, daughter of +Alessandro Sforza, Lord of Pesaro. Their portraits, painted by Piero +della Francesca, are to be seen in the Uffizzi at Florence. Some years +earlier, Frederick lost his right eye and had the bridge of his nose +broken in a jousting match outside the town-gate of Urbino. After this +accident, he preferred to be represented in profile--the profile so +well known to students of Italian art on medals and basreliefs. It was +not without medical aid and vows fulfilled by a mother's +self-sacrifice to death, if we may trust the diarists of Urbino, that +the ducal couple got an heir. In 1472, however, a son was born to +them, whom they christened Guido Paolo Ubaldo. He proved a youth of +excellent parts and noble nature--apt at study, perfect in all +chivalrous accomplishments. But he inherited some fatal physical +debility, and his life was marred with a constitutional disease, which +then received the name of gout, and which deprived him of the free use +of his limbs. After his father's death in 1482, Naples, Florence, and +Milan continued Frederick's war engagements to Guidobaldo. The prince +was but a boy of ten. Therefore these important _condotte_ must be +regarded as compliments and pledges for the future. They prove to what +a pitch Duke Frederick had raised the credit of his state and war +establishment. Seven years later, Guidobaldo married Elisabetta, +daughter of Francesco Gonzaga, Marquis of Mantua. This union, though a +happy one, was never blessed with children; and in the certainty of +barrenness, the young Duke thought it prudent to adopt a nephew as +heir to his dominions. He had several sisters, one of whom, Giovanna, +had been married to a nephew of Sixtus IV., Giovanni della Rovere, +Lord of Sinigaglia and Prefect of Rome. They had a son, Francesco +Maria, who, after his adoption by Guidobaldo, spent his boyhood at +Urbino. + +The last years of the fifteenth century were marked by the sudden rise +of Cesare Borgia to a power which threatened the liberties of Italy. +Acting as General for the Church, he carried his arms against the +petty tyrants of Romagna, whom he dispossessed and extirpated. His +next move was upon Camerino and Urbino. He first acquired Camerino, +having lulled Guidobaldo into false security by treacherous +professions of goodwill. Suddenly the Duke received intelligence that +the Borgia was marching on him over Cagli. This was in the middle of +June 1502. It is difficult to comprehend the state of weakness in +which Guidobaldo was surprised, or the panic which then seized him. He +made no efforts to rouse his subjects to resistance, but fled by night +with his nephew through rough mountain roads, leaving his capital and +palace to the marauder. Cesare Borgia took possession without striking +a blow, and removed the treasures of Urbino to the Vatican. His +occupation of the duchy was not undisturbed, however; for the people +rose in several places against him, proving that Guidobaldo had +yielded too hastily to alarm. By this time the fugitive was safe in +Mantua, whence he returned, and for a short time succeeded in +establishing himself again at Urbino. But he could not hold his own +against the Borgias, and in December, by a treaty, he resigned his +claims and retired to Venice, where he lived upon the bounty of S. +Mark. It must be said, in justice to the Duke, that his constitutional +debility rendered him unfit for active operations in the field. +Perhaps he could not have done better than thus to bend beneath the +storm. + +The sudden death of Alexander VI. and the election of a Della Rovere +to the Papacy in 1503 changed Guidobaldo's prospects. Julius II. was +the sworn foe of the Borgias and the close kinsman of Urbino's heir. +It was therefore easy for the Duke to walk into his empty palace on +the hill, and to reinstate himself in the domains from which he had so +recently been ousted. The rest of his life was spent in the retirement +of his court, surrounded with the finest scholars and the noblest +gentlemen of Italy. The ill-health which debarred him from the active +pleasures and employments of his station, was borne with uniform +sweetness of temper and philosophy. + +When he died, in 1508, his nephew, Francesco Maria della Rovere, +succeeded to the duchy, and once more made the palace of Urbino the +resort of men-at-arms and captains. He was a prince of very violent +temper: of its extravagance history has recorded three remarkable +examples. He murdered the Cardinal of Pavia with his own hand in the +streets of Ravenna; stabbed a lover of his sister to death at Urbino; +and in a council of war knocked Francesco Guicciardini down with a +blow of his fist. When the history of Italy came to be written, +Guicciardini was probably mindful of that insult, for he painted +Francesco Maria's character and conduct in dark colours. At the same +time this Duke of Urbino passed for one of the first generals of the +age. The greatest stain upon his memory is his behaviour in the year +1527, when, by dilatory conduct of the campaign in Lombardy, he +suffered the passage of Frundsberg's army unopposed, and afterwards +hesitated to relieve Rome from the horrors of the sack. He was the +last Italian Condottiere of the antique type; and the vices which +Machiavelli exposed in that bad system of mercenary warfare were +illustrated on these occasions. During his lifetime, the conditions of +Italy were so changed by Charles V.'s imperial settlement in 1530, +that the occupation of Condottiere ceased to have any meaning. Strozzi +and Farnesi, who afterwards followed this profession, enlisted in the +ranks of France or Spain, and won their laurels in Northern Europe. + +While Leo X. held the Papal chair, the duchy of Urbino was for a while +wrested from the house of Della Rovere, and conferred upon Lorenzo de' +Medici. Francesco Maria made a better fight for his heritage than +Guidobaldo had done. Yet he could not successfully resist the power of +Rome. The Pope was ready to spend enormous sums of money on this petty +war; the Duke's purse was shorter, and the mercenary troops he was +obliged to use, proved worthless in the field. Spaniards, for the +most part, pitted against Spaniards, they suffered the campaigns to +degenerate into a guerilla warfare of pillage and reprisals. In 1517 +the duchy was formally ceded to Lorenzo. But this Medici did not live +long to enjoy it, and his only child Catherine, the future Queen of +France, never exercised the rights which had devolved upon her by +inheritance. The shifting scene of Italy beheld Francesco Maria +reinstated in Urbino after Leo's death in 1522. + +This Duke married Leonora Gonzaga, a princess of the House of Mantua. +Their portraits, painted by Titian, adorn the Venetian room of the +Uffizzi. Of their son, Guidobaldo II., little need be said. He was +twice married, first to Giulia Varano, Duchess by inheritance of +Camerino; secondly, to Vittoria Farnese, daughter of the Duke of +Parma. Guidobaldo spent a lifetime in petty quarrels with his +subjects, whom he treated badly, attempting to draw from their pockets +the wealth which his father and the Montefeltri had won in military +service. He intervened at an awkward period of Italian politics. The +old Italy of despots, commonwealths, and Condottieri, in which his +predecessors played substantial parts, was at an end. The new Italy of +Popes and Austro-Spanish dynasties had hardly settled into shape. +Between these epochs, Guidobaldo II., of whom we have a dim and hazy +presentation on the page of history, seems somehow to have fallen +flat. As a sign of altered circumstances, he removed his court to +Pesaro, and built the great palace of the Della Roveres upon the +public square. + +Guidobaldaccio, as he was called, died in 1574, leaving an only son, +Francesco Maria II., whose life and character illustrate the new age +which had begun for Italy. He was educated in Spain at the court of +Philip II., where he spent more than two years. When he returned, his +Spanish haughtiness, punctilious attention to etiquette, and +superstitious piety attracted observation. The violent temper of the +Della Roveres, which Francesco Maria I. displayed in acts of +homicide, and which had helped to win his bad name for Guidobaldaccio, +took the form of sullenness in the last Duke. The finest episode in +his life was the part he played in the battle of Lepanto, under his +old comrade, Don John of Austria. His father forced him to an +uncongenial marriage with Lucrezia d'Este, Princess of Ferrara. She +left him, and took refuge in her native city, then honoured by the +presence of Tasso and Guarini. He bore her departure with +philosophical composure, recording the event in his diary as something +to be dryly grateful for. Left alone, the Duke abandoned himself to +solitude, religious exercises, hunting, and the economy of his +impoverished dominions. He became that curious creature, a man of +narrow nature and mediocre capacity, who, dedicated to the cult of +self, is fain to pass for saint and sage in easy circumstances. He +married, for the second time, a lady, Livia della Rovere, who belonged +to his own family, but had been born in private station. She brought +him one son, the Prince Federigo-Ubaldo. This youth might have +sustained the ducal honours of Urbino, but for his sage-saint father's +want of wisdom. The boy was a spoiled child in infancy. Inflated with +Spanish vanity from the cradle, taught to regard his subjects as +dependents on a despot's will, abandoned to the caprices of his own +ungovernable temper, without substantial aid from the paternal piety +or stoicism, he rapidly became a most intolerable princeling. His +father married him, while yet a boy, to Claudia de' Medici, and +virtually abdicated in his favour. Left to his own devices, Federigo +chose companions from the troupes of players whom he drew from Venice. +He filled his palaces with harlots, and degraded himself upon the +stage in parts of mean buffoonery. The resources of the duchy were +racked to support these parasites. Spanish rules of etiquette and +ceremony were outraged by their orgies. His bride brought him one +daughter, Vittoria, who afterwards became the wife of Ferdinand, Grand +Duke of Tuscany. Then in the midst of his low dissipation and +offences against ducal dignity, he died of apoplexy at the early age +of eighteen--the victim, in the severe judgment of history, of his +father's selfishness and want of practical ability. + +This happened in 1623. Francesco Maria was stunned by the blow. His +withdrawal from the duties of the sovereignty in favour of such a son +had proved a constitutional unfitness for the duties of his station. +The life he loved was one of seclusion in a round of pious exercises, +petty studies, peddling economies, and mechanical amusements. A +powerful and grasping Pope was on the throne of Rome. Urban at this +juncture pressed Francesco Maria hard; and in 1624 the last Duke of +Urbino devolved his lordships to the Holy See. He survived the formal +act of abdication seven years; when he died, the Pontiff added his +duchy to the Papal States, which thenceforth stretched from Naples to +the bounds of Venice on the Po. + + +III + +Duke Frederick began the palace at Urbino in 1454, when he was still +only Count. The architect was Luziano of Lauranna, a Dalmatian; and +the beautiful white limestone, hard as marble, used in the +construction, was brought from the Dalmatian coast. This stone, like +the Istrian stone of Venetian buildings, takes and retains the chisel +mark with wonderful precision. It looks as though, when fresh, it must +have had the pliancy of clay, so delicately are the finest curves in +scroll or foliage scooped from its substance. And yet it preserves +each cusp and angle of the most elaborate pattern with the crispness +and the sharpness of a crystal. + +When wrought by a clever craftsman, its surface has neither the +waxiness of Parian, nor the brittle edge of Carrara marble; and it +resists weather better than marble of the choicest quality. This may +be observed in many monuments of Venice, where the stone has been long +exposed to sea-air. These qualities of the Dalmatian limestone, no +less than its agreeable creamy hue and smooth dull polish, adapt it to +decoration in low relief. The most attractive details in the palace at +Urbino are friezes carved of this material in choice designs of early +Renaissance dignity and grace. One chimney-piece in the Sala degli +Angeli deserves especial comment. A frieze of dancing Cupids, with +gilt hair and wings, their naked bodies left white on a ground of +ultramarine, is supported by broad flat pilasters. These are engraved +with children holding pots of flowers; roses on one side, carnations +on the other. Above the frieze another pair of angels, one at each +end, hold lighted torches; and the pyramidal cap of the chimney is +carved with two more, flying, and supporting the eagle of the +Montefeltri on a raised medallion. Throughout the palace we notice +emblems appropriate to the Houses of Montefeltro and Della Rovere: +their arms, three golden bends upon a field of azure: the Imperial +eagle, granted when Montefeltro was made a fief of the Empire: the +Garter of England, worn by the Dukes Federigo and Guidobaldo: the +ermine of Naples: the _ventosa_, or cupping-glass, adopted for a +private badge by Frederick: the golden oak-tree on an azure field of +Della Rovere: the palm-tree, bent beneath a block of stone, with its +accompanying motto, _Inclinata Resurgam_: the cipher, FE DX. Profile +medallions of Federigo and Guidobaldo, wrought in the lowest possible +relief, adorn the staircases. Round the great courtyard runs a frieze +of military engines and ensigns, trophies, machines, and implements of +war, alluding to Duke Frederick's profession of Condottiere. The +doorways are enriched with scrolls of heavy-headed flowers, acanthus +foliage, honeysuckles, ivy-berries, birds and boys and sphinxes, in +all the riot of Renaissance fancy. + +This profusion of sculptured _rilievo_ is nearly all that remains to +show how rich the palace was in things of beauty. Castiglione, writing +in the reign of Guidobaldo, says that 'in the opinion of many it is +the fairest to be found in Italy; and the Duke filled it so well with +all things fitting its magnificence, that it seemed less like a palace +than a city. Not only did he collect articles of common use, vessels +of silver, and trappings for chambers of rare cloths of gold and silk, +and suchlike furniture, but he added multitudes of bronze and marble +statues, exquisite pictures, and instruments of music of all sorts. +There was nothing but was of the finest and most excellent quality to +be seen there. Moreover, he gathered together at a vast cost a large +number of the best and rarest books in Greek, Latin, and Hebrew, all +of which he adorned with gold and silver, esteeming them the chiefest +treasure of his spacious palace.' When Cesare Borgia entered Urbino as +conqueror in 1502, he is said to have carried off loot to the value of +150,000 ducats, or perhaps about a quarter of a million sterling. +Vespasiano, the Florentine bookseller, has left us a minute account of +the formation of the famous library of manuscripts, which he valued at +considerably over 30,000 ducats. Yet wandering now through these +deserted halls, we seek in vain for furniture or tapestry or works of +art. The books have been removed to Rome. The pictures are gone, no +man knows whither. The plate has long been melted down. The +instruments of music are broken. If frescoes adorned the corridors, +they have been whitewashed; the ladies' chambers have been stripped of +their rich arras. Only here and there we find a raftered ceiling, +painted in fading colours, which, taken with the stonework of the +chimney, and some fragments of inlaid panel-work on door or window, +enables us to reconstruct the former richness of these princely rooms. + +Exception must be made in favour of two apartments between the towers +upon the southern facade. These were apparently the private rooms of +the Duke and Duchess, and they are still approached by a great winding +staircase in one of the _torricini_. Adorned in indestructible or +irremovable materials, they retain some traces of their ancient +splendour. On the first floor, opening on the vaulted loggia, we find +a little chapel encrusted with lovely work in stucco and marble; +friezes of bulls, sphinxes, sea-horses, and foliage; with a low relief +of Madonna and Child in the manner of Mino da Fiesole. Close by is a +small study with inscriptions to the Muses and Apollo. The cabinet +connecting these two cells has a Latin legend, to say that Religion +here dwells near the temple of the liberal arts: + + Bina vides parvo discrimine juncta sacella, + Altera pars Musis altera sacra Deo est. + +On the floor above, corresponding in position to this apartment, is a +second, of even greater interest, since it was arranged by the Duke +Frederick for his own retreat. The study is panelled in tarsia of +beautiful design and execution. Three of the larger compartments show +Faith, Hope, and Charity; figures not unworthy of a Botticelli or a +Filippino Lippi. The occupations of the Duke are represented on a +smaller scale by armour, _bâtons_ of command, scientific instruments, +lutes, viols, and books, some open and some shut. The Bible, Homer, +Virgil, Seneca, Tacitus, and Cicero, are lettered; apparently to +indicate his favourite authors. The Duke himself, arrayed in his state +robes, occupies a fourth great panel; and the whole of this elaborate +composition is harmonised by emblems, badges, and occasional devices +of birds, articles of furniture, and so forth. The tarsia, or inlaid +wood of different kinds and colours, is among the best in this kind of +art to be found in Italy, though perhaps it hardly deserves to rank +with the celebrated choir-stalls of Bergamo and Monte Oliveto. Hard by +is a chapel, adorned, like the lower one, with excellent reliefs. The +loggia to which these rooms have access looks across the Apennines, +and down on what was once a private garden. It is now enclosed and +paved for the exercise of prisoners who are confined in one part of +the desecrated palace! + +A portion of the pile is devoted to more worthy purposes; for the +Academy of Raphael here holds its sittings, and preserves a collection +of curiosities and books illustrative of the great painter's life and +works. They have recently placed in a tiny oratory, scooped by +Guidobaldo II. from the thickness of the wall, a cast of Raphael's +skull, which will be studied with interest and veneration. It has the +fineness of modelling combined with shapeliness of form and smallness +of scale which is said to have characterised Mozart and Shelley. + +The impression left upon the mind after traversing this palace in its +length and breadth is one of weariness and disappointment. How shall +we reconstruct the long-past life which filled its rooms with sound, +the splendour of its pageants, the thrill of tragedies enacted here? +It is not difficult to crowd its doors and vacant spaces with liveried +servants, slim pages in tight hose, whose well-combed hair escapes +from tiny caps upon their silken shoulders. We may even replace the +tapestries of Troy which hung one hall, and build again the sideboards +with their embossed gilded plate. But are these chambers really those +where Emilia Pia held debate on love with Bembo and Castiglione; where +Bibbiena's witticisms and Fra Serafino's pranks raised smiles on +courtly lips; where Bernardo Accolti, 'the Unique,' declaimed his +verses to applauding crowds? Is it possible that into yonder hall, +where now the lion of S. Mark looks down alone on staring desolation, +strode the Borgia in all his panoply of war, a gilded glittering +dragon, and from the dais tore the Montefeltri's throne, and from the +arras stripped their ensigns, replacing these with his own Bull and +Valentinus Dux? Here Tasso tuned his lyre for Francesco Maria's +wedding-feast, and read 'Aminta' to Lucrezia d'Este. Here Guidobaldo +listened to the jests and whispered scandals of the Aretine. Here +Titian set his easel up to paint; here the boy Raphael, cap in hand, +took signed and sealed credentials from his Duchess to the Gonfalonier +of Florence. Somewhere in these huge chambers, the courtiers sat +before a torch-lit stage, when Bibbiena's 'Calandria' and +Caetiglione's 'Tirsi,' with their miracles of masques and mummers, +whiled the night away. Somewhere, we know not where, Giuliano de' +Medici made love in these bare rooms to that mysterious mother of +ill-fated Cardinal Ippolito; somewhere, in some darker nook, the +bastard Alessandro sprang to his strange-fortuned life of tyranny and +license, which Brutus-Lorenzino cut short with a traitor's +poignard-thrust in Via Larga. How many men, illustrious for arts and +letters, memorable by their virtues or their crimes, have trod these +silent corridors, from the great Pope Julius down to James III., +self-titled King of England, who tarried here with Clementina Sobieski +through some twelve months of his ex-royal exile! The memories of all +this folk, flown guests and masters of the still-abiding +palace-chambers, haunt us as we hurry through. They are but filmy +shadows. We cannot grasp them, localise them, people surrounding +emptiness with more than withering cobweb forms. + +Death takes a stronger hold on us than bygone life. Therefore, +returning to the vast Throne-room, we animate it with one scene it +witnessed on an April night in 1508. Duke Guidobaldo had died at +Fossombrone, repeating to his friends around his bed these lines of +Virgil: + + Me circum limus niger et deformis arundo Cocyti tardaque + palus inamabilis unda Alligat, et novies Styx interfusa + coercet. + +His body had been carried on the shoulders of servants through those +mountain ways at night, amid the lamentations of gathering multitudes +and the baying of dogs from hill-set farms alarmed by flaring +flambeaux. Now it is laid in state in the great hall. The dais and the +throne are draped in black. The arms and _bâtons_ of his father hang +about the doorways. His own ensigns are displayed in groups and +trophies, with the banners of S. Mark, the Montefeltrian eagle, and +the cross keys of S. Peter. The hall itself is vacant, save for the +high-reared catafalque of sable velvet and gold damask, surrounded +with wax candles burning steadily. Round it passes a ceaseless stream +of people, coming and going, gazing at their Duke. He is attired in +crimson hose and doublet of black damask. Black velvet slippers are on +his feet, and his ducal cap is of black velvet. The mantle of the +Garter, made of dark-blue Alexandrine velvet, hooded with crimson, +lined with white silk damask, and embroidered with the badge, drapes +the stiff sleeping form. + +It is easier to conjure up the past of this great palace, strolling +round it in free air and twilight; perhaps because the landscape and +the life still moving on the city streets bring its exterior into +harmony with real existence. The southern façade, with its vaulted +balconies and flanking towers, takes the fancy, fascinates the eye, +and lends itself as a fit stage for puppets of the musing mind. Once +more imagination plants trim orange-trees in giant jars of Gubbio ware +upon the pavement where the garden of the Duchess lay--the pavement +paced in these bad days by convicts in grey canvas jackets--that +pavement where Monsignor Bombo courted 'dear dead women' with +Platonic phrase, smothering the Menta of his natural man in lettuce +culled from Academe and thyme of Mount Hymettus. In yonder loggia, +lifted above the garden and the court, two lovers are in earnest +converse. They lean beneath the coffered arch, against the marble of +the balustrade, he fingering his dagger under the dark velvet doublet, +she playing with a clove carnation, deep as her own shame. The man is +Giannandrea, broad-shouldered bravo of Verona, Duke Guidobaldo's +favourite and carpet-count. The lady is Madonna Maria, daughter of +Rome's Prefect, widow of Venanzio Varano, whom the Borgia strangled. +On their discourse a tale will hang of woman's frailty and man's +boldness--Camerino's Duchess yielding to a low-born suitor's stalwart +charms. And more will follow, when that lady's brother, furious +Francesco Maria della Rovere, shall stab the bravo in torch-litten +palace rooms with twenty poignard strokes 'twixt waist and throat, and +their Pandarus shall be sent down to his account by a varlet's +_coltellata_ through the midriff. Imagination shifts the scene, and +shows in that same loggia Rome's warlike Pope, attended by his +cardinals and all Urbino's chivalry. The snowy beard of Julius flows +down upon his breast, where jewels clasp the crimson mantle, as in +Raphael's picture. His eyes are bright with wine; for he has come to +gaze on sunset from the banquet-chamber, and to watch the line of +lamps which soon will leap along that palace cornice in his honour. +Behind him lies Bologna humbled. The Pope returns, a conqueror, to +Rome. Yet once again imagination is at work. A gaunt, bald man, +close-habited in Spanish black, his spare, fine features carved in +purest ivory, leans from that balcony. Gazing with hollow eyes, he +tracks the swallows in their flight, and notes that winter is at hand. +This is the last Duke of Urbino, Francesco Maria II., he whose young +wife deserted him, who made for himself alone a hermit-pedant's round +of petty cares and niggard avarice and mean-brained superstition. He +drew a second consort from the convent, and raised up seed unto his +line by forethought, but beheld his princeling fade untimely in the +bloom of boyhood. Nothing is left but solitude. To the mortmain of the +Church reverts Urbino's lordship, and even now he meditates the terms +of devolution. Jesuits cluster in the rooms behind, with comfort for +the ducal soul and calculations for the interests of Holy See. + +A farewell to these memories of Urbino's dukedom should be taken in +the crypt of the cathedral, where Francesco Maria II., the last Duke, +buried his only son and all his temporal hopes. The place is scarcely +solemn. Its dreary _barocco_ emblems mar the dignity of death. A bulky +_Pietà _ by Gian Bologna, with Madonna's face unfinished, towers up and +crowds the narrow cell. Religion has evanished from this late +Renaissance art, nor has the afterglow of Guido Reni's hectic piety +yet overflushed it. Chilled by the stifling humid sense of an extinct +race here entombed in its last representative, we gladly emerge from +the sepulchral vault into the air of day. + +Filippo Visconti, with a smile on his handsome face, is waiting for us +at the inn. His horses, sleek, well fed, and rested, toss their heads +impatiently. We take our seats in the carriage, open wide beneath a +sparkling sky, whirl past the palace and its ghost-like recollections, +and are halfway on the road to Fossombrone in a cloud of dust and +whirr of wheels before we think of looking back to greet Urbino. There +is just time. The last decisive turning lies in front. We stand +bareheaded to salute the grey mass of buildings ridged along the sky. +Then the open road invites us with its varied scenery and movement. +From the shadowy past we drive into the world of human things, for +ever changefully unchanged, unrestfully the same. This interchange +between dead memories and present life is the delight of travel. + + * * * * * + + + + +_VITTORIA ACCORAMBONI_ + +AND THE TRAGEDY OF WEBSTER + + +I + +During the pontificate of Gregory XIII. (1572-85), Papal authority in +Rome reached its lowest point of weakness, and the ancient splendour +of the Papal court was well-nigh eclipsed. Art and learning had died +out. The traditions of the days of Leo, Julius, and Paul III. were +forgotten. It seemed as though the genius of the Renaissance had +migrated across the Alps. All the powers of the Papacy were directed +to the suppression of heresies and to the re-establishment of +spiritual supremacy over the intellect of Europe. Meanwhile society in +Rome returned to mediæval barbarism. The veneer of classical +refinement and humanistic urbanity, which for a time had hidden the +natural savagery of the Roman nobles, wore away. The Holy City became +a den of bandits; the territory of the Church supplied a battle-ground +for senseless party strife, which the weak old man who wore the triple +crown was quite unable to control. It is related how a robber +chieftain, Marianazzo, refused the offer of a general pardon from the +Pope, alleging that the profession of brigand was far more lucrative, +and offered greater security of life, than any trade within the walls +of Rome. The Campagna, the ruined citadels about the basements of the +Sabine and Ciminian hills, the quarters of the aristocracy within the +city, swarmed with bravos, who were protected by great nobles and fed +by decent citizens for the advantages to be derived from the +assistance of abandoned and courageous ruffians. Life, indeed, had +become impossible without fixed compact with the powers of +lawlessness. There was hardly a family in Rome which did not number +some notorious criminal among the outlaws. Murder, sacrilege, the love +of adventure, thirst for plunder, poverty, hostility to the ascendant +faction of the moment, were common causes of voluntary or involuntary +outlawry; nor did public opinion regard a bandit's calling as other +than honourable. + +It may readily be imagined that in such a state of society the +grisliest tragedies were common enough in Rome. The history of some of +these has been preserved to us in documents digested from public +trials and personal observation by contemporary writers. That of the +Cenci, in which a notorious act of parricide furnished the plot of a +popular novella, is well known. And such a tragedy, even more rife in +characteristic incidents, and more distinguished by the quality of its +_dramatis personæ_, is that of Vittoria Accoramboni. + +Vittoria was born in 1557, of a noble but impoverished family, at +Gubbio, among the hills of Umbria. Her biographers are rapturous in +their praises of her beauty, grace, and exceeding charm of manner. Not +only was her person most lovely, but her mind shone at first with all +the amiable lustre of a modest, innocent, and winning youth. Her +father, Claudio Accoramboni, removed to Rome, where his numerous +children were brought up under the care of their mother, Tarquinia, an +ambitious and unscrupulous woman, bent on rehabilitating the decayed +honours of their house. Here Vittoria in early girlhood soon became +the fashion. She exercised an irresistible influence over all who saw +her, and many were the offers of marriage she refused. At length a +suitor appeared whose condition and connection with the Roman +ecclesiastical nobility rendered him acceptable in the eyes of the +Accoramboni. Francesco Peretti was welcomed as the successful +candidate for Vittoria's hand. His mother, Camilla, was sister to +Felice, Cardinal of Montalto; and her son, Francesco Mignucci, had +changed his surname in compliment to this illustrious relative. The +Peretti were of humble origin. The cardinal himself had tended swine +in his native village; but, supported by an invincible belief in his +own destinies, and gifted with a powerful intellect and determined +character, he passed through all grades of the Franciscan Order to its +generalship, received the bishoprics of Fermo and S. Agata, and +lastly, in the year 1570, assumed the scarlet with the title of +Cardinal Montalto. He was now upon the high way to the Papacy, +amassing money by incessant care, studying the humours of surrounding +factions, effacing his own personality, and by mixing but little in +the intrigues of the court, winning the reputation of a prudent, +inoffensive old man. These were his tactics for securing the Papal +throne; nor were his expectations frustrated; for in 1585 he was +chosen Pope, the parties of the Medici and the Farnesi agreeing to +accept him as a compromise. When Sixtus V. was once firmly seated on +S. Peter's chair, he showed himself in his true colours. An implacable +administrator of severest justice, a rigorous economist, an +iconoclastic foe to paganism, the first act of his reign was to +declare a war of extirpation against the bandits who had reduced Rome +in his predecessor's rule to anarchy. + +It was the nephew, then, of this man, whom historians have judged the +greatest personage of his own times, that Vittoria Accoramboni married +on the 28th of June 1573. For a short while the young couple lived +happily together. According to some accounts of their married life, +the bride secured the favour of her powerful uncle-in-law, who +indulged her costly fancies to the full. It is, however, more probable +that the Cardinal Montalto treated her follies with a grudging +parsimony; for we soon find the Peretti household hopelessly involved +in debt. Discord, too, arose between Vittoria and her husband on the +score of a certain levity in her behaviour; and it was rumoured that +even during the brief space of their union she had proved a faithless +wife. Yet she contrived to keep Francesco's confidence, and it is +certain that her family profited by their connection with the Peretti. +Of her six brothers, Mario, the eldest, was a favourite courtier of +the great Cardinal d'Este. Ottavio was in orders, and through +Montalto's influence obtained the See of Fossombrone. The same +eminent protector placed Scipione in the service of the Cardinal +Sforza. Camillo, famous for his beauty and his courage, followed the +fortunes of Filibert of Savoy, and died in France. Flaminio was still +a boy, dependent, as the sequel of this story shows, upon his sister's +destiny. Of Marcello, the second in age and most important in the +action of this tragedy, it is needful to speak with more +particularity. He was young, and, like the rest of his breed, +singularly handsome--so handsome, indeed, that he is said to have +gained an infamous ascendency over the great Duke of Bracciano, whose +privy chamberlain he had become. Marcello was an outlaw for the murder +of Matteo Pallavicino, the brother of the Cardinal of that name. This +did not, however, prevent the chief of the Orsini house from making +him his favourite and confidential friend. Marcello, who seems to have +realised in actual life the worst vices of those Roman courtiers +described for us by Aretino, very soon conceived the plan of exalting +his own fortunes by trading on his sister's beauty. He worked upon the +Duke of Bracciano's mind so cleverly, that he brought this haughty +prince to the point of an insane passion for Peretti's young wife; and +meanwhile so contrived to inflame the ambition of Vittoria and her +mother, Tarquinia, that both were prepared to dare the worst of crimes +in expectation of a dukedom. The game was a difficult one to play. Not +only had Francesco Peretti first to be murdered, but the inequality of +birth and wealth and station between Vittoria and the Duke of +Bracciano rendered a marriage almost impossible. It was also an affair +of delicacy to stimulate without satisfying the Duke's passion. Yet +Marcello did not despair. The stakes were high enough to justify great +risks; and all he put in peril was his sister's honour, the fame of +the Accoramboni, and the favour of Montalto. Vittoria, for her part, +trusted in her power to ensnare and secure the noble prey both had in +view. + +Paolo Giordano Orsini, born about the year 1537, was reigning Duke of +Bracciano. Among Italian princes he ranked at least upon a par with +the Dukes of Urbino, and his family, by its alliances, was more +illustrious than any of that time in Italy. He was a man of gigantic +stature, prodigious corpulence, and marked personal daring; agreeable +in manners, but subject to uncontrollable fits of passion, and +incapable of self-restraint when crossed in any whim or fancy. Upon +the habit of his body it is needful to insist, in order that the part +he played in this tragedy of intrigue, crime, and passion may be well +defined. He found it difficult to procure a charger equal to his +weight, and he was so fat that a special dispensation relieved him +from the duty of genuflexion in the Papal presence. Though lord of a +large territory, yielding princely revenues, he laboured under heavy +debts; for no great noble of the period lived more splendidly, with +less regard for his finances. In the politics of that age and country, +Paolo Giordano leaned toward France. Yet he was a grandee of Spain, +and had played a distinguished part in the battle of Lepanto. Now the +Duke of Bracciano was a widower. He had been married in 1553 to +Isabella de' Medici, daughter of the Grand Duke Cosimo, sister of +Francesco, Bianca Capello's lover, and of the Cardinal Ferdinando. +Suspicion of adultery with Troilo Orsini had fallen on Isabella, and +her husband, with the full concurrence of her brothers, removed her in +1576 from this world.[7] No one thought the worse of Bracciano for +this murder of his wife. In those days of abandoned vice and intricate +villany, certain points of honour were maintained with scrupulous +fidelity. A wife's adultery was enough to justify the most savage and +licentious husband in an act of semi-judicial vengeance; and the shame +she brought upon his head was shared by the members of her own house, +so that they stood by, consenting to her death. Isabella, it may be +said, left one son, Virginio, who became in due time Duke of +Bracciano. + +It appears that in the year 1581, four years after Vittoria's +marriage, the Duke of Bracciano had satisfied Marcello of his +intention to make her his wife, and of his willingness to countenance +Francesco Peretti's murder. Marcello, feeling sure of his game, +introduced the Duke in private to his sister, and induced her to +overcome any natural repugnance she may have felt for the unwieldy and +gross lover. Having reached this point, it was imperative to push +matters quickly on toward matrimony. + +But how should the unfortunate Francesco be entrapped? They caught him +in a snare of peculiar atrocity, by working on the kindly feelings +which his love for Vittoria had caused him to extend to all the +Acooramboni. Marcello, the outlaw, was her favourite brother, and +Marcello at that time lay in hiding, under the suspicion of more than +ordinary crime, beyond the walls of Rome. Late in the evening of the +18th of April, while the Peretti family were retiring to bed, a +messenger from Marcello arrived, entreating Francesco to repair at +once to Monte Cavallo. Marcello had affairs of the utmost importance +to communicate, and begged his brother-in-law not to fail him at a +grievous pinch. The letter containing this request was borne by one +Dominico d'Aquaviva, _alias_ Il Mancino, a confederate of Vittoria's +waiting-maid. This fellow, like Marcello, was an outlaw; but when he +ventured into Rome he frequented Peretti's house, and had made himself +familiar with its master as a trusty bravo. Neither in the message, +therefore, nor in the messenger was there much to rouse suspicion. The +time, indeed, was oddly chosen, and Marcello had never made a similar +appeal on any previous occasion. Yet his necessities might surely have +obliged him to demand some more than ordinary favour from a brother. +Francesco immediately made himself ready to set out, armed only with +his sword and attended by a single servant. It was in vain that his +wife and his mother reminded him of the dangers of the night, the +loneliness of Monte Cavallo, its ruinous palaces and robber-haunted +caves. He was resolved to undertake the adventure, and went forth, +never to return. As he ascended the hill, he fell to earth, shot with +three harquebuses. His body was afterwards found on Monte Cavallo, +stabbed through and through, without a trace that could identify the +murderers. Only, in the course of subsequent investigations, Il +Mancino (on the 24th of February 1582) made the following +statements:--That Vittoria's mother, assisted by the waiting woman, +had planned the trap; that Marchionne of Gubbio and Paolo Barca of +Bracciano, two of the Duke's men, had despatched the victim. Marcello +himself, it seems, had come from Bracciano to conduct the whole +affair. Suspicion fell immediately upon Vittoria and her kindred, +together with the Duke of Bracciano; nor was this diminished when the +Accoramboni, fearing the pursuit of justice, took refuge in a villa of +the Duke's at Magnanapoli a few days after the murder. + +A cardinal's nephew, even in those troublous times, was not killed +without some noise being made about the matter. Accordingly Pope +Gregory XIII. began to take measures for discovering the authors of +the crime. Strange to say, however, the Cardinal Montalto, +notwithstanding the great love he was known to bear his nephew, begged +that the investigation might be dropped. The coolness with which he +first received the news of Francesco Peretti's death, the +dissimulation with which he met the Pope's expression of sympathy in a +full consistory, his reserve in greeting friends on ceremonial visits +of condolence, and, more than all, the self-restraint he showed in the +presence of the Duke of Bracciano, impressed the society of Rome with +the belief that he was of a singularly moderate and patient temper. It +was thought that the man who could so tamely submit to his nephew's +murder, and suspend the arm of justice when already raised for +vengeance, must prove a mild and indulgent ruler. When, therefore, in +the fifth year after this event, Montalto was elected Pope, men +ascribed his elevation in no small measure to his conduct at the +present crisis. Some, indeed, attributed his extraordinary moderation +and self-control to the right cause. _'Veramente costui è un gran +frate!_' was Gregory's remark at the close of the consistory when +Montalto begged him to let the matter of Peretti's murder rest. '_Of a +truth, that fellow is a consummate hypocrite!_' How accurate this +judgment was, appeared when Sixtus V. assumed the reins of power. The +same man who, as monk and cardinal, had smiled on Bracciano, though he +knew him to be his nephew's assassin, now, as Pontiff and sovereign, +bade the chief of the Orsini purge his palace and dominions of the +scoundrels he was wont to harbour, adding significantly, that if +Felice Peretti forgave what had been done against him in a private +station, he would exact uttermost vengeance for disobedience to the +will of Sixtus. The Duke of Bracciano judged it best, after that +warning, to withdraw from Rome. + +Francesco Peretti had been murdered on the 16th of April 1581. Sixtus +V. was proclaimed on the 24th of April 1585. In this interval Vittoria +underwent a series of extraordinary perils and adventures. First of +all, she had been secretly married to the Duke in his gardens of +Magnanapoli at the end of April 1581. That is to say, Marcello and she +secured their prize, as well as they were able, the moment after +Francesco had been removed by murder. But no sooner had the marriage +become known, than the Pope, moved by the scandal it created, no less +than by the urgent instance of the Orsini and Medici, declared it +void. After some while spent in vain resistance, Bracciano submitted, +and sent Vittoria back to her father's house. By an order issued under +Gregory's own hand, she was next removed to the prison of Corte +Savella, thence to the monastery of S. Cecilia in Trastevere, and +finally to the Castle of S. Angelo. Here, at the end of December 1581, +she was put on trial for the murder of her first husband. In prison +she seems to have borne herself bravely, arraying her beautiful person +in delicate attire, entertaining visitors, exacting from her friends +the honours due to a duchess, and sustaining the frequent examinations +to which she was submitted with a bold, proud front. In the middle of +the month of July her constancy was sorely tried by the receipt of a +letter in the Duke's own handwriting, formally renouncing his +marriage. It was only by a lucky accident that she was prevented on +this occasion from committing suicide. The Papal court meanwhile kept +urging her either to retire to a monastery or to accept another +husband. She firmly refused to embrace the religious life, and +declared that she was already lawfully united to a living husband, the +Duke of Bracciano. It seemed impossible to deal with her; and at last, +on the 8th of November, she was released from prison under the +condition of retirement to Gubbio. The Duke had lulled his enemies to +rest by the pretence of yielding to their wishes. But Marcello was +continually beside him at Bracciano, where we read of a mysterious +Greek enchantress whom he hired to brew love-philters for the +furtherance of his ambitious plots. Whether Bracciano was stimulated +by the brother's arguments or by the witch's potions need not be too +curiously questioned. But it seems in any case certain that absence +inflamed his passion instead of cooling it. + +Accordingly, in September 1583, under the excuse of a pilgrimage to +Loreto, he contrived to meet Vittoria at Trevi, whence he carried her +in triumph to Bracciano. Here he openly acknowledged her as his wife, +installing her with all the splendour due to a sovereign duchess. On +the 10th of October following, he once more performed the marriage +ceremony in the principal church of his fief; and in the January of +1584 he brought her openly to Rome. This act of contumacy to the Pope, +both as feudal superior and as supreme Pontiff, roused all the former +opposition to his marriage. Once more it was declared invalid. Once +more the Duke pretended to give way. But at this juncture Gregory +died; and while the conclave was sitting for the election of the new +Pope, he resolved to take the law into his own hands, and to ratify +his union with Vittoria by a third and public marriage in Rome. On the +morning of the 24th of April 1585, their nuptials were accordingly +once more solemnised in the Orsini palace. Just one hour after the +ceremony, as appears from the marriage register, the news arrived of +Cardinal Montalto's election to the Papacy, Vittoria lost no time in +paying her respects to Camilla, sister of the new Pope, her former +mother-in-law. The Duke visited Sixtus V. in state to compliment him +on his elevation. But the reception which both received proved that +Rome was no safe place for them to live in. They consequently made up +their minds for flight. + +A chronic illness from which Bracciano had lately suffered furnished a +sufficient pretext. This seems to have been something of the nature of +a cancerous ulcer, which had to be treated by the application of raw +meat to open sores. Such details are only excusable in the present +narrative on the ground that Bracciano's disease considerably affects +our moral judgment of the woman who could marry a man thus physically +tainted, and with her husband's blood upon his hands. At any rate, +the Duke's _lupa_ justified his trying what change of air, together +with the sulphur waters of Abano, would do for him. + +The Duke and Duchess arrived in safety at Venice, where they had +engaged the Dandolo palace on the Zuecca. There they only stayed a few +days, removing to Padua, where they had hired palaces of the Foscari +in the Arena and a house called De' Cavalli. At Salò, also, on the +Lake of Garda, they provided themselves with fit dwellings for their +princely state and their large retinues, intending to divide their +time between the pleasures which the capital of luxury afforded and +the simpler enjoyments of the most beautiful of the Italian lakes. But +_la gioia dei profani è un fumo passaggier_. Paolo Giordano Orsini, +Duke of Bracciano, died suddenly at Salò on the 10th of November 1585, +leaving the young and beautiful Vittoria helpless among enemies. What +was the cause of his death? It is not possible to give a clear and +certain answer. We have seen that he suffered from a horrible and +voracious disease, which after his removal from Rome seems to have +made progress. Yet though this malady may well have cut his life +short, suspicion of poison was not, in the circumstances, quite +unreasonable. The Grand Duke of Tuscany, the Pope, and the Orsini +family were all interested in his death. Anyhow, he had time to make a +will in Vittoria's favour, leaving her large sums of money, jewels, +goods, and houses--enough, in fact, to support her ducal dignity with +splendour. His hereditary fiefs and honours passed by right to his +only son, Virginio. + +Vittoria, accompanied by her brother, Marcello, and the whole court of +Bracciano, repaired at once to Padua, where she was soon after joined +by Flaminio, and by the Prince Lodovico Orsini. Lodovico Orsini +assumed the duty of settling Vittoria's affairs under her dead +husband's will. In life he had been the Duke's ally as well as +relative. His family pride was deeply wounded by what seemed to him an +ignoble, as it was certainly an unequal, marriage. He now showed +himself the relentless enemy of the Duchess. Disputes arose between +them as to certain details, which seem to have been legally decided in +the widow's favour. On the night of the 22nd of December, however, +forty men disguised in black and fantastically tricked out to elude +detection, surrounded her palace. Through the long galleries and +chambers hung with arras, eight of them went, bearing torches, in +search of Vittoria and her brothers. Marcello escaped, having fled the +house under suspicion of the murder of one of his own followers. +Flaminio, the innocent and young, was playing on his lute and singing +_Miserere_ in the great hall of the palace. The murderers surprised +him with a shot from one of their harquebuses. He ran, wounded in the +shoulder, to his sister's room. She, it is said, was telling her beads +before retiring for the night. When three of the assassins entered, +she knelt before the crucifix, and there they stabbed her in the left +breast, turning the poignard in the wound, and asking her with savage +insults if her heart was pierced. Her last words were, 'Jesus, I +pardon you.' Then they turned to Flaminio, and left him pierced with +seventy-four stiletto wounds. + +The authorities of Padua identified the bodies of Vittoria and +Flaminio, and sent at once for further instructions to Venice. +Meanwhile it appears that both corpses were laid out in one open +coffin for the people to contemplate. The palace and the church of the +Eremitani, to which they had been removed, were crowded all through +the following day with a vast concourse of the Paduans. Vittoria's +wonderful dead body, pale yet sweet to look upon, the golden hair +flowing around her marble shoulders, the red wound in her breast +uncovered, the stately limbs arrayed in satin as she died, maddened +the populace with its surpassing loveliness. '_Dentibus fremebant_,' +says the chronicler, when they beheld that gracious lady stiff in +death. And of a truth, if her corpse was actually exposed in the +chapel of the Eremitani, as we have some right to assume, the +spectacle must have been impressive. Those grim gaunt frescoes of +Mantegna looked down on her as she lay stretched upon her bier, solemn +and calm, and, but for pallor, beautiful as though in life. No wonder +that the folk forgot her first husband's murder, her less than comely +marriage to the second. It was enough for them that this flower of +surpassing loveliness had been cropped by villains in its bloom. +Gathering in knots around the torches placed beside the corpse, they +vowed vengeance against the Orsini; for suspicion, not unnaturally, +fell on Prince Lodovico. + +The Prince was arrested and interrogated before the court of Padua. He +entered their hall attended by forty armed men, responded haughtily to +their questions, and demanded free passage for his courier to Virginio +Orsini, then at Florence. To this demand the court acceded; but the +precaution of way-laying the courier and searching his person was +very wisely taken. Besides some formal dispatches which announced +Vittoria's assassination, they found in this man's boot a compromising +letter, declaring Virginio a party to the crime, and asserting that +Lodovico had with his own poignard killed their victim. Padua placed +itself in a state of defence, and prepared to besiege the palace of +Prince Lodovico, who also got himself in readiness for battle. +Engines, culverins, and firebrands were directed against the +barricades which he had raised. The militia was called out and the +Brenta was strongly guarded. Meanwhile the Senate of S. Mark had +dispatched the Avogadore, Aloisio Bragadin, with full power to the +scene of action. Lodovico Orsini, it may be mentioned, was in their +service; and had not this affair intervened, he would in a few weeks +have entered on his duties as Governor for Venice of Corfu. + +The bombardment of Orsini's palace began on Christmas Day. Three of +the Prince's men were killed in the first assault; and since the +artillery brought to bear upon him threatened speedy ruin to the house +and its inhabitants, he made up his mind to surrender. 'The Prince +Luigi,' writes one-chronicler of these events, 'walked attired in +brown, his poignard at his side, and his cloak slung elegantly under +his arm. The weapon being taken from him, he leaned upon a balustrade, +and began to trim his nails with a little pair of scissors he happened +to find there.' On the 27th he was strangled in prison by order of the +Venetian Republic. His body was carried to be buried, according to his +own will, in the church of S. Maria dell' Orto at Venice. Two of his +followers were hung next day. Fifteen were executed on the following +Monday; two of these were quartered alive; one of them, the Conte +Paganello, who confessed to having slain Vittoria, had his left side +probed with his own cruel dagger. Eight were condemned to the galleys, +six to prison, and eleven were acquitted. Thus ended this terrible +affair, which brought, it is said, good credit and renown to the lords +of Venice through all nations of the civilised world. It only remains +to be added that Marcello Accoramboni was surrendered to the Pope's +vengeance and beheaded at Ancona, where also his mysterious +accomplice, the Greek sorceress, perished. + + +II + +This story of Vittoria Accoramboni's life and tragic ending is drawn, +in its main details, from a narrative published by Henri Beyle in his +'Chroniques et Novelles.'[8] He professes to have translated it +literally from a manuscript communicated to him by a nobleman of +Mantua; and there are strong internal evidences of the truth of this +assertion. Such compositions are frequent in Italian libraries, nor is +it rare for one of them to pass into the common market--as Mr. +Browning's famous purchase of the tale on which he based his 'Ring +and the Book' sufficiently proves. These pamphlets were produced, in +the first instance, to gratify the curiosity of the educated public in +an age which had no newspapers, and also to preserve the memory of +famous trials. How far the strict truth was represented, or whether, +as in the case of Beatrice Cenci, the pathetic aspect of the tragedy +was unduly dwelt on, depended, of course, upon the mental bias of the +scribe, upon his opportunities of obtaining exact information, and +upon the taste of the audience for whom he wrote. Therefore, in +treating such documents as historical data, we must be upon our +guard. Professor Gnoli, who has recently investigated the whole of +Vittoria's eventful story by the light of contemporary documents, +informs us that several narratives exist in manuscript, all dealing +more or less accurately with the details of the tragedy. One of these +was published in Italian at Brescia in 1586. A Frenchman, De Rosset, +printed the same story in its main outlines at Lyons in 1621. Our own +dramatist, John Webster, made it the subject of a tragedy, which he +gave to the press in 1612. What were his sources of information we do +not know for certain. But it is clear that he was well acquainted with +the history. He has changed some of the names and redistributed some +of the chief parts. Vittoria's first husband, for example, becomes +Camillo; her mother, named Cornelia instead of Tarquinia, is so far +from abetting Peretti's murder and countenancing her daughter's shame, +that she acts the _rôle_ of a domestic Cassandra. Flaminio and not +Marcello is made the main instrument of Vittoria's crime and +elevation. The Cardinal Montalto is called Monticelso, and his papal +title is Paul IV. instead of Sixtus V. These are details of +comparative indifference, in which a playwright may fairly use his +liberty of art. On the other hand, Webster shows a curious knowledge +of the picturesque circumstances of the tale. The garden in which +Vittoria meets Bracciano is the villa of Magnanapoli; Zanche, the +Moorish slave, combines Vittoria's waiting-woman, Caterina, and the +Greek sorceress who so mysteriously dogged Marcello's footsteps to the +death. The suspicion of Bracciano's murder is used to introduce a +quaint episode of Italian poisoning. + +Webster exercised the dramatist's privilege of connecting various +threads of action in one plot, disregarding chronology, and hazarding +an ethical solution of motives which mere fidelity to fact hardly +warrants. He shows us Vittoria married to Camillo, a low-born and +witless fool, whose only merit consists in being nephew to the +Cardinal Monticelso, afterwards Pope Paul IV.[9] Paulo Giordano +Ursini, Duke of Brachiano, loves Vittoria, and she suggests to him +that, for the furtherance of their amours, his wife, the Duchess +Isabella, sister to Francesco de' Medici, Grand Duke of Florence, +should be murdered at the same time as her own husband, Camillo. +Brachiano is struck by this plan, and with the help of Vittoria's +brother, Flamineo, he puts it at once into execution. Flamineo hires a +doctor who poisons Brachiano's portrait, so that Isabella dies after +kissing it. He also with his own hands twists Camillo's neck during a +vaulting-match, making it appear that he came by his death +accidentally. Suspicion of the murder attaches, however, to Vittoria. +She is tried for her life before Monticelso and De' Medici; acquitted, +and relegated to a house of Convertites or female reformatory. +Brachiano, on the accession of Monticelso to the Papal throne, +resolves to leave Rome with Vittoria. They escape, together with her +mother Cornelia, and her brothers Flamineo and Marcello, to Padua; and +it is here that the last scenes of the tragedy are laid. + +The use Webster made of Lodovico Orsini deserves particular attention. +He introduces this personage in the very first scene as a spendthrift, +who, having run through his fortune, has been outlawed. Count +Lodovico, as he is always called, has no relationship with the Orsini, +but is attached to the service of Francesco de' Medici, and is an old +lover of the Duchess Isabella. When, therefore, the Grand Duke +meditates vengeance on Brachiano, he finds a fitting instrument in the +desperate Lodovico. Together, in disguise, they repair to Padua. +Lodovico poisons the Duke of Brachiano's helmet, and has the +satisfaction of ending his last struggles by the halter. Afterwards, +with companions, habited as a masquer, he enters Vittoria's palace and +puts her to death together with her brother Flamineo. Just when the +deed of vengeance has been completed, young Giovanni Orsini, heir of +Brachiano, enters and orders the summary execution of Lodovico for +this deed of violence. Webster's invention in this plot is confined to +the fantastic incidents attending on the deaths of Isabella, Camillo, +and Brachiano, and to the murder of Marcello by his brother Flamineo, +with the further consequence of Cornelia's madness and death. He has +heightened our interest in Isabella, at the expense of Brachiano's +character, by making her an innocent and loving wife instead of an +adulteress. He has ascribed different motives from the real ones to +Lodovico in order to bring this personage into rank with the chief +actors, though this has been achieved with only moderate success. +Vittoria is abandoned to the darkest interpretation. She is a woman +who rises to eminence by crime, as an unfaithful wife, the murderess +of her husband, and an impudent defier of justice. Her brother, +Flamineo, becomes under Webster's treatment one of those worst human +infamies--a court dependent; ruffian, buffoon, pimp, murderer by +turns. Furthermore, and without any adequate object beyond that of +completing this study of a type he loved, Webster makes him murder his +own brother Marcello by treason. The part assigned to Marcello, it +should be said, is a genial and happy one; and Cornelia, the mother of +the Accoramboni, is a dignified character, pathetic in her suffering. +Webster, it may be added, treats the Cardinal Monticelso as allied in +some special way to the Medici. Yet certain traits in his character, +especially his avoidance of bloodshed and the tameness of his temper +after Camillo has been murdered, seem to have been studied from the +historical Sixtus. + +III + +The character of the 'White Devil, or Vittoria Corombona,' is perhaps +the most masterly creation of Webster's genius. Though her history is +a true one in its leading incidents, the poet, while portraying a real +personage, has conceived an original individuality. It is impossible +to know for certain how far the actual Vittoria was guilty of her +first husband's murder. Her personality fails to detach itself from +the romance of her biography by any salient qualities. But Webster, +with true playwright's instinct, casts aside historical doubts, and +delineates in his heroine a woman of a very marked and terrible +nature. Hard as adamant, uncompromising, ruthless, Vittoria follows +ambition as the loadstar of her life. It is the ambition to reign as +Duchess, far more than any passion for a paramour, which makes her +plot Camillo's and Isabella's murders, and throws her before marriage +into Brachiano's arms. Added to this ambition, she is possessed with +the cold demon of her own imperial and victorious beauty. She has the +courage of her criminality in the fullest sense; and much of the +fascination with which Webster has invested her, depends upon her +dreadful daring. Her portrait is drawn with full and firm touches. +Although she appears but five times on the scene, she fills it from +the first line of the drama to the last. Each appearance adds +effectively to the total impression. We see her first during a +criminal interview with Brachiano, contrived by her brother Flamineo. +The plot of the tragedy is developed in this scene; Vittoria +suggesting, under the metaphor of a dream, that her lover should +compass the deaths of his duchess and her husband. The dream is told +with deadly energy and ghastly picturesqueness. The cruel sneer at its +conclusion, murmured by a voluptuous woman in the ears of an +impassioned paramour, chills us with the sense of concentrated vice. +Her next appearance is before the court, on trial for her husband's +murder. The scene is celebrated, and has been much disputed by +critics. Relying on her own dauntlessness, on her beauty, and on the +protection of Brachiano, Vittoria hardly takes the trouble to plead +innocence or to rebut charges. She stands defiant, arrogant, vigilant, +on guard; flinging the lie in the teeth of her arraigners; quick to +seize the slightest sign of feebleness in their attack; protesting her +guiltlessness so loudly that she shouts truth down by brazen strength +of lung; retiring at the close with taunts; blazing throughout with +the intolerable lustre of some baleful planet. When she enters for the +third time, it is to quarrel with her paramour. He has been stung to +jealousy by a feigned love-letter. She knows that she has given him no +cause; it is her game to lure him by fidelity to marriage. Therefore +she resolves to make his mistake the instrument of her exaltation. +Beginning with torrents of abuse, hurling reproaches at him for her +own dishonour and the murder of his wife, working herself by studied +degrees into a tempest of ungovernable rage, she flings herself upon +the bed, refuses his caresses, spurns and tramples on him, till she +has brought Brachiano, terrified, humbled, fascinated, to her feet. +Then she gradually relents beneath his passionate protestations and +repeated promises of marriage. At this point she speaks but little. +We only feel her melting humour in the air, and long to see the scene +played by such an actress as Madame Bernhardt. When Vittoria next +appears, it is as Duchess by the deathbed of the Duke, her husband. +Her attendance here is necessary, but it contributes little to the +development of her character. We have learned to know her, and expect +neither womanish tears nor signs of affection at a crisis which +touches her heart less than her self-love. Webster, among his other +excellent qualities, knew how to support character by reticence. +Vittoria's silence in this act is significant; and when she retires +exclaiming, 'O me! this place is hell!' we know that it is the outcry, +not of a woman who has lost what made life dear, but of one who sees +the fruits of crime imperilled by a fatal accident. The last scene of +the play is devoted to Vittoria. It begins with a notable altercation +between her and Flamineo. She calls him 'ruffian' and 'villain,' +refusing him the reward of his vile service. This quarrel emerges in +one of Webster's grotesque contrivances to prolong a poignant +situation. Flamineo quits the stage and reappears with pistols. He +affects a kind of madness; and after threatening Vittoria, who never +flinches, he proposes they should end their lives by suicide. She +humours him, but manages to get the first shot. Flamineo falls, +wounded apparently to death. Then Vittoria turns and tramples on him +with her feet and tongue, taunting him in his death agony with the +enumeration of his crimes. Her malice and her energy are equally +infernal. Soon, however, it appears that the whole device was but a +trick of Flamineo's to test his sister. The pistol was not loaded. He +now produces a pair which are properly charged, and proceeds in good +earnest to the assassination of Vittoria. But at this critical moment +Lodovico and his masquers appear; brother and sister both die +unrepentant, defiant to the end. Vittoria's customary pride and her +familiar sneers impress her speech in these last moments with a +trenchant truth to nature: + + _You_ my death's-man! + Methinks thou dost not look horrid enough, + Thou hast too good a face to be a hangman: + If thou be, do thy office in right form; + Fall down upon thy knees, and ask forgiveness! + + * * * * * + + I will be waited on in death; my servant + Shall never go before me. + + * * * * * + + Yes, I shall welcome death + As princes do some great ambassadors: + I'll meet thy weapon half-way. + + * * * * * + + 'Twas a manly blow! + The next thou giv'st, murder some sucking infant; + And then thou wilt be famous. + +So firmly has Webster wrought the character of this white devil, that +we seem to see her before us as in a picture. 'Beautiful as the +leprosy, dazzling as the lightning,' to use a phrase of her +enthusiastic admirer Hazlitt, she takes her station like a lady in +some portrait by Paris Bordone, with gleaming golden hair twisted into +snakelike braids about her temples, with skin white as cream, bright +cheeks, dark dauntless eyes, and on her bosom, where it has been +chafed by jewelled chains, a flush of rose. She is luxurious, but not +so abandoned to the pleasures of the sense as to forget the purpose of +her will and brain. Crime and peril add zest to her enjoyment. When +arraigned in open court before the judgment-seat of deadly and +unscrupulous foes, she conceals the consciousness of guilt, and stands +erect, with fierce front, unabashed, relying on the splendour of her +irresistible beauty and the subtlety of her piercing wit. Chafing with +rage, the blood mounts and adds a lustre to her cheek. It is no flush +of modesty, but of rebellious indignation. The Cardinal, who hates +her, brands her emotion with the name of shame. She rebukes him, +hurling a jibe at his own mother. And when they point with spiteful +eagerness to the jewels blazing on her breast, to the silks and satins +that she rustles in, her husband lying murdered, she retorts: + + Had I foreknown his death, as you suggest, I would have + bespoke my mourning. + +She is condemned, but not vanquished, and leaves the court with a +stinging sarcasm. They send her to a house of Convertites: + + _V.C_. A house of Convertites! what's that? + + _M_. A house of penitent whores. + + _V.C_. Do the noblemen of Rome Erect it for their wives, + that I am sent To lodge there? + +Charles Lamb was certainly in error? when he described Vittoria's +attitude as one of 'innocence-resembling boldness.' In the trial +scene, no less than in the scenes of altercation with Brachiano and +Flamineo, Webster clearly intended her to pass for a magnificent +vixen, a beautiful and queenly termagant. Her boldness is the audacity +of impudence, which does not condescend to entertain the thought of +guilt. Her egotism is so hard and so profound that the very victims +whom she sacrifices to ambition seem in her sight justly punished. Of +Camillo and Isabella, her husband and his wife, she says to Brachiano: + + And both were struck dead by that sacred yew, In that base + shallow grave that was their due. + +IV + +It is tempting to pass from this analysis of Vittoria's life to a +consideration of Webster's drama as a whole, especially in a book +dedicated to Italian byways. For that mysterious man of genius had +explored the dark and devious paths of Renaissance vice, and had +penetrated the secrets of Italian wickedness with truly appalling +lucidity. His tragedies, though worthless as historical documents, +have singular value as commentaries upon history, as revelations to us +of the spirit of the sixteenth century in its deepest gloom. + +Webster's plays, owing to the condensation of their thought and the +compression of their style, are not easy to read for the first time. +He crowds so many fantastic incidents into one action, and burdens his +discourse with so much profoundly studied matter, that we rise from +the perusal of his works with a blurred impression of the fables, a +deep sense of the poet's power and personality, and an ineffaceable +recollection of one or two resplendent scenes. His Roman history-play +of 'Appius and Virginia' proves that he understood the value of a +simple plot, and that he was able, when he chose, to work one out with +conscientious calmness. But the two Italian dramas upon which his fame +is justly founded, by right of which he stands alone among the +playwrights of all literatures, are marked by a peculiar and wayward +mannerism. Each part is etched with equal effort after luminous effect +upon a back-ground of lurid darkness; and the whole play is made up +of these parts, without due concentration on a master-motive. The +characters are definite in outline, but, taken together in the conduct +of a single plot, they seem to stand apart, like figures in a _tableau +vivant_; nor do they act and react each upon the other in the play of +interpenetrative passions. That this mannerism was deliberately +chosen, we have a right to believe. 'Willingly, and not ignorantly, in +this kind have I faulted,' is the answer Webster gives to such as may +object that he has not constructed his plays upon the classic model. +He seems to have had a certain sombre richness of tone and intricacy +of design in view, combining sensational effect and sententious +pregnancy of diction in works of laboured art, which, when adequately +represented to the ear and eye upon the stage, might at a touch obtain +the animation they now lack for chamber-students. + +When familiarity has brought us acquainted with his style, when we +have disentangled the main characters and circumstances from their +adjuncts, we perceive that he treats poignant and tremendous +situations with a concentrated vigour special to his genius; that he +has studied each word and trait of character, and that he has prepared +by gradual approaches and degrees of horror for the culmination of his +tragedies. The sentences which seem at first sight copied from a +commonplace book, are found to be appropriate. Brief lightning flashes +of acute perception illuminate the midnight darkness of his all but +unimaginably depraved characters. Sharp unexpected touches evoke +humanity in the _fantoccini_ of his wayward art. No dramatist has +shown more consummate ability in heightening terrific effects, in +laying bare the innermost mysteries of crime, remorse, and pain, +combined to make men miserable. It has been said of Webster that, +feeling himself deficient in the first poetic qualities, he +concentrated his powers upon one point, and achieved success by sheer +force of self-cultivation. There is perhaps some truth in this. At any +rate, his genius was of a narrow and peculiar order, and he knew well +how to make the most of its limitations. Yet we must not forget that +he felt a natural bias toward the dreadful stuff with which he deals. +The mystery of iniquity had an irresistible attraction for his mind. +He was drawn to comprehend and reproduce abnormal elements of +spiritual anguish. The materials with which he builds his tragedies +are sought for in the ruined places of lost souls, in the agonies of +madness and despair, in the sarcasms of criminal and reckless atheism, +in slow tortures, griefs beyond endurance, the tempests of remorseful +death, the spasms of fratricidal bloodshed. He is often melodramatic +in the means employed to bring these psychological conditions home to +us. He makes too free use of poisoned engines, daggers, pistols, +disguised murderers, and so forth. Yet his firm grasp upon the +essential qualities of diseased and guilty human nature saves him, +even at his wildest, from the unrealities and extravagances into which +less potent artists of the _drame sanglant_--Marston, for +example--blundered. + +With Webster, the tendency to brood on horrors was no result of +calculation. It belonged to his idiosyncrasy. He seems to have been +suckled from birth at the breast of that _Mater Tenebrarum_, our Lady +of Darkness, whom De Quincey in one of his 'Suspiria de Profundis' +describes among the Semnai Theai, the august goddesses, the mysterious +foster-nurses of suffering humanity. He cannot say the simplest thing +without giving it a ghastly or sinister turn. If one of his characters +draws a metaphor from pie-crust, he must needs use language of the +churchyard: + + You speak as if a man + Should know what fowl is coffined in a baked meat + Afore you cut it open. + +Hideous similes are heaped together in illustration of the commonest +circumstances: + + Places at court are but like beds in the hospital, where + this man's head lies at that man's foot, and so lower and + lower. + + When knaves come to preferment, they rise as gallowses are + raised in the Low Countries, one upon another's shoulders. + + I would sooner eat a dead pigeon taken from the soles of the + feet of one sick of the plague than kiss one of you fasting. + +A soldier is twitted with serving his master: + + As witches do their serviceable spirits, + Even with thy prodigal blood. + +An adulterous couple get this curse: + + Like mistletoe on sear elms spent by weather, + Let him cleave to her, and both rot together. + +A bravo is asked: + + Dost thou imagine thou canst slide on blood, + And not be tainted with a shameful fall? + Or, like the black and melancholic yew-tree, + Dost think to root thyself in dead men's graves, + And yet to prosper? + +It is dangerous to extract philosophy of life from any dramatist. Yet +Webster so often returns to dark and doleful meditations, that we may +fairly class him among constitutional pessimists. Men, according to +the grimness of his melancholy, are: + + Only like dead walls or vaulted graves, + That, ruined, yield no echo. + O this gloomy world! + In what a shadow or deep pit of darkness + Doth womanish and fearful mankind live! + + * * * * * + + We are merely the stars' tennis-balls, struck and banded + Which way please them. + + * * * * * + + Pleasure of life! what is't? only the good hours of an ague. + +A Duchess is 'brought to mortification,' before her strangling by the +executioner, in this high fantastical oration: + + Thou art a box of worm-seed, at best but a salvatory of + green mummy. What's this flesh? A little crudded milk, + fantastical puff-paste, &c. &c. + +Man's life in its totality is summed up with monastic cynicism in +these lyric verses: + + Of what is't fools make such vain keeping? + Sin their conception, their birth weeping, + Their life a general mist of error, + Their death a hideous storm of terror. + +The greatness of the world passes by with all its glory: + + Vain the ambition of kings, + Who seek by trophies and dead things + To leave a living name behind, + And weave but nets to catch the wind. + +It would be easy to surfeit criticism with similar examples; where +Webster is writing in sarcastic, meditative, or deliberately +terror-stirring moods. The same dark dye of his imagination shows +itself even more significantly in circumstances where, in the work of +any other artist, it would inevitably mar the harmony of the picture. +A lady, to select one instance, encourages her lover to embrace her at +the moment of his happiness. She cries: + + Sir, be confident! + What is't distracts you? This is flesh and blood, sir; + 'Tis not the figure cut in alabaster, + Kneels at my husband's tomb. + +Yet so sustained is Webster's symphony of sombre tints, that we do not +feel this sepulchral language, this 'talk fit for a charnel' (to use +one of his own phrases), to be out of keeping. It sounds like a +presentiment of coming woes, which, as the drama grows to its +conclusion, gather and darken on the wretched victims of his bloody +plot. + +It was with profound sagacity, or led by some deep-rooted instinct, +that Webster sought the fables of his two great tragedies, 'The White +Devil' and 'The Duchess of Malfi,' in Italian annals. Whether he had +visited Italy in his youth, we cannot say; for next to nothing is +known about Webster's life. But that he had gazed long and earnestly +into the mirror held up by that enchantress of the nations in his age, +is certain. Aghast and fascinated by the sins he saw there flaunting +in the light of day--sins on whose pernicious glamour Ascham, Greene, +and Howell have insisted with impressive vehemence--Webster discerned +in them the stuff he needed for philosophy and art. Withdrawing from +that contemplation, he was like a spirit 'loosed out of hell to speak +of horrors.' Deeper than any poet of the time, deeper than any even of +the Italians, he read the riddle of the sphinx of crime. He found +there something akin to his own imaginative mood, something which he +alone could fully comprehend and interpret. From the superficial +narratives of writers like Bandello he extracted a spiritual essence +which was, if not the literal, at least the ideal, truth involved in +them. + +The enormous and unnatural vices, the domestic crimes of cruelty, +adultery, and bloodshed, the political scheming and the subtle arts of +vengeance, the ecclesiastical tyranny and craft, the cynical +scepticism and lustre of luxurious godlessness, which made Italy in +the midst of her refinement blaze like 'a bright and ominous star' +before the nations; these were the very elements in which the genius +of Webster--salamander-like in flame--could live and flourish. Only +the incidents of Italian history, or of French history in its +Italianated epoch, were capable of supplying him with the proper type +of plot. It was in Italy alone, or in an Italianated country, such as +England for a brief space in the reign of the first Stuart threatened +to become, that the well-nigh diabolical wickedness of his characters +might have been realised. An audience familiar with Italian novels +through Belleforest and Painter, inflamed by the long struggle of the +Reformation against the scarlet abominations of the Papal See, +outraged in their moral sense by the political paradoxes of +Machiavelli, horror-stricken at the still recent misdoings of Borgias +and Medici and Farnesi, alarmed by that Italian policy which had +conceived the massacre of S. Bartholomew in France, and infuriated by +that ecclesiastical hypocrisy which triumphed in the same; such an +audience were at the right point of sympathy with a poet who undertook +to lay the springs of Southern villany before them bare in a dramatic +action. But, as the old proverb puts it, 'Inglese Italianato è un +diavolo incarnato.' 'An Englishman assuming the Italian habit is a +devil in the flesh.' The Italians were depraved, but spiritually +feeble. The English playwright, when he brought them on the stage, +arrayed with intellectual power and gleaming with the lurid splendour +of a Northern fancy, made them tenfold darker and more terrible. To +the subtlety and vices of the South he added the melancholy, +meditation, and sinister insanity of his own climate. He deepened the +complexion of crime and intensified lawlessness by robbing the Italian +character of levity. Sin, in his conception of that character, was +complicated with the sense of sin, as it never had been in a +Florentine or a Neapolitan. He had not grasped the meaning of the +Machiavellian conscience, in its cold serenity and disengagement from +the dread of moral consequence. Not only are his villains stealthy, +frigid, quick to evil, merciless, and void of honour; but they brood +upon their crimes and analyse their motives. In the midst of their +audacity they are dogged by dread of coming retribution. At the crisis +of their destiny they look back upon their better days with +intellectual remorse. In the execution of their bloodiest schemes they +groan beneath the chains of guilt they wear, and quake before the +phantoms of their haunted brains. + +Thus passion and reflection, superstition and profanity, deliberate +atrocity and fear of judgment, are united in the same nature; and to +make the complex still more strange, the play-wright has gifted these +tremendous personalities with his own wild humour and imaginative +irony. The result is almost monstrous, such an ideal of character as +makes earth hell. And yet it is not without justification. To the +Italian text has been added the Teutonic commentary, and both are +fused by a dramatic genius into one living whole. + +One of these men is Flamineo, the brother of Vittoria Corombona, upon +whose part the action of the 'White Devil' depends. He has been bred +in arts and letters at the university of Padua; but being poor and of +luxurious appetites, he chooses the path of crime in courts for his +advancement. A duke adopts him for his minion, and Flamineo acts the +pander to this great man's lust. He contrives the death of his +brother-in-law, suborns a doctor to poison the Duke's wife, and +arranges secret meetings between his sister and the paramour who is to +make her fortune and his own. His mother appears like a warning Até to +prevent her daughter's crime. In his rage he cries: + + What fury raised _thee_ up? Away, away! + +And when she pleads the honour of their house he answers: + + Shall I, + Having a path so open and so free + To my preferment, still retain your milk + In my pale forehead? + +Later on, when it is necessary to remove another victim, he runs his +own brother through the body and drives his mother to madness. Yet, in +the midst of these crimes, we are unable to regard him as a simple +cut-throat. His irony and reckless courting of damnation open-eyed to +get his gust of life in this world, make him no common villain. He can +be brave as well as fierce. When the Duke insults him he bandies taunt +for taunt: + + _Brach_. No, you pander? + + _Flam_. What, me, my lord? + Am I your dog? + + _B_. A bloodhound; do you brave, do you stand me? + + _F_. Stand you! let those that have diseases run; + I need no plasters. + + _B_. Would you be kicked? + + _F_. Would you have your neck broke? + I tell you, duke, I am not in Russia; + My shins must be kept whole. + + _B_. Do you know me? + + _F_. Oh, my lord, methodically: + As in this world there are degrees of evils, + So in this world there are degrees of devils. + You're a great duke, I your poor secretary. + +When the Duke dies and his prey escapes him, the rage of +disappointment breaks into this fierce apostrophe: + + I cannot conjure; but if prayers or oaths. Will get the + speech of him, though forty devils Wait on him in his livery + of flames, I'll speak to him and shake him by the hand, + Though I be blasted. + +As crimes thicken round him, and he still despairs of the reward for +which he sold himself, conscience awakes: + + I have lived + Riotously ill, like some that live in court, + And sometimes when my face was full of smiles Have felt the + maze of conscience in my breast. + +The scholar's scepticism, which lies at the root of his perversity, +finds utterance in this meditation upon death: + + Whither shall I go now? O Lucian, thy ridiculous purgatory! + to find Alexander the Great cobbling shoes, Pompey tagging + points, and Julius Cæsar making hair-buttons! + + Whether I resolve to fire, earth, water, air, or all the + elements by scruples, I know not, nor greatly care. + +At the last moment he yet can say: + + We cease to grieve, cease to be Fortune's slaves, Nay, cease + to die, by dying. + +And again, with the very yielding of his spirit: + + My life was a black charnel. + +It will be seen that in no sense does Flamineo resemble Iago. He is +not a traitor working by craft and calculating ability to +well-considered ends. He is the desperado frantically clutching at an +uncertain and impossible satisfaction. Webster conceives him as a +self-abandoned atheist, who, maddened by poverty and tainted by +vicious living, takes a fury to his heart, and, because the goodness +of the world has been for ever lost to him, recklessly seeks the bad. + +Bosola, in the 'Duchess of Malfi,' is of the same stamp. He too has +been a scholar. He is sent to the galleys 'for a notorious murder,' +and on his release he enters the service of two brothers, the Duke of +Calabria and the Cardinal of Aragon, who place him as their +intelligencer at the court of their sister. + + + _Bos_. It seems you would create me + One of your familiars. + + _Ferd_. Familiar! what's that? + + _Bos_. Why, a very quaint invisible devil in flesh, + An intelligencer. + + _Ferd_. Such a kind of thriving thing + I would wish thee; and ere long thou may'st arrive + At a higher place by it. + +Lured by hope of preferment, Bosola undertakes the office of spy, +tormentor, and at last of executioner. For: + + Discontent and want + Is the best clay to mould a villain of. + +But his true self, though subdued to be what he quaintly styles 'the +devil's quilted anvil,' on which 'all sins are fashioned and the blows +never heard,' continually rebels against this destiny. Compared with +Flamineo, he is less unnaturally criminal. His melancholy is more +fantastic, his despair more noble. Throughout the course of craft and +cruelty on which he is goaded by a relentless taskmaster, his nature, +hardened as it is, revolts. + +At the end, when Bosola presents the body of the murdered Duchess to +her brother, Webster has wrought a scene of tragic savagery that +surpasses almost any other that the English stage can show. The +sight, of his dead sister maddens Ferdinand, who, feeling the eclipse +of reason gradually absorb his faculties, turns round with frenzied +hatred on the accomplice of his fratricide. Bosola demands the price +of guilt. Ferdinand spurns him with the concentrated eloquence of +despair and the extravagance of approaching insanity. The murderer +taunts his master coldly and laconically, like a man whose life is +wrecked, who has waded through blood to his reward, and who at the +last moment discovers the sacrifice of his conscience and masculine +freedom to be fruitless. Remorse, frustrated hopes, and thirst for +vengeance convert Bosola from this hour forward into an instrument of +retribution. The Duke and his brother the Cardinal are both brought to +bloody deaths by the hand which they had used to assassinate their +sister. + +It is fitting that something should be said about Webster's conception +of the Italian despot. Brachiano and Ferdinand, the employers of +Flamineo and Bosola, are tyrants such as Savonarola described, and as +we read of in the chronicles of petty Southern cities. Nothing is +suffered to stand between their lust and its accomplishment. They +override the law by violence, or pervert its action to their own +advantage: + + The law to him + Is like a foul black cobweb to a spider; + He makes it his dwelling and a prison + To entangle those shall feed him. + +They are eaten up with parasites, accomplices, and all the creatures +of their crimes: + + He and his brother are like plum-trees that grow crooked + over standing pools; they are rich and over-laden with + fruit, but none but crows, pies, and caterpillars feed on + them. + +In their lives they are without a friend; for society in guilt brings +nought of comfort, and honours are but emptiness: + + Glories, like glow-worms, afar off shine bright; + But looked to near, have neither heat nor light. + +Their plots and counterplots drive repose far from them: + + There's but three furies found in spacious hell; + But in a great man's breast three thousand dwell. + +Fearful shapes afflict their fancy; shadows of ancestral crime or +ghosts of their own raising: + + For these many years + None of our family dies, but there is seen + The shape of an old woman; which is given + By tradition to us to have been murdered + By her nephews for her riches. + +Apparitions haunt them: + + How tedious is a guilty conscience! + When I look into the fish-ponds in my garden, + Methinks I see a thing armed with a rake + That seems to strike at me. + +Continually scheming against the objects of their avarice and hatred, +preparing poisons or suborning bravoes, they know that these same arts +will be employed against them. The wine-cup hides arsenic; the +headpiece is smeared with antimony; there is a dagger behind every +arras, and each shadow is a murderer's. When death comes, they meet it +trembling. What irony Webster has condensed in Brachiano's outcry: + + On pain of death, let no man name death to me; + It is a word infinitely horrible. + +And how solemn are the following reflections on the death of princes: + + O thou soft natural death, that art joint-twin + To sweetest slumber! no rough-bearded comet + Stares on thy mild departure; the dull owl + Beats not against thy casement, the hoarse wolf + Scents not thy carrion: pity winds thy corse, + Whilst horror waits on princes. + +After their death, this is their epitaph: + + These wretched eminent things + Leave no more fame behind'em than should one + Fall in a frost and leave his print in snow. + +Of Webster's despots, the finest in conception and the firmest in +execution is Ferdinand of Aragon. Jealousy of his sister and avarice +take possession of him and torment him like furies. The flash of +repentance over her strangled body is also the first flash of +insanity. He survives to present the spectacle of a crazed lunatic, +and to be run through the body by his paid assassin. In the Cardinal +of Aragon, Webster paints a profligate Churchman, no less voluptuous, +blood-guilty, and the rest of it, than his brother the Duke of +Calabria. It seems to have been the poet's purpose in each of his +Italian tragedies to unmask Rome as the Papal city really was. In the +lawless desperado, the intemperate tyrant, and the godless +ecclesiastic, he portrayed the three curses from which Italian society +was actually suffering. + +It has been needful to dwell upon the gloomy and fantastic side of +Webster's genius. But it must not be thought that he could touch no +finer chord. Indeed, it might be said that in the domain of pathos he +is even more powerful than in that of horror. His mastery in this +region is displayed in the creation of that dignified and beautiful +woman, the Duchess of Malfi, who, with nothing in her nature, had she +but lived prosperously, to divide her from the sisterhood of gentle +ladies, walks, shrined in love and purity and conscious rectitude, +amid the snares and pitfalls of her persecutors, to die at last the +victim of a brother's fevered avarice and a desperado's egotistical +ambition. The apparatus of infernal cruelty, the dead man's hand, the +semblances of murdered sons and husband, the masque of madmen, the +dirge and doleful emblems of the tomb with which she is environed in +her prison by the torturers who seek to goad her into lunacy, are +insufficient to disturb the tranquillity and tenderness of her nature. +When the rope is being fastened to her throat, she does not spend her +breath in recriminations, but turns to the waiting-woman and says: + + Farewell, Cariola! + I pray thee look thou givest my little boy + Some syrup for his cold, and let the girl + Say her prayers ere she sleep. + +In the preceding scenes we have had enough, nay, over-much, of +madness, despair, and wrestling with doom. This is the calm that comes +when death is present, when the tortured soul lays down its burden of +the flesh with gladness. But Webster has not spared another touch of +thrilling pathos. + +The death-struggle is over; the fratricide has rushed away, a maddened +man; the murderer is gazing with remorse upon the beautiful dead body +of his lady, wishing he had the world wherewith to buy her back to +life again; when suddenly she murmurs 'Mercy!' Our interest, already +overstrained, revives with momentary hope. But the guardians of the +grave will not be exorcised; and 'Mercy!' is the last groan of the +injured Duchess. + +Webster showed great skill in his delineation of the Duchess. He had +to paint a woman in a hazardous situation: a sovereign stooping in her +widowhood to wed a servant; a lady living with the mystery of this +unequal marriage round her like a veil. He dowered her with no salient +qualities of intellect or heart or will; but he sustained our sympathy +with her, and made us comprehend her. To the last she is a Duchess; +and when she has divested state and bowed her head to enter the low +gate of heaven--too low for coronets--her poet shows us, in the lines +already quoted, that the woman still survives. + +The same pathos surrounds the melancholy portrait of Isabella in +'Vittoria Corombona.' But Isabella, in that play, serves chiefly to +enhance the tyranny of her triumphant rival. The main difficulty under +which these scenes of rarest pathos would labour, were they brought +upon the stage, is their simplicity in contrast with the ghastly and +contorted horrors that envelop them. A dialogue abounding in the +passages I have already quoted--a dialogue which bandies 'O you +screech-owl!' and 'Thou foul black cloud!'--in which a sister's +admonition to her brother to think twice of suicide assumes a form so +weird as this: + + I prithee, yet remember, + Millions are now in graves, which at last day + Like mandrakes shall rise shrieking.-- + +such a dialogue could not be rendered save by actors strung up to a +pitch of almost frenzied tension. To do full justice to what in +Webster's style would be spasmodic were it not so weighty, and at the +same time to maintain the purity of outline and melodious rhythm of +such characters as Isabella, demands no common histrionic power. + +In attempting to define Webster's touch upon Italian tragic story, I +have been led perforce to concentrate attention on what is painful and +shocking to our sense of harmony in art. He was a vigorous and +profoundly imaginative playwright. But his most enthusiastic admirers +will hardly contend that good taste or moderation determined the +movement of his genius. Nor, though his insight into the essential +dreadfulness of Italian tragedy was so deep, is it possible to +maintain that his portraiture of Italian life was true to its more +superficial aspects. What place would there be for a Correggio or a +Raphael in such a world as Webster's? Yet we know that the art of +Raphael and Correggio is in exact harmony with the Italian temperament +of the same epoch which gave birth to Cesare Borgia and Bianca +Gapello. The comparatively slighter sketch of Iachimo in 'Cymbeline' +represents the Italian as he felt and lived, better than the laboured +portrait of Flamineo. Webster's Italian tragedies are consequently +true, not so much to the actual conditions of Italy, as to the moral +impression made by those conditions on a Northern imagination. + + * * * * * + + + + +_AUTUMN WANDERINGS_ + +I.--ITALIAM PETIMUS + + +_Italiam Petimus!_ We left our upland home before daybreak on a clear +October morning. There had been a hard frost, spangling the meadows +with rime-crystals, which twinkled where the sun's rays touched them. +Men and women were mowing the frozen grass with thin short Alpine +scythes; and as the swathes fell, they gave a crisp, an almost +tinkling sound. Down into the gorge, surnamed of Avalanche, our horses +plunged; and there we lost the sunshine till we reached the Bear's +Walk, opening upon the vales of Albula, and Julier, and Schyn. But up +above, shone morning light upon fresh snow, and steep torrent-cloven +slopes reddening with a hundred fading plants; now and then it caught +the grey-green icicles that hung from cliffs where summer streams had +dripped. There is no colour lovelier than the blue of an autumn sky in +the high Alps, defining ridges powdered with light snow, and melting +imperceptibly downward into the warm yellow of the larches and the +crimson of the bilberry. Wiesen was radiantly beautiful: those aërial +ranges of the hills that separate Albula from Julier soared +crystal-clear above their forests; and for a foreground, on the green +fields starred with lilac crocuses, careered a group of children on +their sledges. Then came the row of giant peaks--Pitz d'Aela, +Tinzenhorn, and Michelhorn, above the deep ravine of Albula--all seen +across wide undulating golden swards, close-shaven and awaiting +winter. Carnations hung from cottage windows in full bloom, casting +sharp angular black shadows on white walls. + +_Italiam petimus!_ We have climbed the valley of the Julier, following +its green, transparent torrent. A night has come and gone at Mühlen. +The stream still leads us up, diminishing in volume as we rise, up +through the fleecy mists that roll asunder for the sun, disclosing +far-off snowy ridges and blocks of granite mountains. The lifeless, +soundless waste of rock, where only thin winds whistle out of silence +and fade suddenly into still air, is passed. Then comes the descent, +with its forests of larch and cembra, golden and dark green upon a +ground of grey, and in front the serried shafts of the Bernina, and +here and there a glimpse of emerald lake at turnings of the road. +Autumn is the season for this landscape. Through the fading of +innumerable leaflets, the yellowing of larches, and something +vaporous in the low sun, it gains a colour not unlike that of the +lands we seek. By the side of the lake at Silvaplana the light was +strong and warm, but mellow. Pearly clouds hung over the Maloja, and +floating overhead cast shadows on the opaque water, which may +literally be compared to chrysoprase. The breadth of golden, brown, +and russet tints upon the valley at this moment adds softness to its +lines of level strength. Devotees of the Engadine contend that it +possesses an austere charm beyond the common beauty of Swiss +landscape; but this charm is only perfected in autumn. The fresh snow +on the heights that guard it helps. And then there are the forests of +dark pines upon those many knolls and undulating mountain-flanks +beside the lakes. Sitting and dreaming there in noonday sun, I kept +repeating to myself _Italiam petimus!_ + +A hurricane blew upward from the pass as we left Silvaplana, ruffling +the lake with gusts of the Italian wind. By Silz Maria we came in +sight of a dozen Italian workmen, arm linked in arm in two rows, +tramping in rhythmic stride, and singing as they went. Two of them +were such nobly built young men, that for a moment the beauty of the +landscape faded from my sight, and I was saddened. They moved to their +singing, like some of Mason's or Frederick Walker's figures, with the +free grace of living statues, and laughed as we drove by. And yet, +with all their beauty, industry, sobriety, intelligence, these +Italians of the northern valleys serve the sterner people of the +Grisons like negroes, doing their roughest work at scanty wages. + +So we came to the vast Alpine wall, and stood on a bare granite slab, +and looked over into Italy, as men might lean from the battlements of +a fortress. Behind lies the Alpine valley, grim, declining slowly +northward, with wind-lashed lakes and glaciers sprawling from +storm-broken pyramids of gneiss. Below spread the unfathomable depths +that lead to Lombardy, flooded with sunlight, filled with swirling +vapour, but never wholly hidden from our sight. For the blast kept +shifting the cloud-masses, and the sun streamed through in spears and +bands of sheeny rays. Over the parapet our horses dropped, down +through sable spruce and amber larch, down between tangles of rowan +and autumnal underwood. Ever as we sank, the mountains rose--those +sharp embattled precipices, toppling spires, impendent chasms blurred +with mist, that make the entrance into Italy sublime. Nowhere do the +Alps exhibit their full stature, their commanding puissance, with such +majesty as in the gates of Italy; and of all those gates I think there +is none to compare with Maloja, none certainly to rival it in +abruptness of initiation into the Italian secret. Below Vico Soprano +we pass already into the violets and blues of Titian's landscape. Then +come the purple boulders among chestnut trees; then the double +dolomite-like peak of Pitz Badin and Promontogno. + +It is sad that words can do even less than painting could to bring +this window-scene at Promontogno before another eye. The casement just +frames it. In the foreground are meadow slopes, thinly, capriciously +planted with chestnut trees and walnuts, each standing with its shadow +cast upon the sward. A little farther falls the torrent, foaming down +between black jaws of rain-stained granite, with the wooden buildings +of a rustic mill set on a ledge of rock. Suddenly above this landscape +soars the valley, clothing its steep sides on either hand with pines; +and there are emerald isles of pasture on the wooded flanks; and then +cliffs, where the red-stemmed larches glow; and at the summit, +shooting into ether with a swathe of mist around their basement, soar +the double peaks, the one a pyramid, the other a bold broken crystal +not unlike the Finsteraarhorn seen from Furka. These are connected by +a snowy saddle, and snow is lying on their inaccessible crags in +powdery drifts. Sunlight pours between them into the ravine. The green +and golden forests now join from either side, and now recede, +according as the sinuous valley brings their lines together or +disparts them. There is a sound of cow-bells on the meadows; and the +roar of the stream is dulled or quickened as the gusts of this October +wind sweep by or slacken. _Italiam petimus!_ + +_Tangimus Italiam!_ Chiavenna is a worthy key to this great gate +Italian. We walked at night in the open galleries of the cathedral +cloister--white, smoothly curving, well-proportioned loggie, enclosing +a green space, whence soars the campanile to the stars. The moon had +sunk, but her light still silvered the mountains that stand at watch +round Chiavenna; and the castle rock was flat and black against that +dreamy background. Jupiter, who walked so lately for us on the long +ridge of the Jacobshorn above our pines, had now an ample space of sky +over Lombardy to light his lamp in. Why is it, we asked each other, as +we smoked our pipes and strolled, my friend and I;--why is it that +Italian beauty does not leave the spirit so untroubled as an Alpine +scene? Why do we here desire the flower of some emergent feeling to +grow from the air, or from the soil, or from humanity to greet us? +This sense of want evoked by Southern beauty is perhaps the antique +mythopÂœic yearning. But in our perplexed life it takes another form, +and seems the longing for emotion, ever fleeting, ever new, +unrealised, unreal, insatiable. + + +II.--OVER THE APENNINES + + + +At Parma we slept in the Albergo della Croce Bianca, which is more a +bric-à -brac shop than an inn; and slept but badly, for the good folk +of Parma twanged guitars and exercised their hoarse male voices all +night in the street below. We were glad when Christian called us, at 5 +A.M., for an early start across the Apennines. This was the day of a +right Roman journey. In thirteen and a half hours, leaving Parma at 6, +and arriving in Sarzana at 7.30, we flung ourselves across the spine +of Italy, from the plains of Eridanus to the seashore of Etruscan +Luna. I had secured a carriage and extra post-horses the night before; +therefore we found no obstacles upon the road, but eager drivers, +quick relays, obsequious postmasters, change, speed, perpetual +movement. The road itself is a noble one, and nobly entertained in all +things but accommodation for travellers. At Berceto, near the summit +of the pass, we stopped just half an hour, to lunch off a mouldy hen +and six eggs; but that was all the halt we made. + +As we drove out of Parma, striking across the plain to the _ghiara_ of +the Taro, the sun rose over the austere autumnal landscape, with its +withered vines and crimson haws. Christian, the mountaineer, who at +home had never seen the sun rise from a flat horizon, stooped from the +box to call attention to this daily recurring miracle, which on the +plain of Lombardy is no less wonderful than on a rolling sea. From the +village of Fornovo, where the Italian League was camped awaiting +Charles VIII. upon that memorable July morn in 1495, the road strikes +suddenly aside, gains a spur of the descending Apennines, and keeps +this vantage till the pass of La Cisa is reached. Many windings are +occasioned by thus adhering to arêtes, but the total result is a +gradual ascent with free prospect over plain and mountain. The +Apennines, built up upon a smaller scale than the Alps, perplexed in +detail and entangled with cross sections and convergent systems, lend +themselves to this plan of carrying highroads along their ridges +instead of following the valley. + +What is beautiful in the landscape of that northern watershed is the +subtlety, delicacy, variety, and intricacy of the mountain outlines. +There is drawing wherever the eye falls. Each section of the vast +expanse is a picture of tossed crests and complicated undulations. And +over the whole sea of stationary billows, light is shed like an +ethereal raiment, with spare colour--blue and grey, and parsimonious +green--in the near foreground. The detail is somewhat dry and +monotonous; for these so finely moulded hills are made up of washed +earth, the immemorial wrecks of earlier mountain ranges. Brown +villages, not unlike those of Midland England, low houses built of +stone and tiled with stone, and square-towered churches, occur at rare +intervals in cultivated hollows, where there are fields and fruit +trees. Water is nowhere visible except in the wasteful river-beds. As +we rise, we break into a wilder country, forested with oak, where oxen +and goats are browsing. The turf is starred with lilac gentian and +crocus bells, but sparely. Then comes the highest village, Berceto, +with keen Alpine air. After that, broad rolling downs of yellowing +grass and russet beech-scrub lead onward to the pass La Cisa. The +sense of breadth in composition is continually satisfied through this +ascent by the fine-drawn lines, faint tints, and immense air-spaces of +Italian landscape. Each little piece reminds one of England; but the +geographical scale is enormously more grandiose, and the effect of +majesty proportionately greater. + +From La Cisa the road descends suddenly; for the southern escarpment +of the Apennine, as of the Alpine, barrier is pitched at a far steeper +angle than the northern. Yet there is no view of the sea. That is +excluded by the lower hills which hem the Magra. The upper valley is +beautiful, with verdant lawns and purple hillsides breaking down into +thick chestnut woods, through which we wound at a rapid pace for +nearly an hour. The leaves were still green, mellowing to golden; but +the fruit was ripe and heavy, ready at all points to fall. In the +still October air the husks above our heads would loosen, and the +brown nuts rustle through the foliage, and with a dull short thud, +like drops of thunder-rain, break down upon the sod. At the foot of +this rich forest, wedged in between huge buttresses, we found +Pontremoli, and changed our horses here for the last time. It was +Sunday, and the little town was alive with country-folk; tall stalwart +fellows wearing peacock's feathers in their black slouched hats, and +nut-brown maids. + +From this point the valley of the Magra is exceeding rich with fruit +trees, vines, and olives. The tendrils of the vine are yellow now, and +in some places hued like generous wine; through their thick leaves the +sun shot crimson. In one cool garden, as the day grew dusk, I noticed +quince trees laden with pale fruit entangled with pomegranates--green +spheres and ruddy amid burnished leaves. By the roadside too were many +berries of bright hues; the glowing red of haws and hips, the amber of +the pyracanthus, the rose tints of the spindle-wood. These make autumn +even lovelier than spring. And then there was a wood of chestnuts +carpeted with pale pinkling, a place to dream of in the twilight. But +the main motive of this landscape was the indescribable Carrara range, +an island of pure form and shooting peaks, solid marble, crystalline +in shape and texture, faintly blue against the blue sky, from which +they were but scarce divided. These mountains close the valley to +south-east, and seem as though they belonged to another and more +celestial region. + +Soon the sunlight was gone, and moonrise came to close the day, as we +rolled onward to Sarzana, through arundo donax and vine-girdled olive +trees and villages, where contadini lounged upon the bridges. There +was a stream of sound in our ears, and in my brain a rhythmic dance of +beauties caught through the long-drawn glorious golden autumn-day. + + +III.--FOSDINOVO + + +The hamlet and the castle of Fosdinovo stand upon a mountain-spur +above Sarzana, commanding the valley of the Magra and the plains of +Luni. This is an ancient fief of the Malaspina House, and is still in +the possession of the Marquis of that name. + +The road to Fosdinovo strikes across the level through an avenue of +plane trees, shedding their discoloured leaves. It then takes to the +open fields, bordered with tall reeds waving from the foss on either +hand, where grapes are hanging to the vines. The country-folk allow +their vines to climb into the olives, and these golden festoons are a +great ornament to the grey branches. The berries on the trees are +still quite green, and it is a good olive season. Leaving the main +road, we pass a villa of the Malaspini, shrouded in immense thickets +of sweet bay and ilex, forming a grove for the Nymphs or Pan. Here may +you see just such clean stems and lucid foliage as Gian Bellini +painted, inch by inch, in his Peter Martyr picture. The place is +neglected now; the semicircular seats of white Carrara marble are +stained with green mosses, the altars chipped, the fountains choked +with bay leaves; and the rose trees, escaped from what were once trim +garden alleys, have gone wandering a-riot into country hedges. There +is no demarcation between the great man's villa and the neighbouring +farms. From this point the path rises, and the barren hillside is +a-bloom with late-flowering myrtles. Why did the Greeks consecrate +these myrtle-rods to Death as well as Love? Electra complained that +her father's tomb had not received the honour of the myrtle branch; +and the Athenians wreathed their swords with myrtle in memory of +Harmodius. Thinking of these matters, I cannot but remember lines of +Greek, which have themselves the rectitude and elasticity of myrtle +wands: + +(Greek:) + + kai prospesôn eklaus' erêmias tuchôn + spondas te lusas askon hon pherô xenois + espeisa tumbô d'amphethêka mursinas. + +As we approach Fosdinovo, the hills above us gain sublimity; the +prospect over plain and sea--the fields where Luna was, the widening +bay of Spezzia--grows ever grander. The castle is a ruin, still +capable of partial habitation, and now undergoing repair--the state in +which a ruin looks most sordid and forlorn. How strange it is, too, +that, to enforce this sense of desolation, sad dishevelled weeds cling +ever to such antique masonry! Here are the henbane, the sow-thistle, +the wild cucumber. At Avignon, at Orvieto, at Dolce Acqua, at Les +Baux, we never missed them. And they have the dusty courtyards, the +massive portals, where portcullises still threaten, of Fosdinovo to +themselves. Over the gate, and here and there on corbels, are carved +the arms of Malaspina--a barren thorn-tree, gnarled with the +geometrical precision of heraldic irony. + +Leaning from the narrow windows of this castle, with the spacious view +to westward, I thought of Dante. For Dante in this castle was the +guest of Moroello Malaspina, what time he was yet finishing the +'Inferno.' There is a little old neglected garden, full to south, +enclosed upon a rampart which commands the Borgo, where we found frail +canker-roses and yellow amaryllis. Here, perhaps, he may have sat +with ladies--for this was the Marchesa's pleasaunce; or may have +watched through a short summer's night, until he saw that _tremolar +della marina_, portending dawn, which afterwards he painted in the +'Purgatory.' + +From Fosdinovo one can trace the Magra work its way out seaward, not +into the plain where once the _candentia moenia Lunae_ flashed sunrise +from their battlements, but close beside the little hills which back +the southern arm of the Spezzian gulf. At the extreme end of that +promontory, called Del Corvo, stood the Benedictine convent of S. +Croce; and it was here in 1309, if we may trust to tradition, that +Dante, before his projected journey into France, appeared and left the +first part of his poem with the Prior. Fra Ilario, such was the good +father's name, received commission to transmit the 'Inferno' to +Uguccione della Faggiuola; and he subsequently recorded the fact of +Dante's visit in a letter which, though its genuineness has been +called in question, is far too interesting to be left without +allusion. The writer says that on occasion of a journey into lands +beyond the Riviera, Dante visited this convent, appearing silent and +unknown among the monks. To the Prior's question what he wanted, he +gazed upon the brotherhood, and only answered, 'Peace!' Afterwards, in +private conversation, he communicated his name and spoke about his +poem. A portion of the 'Divine Comedy' composed in the Italian tongue +aroused Ilario's wonder, and led him to inquire why his guest had not +followed the usual course of learned poets by committing his thoughts +to Latin. Dante replied that he had first intended to write in that +language, and that he had gone so far as to begin the poem in +Virgilian hexameters. Reflection upon the altered conditions of +society in that age led him, however, to reconsider the matter; and he +was resolved to tune another lyre, 'suited to the sense of modern +men.' 'For,' said he, 'it is idle to set solid food before the lips +of sucklings.' + +If we can trust Fra Ilario's letter as a genuine record, which is +unhappily a matter of some doubt, we have in this narration not only a +picturesque, almost a melodramatically picturesque glimpse of the +poet's apparition to those quiet monks in their seagirt house of +peace, but also an interesting record of the destiny which presided +over the first great work of literary art in a distinctly modern +language. + + +IV.--LA SPEZZIA + + +While we were at Fosdinovo the sky filmed over, and there came a halo +round the sun. This portended change; and by evening, after we had +reached La Spezzia, earth, sea, and air were conscious of a coming +tempest. At night I went down to the shore, and paced the sea-wall +they have lately built along the Rada. The moon was up, but overdriven +with dry smoky clouds, now thickening to blackness over the whole bay, +now leaving intervals through which the light poured fitfully and +fretfully upon the wrinkled waves; and ever and anon they shuddered +with electric gleams which were not actual lightning. Heaven seemed to +be descending on the sea; one might have fancied that some powerful +charms were drawing down the moon with influence malign upon those +still resisting billows. For not as yet the gulf was troubled to its +depth, and not as yet the breakers dashed in foam against the +moonlight-smitten promontories. There was but an uneasy murmuring of +wave to wave; a whispering of wind, that stooped its wing and hissed +along the surface, and withdrew into the mystery of clouds again; a +momentary chafing of churned water round the harbour piers, subsiding +into silence petulant and sullen. I leaned against an iron stanchion +and longed for the sea's message. But nothing came to me, and the +drowned secret of Shelley's death those waves which were his grave +revealed not. + + Howler and scooper of storms! capricious and dainty sea! + +Meanwhile the incantation swelled in shrillness, the electric shudders +deepened. Alone in this elemental overture to tempest I took no note +of time, but felt, through self-abandonment to the symphonic +influence, how sea and air, and clouds akin to both, were dealing with +each other complainingly, and in compliance to some maker of unrest +within them. A touch upon my shoulder broke this trance; I turned and +saw a boy beside me in a coastguard's uniform. Francesco was on patrol +that night; but my English accent soon assured him that I was no +_contrabbandiere_, and he too leaned against the stanchion and told me +his short story. He was in his nineteenth year, and came from +Florence, where his people live in the Borgo Ognissanti. He had all +the brightness of the Tuscan folk, a sort of innocent malice mixed +with _espieglerie_. It was diverting to see the airs he gave himself +on the strength of his new military dignity, his gun, and uniform, and +night duty on the shore. I could not help humming to myself _Non più +andrai_; for Francesco was a sort of Tuscan Cherubino. We talked about +picture galleries and libraries in Florence, and I had to hear his +favourite passages from the Italian poets. And then there came the +plots of Jules Verne's stories and marvellous narrations about _l' +uomo cavallo, l' uomo volante, l' uomo pesce_. The last of these +personages turned out to be Paolo Boÿnton (so pronounced), who had +swam the Arno in his diving dress, passing the several bridges, and +when he came to the great weir 'allora tutti stare con bocca aperta.' +Meanwhile the storm grew serious, and our conversation changed. +Francesco told me about the terrible sun-stricken sand shores of the +Riviera, burning in summer noon, over which the coast-guard has to +tramp, their perils from falling stones in storm, and the trains that +come rushing from those narrow tunnels on the midnight line of march. +It is a hard life; and the thirst for adventure which drove this +boy--'il più matto di tutta la famiglia'--to adopt it, seems well-nigh +quenched. And still, with a return to Giulio Verne, he talked +enthusiastically of deserting, of getting on board a merchant ship, +and working his way to southern islands where wonders are. + +A furious blast swept the whole sky for a moment almost clear. The +moonlight fell, with racing cloud-shadows, upon sea and hills, the +lights of Lerici, the great _fanali_ at the entrance of the gulf, and +Francesco's upturned handsome face. Then all again was whirled in mist +and foam; one breaker smote the sea wall in a surge of froth, another +plunged upon its heels; with inconceivable swiftness came rain; +lightning deluged the expanse of surf, and showed the windy trees bent +landward by the squall. It was long past midnight now, and the storm +was on us for the space of three days. + + +V.--PORTO VENERE + + +For the next three days the wind went worrying on, and a line of surf +leapt on the sea-wall always to the same height. The hills all around +were inky black and weary. + +At night the wild libeccio still rose, with floods of rain and +lightning poured upon the waste. I thought of the Florentine patrol. +Is he out in it, and where? + +At last there came a lull. When we rose on the fourth morning, the +sky was sulky, spent and sleepy after storm--the air as soft and tepid +as boiled milk or steaming flannel. We drove along the shore to Porto +Venere, passing the arsenals and dockyards, which have changed the +face of Spezzia since Shelley knew it. This side of the gulf is not so +rich in vegetation as the other, probably because it lies open to the +winds from the Carrara mountains. The chestnuts come down to the shore +in many places, bringing with them the wild mountain-side. To make up +for this lack of luxuriance, the coast is furrowed with a succession +of tiny harbours, where the fishing-boats rest at anchor. There are +many villages upon the spurs of hills, and on the headlands naval +stations, hospitals, lazzaretti, and prisons. A prickly bindweed (the +_Smilax Sarsaparilla_) forms a feature in the near landscape, with its +creamy odoriferous blossoms, coral berries, and glossy thorned leaves. + +A turn of the road brought Porto Venere in sight, and on its grey +walls flashed a gleam of watery sunlight. The village consists of one +long narrow street, the houses on the left side hanging sheer above +the sea. Their doors at the back open on to cliffs which drop about +fifty feet upon the water. A line of ancient walls, with mediaeval +battlements and shells of chambers suspended midway between earth and +sky, runs up the rock behind the town; and this wall is pierced with a +deep gateway above which the inn is piled. We had our lunch in a room +opening upon the town-gate, adorned with a deep-cut Pisan arch +enclosing images and frescoes--a curious episode in a place devoted to +the jollity of smugglers and seafaring folk. The whole house was such +as Tintoretto loved to paint--huge wooden rafters; open chimneys with +pent-house canopies of stone, where the cauldrons hung above logs of +chestnut; rude low tables spread with coarse linen embroidered at the +edges, and laden with plates of fishes, fruit, quaint glass, +big-bellied jugs of earthenware, and flasks of yellow wine. The people +of the place were lounging round in lazy attitudes. There were odd +nooks and corners everywhere; unexpected staircases with windows +slanting through the thickness of the town-wall; pictures of saints; +high-zoned serving women, on whose broad shoulders lay big coral +beads; smoke-blackened roofs, and balconies that opened on the sea. +The house was inexhaustible in motives for pictures. + +We walked up the street, attended by a rabble rout of boys--_diavoli +scatenati_--clean, grinning, white-teethed, who kept incessantly +shouting, 'Soldo, soldo!' I do not know why these sea-urchins are so +far more irrepressible than their land brethren. But it is always thus +in Italy. They take an imperturbable delight in noise and mere +annoyance. I shall never forget the sea-roar of Porto Venere, with +that shrill obligate, 'Soldo, soldo, soldo!' rattling like a dropping +fire from lungs of brass. + +At the end of Porto Venere is a withered and abandoned city, climbing +the cliffs of S. Pietro; and on the headland stands the ruined church, +built by Pisans with alternate rows of white and black marble, upon +the site of an old temple of Venus. This is a modest and pure piece of +Gothic architecture, fair in desolation, refined and dignified, and +not unworthy in its grace of the dead Cyprian goddess. Through its +broken lancets the sea-wind whistles and the vast reaches of the +Tyrrhene gulf are seen. Samphire sprouts between the blocks of marble, +and in sheltered nooks the caper hangs her beautiful purpureal snowy +bloom. + +The headland is a bold block of white limestone stained with red. It +has the pitch of Exmoor stooping to the sea near Lynton. To north, as +one looks along the coast, the line is broken by Porto Fino's +amethystine promontory; and in the vaporous distance we could trace +the Riviera mountains, shadowy and blue. The sea came roaring, rolling +in with tawny breakers; but, far out, it sparkled in pure azure, and +the cloud-shadows over it were violet. Where Corsica should have been +seen, soared banks of fleecy, broad-domed alabaster clouds. + +This point, once dedicated to Venus, now to Peter--both, be it +remembered, fishers of men--is one of the most singular in Europe. The +island of Palmaria, rich in veined marbles, shelters the port; so that +outside the sea rages, while underneath the town, reached by a narrow +strait, there is a windless calm. It was not without reason that our +Lady of Beauty took this fair gulf to herself; and now that she has +long been dispossessed, her memory lingers yet in names. For Porto +Venere remembers her, and Lerici is only Eryx. There is a grotto here, +where an inscription tells us that Byron once 'tempted the Ligurian +waves.' It is just such a natural sea-cave as might have inspired +Euripides when he described the refuge of Orestes in 'Iphigenia.' + + +VI.--LERICI + + +Libeccio at last had swept the sky clear. The gulf was ridged with +foam-fleeced breakers, and the water churned into green, tawny wastes. +But overhead there flew the softest clouds, all silvery, dispersed in +flocks. It is the day for pilgrimage to what was Shelley's home. + +After following the shore a little way, the road to Lerici breaks into +the low hills which part La Spezzia from Sarzana. The soil is red, and +overgrown with arbutus and pinaster, like the country around Cannes. +Through the scattered trees it winds gently upwards, with frequent +views across the gulf, and then descends into a land rich with +olives--a genuine Riviera landscape, where the mountain-slopes are +hoary, and spikelets of innumerable light-flashing leaves twinkle +against a blue sea, misty-deep. The walls here are not unfrequently +adorned with basreliefs of Carrara marble--saints and madonnas very +delicately wrought, as though they were love-labours of sculptors who +had passed a summer on this shore. San Terenzio is soon discovered low +upon the sands to the right, nestling under little cliffs; and then +the high-built castle of Lerici comes in sight, looking across, the bay +to Porto Venere--one Aphrodite calling to the other, with the foam +between. The village is piled around its cove with tall and +picturesquely coloured houses; the molo and the fishing-boats lie just +beneath the castle. There is one point of the descending carriage road +where all this gracefulness is seen, framed by the boughs of olive +branches, swaying, wind-ruffled, laughing the many-twinkling smiles of +ocean back from their grey leaves. Here _Erycina ridens_ is at home. +And, as we stayed to dwell upon the beauty of the scene, came women +from the bay below--barefooted, straight as willow wands, with +burnished copper bowls upon their heads. These women have the port of +goddesses, deep-bosomed, with the length of thigh and springing ankles +that betoken strength no less than elasticity and grace. The hair of +some of them was golden, rippling in little curls around brown brows +and glowing eyes. Pale lilac blent with orange on their dress, and +coral beads hung from their ears. + +At Lerici we took a boat and pushed into the rolling breakers. +Christian now felt the movement of the sea for the first time. This +was rather a rude trial, for the grey-maned monsters played, as it +seemed, at will with our cockle-shell, tumbling in dolphin curves to +reach the shore. Our boatmen knew all about Shelley and the Casa +Magni. It is not at Lerici, but close to San Terenzio, upon the south +side of the village. Looking across the bay from the molo, one could +clearly see its square white mass, tiled roof, and terrace built on +rude arcades with a broad orange awning. Trelawny's description hardly +prepares one for so considerable a place. I think the English exiles +of that period must have been exacting if the Casa Magni seemed to +them no better than a bathing-house. + +We left our boat at the jetty, and walked through some gardens to the +villa. There we were kindly entertained by the present occupiers, +who, when I asked them whether such visits as ours were not a great +annoyance, gently but feelingly replied: 'It is not so bad now as it +used to be.' The English gentleman who rents the Casa Magni has known +it uninterruptedly since Shelley's death, and has used it for +_villeggiatura_ during the last thirty years. We found him in the +central sitting-room, which readers of Trelawny's 'Recollections' have +so often pictured to themselves. The large oval table, the settees +round the walls, and some of the pictures are still unchanged. As we +sat talking, I laughed to think of that luncheon party, when Shelley +lost his clothes, and came naked, dripping with sea-water, into the +room, protected by the skirts of the sympathising waiting-maid. And +then I wondered where they found him on the night when he stood +screaming in his sleep, after the vision of his veiled self, with its +question, '_Siete soddisfatto_?' + +There were great ilexes behind the house in Shelley's time, which have +been cut down, and near these he is said to have sat and written the +'Triumph of Life.' Some new houses, too, have been built between the +villa and the town; otherwise the place is unaltered. Only an awning +has been added to protect the terrace from the sun. I walked out on +this terrace, where Shelley used to listen to Jane's singing. The sea +was fretting at its base, just as Mrs. Shelley says it did when the +Don Juan disappeared. + +From San Terenzio we walked back to Lerici through olive woods, +attended by a memory which toned the almost overpowering beauty of the +place to sadness. + + +VII.--VIAREGGIO + + +The same memory drew us, a few days later, to the spot where +Shelley's body was burned. Viareggio is fast becoming a fashionable +watering-place for the people of Florence and Lucca, who seek fresher +air and simpler living than Livorno offers. It has the usual new inns +and improvised lodging-houses of such places, built on the outskirts +of a little fishing village, with a boundless stretch of noble sands. +There is a wooden pier on which we walked, watching the long roll of +waves, foam-flaked, and quivering with moonlight. The Apennines faded +into the grey sky beyond, and the sea-wind was good to breathe. There +is a feeling of 'immensity, liberty, action' here, which is not common +in Italy. It reminds us of England; and to-night the Mediterranean had +the rough force of a tidal sea. + +Morning revealed beauty enough in Viareggio to surprise even one who +expects from Italy all forms of loveliness. The sand-dunes stretch for +miles between the sea and a low wood of stone pines, with the Carrara +hills descending from their glittering pinnacles by long lines to the +headlands of the Spezzian Gulf. The immeasurable distance was all +painted in sky-blue and amethyst; then came the golden green of the +dwarf firs; and then dry yellow in the grasses of the dunes; and then +the many-tinted sea, with surf tossed up against the furthest cliffs. +It is a wonderful and tragic view, to which no painter but the Roman +Costa has done justice; and he, it may be said, has made this +landscape of the Carrarese his own. The space between sand and +pine-wood was covered with faint, yellow, evening primroses. They +flickered like little harmless flames in sun and shadow, and the +spires of the Carrara range were giant flames transformed to marble. +The memory of that day described by Trelawny in a passage of immortal +English prose, when he and Byron and Leigh Hunt stood beside the +funeral pyre, and libations were poured, and the 'Cor Cordium' was +found inviolate among the ashes, turned all my thoughts to flame +beneath the gentle autumn sky. + +Still haunted by these memories, we took the carriage road to Pisa, +over which Shelley's friends had hurried to and fro through those last +days. It passes an immense forest of stone-pines--aisles and avenues; +undergrowth of ilex, laurustinus, gorse, and myrtle; the crowded +cyclamens, the solemn silence of the trees; the winds hushed in their +velvet roof and stationary domes of verdure. + + * * * * * + + + + +_PARMA_ + + +Parma is perhaps the brightest _Residenzstadt_ of the second class in +Italy. Built on a sunny and fertile tract of the Lombard plain, within +view of the Alps, and close beneath the shelter of the Apennines, it +shines like a well-set gem with stately towers and cheerful squares in +the midst of verdure. The cities of Lombardy are all like large +country houses: walking out of their gates, you seem to be stepping +from a door or window that opens on a trim and beautiful garden, where +mulberry-tree is married to mulberry by festoons of vines, and where +the maize and sunflower stand together in rows between patches of flax +and hemp. But it is not in order to survey the union of well-ordered +husbandry with the civilities of ancient city-life that we break the +journey at Parma between Milan and Bologna. We are attracted rather by +the fame of one great painter, whose work, though it may be studied +piecemeal in many galleries of Europe, in Parma has a fulness, +largeness, and mastery that can nowhere else be found. In Parma alone +Correggio challenges comparison with Raphael, with Tintoret, with all +the supreme decorative painters who have deigned to make their art the +handmaid of architecture. Yet even in the cathedral and the church of +S. Giovanni, where Correggio's frescoes cover cupola and chapel wall, +we could scarcely comprehend his greatness now--so cruelly have time +and neglect dealt with those delicate dream-shadows of celestial +fairyland--were it not for an interpreter, who consecrated a lifetime +to the task of translating his master's poetry of fresco into the +prose of engraving. That man was Paolo Toschi--a name to be ever +venerated by all lovers of the arts; since without his guidance we +should hardly know what to seek for in the ruined splendours of the +domes of Parma, or even seeking, how to find the object of our search. +Toschi's labour was more effectual than that of a restorer however +skilful, more loving than that of a follower however faithful. He +respected Correggio's handiwork with religious scrupulousness, adding +not a line or tone or touch of colour to the fading frescoes; but he +lived among them, aloft on scaffoldings, and face to face with the +originals which he designed to reproduce. By long and close +familiarity, by obstinate and patient interrogation, he divined +Correggio's secret, and was able at last to see clearly through the +mist of cobweb and mildew and altar smoke, and through the still more +cruel travesty of so-called restoration. What he discovered, he +faithfully committed first to paper in water colours, and then to +copperplate with the burin, so that we enjoy the privilege of seeing +Correggio's masterpieces as Toschi saw them, with the eyes of genius +and of love and of long scientific study. It is not too much to say +that some of Correggio's most charming compositions--for example, the +dispute of S. Augustine and S. John--have been resuscitated from the +grave by Toschi's skill. The original offers nothing but a mouldering +surface from which the painter's work has dropped in scales. The +engraving presents a design which we doubt not was Correggio's, for it +corresponds in all particulars to the style and spirit of the master. +To be critical in dealing with so successful an achievement of +restoration and translation is difficult. Yet it may be admitted once +and for all that Toschi has not unfrequently enfeebled his original. +Under his touch Correggio loses somewhat of his sensuous audacity, his +dithyrambic ecstasy, and approaches the ordinary standard of +prettiness and graceful beauty. The Diana of the Camera di S. Paolo, +for instance, has the strong calm splendour of a goddess: the same +Diana in Toschi's engraving seems about to smile with girlish joy. In +a word, the engraver was a man of a more common stamp--more timid and +more conventional than the painter. But this is after all a trifling +deduction from the value of his work. + +Our debt to Paolo Toschi is such that it would be ungrateful not to +seek some details of his life. The few that can be gathered even at +Parma are brief and bald enough. The newspaper articles and funeral +panegyrics which refer to him are as barren as all such occasional +notices in Italy have always been; the panegyrist seeming more anxious +about his own style than eager to communicate information. Yet a bare +outline of Toschi's biography may be supplied. He was born at Parma in +1788. His father was cashier of the post-office, and his mother's name +was Anna Maria Brest. Early in his youth he studied painting at Parma +under Biagio Martini; and in 1809 he went to Paris, where he learned +the art of engraving from Bervic and of etching from Oortman. In Paris +he contracted an intimate friendship with the painter Gérard. But +after ten years he returned to Parma, where he established a company +and school of engravers in concert with his friend Antonio Isac. Maria +Louisa, the then Duchess, under whose patronage the arts flourished at +Parma (witness Bodoni's exquisite typography), soon recognised his +merit, and appointed him Director of the Ducal Academy. He then formed +the project of engraving a series of the whole of Correggio's +frescoes. The undertaking was a vast one. Both the cupolas of S. John +and the cathedral, together with the vault of the apse of S. +Giovanni[10] and various portions of the side aisles, and the +so-called Camera di S. Paolo, are covered by frescoes of Correggio and +his pupil Parmegiano. These frescoes have suffered so much from +neglect and time, and from unintelligent restoration, that it is +difficult in many cases to determine their true character. Yet Toschi +did not content himself with selections, or shrink from the task of +deciphering and engraving the whole. He formed a school of disciples, +among whom were Carlo Raimondi of Milan, Antonio Costa of Venice, +Edward Eichens of Berlin, Aloisio Juvara of Naples, Antonio Dalcò, +Giuseppe Magnani, and Lodovico Bisola of Parma, and employed them as +assistants in his work. Death overtook him in 1854, before it was +finished, and now the water-colour drawings which are exhibited in the +Gallery of Parma prove to what extent the achievement fell short of +his design. Enough, however, was accomplished to place the chief +masterpieces of Correggio beyond the possibility of utter oblivion. + +To the piety of his pupil Carlo Raimondi, the bearer of a name +illustrious in the annals of engraving, we owe a striking portrait of +Toschi. The master is represented on his seat upon the scaffold in the +dizzy half-light of the dome. The shadowy forms of saints and angels +are around him. He has raised his eyes from his cartoon to study one +of these. In his right hand is the opera-glass with which he +scrutinises the details of distant groups. The upturned face, with its +expression of contemplative intelligence, is like that of an +astronomer accustomed to commerce with things above the sphere of +common life, and ready to give account of all that he has gathered +from his observation of a world not ours. In truth the world created +by Correggio and interpreted by Toschi is very far removed from that +of actual existence. No painter has infused a more distinct +individuality into his work, realising by imaginative force and +powerful projection an order of beauty peculiar to himself, before +which it is impossible to remain quite indifferent. We must either +admire the manner of Correggio, or else shrink from it with the +distaste which sensual art is apt to stir in natures of a severe or +simple type. + +What, then, is the Correggiosity of Correggio? In other words, what is +the characteristic which, proceeding from the personality of the +artist, is impressed on all his work? The answer to this question, +though by no means simple, may perhaps be won by a process of gradual +analysis. The first thing that strikes us in the art of Correggio is, +that he has aimed at the realistic representation of pure unrealities. +His saints and angels are beings the like of whom we have hardly seen +upon the earth. Yet they are displayed before us with all the movement +and the vivid truth of nature. Next we feel that what constitutes the +superhuman, visionary quality of these creatures, is their uniform +beauty of a merely sensuous type. They are all created for pleasure, +not for thought or passion or activity or heroism. The uses of their +brains, their limbs, their every feature, end in enjoyment; innocent +and radiant wantonness is the condition of their whole existence. +Correggio conceived the universe under the one mood of sensuous joy: +his world was bathed in luxurious light; its inhabitants were capable +of little beyond a soft voluptuousness. Over the domain of tragedy he +had no sway, and very rarely did he attempt to enter on it: nothing, +for example, can be feebler than his endeavour to express anguish in +the distorted features of Madonna, S. John, and the Magdalen, who are +bending over the dead body of a Christ extended in the attitude of +languid repose. In like manner he could not deal with subjects which +demand a pregnancy of intellectual meaning. He paints the three Fates +like young and joyous Bacchantes, places rose-garlands and +thyrsi in their hands instead of the distaff and the thread of human +destinies, and they might figure appropriately upon the panels of a +banquet-chamber in Pompeii. In this respect Correggio might be termed +the Rossini of painting. The melodies of the 'Stabat Mater'--_Fac ut +portem_ or _Quis est homo_--are the exact analogues in music of +Correggio's voluptuous renderings of grave or mysterious motives. Nor, +again, did he possess that severe and lofty art of composition which +subordinates the fancy to the reason, and which seeks for the highest +intellectual beauty in a kind of architectural harmony supreme above +the melodies of gracefulness in detail. The Florentines and those who +shared their spirit--Michelangelo and Lionardo and Raphael--deriving +this principle of design from the geometrical art of the Middle Ages, +converted it to the noblest uses in their vast well-ordered +compositions. But Correggio ignored the laws of scientific +construction. It was enough for him to produce a splendid and +brilliant effect by the life and movement of his figures, and by the +intoxicating beauty of his forms. His type of beauty, too, is by no +means elevated. Lionardo painted souls whereof the features and the +limbs are but an index. The charm of Michelangelo's ideal is like a +flower upon a tree of rugged strength. Raphael aims at the loveliness +which cannot be disjoined from goodness. But Correggio is contented +with bodies 'delicate and desirable.' His angels are genii +disimprisoned from the perfumed chalices of flowers, houris of an +erotic paradise, elemental spirits of nature wantoning in Eden in her +prime. To accuse the painter of conscious immorality or of what is +stigmatised as sensuality, would be as ridiculous as to class his +seraphic beings among the products of the Christian imagination. They +belong to the generation of the fauns; like fauns, they combine a +certain savage wildness, a dithyrambic ecstasy of inspiration, a +delight in rapid movement as they revel amid clouds or flowers, with +the permanent and all-pervading sweetness of the master's style. When +infantine or childlike, these celestial sylphs are scarcely to be +distinguished for any noble quality of beauty from Murillo's cherubs, +and are far less divine than the choir of children who attend Madonna +in Titian's 'Assumption.' But in their boyhood and their prime of +youth, they acquire a fulness of sensuous vitality and a radiance that +are peculiar to Correggio. The lily-bearer who helps to support S. +Thomas beneath the dome of the cathedral at Parma, the groups of +seraphs who crowd behind the Incoronata of S. Giovanni, and the two +wild-eyed open-mouthed S. Johns stationed at each side of the +celestial throne, are among the most splendid instances of the +adolescent loveliness conceived by Correggio. Where the painter found +their models may be questioned but not answered; for he has made them +of a different fashion from the race of mortals: no court of Roman +emperor or Turkish sultan, though stocked with the flowers of +Bithynian and Circassian youth, have seen their like. Mozart's +Cherubino seems to have sat for all of them. At any rate they +incarnate the very spirit of the songs he sings. + +As a consequence of this predilection for sensuous and voluptuous +forms, Correggio had no power of imagining grandly or severely. +Satisfied with material realism in his treatment even of sublime +mysteries, he converts the hosts of heaven into a 'fricassee of +frogs,' according to the old epigram. His apostles, gazing after the +Virgin who has left the earth, are thrown into attitudes so violent +and so dramatically foreshortened, that seen from below upon the +pavement of the cathedral, little of their form is distinguishable +except legs and arms in vehement commotion. Very different is Titian's +conception of this scene. To express the spiritual meaning, the +emotion of Madonna's transit, with all the pomp which colour and +splendid composition can convey, is Titian's sole care; whereas +Correggio appears to have been satisfied with realising the tumult of +heaven rushing to meet earth, and earth straining upwards to ascend to +heaven in violent commotion--a very orgasm of frenetic rapture. The +essence of the event is forgotten: its external manifestation alone is +presented to the eye; and only the accessories of beardless angels and +cloud-encumbered cherubs are really beautiful amid a surge of limbs in +restless movement. More dignified, because designed with more repose, +is the Apocalypse of S. John painted upon the cupola of S. Giovanni. +The apostles throned on clouds, with which the dome is filled, gaze +upward to one point. Their attitudes are noble; their form is heroic; +in their eyes there is the strange ecstatic look by which Correggio +interpreted his sense of supernatural vision: it is a gaze not of +contemplation or deep thought, but of wild half-savage joy, as if +these saints also had become the elemental genii of cloud and air, +spirits emergent from ether, the salamanders of an empyrean +intolerable to mortal sense. The point on which their eyes converge, +the culmination of their vision, is the figure of Christ. Here all the +weakness of Correggio's method is revealed. He had undertaken to +realise by no ideal allegorical suggestion, by no symbolism of +architectural grouping, but by actual prosaic measurement, by +corporeal form in subjection to the laws of perspective and +foreshortening, things which in their very essence admit of only a +figurative revelation. Therefore his Christ, the centre of all those +earnest eyes, is contracted to a shape in which humanity itself is +mean, a sprawling figure which irresistibly reminds one of a frog. The +clouds on which the saints repose are opaque and solid; cherubs in +countless multitudes, a swarm of merry children, crawl about upon +these feather-beds of vapour, creep between the legs of the apostles, +and play at bopeep behind their shoulders. There is no propriety in +their appearance there. They take no interest in the beatific vision. +They play no part in the celestial symphony; nor are they capable of +more than merely infantine enjoyment. Correggio has sprinkled them +lavishly like living flowers about his cloudland, because he could not +sustain a grave and solemn strain of music, but was forced by his +temperament to overlay the melody with roulades. Gazing at these +frescoes, the thought came to me that Correggio was like a man +listening to sweetest flute-playing, and translating phrase after +phrase as they passed through his fancy into laughing faces, breezy +tresses, and rolling mists. Sometimes a grander cadence reached his +ear; and then S. Peter with the keys, or S. Augustine of the mighty +brow, or the inspired eyes of S. John, took form beneath his pencil. +But the light airs returned, and rose and lily faces bloomed again for +him among the clouds. It is not therefore in dignity or sublimity that +Correggio excels, but in artless grace and melodious tenderness. The +Madonna della Scala clasping her baby with a caress which the little +child returns, S. Catherine leaning in a rapture of ecstatic love to +wed the infant Christ, S. Sebastian in the bloom of almost boyish +beauty, are the so-called sacred subjects to which the painter was +adequate, and which he has treated with the voluptuous tenderness we +find in his pictures of Leda and Danae and Io. Could these saints and +martyrs descend from Correggio's canvas, and take flesh, and breathe, +and begin to live; of what high action, of what grave passion, of what +exemplary conduct in any walk of life would they be capable? That is +the question which they irresistibly suggest; and we are forced to +answer, None! The moral and religious world did not exist for +Correggio. His art was but a way of seeing carnal beauty in a dream +that had no true relation to reality. + +Correggio's sensibility to light and colour was exactly on a par with +his feeling for form. He belongs to the poets of chiaroscuro and the +poets of colouring; but in both regions he maintains the individuality +so strongly expressed in his choice of purely sensuous beauty. +Tintoretto makes use of light and shade for investing his great +compositions with dramatic intensity. Rembrandt interprets sombre and +fantastic moods of the mind by golden gloom and silvery irradiation, +translating thought into the language of penumbral mystery. Lionardo +studies the laws of light scientifically, so that the proper roundness +and effect of distance should be accurately rendered, and all the +subtleties of nature's smiles be mimicked. Correggio is content with +fixing on his canvas the [Greek: anêrithmon gelasma], the +many-twinkling laughter of light in motion, rained down through fleecy +clouds or trembling foliage, melting into half-shadows, bathing and +illuminating every object with a soft caress. There are no tragic +contrasts of splendour sharply defined on blackness, no mysteries of +half-felt and pervasive twilight, no studied accuracies of noonday +clearness in his work. Light and shadow are woven together on his +figures like an impalpable Coan gauze, aërial and transparent, +enhancing the palpitations of voluptuous movement which he loved. His +colouring, in like manner, has none of the superb and mundane pomp +which the Venetians affected; it does not glow or burn or beat the +fire of gems into our brain; joyous and wanton, it seems to be exactly +such a beauty-bloom as sense requires for its satiety. There is +nothing in his hues to provoke deep passion or to stimulate the +yearnings of the soul: the pure blushes of the dawn and the crimson +pyres of sunset are nowhere in the world that he has painted. But that +chord of jocund colour which may fitly be married to the smiles of +light, the blues which are found in laughing eyes, the pinks that +tinge the cheeks of early youth, and the warm yet silvery tones of +healthy flesh, mingle as in a marvellous pearl-shell on his pictures. +Both chiaroscuro and colouring have this supreme purpose in art, to +effect the sense like music, and like music to create a mood in the +soul of the spectator. Now the mood which Correggio stimulates is one +of natural and thoughtless pleasure. To feel his influence, and at the +same moment to be the subject of strong passion, or fierce lust, or +heroic resolve, or profound contemplation, or pensive melancholy, is +impossible. Wantonness, innocent because unconscious of sin, immoral +because incapable of any serious purpose, is the quality which +prevails in all that he has painted. The pantomimes of a Mohammedan +paradise might be put upon the stage after patterns supplied by this +least spiritual of painters. + +It follows from this analysis that the Correggiosity of Correggio, +that which sharply distinguished him from all previous artists, was +the faculty of painting a purely voluptuous dream of beautiful beings +in perpetual movement, beneath the laughter of morning light, in a +world of never-failing April hues. When he attempts to depart from the +fairyland of which he was the Prospero, and to match himself with the +masters of sublime thought or earnest passion, he proves his weakness. +But within his own magic circle he reigns supreme, no other artist +having blended the witcheries of colouring, chiaroscuro,and faunlike +loveliness of form into a harmony so perfect in its sensuous charm. +Bewitched by the strains of the siren, we pardon affectations of +expression, emptiness of meaning, feebleness of composition, +exaggerated and melodramatic attitudes. There is what Goethe called a +demonic influence in the art of Correggio: 'In poetry,' said Goethe to +Eckermann, 'especially in that which is unconscious, before which +reason and understanding fall short, and which therefore produces +effects so far surpassing all conception, there is always something +demonic.' It is not to be wondered that Correggio, possessed of this +demonic power in the highest degree, and working to a purely sensuous +end, should have exercised a fatal influence over art. His successors, +attracted by an intoxicating loveliness which they could not analyse, +which had nothing in common with the reason or the understanding, but +was like a glamour cast upon the soul in its most secret +sensibilities, threw themselves blindly into the imitation of +Correggio's faults. His affectation, his want of earnest thought, his +neglect of composition, his sensuous realism, his all-pervading +sweetness, his infantine prettiness, his substitution of +thaumaturgical effects for conscientious labour, admitted only too +easy imitation, and were but too congenial with the spirit of the late +Renaissance. Cupolas through the length and breadth of Italy began to +be covered with clouds and simpering cherubs in the convulsions of +artificial ecstasy. The attenuated elegance of Parmigiano, the +attitudinising of Anselmi's saints and angels, and a general sacrifice +of what is solid and enduring to sentimental gewgaws on the part of +all painters who had submitted to the magic of Correggio, proved how +easy it was to go astray with the great master. Meanwhile no one could +approach him in that which was truly his own--the delineation of a +transient moment in the life of sensuous beauty, the painting of a +smile on Nature's face, when light and colour tremble in harmony with +the movement of joyous living creatures. Another demonic nature of a +far more powerful type contributed his share to the ruin of art in +Italy. Michelangelo's constrained attitudes and muscular anatomy were +imitated by painters and sculptors, who thought that the grand style +lay in the presentation of theatrical athletes, but who could not +seize the secret whereby the great master made even the bodies of men +and women--colossal trunks and writhen limbs--interpret the meanings +of his deep and melancholy soul. + +It is a sad law of progress in art, that when the æsthetic impulse is +on the wane, artists should perforce select to follow the weakness +rather than the vigour, of their predecessors. While painting was in +the ascendant, Raphael could take the best of Perugino and discard the +worst; in its decadence Parmigiano reproduces the affectations of +Correggio, and Bernini carries the exaggerations of Michelangelo to +absurdity. All arts describe a parabola. The force which produces +them causes them to rise throughout their growth up to a certain +point, and then to descend more gradually in a long and slanting line +of regular declension. There is no real break of continuity. The end +is the result of simple exhaustion. Thus the last of our Elizabethan +dramatists, Shirley and Crowne and Killigrew, pushed to its ultimate +conclusion the principle inherent in Marlowe, not attempting to break +new ground, nor imitating the excellences so much as the defects of +their forerunners. Thus too the Pointed style of architecture in +England gave birth first to what is called the Decorated, next to the +Perpendicular, and finally expired in the Tudor. Each step was a step +of progress--at first for the better--at last for the worse--but +logical, continuous, necessitated.[11] + +It is difficult to leave Correggio without at least posing the +question of the difference between moralised and merely sensual art. +Is all art excellent in itself and good in its effect that is +beautiful and earnest? There is no doubt that Correggio's work is in a +way most beautiful; and it bears unmistakable signs of the master +having given himself with single-hearted devotion to the expression of +that phase of loveliness which he could apprehend. In so far we must +admit that his art is both excellent and solid. Yet we are unable to +conceive that any human being could be made better--stronger for +endurance, more fitted for the uses of the world, more sensitive to +what is noble in nature--by its contemplation. At the best Correggio +does but please us in our lighter moments, and we are apt to feel that +the pleasure he has given is of an enervating kind. To expect obvious +morality of any artist is confessedly absurd. It is not the artist's +province to preach, or even to teach, except by remote suggestion. Yet +the mind of the artist may be highly moralised, and then he takes rank +not merely with the ministers to refined pleasure, but also with the +educators of the world. He may, for example, be penetrated with a just +sense of humanity like Shakspere, or with a sublime temperance like +Sophocles, instinct with prophetic intuition like Michelangelo, or +with passionate experience like Beethoven. The mere sight of the work +of Pheidias is like breathing pure health-giving air. Milton and Dante +were steeped in religious patriotism; Goethe was pervaded with +philosophy, and Balzac with scientific curiosity. Ariosto, Cervantes, +and even Boccaccio are masters in the mysteries of common life. In all +these cases the tone of the artist's mind is felt throughout his work: +what he paints, or sings, or writes, conveys a lesson while it +pleases. On the other hand, depravity in an artist or a poet +percolates through work which has in it nothing positive of evil, and +a very miasma of poisonous influence may rise from the apparently +innocuous creations of a tainted soul. Now Correggio is moralised in +neither way--neither as a good nor as a bad man, neither as an acute +thinker nor as a deliberate voluptuary. He is simply sensuous. On his +own ground he is even very fresh and healthy: his delineation of +youthful maternity, for example, is as true as it is beautiful; and +his sympathy with the gleefulness of children is devoid of +affectation. We have then only to ask ourselves whether the defect in +him of all thought and feeling which is not at once capable of +graceful fleshly incarnation, be sufficient to lower him in the scale +of artists. This question must of course be answered according to our +definition of the purposes of art. There is no doubt that the most +highly organised art--that which absorbs the most numerous human +qualities and effects a harmony between the most complex elements--is +the noblest. Therefore the artist who combines moral elevation and +power of thought with a due appreciation of sensual beauty, is more +elevated and more beneficial than one whose domain is simply that of +carnal loveliness. Correggio, if this be so, must take a comparatively +low rank. Just as we welcome the beautiful athlete for the radiant +life that is in him, but bow before the personality of Sophocles, +whose perfect form enshrined a noble and highly educated soul, so we +gratefully accept Correggio for his grace, while we approach the +consummate art of Michelangelo with reverent awe. It is necessary in +æsthetics as elsewhere to recognise a hierarchy of excellence, the +grades of which are determined by the greater or less +comprehensiveness of the artist's nature expressed in his work. At the +same time, the calibre of the artist's genius must be estimated; for +eminent greatness even of a narrow kind will always command our +admiration: and the amount of his originality has also to be taken +into account. What is unique has, for that reason alone, a claim on +our consideration. Judged in this way, Correggio deserves a place, +say, in the sweet planet Venus, above the moon and above Mercury, +among the artists who have not advanced beyond the contemplations +which find their proper outcome in love. Yet, even thus, he aids the +culture of humanity. 'We should take care,' said Goethe, apropos of +Byron, to Eckermann, 'not to be always looking for culture in the +decidedly pure and moral. Everything that is great promotes +cultivation as soon as we are aware of it.' + + * * * * * + + + + +_CANOSSA_ + + +Italy is less the land of what is venerable in antiquity, than of +beauty, by divine right young eternally in spite of age. This is due +partly to her history and art and literature, partly to the temper of +the races who have made her what she is, and partly to her natural +advantages. Her oldest architectural remains, the temples of Paestum +and Girgenti, or the gates of Perugia and Volterra, are so adapted to +Italian landscape and so graceful in their massive strength, that we +forget the centuries which have passed over them. We leap as by a +single bound from the times of Roman greatness to the new birth of +humanity in the fourteenth century, forgetting the many years during +which Italy, like the rest of Europe, was buried in what our ancestors +called Gothic barbarism. The illumination cast upon the classic period +by the literature of Rome and by the memory of her great men is so +vivid, that we feel the days of the Republic and the Empire to be near +us; while the Italian Renaissance is so truly a revival of that former +splendour, a resumption of the music interrupted for a season, that it +is extremely difficult to form any conception of the five long +centuries which elapsed between the Lombard invasion in 568 and the +accession of Hildebrand to the Pontificate in 1073. So true is it that +nothing lives and has reality for us but what is spiritual, +intellectual, self-possessed in personality and consciousness. When +the Egyptian priest said to Solon, 'You Greeks are always children,' +he intended a gentle sarcasm, but he implied a compliment; for the +quality of imperishable youth belonged to the Hellenic spirit, and has +become the heritage of every race which partook of it. And this spirit +in no common degree has been shared by the Italians of the earlier and +the later classic epoch. The land is full of monuments pertaining to +those two brilliant periods; and whenever the voice of poet has spoken +or the hand of artist has been at work, that spirit, as distinguished +from the spirit of mediaevalism, has found expression. + +Yet it must be remembered that during the five centuries above +mentioned Italy was given over to Lombards, Franks, and Germans. +Feudal institutions, alien to the social and political ideals of the +classic world, took a tolerably firm hold on the country. The Latin +element remained silent, passive, in abeyance, undergoing an important +transformation. It was in the course of those five hundred years that +the Italians as a modern people, separable from their Roman ancestors, +were formed. At the close of this obscure passage in Italian history, +their communes, the foundation of Italy's future independence, and the +source of her peculiar national development, appeared in all the +vigour and audacity of youth. At its close the Italian genius +presented Europe with its greatest triumph of constructive ability, +the Papacy. At its close again the series of supreme artistic +achievements, starting with the architecture of churches and public +palaces, passing on to sculpture and painting, and culminating in +music, which only ended with the temporary extinction of national +vitality in the seventeenth century, was simultaneously begun in all +the provinces of the peninsula. + +So important were these five centuries of incubation for Italy, and so +little is there left of them to arrest the attention of the student, +dazzled as he is by the ever-living glories of Greece, Rome, and the +Renaissance, that a visit to the ruins of Canossa is almost a duty. +There, in spite of himself, by the very isolation and forlorn +abandonment of what was once so formidable a seat of feudal despotism +and ecclesiastical tyranny, he is forced to confront the obscure but +mighty spirit of the middle ages. There, if anywhere, the men of those +iron-hearted times anterior to the Crusades will acquire distinctness +for his imagination, when he recalls the three main actors in the +drama enacted on the summit of Canossa's rock in the bitter winter of +1077. + +Canossa lies almost due south of Reggio d'Emilia, upon the slopes of +the Apennines. Starting from Reggio, the carriage-road keeps to the +plain for some while in a westerly direction, and then bends away +towards the mountains. As we approach their spurs, the ground begins +to rise. The rich Lombard tilth of maize and vine gives place to +English-looking hedgerows, lined with oaks, and studded with handsome +dark tufts of green hellebore. The hills descend in melancholy +earth-heaps on the plain, crowned here and there with ruined castles. +Four of these mediaeval strongholds, called Bianello, Montevetro, +Monteluzzo, and Montezano, give the name of Quattro Castelli to the +commune. The most important of them, Bianello, which, next to Canossa, +was the strongest fortress possessed by the Countess Matilda and her +ancestors, still presents a considerable mass of masonry, roofed and +habitable. The group formed a kind of advance-guard for Canossa +against attack from Lombardy. After passing Quattro Castelli we enter +the hills, climbing gently upwards between barren slopes of ashy grey +earth--the _débris_ of most ancient Apennines--crested at favourable +points with lonely towers. In truth the whole country bristles with +ruined forts, making it clear that during the middle ages Canossa was +but the centre of a great military system, the core and kernel of a +fortified position which covered an area to be measured by scores of +square miles, reaching far into the mountains, and buttressed on the +plain. As yet, however, after nearly two hours' driving, Canossa has +not come in sight. At last a turn in the road discloses an opening in +the valley of the Enza to the left: up this lateral gorge we see first +the Castle of Rossena on its knoll of solid red rock, flaming in the +sunlight; and then, further withdrawn, detached from all surrounding +objects, and reared aloft as though to sweep the sea of waved and +broken hills around it, a sharp horn of hard white stone. That is +Canossa--the _alba Canossa_, the _candida petra_ of its rhyming +chronicler. There is no mistaking the commanding value of its +situation. At the same time the brilliant whiteness of Canossa's +rocky hill, contrasted with the red gleam of Rossena, and outlined +against the prevailing dulness of these earthy Apennines, secures a +picturesque individuality concordant with its unique history and +unrivalled strength. + +There is still a journey of two hours before the castle can be +reached: and this may be performed on foot or horseback. The path +winds upward over broken ground; following the _arête_ of curiously +jumbled and thwarted hill-slopes; passing beneath the battlements of +Rossena, whence the unfortunate Everelina threw herself in order to +escape the savage love of her lord and jailor; and then skirting those +horrid earthen _balze_ which are so common and so unattractive a +feature of Apennine scenery. The most hideous _balze_ to be found in +the length and breadth of Italy are probably those of Volterra, from +which the citizens themselves recoil with a kind of terror, and which +lure melancholy men by intolerable fascination on to suicide. For ever +crumbling, altering with frost and rain, discharging gloomy glaciers +of slow-crawling mud, and scarring the hillside with tracts of +barrenness, these earth-precipices are among the most ruinous and +discomfortable failures of nature. They have not even so much of +wildness or grandeur as forms, the saving merit of nearly all wasteful +things in the world, and can only be classed with the desolate +_ghiare_ of Italian river-beds. + +Such as they are, these _balze_ form an appropriate preface to the +gloomy and repellent isolation of Canossa. The rock towers from a +narrow platform to the height of rather more than 160 feet from its +base. The top is fairly level, forming an irregular triangle, of which +the greatest length is about 260 feet, and the width about 100 feet. +Scarcely a vestige of any building can be traced either upon the +platform or the summit, with the exception of a broken wall and +windows supposed to belong to the end of the sixteenth century. The +ancient castle, with its triple circuit of walls, enclosing barracks +for the garrison, lodgings for the lord and his retainers, a stately +church, a sumptuous monastery, storehouses, stables, workshops, and +all the various buildings of a fortified stronghold, have utterly +disappeared. The very passage of approach cannot be ascertained; for +it is doubtful whether the present irregular path that scales the +western face of the rock be really the remains of some old staircase, +corresponding to that by which Mont S. Michel in Normandy is ascended. +One thing is tolerably certain--that the three walls of which we hear +so much from the chroniclers, and which played so picturesque a part +in the drama of Henry IV.'s penance, surrounded the cliff at its base, +and embraced a large acreage of ground. The citadel itself must have +been but the acropolis or keep of an extensive fortress. + +There has been plenty of time since the year 1255, when the people of +Reggio sacked and destroyed Canossa, for Nature to resume her +undisputed sway by obliterating the handiwork of men; and at present +Nature forms the chief charm of Canossa. Lying one afternoon of May on +the crisp short grass at the edge of a precipice purple with iris in +full blossom, I surveyed, from what were once the battlements of +Matilda's castle, a prospect than which there is none more +spirit-stirring by reason of its beauty and its manifold associations +in Europe. The lower castle-crowded hills have sunk. Reggio lies at +our feet, shut in between the crests of Monte Carboniano and Monte +delle Celle. Beyond Reggio stretches Lombardy--the fairest and most +memorable battlefield of nations, the richest and most highly +cultivated garden of civilised industry. Nearly all the Lombard cities +may be seen, some of them faint like bluish films of vapour, some +clear with dome and spire. There is Modena and her Ghirlandina. Carpi, +Parma, Mirandola, Verona, Mantua, lie well defined and russet on the +flat green map; and there flashes a bend of lordly Po; and there the +Euganeans rise like islands, telling us where Padua and Ferrara nestle +in the amethystine haze Beyond and above all to the northward sweep +the Alps, tossing their silvery crests up into the cloudless sky from +the violet mist that girds their flanks and drowns their basements. +Monte Adamello and the Ortler, the cleft of the Brenner, and the sharp +peaks of the Venetian Alps are all distinctly visible. An eagle flying +straight from our eyrie might traverse Lombardy and light among the +snow-fields of the Valtelline between sunrise and sundown. Nor is the +prospect tame to southward. Here the Apennines roll, billow above +billow, in majestic desolation, soaring to snow summits in the +Pellegrino region. As our eye attempts to thread that labyrinth of +hill and vale, we tell ourselves that those roads wind to Tuscany, and +yonder stretches Garfagnana, where Ariosto lived and mused in +honourable exile from the world he loved. + +It was by one of the mountain passes that lead from Lucca northward +that the first founder of Canossa is said to have travelled early in +the tenth century. Sigifredo, if the tradition may be trusted, was +very wealthy; and with his money he bought lands and signorial rights +at Reggio, bequeathing to his children, when he died about 945, a +patrimony which they developed into a petty kingdom. Azzo, his second +son, fortified Canossa, and made it his principal place of residence. +When Lothair, King of Italy, died in 950, leaving his beautiful widow +to the ill-treatment of his successor, Berenger, Adelaide found a +protector in this Azzo. She had been imprisoned on the Lake of Garda; +but managing to escape in man's clothes to Mantua, she thence sent +news of her misfortunes to Canossa. Azzo lost no time in riding with +his knights to her relief, and brought her back in safety to his +mountain fastness. It is related that Azzo was afterwards instrumental +in calling Otho into Italy and procuring his marriage with Adelaide, +in consequence of which events Italy became a fief of the Empire. +Owing to the part he played at this time, the Lord of Canossa was +recognised as one of the most powerful vassals of the German Emperor +in Lombardy. Honours were heaped upon him; and he grew so rich and +formidable that Berenger, the titular King of Italy, laid siege to his +fortress of Canossa. The memory of this siege, which lasted for three +years and a half, is said still to linger in the popular traditions of +the place. When Azzo died at the end of the tenth century, he left to +his son Tedaldo the title of Count of Reggio and Modena; and this +title was soon after raised to that of Marquis. The Marches governed +as Vicar of the Empire by Tedaldo included Reggio, Modena, Ferrara, +Brescia, and probably Mantua. They stretched, in fact, across the +north of Italy, forming a quadrilateral between the Alps and +Apennines. Like his father, Tedaldo adhered consistently to the +Imperial party; and when he died and was buried at Canossa, he in his +turn bequeathed to his son Bonifazio a power and jurisdiction +increased by his own abilities. Bonifazio held the state of a +sovereign at Canossa, adding the duchy of Tuscany to his father's +fiefs, and meeting the allied forces of the Lombard barons in the +field of Coviolo like an independent potentate. His power and +splendour were great enough to rouse the jealousy of the Emperor; but +Henry III. seems to have thought it more prudent to propitiate this +proud vassal, and to secure his kindness, than to attempt his +humiliation. Bonifazio married Beatrice, daughter of Frederick, Duke +of Lorraine--her whose marble sarcophagus in the Campo Santo at Pisa +is said to have inspired Niccola Pisano with his new style of +sculpture. Their only child, Matilda, was born, probably at Lucca, in +1046; and six years after her birth, Bonifazio, who had swayed his +subjects like an iron-handed tyrant, was murdered. To the great House +of Canossa, the rulers of one-third of Italy, there now remained only +two women, Bonifazio's widow Beatrice, and his daughter Matilda. +Beatrice married Godfrey, Duke of Lorraine, who was recognised by +Henry IV. as her husband and as feudatory of the Empire in the full +place of Boniface. He died about 1070; and in this year Matilda was +married by proxy to his son, Godfrey the Hunchback, whom, however, +she did not see till the year 1072. The marriage was not a happy one; +and the question has even been disputed among Matilda's biographers +whether it was ever consummated. At any rate it did not last long; for +Godfrey was killed at Antwerp in 1076. In this year Matilda also lost +her mother, Beatrice, who died at Pisa, and was buried in the +cathedral. + +By this rapid enumeration of events it will be seen how the power and +honours of the House of Canossa, including Tuscany, Spoleto, and the +fairest portions of Lombardy, had devolved upon a single woman of the +age of thirty at the moment when the fierce quarrel between Pope and +Emperor began in the year 1076. Matilda was destined to play a great, +a striking, and a tragic part in the opening drama of Italian history. +Her decided character and uncompromising course of action have won for +her the name of 'la gran donna d'Italia,' and have caused her memory +to be blessed or execrated, according as the temporal pretensions and +spiritual tyranny of the Papacy may have found supporters or opponents +in posterity. She was reared from childhood in habits of austerity and +unquestioning piety. Submission to the Church became for her not +merely a rule of conduct, but a passionate enthusiasm. She identified +herself with the cause of four successive Popes, protected her idol, +the terrible and iron-hearted Hildebrand, in the time of his +adversity; remained faithful to his principles after his death; and +having served the Holy See with all her force and all that she +possessed through all her lifetime, she bequeathed her vast dominions +to it on her deathbed. Like some of the greatest mediaeval +characters--like Hildebrand himself--Matilda was so thoroughly of one +piece, that she towers above the mists of ages with the massive +grandeur of an incarnated idea. She is for us the living statue of a +single thought, an undivided impulse, the more than woman born to +represent her age. Nor was it without reason that Dante symbolised in +her the love of Holy Church; though students of the 'Purgatory' will +hardly recognise the lovely maiden, singing and plucking flowers +beside the stream of Lethe, in the stern and warlike chatelaine of +Canossa. Unfortunately we know but little of Matilda's personal +appearance. Her health was not strong; and it is said to have been +weakened, especially in her last illness, by ascetic observances. Yet +she headed her own troops, armed with sword and cuirass, avoiding +neither peril nor fatigue in the quarrels of her master Gregory. Up to +the year 1622 two strong suits of mail were preserved at Quattro +Castelli, which were said to have been worn by her in battle, and +which were afterwards sold on the market-place at Reggio. This habit +of donning armour does not, however, prove that Matilda was +exceptionally vigorous; for in those savage times she could hardly +have played the part of heroine without participating personally in +the dangers of warfare. + +No less monumental in the plastic unity of his character was the monk +Hildebrand, who for twenty years before his elevation to the Papacy +had been the maker of Popes and the creator of the policy of Rome. +When he was himself elected in the year 1073, and had assumed the name +of Gregory VII., he immediately began to put in practice the plans for +Church aggrandisement he had slowly matured during the previous +quarter of a century. To free the Church from its subservience to the +Empire, to assert the Pope's right to ratify the election of the +Emperor and to exercise the right of jurisdiction over him, to place +ecclesiastical appointments in the sole power of the Roman See, and to +render the celibacy of the clergy obligatory, were the points he had +resolved to carry. Taken singly and together, these chief aims of +Hildebrand's policy had but one object--the magnification of the +Church at the expense both of the people and of secular authorities, +and the further separation of the Church from the ties and sympathies +of common life that bound it to humanity. To accuse Hildebrand of +personal ambition would be but shallow criticism, though it is clear +that his inflexible and puissant nature found a savage selfish +pleasure in trampling upon power and humbling pride at warfare with +his own. Yet his was in no sense an egotistic purpose like that which +moved the Popes of the Renaissance to dismember Italy for their +bastards. Hildebrand, like Matilda, was himself the creature of a +great idea. These two potent personalities completely understood each +other, and worked towards a single end. Tho mythopoeic fancy might +conceive of them as the male and female manifestations of one dominant +faculty, the spirit of ecclesiastical dominion incarnate in a man and +woman of almost super-human mould. + +Opposed to them, as the third actor in the drama of Canossa, was a man +of feebler mould. Henry IV., King of Italy, but not yet crowned +Emperor, had none of his opponents' unity of purpose or monumental +dignity of character. At war with his German feudatories, browbeaten +by rebellious sons, unfaithful and cruel to his wife, vacillating in +the measures he adopted to meet his divers difficulties, at one time +tormented by his conscience into cowardly submission, and at another +treasonably neglectful of the most solemn obligations, Henry was no +match for the stern wills against which he was destined to break in +unavailing passion. Early disagreements with Gregory had culminated in +his excommunication. The German nobles abandoned his cause; and Henry +found it expedient to summon a council in Augsburg for the settlement +of matters in dispute between the Empire and the Papacy. Gregory +expressed his willingness to attend this council, and set forth from +Rome accompanied by the Countess Matilda in December 1076. He did not, +however, travel further than Vercelli, for news here reached him that +Henry was about to enter Italy at the head of a powerful army. Matilda +hereupon persuaded the Holy Father to place himself in safety among +her strongholds of Canossa. Thither accordingly Gregory retired before +the ending of that year; and bitter were the sarcasms uttered by the +imperial partisans in Italy upon this protection offered by a fair +countess to the monk who had been made a Pope. The foul calumnies of +that bygone age would be unworthy of even so much as this notice, if +we did not trace in them the ineradicable Italian tendency to cynical +insinuation--a tendency which has involved the history of the +Renaissance Popes in an almost impenetrable mist of lies and +exaggerations. Henry was in truth upon his road to Italy, but with a +very different attendance from that which Gregory expected. +Accompanied by Bertha, his wife, and his boy son Conrad, the Emperor +elect left Spires in the condition of a fugitive, crossed Burgundy, +spent Christmas at Besançon, and journeyed to the foot of Mont Cenis. +It is said that he was followed by a single male servant of mean +birth; and if the tale of his adventures during the passage of the +Alps can be credited, history presents fewer spectacles more +picturesque than the straits to which this representative of the +Cæsars, this supreme chief of feudal civility, this ruler destined +still to be the leader of mighty armies and the father of a line of +monarchs, was exposed. Concealing his real name and state, he induced +some shepherds to lead him and his escort through the thick snows to +the summit of Mont Cenis; and by the help of these men the imperial +party were afterwards let down the snow-slopes on the further side by +means of ropes. Bertha and her women were sewn up in hides and dragged +across the frozen surface of the winter drifts. It was a year +memorable for its severity. Heavy snow had fallen in October, which +continued ice-bound and unyielding till the following April. + +No sooner had Henry reached Turin, than he set forward again in the +direction of Canossa. The fame of his arrival had preceded him, and +he found that his party was far stronger in Italy than he had ventured +to expect. Proximity to the Church of Rome divests its fulminations of +half their terrors. The Italian bishops and barons, less superstitious +than the Germans, and with greater reason to resent the domineering +graspingness of Gregory, were ready to espouse the Emperor's cause. +Henry gathered a formidable force as he marched onward across +Lombardy; and some of the most illustrious prelates and nobles of the +South were in his suite. A more determined leader than Henry proved +himself to be, might possibly have forced Gregory to some +accommodation, in spite of the strength of Canossa and the Pope's +invincible obstinacy, by proper use of these supporters. Meanwhile the +adherents of the Church were mustered in Matilda's fortress; among +whom may be mentioned Azzo, the progenitor of Este and Brunswick; +Hugh, Abbot of Clugny; and the princely family of Piedmont. 'I am +become a second Rome,' exclaims Canossa, in the language of Matilda's +rhyming chronicler; 'all honours are mine; I hold at once both Pope +and King, the princes of Italy and those of Gaul, those of Rome, and +those from far beyond the Alps.' The stage was ready; the audience had +assembled; and now the three great actors were about to meet. +Immediately upon his arrival at Canossa, Henry sent for his cousin, +the Countess Matilda, and besought her to intercede for him with +Gregory. He was prepared to make any concessions or to undergo any +humiliations, if only the ban of excommunication might be removed; +nor, cowed as he was by his own superstitious conscience, and by the +memory of the opposition he had met with from his German vassals, does +he seem to have once thought of meeting force with force, and of +returning to his northern kingdom triumphant in the overthrow of +Gregory's pride. Matilda undertook to plead his cause before the +Pontiff. But Gregory was not to be moved so soon to mercy. 'If Henry +has in truth repented,' he replied, 'let him lay down crown and +sceptre, and declare himself unworthy of the name of king.' The only +point conceded to the suppliant was that he should be admitted in the +garb of a penitent within the precincts of the castle. Leaving his +retinue outside the walls, Henry entered the first series of outworks, +and was thence conducted to the second, so that between him and the +citadel itself there still remained the third of the surrounding +bastions. Here he was bidden to wait the Pope's pleasure; and here, in +the midst of that bitter winter weather, while the fierce winds of the +Apennines were sweeping sleet upon him in their passage from Monte +Pellegrino to the plain, he knelt barefoot, clothed in sackcloth, +fasting from dawn till eve, for three whole days. On the morning of +the fourth day, judging that Gregory was inexorable, and that his suit +would not be granted, Henry retired to the Chapel of S. Nicholas, +which stood within this second precinct. There he called to his aid +the Abbot of Clugny and the Countess, both of whom were his relations, +and who, much as they might sympathise with Gregory, could hardly be +supposed to look with satisfaction on their royal kinsman's outrage. +The Abbot told Henry that nothing in the world could move the Pope; +but Matilda, when in turn he fell before her knees and wept, engaged +to do for him the utmost. She probably knew that the moment for +unbending had arrived, and that her imperious guest could not with +either decency or prudence prolong the outrage offered to the civil +chief of Christendom. It was the 25th of January when the Emperor +elect was brought, half dead with cold and misery, into the Pope's +presence. There he prostrated himself in the dust, crying aloud for +pardon. It is said that Gregory first placed his foot upon Henry's +neck, uttering these words of Scripture: 'Super aspidem et basiliscum +ambulabis, et conculcabis leonem et draconem,' and that then he raised +him from the earth and formally pronounced his pardon. The prelates +and nobles who took part in this scene were compelled to guarantee +with their own oaths the vows of obedience pronounced by Henry; so +that in the very act of reconciliation a new insult was offered to +him. After this Gregory said mass, and permitted Henry to communicate; +and at the close of the day a banquet was served, at which the King +sat down to meat with the Pope and the Countess. + +It is probable that, while Henry's penance was performed in the castle +courts beneath the rock, his reception by the Pope, and all that +subsequently happened, took place in the citadel itself. But of this +we have no positive information. Indeed the silence of the chronicles +as to the topography of Canossa is peculiarly unfortunate for lovers +of the picturesque in historic detail, now that there is no +possibility of tracing the outlines of the ancient building. Had the +author of the 'Vita Mathildis' (Muratori, vol. v.) foreseen that his +beloved Canossa would one day be nothing but a mass of native rock, he +would undoubtedly have been more explicit on these points; and much +that is vague about an event only paralleled by our Henry II.'s +penance before Becket's shrine at Canterbury, might now be clear. + +Very little remains to be told about Canossa. During the same year, +1077, Matilda made the celebrated donation of her fiefs to Holy +Church. This was accepted by Gregory in the name of S. Peter, and it +was confirmed by a second deed during the pontificate of Urban IV. in +1102. Though Matilda subsequently married Guelfo d'Este, son of the +Duke of Bavaria, she was speedily divorced from him; nor was there any +heir to a marriage ridiculous by reason of disparity of age, the +bridegroom being but eighteen, while the bride was forty-three in the +year of her second nuptials. During one of Henry's descents into +Italy, he made an unsuccessful attack upon Canossa, assailing it at +the head of a considerable force one October morning in 1092. +Matilda's biographer informs us that the mists of autumn veiled his +beloved fortress from the eyes of the beleaguerers. They had not even +the satisfaction of beholding the unvanquished citadel; and, what was +more, the banner of the Emperor was seized and dedicated as a trophy +in the Church of S. Apollonio. In the following year the Countess +opened her gates of Canossa to an illustrious fugitive, Adelaide, the +wife of her old foeman, Henry, who had escaped with difficulty from +the insults and the cruelty of her husband. After Henry's death, his +son, the Emperor Henry V., paid Matilda a visit in her castle of +Bianello, addressed her by the name of mother, and conferred upon her +the vice-regency of Liguria. At the age of sixty-nine she died, in +1115, at Bondeno de' Roncori, and was buried, not among her kinsmen at +Canossa, but in an abbey of S. Benedict near Mantua. With her expired +the main line of the noble house she represented; though Canossa, now +made a fief of the Empire in spite of Matilda's donation, was given to +a family which claimed descent from Bonifazio's brother Conrad--a +young man killed in the battle of Coviolo. This family, in its turn, +was extinguished in the year 1570; but a junior branch still exists at +Verona. It will be remembered that Michelangelo Buonarroti claimed +kinship with the Count of Canossa; and a letter from the Count is +extant acknowledging the validity of his pretension. + +As far back as 1255 the people of Reggio destroyed the castle; nor did +the nobles of Canossa distinguish themselves in subsequent history +among those families who based their despotisms on the _débris_ of the +Imperial power in Lombardy. It seemed destined that Canossa and all +belonging to it should remain as a mere name and memory of the +outgrown middle ages. Estensi, Carraresi, Visconti, Bentivogli, and +Gonzaghi belong to a later period of Lombard history, and mark the +dawn of the Renaissance. + +As I lay and mused that afternoon of May upon the short grass, cropped +by two grey goats, whom a little boy was tending, it occurred to me to +ask the woman who had served me as guide, whether any legend remained +in the country concerning the Countess Matilda. She had often, +probably, been asked this question by other travellers. Therefore she +was more than usually ready with an answer, which, as far as I could +understand her dialect, was this. Matilda was a great and potent +witch, whose summons the devil was bound to obey. One day she aspired, +alone of all her sex, to say mass; but when the moment came for +sacring the elements, a thunderbolt fell from the clear sky, and +reduced her to ashes.[12] That the most single-hearted handmaid of the +Holy Church, whose life was one long devotion to its ordinances, +should survive in this grotesque myth, might serve to point a satire +upon the vanity of earthly fame. The legend in its very extravagance +is a fanciful distortion of the truth. + + * * * * * + + + + +_FORNOVO_ + + +In the town of Parma there is one surpassingly strange relic of the +past. The palace of the Farnesi, like many a haunt of upstart tyranny +and beggared pride on these Italian plains, rises misshapen and +disconsolate above the stream that bears the city's name. The squalor +of this grey-brown edifice of formless brick, left naked like the +palace of the same Farnesi at Piacenza, has something even horrid in +it now that only vague memory survives of its former uses. The +princely _sprezzatura_ of its ancient occupants, careless of these +unfinished courts and unroofed galleries amid the splendour of their +purfled silks and the glitter of their torchlight pageantry, has +yielded to sullen cynicism--the cynicism of arrested ruin and +unreverend age. All that was satisfying to the senses and distracting +to the eyesight in their transitory pomp has passed away, leaving a +sinister and naked shell. Remembrance can but summon up the crimes, +the madness, the trivialities of those dead palace-builders. An +atmosphere of evil clings to the dilapidated walls, as though the +tainted spirit of the infamous Pier Luigi still possessed the spot, on +which his toadstool brood of princelings sprouted in the mud of their +misdeeds. Enclosed in this huge labyrinth of brickwork is the relic of +which I spoke. It is the once world-famous Teatro Farnese, raised in +the year 1618 by Ranunzio Farnese for the marriage of Odoardo Farnese +with Margaret of Austria. Giambattista Aleotti, a native of +pageant-loving Ferrara, traced the stately curves and noble orders of +the galleries, designed the columns that support the raftered roof, +marked out the orchestra, arranged the stage, and breathed into the +whole the spirit of Palladio's most heroic neo-Latin style. Vast, +built of wood, dishevelled, with broken statues and blurred coats of +arms, with its empty scene, its uncurling frescoes, its hangings all +in rags, its cobwebs of two centuries, its dust and mildew and +discoloured gold--this theatre, a sham in its best days, and now that +ugliest of things, a sham unmasked and naked to the light of day, is +yet sublime, because of its proportioned harmony, because of its grand +Roman manner. The sight and feeling of it fasten upon the mind and +abide in the memory like a nightmare,--like one of Piranesi's weirdest +and most passion-haunted etchings for the _Carceri_. Idling there at +noon in the twilight of the dust-bedarkened windows, we fill the tiers +of those high galleries with ladies, the space below with grooms and +pages; the stage is ablaze with torches, and an Italian Masque, such +as our Marlowe dreamed of, fills the scene. But it is impossible to +dower these fancies with even such life as in healthier, happier +ruins phantasy may lend to imagination's figments. This theatre is +like a maniac's skull, empty of all but unrealities and mockeries of +things that are. The ghosts we raise here could never have been living +men and women: _questi sciaurati non fur mai vivi._ So clinging is the +sense of instability that appertains to every fragment of that dry-rot +tyranny which seized by evil fortune in the sunset of her golden day +on Italy. + +In this theatre I mused one morning after visiting Fornovo; and the +thoughts suggested by the battlefield found their proper atmosphere in +the dilapidated place. What, indeed, is the Teatro Farnese but a +symbol of those hollow principalities which the despot and the +stranger built in Italy after the fatal date of 1494, when national +enthusiasm and political energy were expiring in a blaze of art, and +when the Italians as a people had ceased to be; but when the phantom +of their former life, surviving in high works of beauty, was still +superb by reason of imperishable style! How much in Italy of the +Renaissance was, like this plank-built plastered theatre, a glorious +sham! The sham was seen through then; and now it stands unmasked: and +yet, strange to say, so perfect is its form that we respect the sham +and yield our spirits to the incantation of its music. + +The battle of Fornovo, as modern battles go, was a paltry affair; and +even at the time it seemed sufficiently without result. Yet the +trumpets which rang on July 6, 1495, for the onset, sounded the +_réveil_ of the modern world; and in the inconclusive termination of +the struggle of that day, the Italians were already judged and +sentenced as a nation. The armies who met that morning represented +Italy and France,--Italy, the Sibyl of Renaissance; France, the Sibyl +of Revolution. At the fall of evening Europe was already looking +northward; and the last years of the fifteenth century were opening +an act which closed in blood at Paris on the ending of the eighteenth. + +If it were not for thoughts like these, no one, I suppose, would take +the trouble to drive for two hours out of Parma to the little village +of Fornovo--a score of bare grey hovels on the margin of a pebbly +river-bed beneath the Apennines. The fields on either side, as far as +eye can see, are beautiful indeed in May sunlight, painted here with +flax, like shallow sheets of water reflecting a pale sky, and there +with clover red as blood. Scarce unfolded leaves sparkle like +flamelets of bright green upon the knotted vines, and the young corn +is bending all one way beneath a western breeze. But not less +beautiful than this is the whole broad plain of Lombardy; nor are the +nightingales louder here than in the acacia trees around Pavia. As we +drive, the fields become less fertile, and the hills encroach upon the +level, sending down their spurs upon that waveless plain like blunt +rocks jutting out into a tranquil sea. When we reach the bed of the +Taro, these hills begin to narrow on either hand, and the road rises. +Soon they open out again with gradual curving lines, forming a kind of +amphitheatre filled up from flank to flank with the _ghiara_ or pebbly +bottom of the Taro. The Taro is not less wasteful than any other of +the brotherhood of streams that pour from Alp or Apennine to swell the +Po. It wanders, an impatient rivulet, through a wilderness of +boulders, uncertain of its aim, shifting its course with the season of +the year, unless the jaws of some deep-cloven gully hold it tight and +show how insignificant it is. As we advance, the hills approach again; +between their skirts there is nothing but the river-bed; and now on +rising ground above the stream, at the point of juncture between the +Ceno and the Taro, we find Fornovo. Beyond the village the valley +broadens out once more, disclosing Apennines capped with winter snow. +To the right descends the Ceno. To the left foams the Taro, following +whose rocky channel we should come at last to Pontremoli and the +Tyrrhenian sea beside Sarzana. On a May-day of sunshine like the +present, the Taro is a gentle stream. A waggon drawn by two white oxen +has just entered its channel, guided by a contadino with goat-skin +leggings, wielding a long goad. The patient creatures stem the water, +which rises to the peasant's thighs and ripples round the creaking +wheels. Swaying to and fro, as the shingles shift upon the river-bed, +they make their way across; and now they have emerged upon the stones; +and now we lose them in a flood of sunlight. + +It was by this pass that Charles VIII. in 1495 returned from Tuscany, +when the army of the League was drawn up waiting to intercept and +crush him in the mousetrap of Fornovo. No road remained for Charles +and his troops but the rocky bed of the Taro, running, as I have +described it, between the spurs of steep hills. It is true that the +valley of the Baganza leads, from a little higher up among the +mountains, into Lombardy. But this pass runs straight to Parma; and to +follow it would have brought the French upon the walls of a strong +city. Charles could not do otherwise than descend upon the village of +Fornovo, and cut his way thence in the teeth of the Italian army over +stream and boulder between the gorges of throttling mountain. The +failure of the Italians to achieve what here upon the ground appears +so simple, delivered Italy hand-bound to strangers. Had they but +succeeded in arresting Charles and destroying his forces at Fornovo, +it is just possible that then--even then, at the eleventh hour--Italy +might have gained the sense of national coherence, or at least have +proved herself capable of holding by her leagues the foreigner at bay. +As it was, the battle of Fornovo, in spite of Venetian bonfires and +Mantuan Madonnas of Victory, made her conscious of incompetence and +convicted her of cowardice. After Fornovo, her sons scarcely dared to +hold their heads up in the field against invaders; and the battles +fought upon her soil were duels among aliens for the prize of Italy. + +In order to comprehend the battle of Fornovo in its bearings on +Italian history, we must go back to the year 1492, and understand the +conditions of the various States of Italy at that date. On April 8 in +that year, Lorenzo de' Medici, who had succeeded in maintaining a +political equilibrium in the peninsula, expired, and was succeeded by +his son Piero, a vain and foolhardy young man, from whom no guidance +could be expected. On July 25, Innocent VIII. died, and was succeeded +by the very worst Pope who has ever occupied S. Peter's chair, +Roderigo Borgia, Alexander VI. It was felt at once that the old order +of things had somehow ended, and that a new era, the destinies of +which as yet remained incalculable, was opening for Italy. The chief +Italian powers, hitherto kept in equipoise by the diplomacy of Lorenzo +de' Medici, were these--the Duchy of Milan, the Republic of Venice, +the Republic of Florence, the Papacy, and the kingdom of Naples. +Minor States, such as the Republics of Genoa and Siena, the Duchies of +Urbino and Ferrara, the Marquisate of Mantua, the petty tyrannies of +Romagna, and the wealthy city of Bologna, were sufficiently important +to affect the balance of power, and to produce new combinations. For +the present purpose it is, however, enough to consider the five great +Powers. + +After the peace of Constance, which freed the Lombard Communes from +Imperial interference in the year 1183, Milan, by her geographical +position, rose rapidly to be the first city of North Italy. Without +narrating the changes by which she lost her freedom as a Commune, it +is enough to state that, earliest of all Italian cities, Milan passed +into the hands of a single family. The Visconti managed to convert +this flourishing commonwealth, with all its dependencies, into their +private property, ruling it exclusively for their own profit, using +its municipal institutions as the machinery of administration, and +employing the taxes which they raised upon its wealth for purely +selfish ends. When the line of the Visconti ended in the year 1447, +their tyranny was continued by Francesco Sforza, the son of a poor +soldier of adventure, who had raised himself by his military genius, +and had married Bianca, the illegitimate daughter of the last +Visconti. On the death of Francesco Sforza in 1466, he left two sons, +Galeazzo Maria and Lodovico, surnamed Il Moro, both of whom were +destined to play a prominent part in history. Galeazzo Maria, +dissolute, vicious, and cruel to the core, was murdered by his injured +subjects in the year 1476. His son, Giovanni Galeazzo, aged eight, +would in course of time have succeeded to the Duchy, had it not been +for the ambition of his uncle Lodovico. Lodovico contrived to name +himself as Regent for his nephew, whom he kept, long after he had come +of age, in a kind of honourable prison. Virtual master in Milan, but +without a legal title to the throne, unrecognised in his authority by +the Italian powers, and holding it from day to day by craft and fraud, +Lodovico at last found his situation untenable; and it was this +difficulty of an usurper to maintain himself in his despotism which, +as we shall see, brought the French into Italy. + +Venice, the neighbour and constant foe of Milan, had become a close +oligarchy by a process of gradual constitutional development, which +threw her government into the hands of a few nobles. She was +practically ruled by the hereditary members of the Grand Council. Ever +since the year 1453, when Constantinople fell beneath the Turk, the +Venetians had been more and more straitened in their Oriental +commerce, and were thrown back upon the policy of territorial +aggrandisement in Italy, from which they had hitherto refrained as +alien to the temperament of the Republic. At the end of the fifteenth +century Venice therefore became an object of envy and terror to the +Italian States. They envied her because she alone was tranquil, +wealthy, powerful, and free. They feared her because they had good +reason to suspect her of encroachment; and it was foreseen that if she +got the upper hand in Italy, all Italy would be the property of the +families inscribed upon the Golden Book. It was thus alone that the +Italians comprehended government. The principle of representation +being utterly unknown, and the privileged burghers in each city being +regarded as absolute and lawful owners of the city and of everything +belonging to it, the conquest of a town by a republic implied the +political extinction of that town and the disfranchisement of its +inhabitants in favour of the conquerors. + +Florence at this epoch still called itself a Republic; and of all +Italian commonwealths it was by far the most democratic. Its history, +unlike that of Venice, had been the history of continual and brusque +changes, resulting in the destruction of the old nobility, in the +equalisation of the burghers, and in the formation of a new +aristocracy of wealth. Prom this class of _bourgeois_ nobles sprang +the Medici, who, by careful manipulation of the State machinery, by +the creation of a powerful party devoted to their interests, by +flattery of the people, by corruption, by taxation, and by constant +scheming, raised themselves to the first place in the commonwealth, +and became its virtual masters. In the year 1492 Lorenzo de' Medici, +the most remarkable chief of this despotic family, died, bequeathing +his supremacy in the Republic to a son of marked incompetence. + +Since the Pontificate of Nicholas V. the See of Rome had entered upon +a new period of existence. The Popes no longer dreaded to reside in +Rome, but were bent upon making the metropolis of Christendom both +splendid as a seat of art and learning, and also potent as the capital +of a secular kingdom. Though their fiefs in Romagna and the March were +still held but loosely, though their provinces swarmed with petty +despots who defied the Papal authority, and though the princely Roman +houses of Colonna and Orsini were still strong enough to terrorise the +Holy Father in the Vatican, it was now clear that the Papal See must +in the end get the better of its adversaries, and consolidate itself +into a first-rate Power. The internal spirit of the Papacy at this +time corresponded to its external policy. It was thoroughly +secularised by a series of worldly and vicious pontiffs, who had clean +forgotten what their title, Vicar of Christ, implied. They +consistently used their religious prestige to enforce their secular +authority, while by their temporal power they caused their religious +claims to be respected. Corrupt and shameless, they indulged +themselves in every vice, openly acknowledged their children, and +turned Italy upside down in order to establish favourites and bastards +in the principalities they seized as spoils of war. + +The kingdom of Naples differed from any other state of Italy. Subject +continually to foreign rulers since the decay of the Greek Empire, +governed in succession by the Normans, the Hohenstauffens, and the +House of Anjou, it had never enjoyed the real independence, or the +free institutions, of the northern provinces; nor had it been +Italianised in the same sense as the rest of the peninsula. Despotism, +which assumed so many forms in Italy, was here neither the tyranny of +a noble house, nor the masked autocracy of a burgher, nor yet the +forceful sway of a condottiere. It had a dynastic character, +resembling the monarchy of one of the great European nations, but +modified by the peculiar conditions of Italian statecraft. Owing to +this dynastic and monarchical complexion of the Neapolitan kingdom, +semi-feudal customs flourished in the south far more than in the north +of Italy. The barons were more powerful; and the destinies of the +Regno often turned upon their feuds and quarrels with the Crown. At +the same time the Neapolitan despots shared the uneasy circumstances +of all Italian potentates, owing to the uncertainty of their tenure, +both as conquerors and aliens, and also as the nominal vassals of the +Holy See. The rights of suzerainty which the Normans had yielded to +the Papacy over their southern conquests, and which the Popes had +arbitrarily exercised in favour of the Angevine princes, proved a +constant source of peril to the rest of Italy by rendering the +succession to the crown of Naples doubtful. On the extinction of the +Angevine line, however, the throne was occupied by a prince who had no +valid title but that of the sword to its possession. Alfonso of Aragon +conquered Naples in 1442, and neglecting his hereditary dominion, +settled in his Italian capital. Possessed with the enthusiasm for +literature which was then the ruling passion of the Italians, and very +liberal to men of learning, Alfonso won for himself the surname of +Magnanimous. On his death, in 1458, he bequeathed his Spanish +kingdom, together with Sicily and Sardinia, to his brother, and left +the fruits of his Italian conquest to his bastard, Ferdinand. This +Ferdinand, whose birth was buried in profound obscurity, was the +reigning sovereign in the year 1492. Of a cruel and sombre +temperament, traitorous and tyrannical, Ferdinand was hated by his +subjects as much as Alfonso had been loved. He possessed, however, to +a remarkable degree, the qualities which at that epoch constituted a +consummate statesman; and though the history of his reign is the +history of plots and conspiracies, of judicial murders and forcible +assassinations, of famines produced by iniquitous taxation, and of +every kind of diabolical tyranny, Ferdinand contrived to hold his own, +in the teeth of a rebellious baronage or a maddened population. His +political sagacity amounted almost to a prophetic instinct in the last +years of his life, when he became aware that the old order was +breaking up in Italy, and had cause to dread that Charles VIII. of +France would prove his title to the kingdom of Naples by force of +arms.[13] + +Such were the component parts of the Italian body politic, with the +addition of numerous petty principalities and powers, adhering more or +less consistently to one or other of the greater States. The whole +complex machine was bound together by no sense of common interest, +animated by no common purpose, amenable to no central authority. Even +such community of feeling as one spoken language gives, was lacking. +And yet Italy distinguished herself clearly from the rest of Europe, +not merely as a geographical fact, but also as a people intellectually +and spiritually one. The rapid rise of humanism had aided in producing +this national self-consciousness. Every State and every city was +absorbed in the recovery of culture and in the development of art and +literature. Far in advance of the other European nations, the Italians +regarded the rest of the world as barbarous, priding themselves the +while, in spite of mutual jealousies and hatreds, on their Italic +civilisation. They were enormously wealthy. The resources of the Papal +treasury, the private fortunes of the Florentine bankers, the riches +of the Venetian merchants might have purchased all that France or +Germany possessed of value. The single Duchy of Milan yielded to its +masters 700,000 golden florins of revenue, according to the +computation of De Comines. In default of a confederative system, the +several States were held in equilibrium by diplomacy. By far the most +important people, next to the despots and the captains of adventure, +were ambassadors and orators. War itself had become a matter of +arrangement, bargain, and diplomacy. The game of stratagem was played +by generals who had been friends yesterday and might be friends again +to-morrow, with troops who felt no loyalty whatever for the standards +under which they listed. To avoid slaughter and to achieve the ends of +warfare by parade and demonstration was the interest of every one +concerned. Looking back upon Italy of the fifteenth century, taking +account of her religious deadness and moral corruption, estimating the +absence of political vigour in the republics and the noxious tyranny +of the despots, analysing her lack of national spirit, and comparing +her splendid life of cultivated ease with the want of martial energy, +we can see but too plainly that contact with a simpler and stronger +people could not but produce a terrible catastrophe. The Italians +themselves, however, were far from comprehending this. Centuries of +undisturbed internal intrigue had accustomed them to play the game of +forfeits with each other, and nothing warned them that the time was +come at which diplomacy, finesse, and craft would stand them in ill +stead against rapacious conquerors. + +The storm which began to gather over Italy in the year 1492 had its +first beginning in the North. Lodovico Sforza's position in the Duchy +of Milan was becoming every day more difficult, when a slight and to +all appearances insignificant incident converted his apprehension of +danger into panic. It was customary for the States of Italy to +congratulate a new Pope on his election by their ambassadors; and this +ceremony had now to be performed for Roderigo Borgia. Lodovico +proposed that his envoys should go to Rome together with those of +Venice, Naples, and Florence; but Piero de' Medici, whose vanity made +him wish to send an embassy in his own name, contrived that Lodovico's +proposal should be rejected both by Florence and the King of Naples. +So strained was the situation of Italian affairs that Lodovico saw in +this repulse a menace to his own usurped authority. Feeling himself +isolated among the princes of his country, rebuffed by the Medici, and +coldly treated by the King of Naples, he turned in his anxiety to +France, and advised the young king, Charles VIII., to make good his +claim upon the Regno. It was a bold move to bring the foreigner thus +into Italy; and even Lodovico, who prided himself upon his sagacity, +could not see how things would end. He thought his situation so +hazardous, however, that any change must be for the better. Moreover, +a French invasion of Naples would tie the hands of his natural foe, +King Ferdinand, whose granddaughter, Isabella of Aragon, had married +Giovanni Galeazzo Sforza, and was now the rightful Duchess of Milan. +When the Florentine ambassador at Milan asked him how he had the +courage to expose Italy to such peril, his reply betrayed the egotism +of his policy: 'You talk to me of Italy; but when have I looked Italy +in the face? No one ever gave a thought to my affairs. I have, +therefore, had to give them such security as I could.' + +Charles VIII. was young, light-brained, romantic, and ruled by +_parvenus_, who had an interest in disturbing the old order of the +monarchy. He lent a willing ear to Lodovico's invitation, backed as +this was by the eloquence and passion of numerous Italian refugees and +exiles. Against the advice of his more prudent counsellors, he taxed +all the resources of his kingdom, and concluded treaties on +disadvantageous terms with England, Germany, and Spain, in order that +he might be able to concentrate all his attention upon the Italian +expedition. At the end of the year 1493, it was known that the +invasion was resolved upon. Gentile Becchi, the Florentine envoy at +the Court of France, wrote to Piero de' Medici: 'If the King succeeds, +it is all over with Italy--_tutta a bordello._' The extraordinary +selfishness of the several Italian States at this critical moment +deserves to be noticed. The Venetians, as Paolo Antonio Soderini +described them to Piero de' Medici, 'are of opinion that to keep +quiet, and to see other potentates of Italy spending and suffering, +cannot but be to their advantage. They trust no one, and feel sure +they have enough money to be able at any moment to raise sufficient +troops, and so to guide events according to their inclinations.' As +the invasion was directed against Naples, Ferdinand of Aragon +displayed the acutest sense of the situation. 'Frenchmen,' he +exclaimed, in what appears like a prophetic passion when contrasted +with the cold indifference of others no less really menaced, 'have +never come into Italy without inflicting ruin; and this invasion, if +rightly considered, cannot but bring universal ruin, although it seems +to menace us alone.' In his agony Ferdinand applied to Alexander VI. +But the Pope looked coldly upon him, because the King of Naples, with +rare perspicacity, had predicted that his elevation to the Papacy +would prove disastrous to Christendom. Alexander preferred to ally +himself with Venice and Milan. Upon this Ferdinand wrote as follows: +'It seems fated that the Popes should leave no peace in Italy. We are +compelled to fight; but the Duke of Bari (_i.e._ Lodovico Sforza) +should think what may ensue from the tumult he is stirring up. He who +raises this wind will not be able to lay the tempest when he likes. +Let him look to the past, and he will see how every time that our +internal quarrels have brought Powers from beyond the Alps into Italy, +these have oppressed and lorded over her.' + +Terribly verified as these words were destined to be,--and they were +no less prophetic in their political sagacity than Savonarola's +prediction of the Sword and bloody Scourge,--it was now too late to +avert the coming ruin. On March 1, 1494, Charles was with his army at +Lyons. Early in September he had crossed the pass of Mont Genêvre and +taken up his quarters in the town of Asti. There is no need to +describe in detail the holiday march of the French troops through +Lombardy, Tuscany, and Rome, until, without having struck a blow of +consequence, the gates of Naples opened to receive the conqueror upon +February 22, 1495. Philippe de Comines, who parted from the King at +Asti and passed the winter as his envoy at Venice, has more than once +recorded his belief that nothing but the direct interposition of +Providence could have brought so mad an expedition to so successful a +conclusion. 'Dieu monstroit conduire l'entreprise,' No sooner, +however, was Charles installed in Naples than the States of Italy +began to combine against him. Lodovico Sforza had availed himself of +the general confusion consequent upon the first appearance of the +French, to poison his nephew. He was, therefore, now the titular, as +well as virtual, Lord of Milan. So far, he had achieved what he +desired, and had no further need of Charles. The overtures he now made +to the Venetians and the Pope terminated in a League between these +Powers for the expulsion of the French from Italy. Germany and Spain +entered into the same alliance; and De Comines, finding himself +treated with marked coldness by the Signory of Venice, despatched a +courier to warn Charles in Naples of the coming danger. After a stay +of only fifty days in his new capital, the French King hurried +northward. Moving quickly through the Papal States and Tuscany, he +engaged his troops in the passes of the Apennines near Pontremoli, and +on July 5, 1495, took up his quarters in the village of Fornovo. De +Comines reckons that his whole fighting force at this time did not +exceed 9,000 men, with fourteen pieces of artillery. Against him at +the opening of the valley was the army of the League, numbering some +35,000 men, of whom three-fourths were supplied by Venice, the rest by +Lodovico Sforza and the German Emperor. Francesco Gonzaga, Marquis of +Mantua, was the general of the Venetian forces; and on him, therefore, +fell the real responsibility of the battle. + +De Comines remarks on the imprudence of the allies, who allowed +Charles to advance as far as Fornovo, when it was their obvious policy +to have established themselves in the village and so have caught the +French troops in a trap. It was a Sunday when the French marched down +upon Fornovo. Before them spread the plain of Lombardy, and beyond it +the white crests of the Alps. 'We were,' says De Comines, 'in a valley +between two little mountain flanks, and in that valley ran a river +which could easily be forded on foot, except when it is swelled with +sudden rains. The whole valley was a bed of gravel and big stones, +very difficult for horses, about a quarter of a league in breadth, and +on the right bank lodged our enemies.' Any one who has visited Fornovo +can understand the situation of the two armies. Charles occupied the +village on the right bank of the Taro. On the same bank, extending +downward toward the plain, lay the host of the allies; and in order +that Charles should escape them, it was necessary that he should cross +the Taro, just below its junction with the Ceno, and reach Lombardy by +marching in a parallel line with his foes. + +All through the night of Sunday it thundered and rained incessantly; +so that on the Monday morning the Taro was considerably swollen. At +seven o'clock the King sent for De Comines, who found him already +armed and mounted on the finest horse he had ever seen. The name of +this charger was _Savoy_. He was black, one-eyed, and of middling +height; and to his great courage, as we shall see, Charles owed life +upon that day. The French army, ready for the march, now took to the +gravelly bed of the Taro, passing the river at a distance of about a +quarter of a league from the allies. As the French left Fornovo, the +light cavalry of their enemies entered the village and began to attack +the baggage. At the same time the Marquis of Mantua, with the flower +of his men-at-arms, crossed the Taro and harassed the rear of the +French host; while raids from the right bank to the left were +constantly being made by sharpshooters and flying squadrons. 'At this +moment,' says De Comines, 'not a single man of us could have escaped +if our ranks had once been broken.' The French army was divided into +three main bodies. The vanguard consisted of some 350 men-at-arms, +3000 Switzers, 300 archers of the Guard, a few mounted crossbow-men, +and the artillery. Next came the Battle, and after this the rearguard. +At the time when the Marquis of Mantua made his attack, the French +rearguard had not yet crossed the river. Charles quitted the van, put +himself at the head of his chivalry, and charged the Italian horsemen, +driving them back, some to the village and others to their camp. De +Comines observes, that had the Italian knights been supported in this +passage of arms by the light cavalry of the Venetian force, called +Stradiots, the French must have been outnumbered, thrown into +confusion, and defeated. As it was, these Stradiots were engaged in +plundering the baggage of the French; and the Italians, accustomed to +bloodless encounters, did not venture, in spite of their immense +superiority of numbers, to renew the charge. In the pursuit of +Gonzaga's horsemen Charles outstripped his staff, and was left almost +alone to grapple with a little band of mounted foemen. It was here +that his noble horse, Savoy, saved his person by plunging and charging +till assistance came up from the French, and enabled the King to +regain his van. + +It is incredible, considering the nature of the ground and the number +of the troops engaged, that the allies should not have returned to the +attack and have made the passage of the French into the plain +impossible. De Comines, however, assures us that the actual engagement +only lasted a quarter of an hour, and the pursuit of the Italians +three quarters of an hour. After they had once resolved to fly, they +threw away their lances and betook themselves to Reggio and Parma. So +complete was their discomfiture, that De Comines gravely blames the +want of military genius and adventure in the French host. If, instead +of advancing along the left bank of the Taro and there taking up his +quarters for the night, Charles had recrossed the stream and pursued +the army of the allies, he would have had the whole of Lombardy at his +discretion. As it was, the French army encamped not far from the scene +of the action in great discomfort and anxiety. De Comines had to +bivouac in a vineyard, without even a mantle to wrap round him, having +lent his cloak to the King in the morning; and as it had been pouring +all day, the ground could not have afforded very luxurious quarters. +The same extraordinary luck which had attended the French in their +whole expedition, now favoured their retreat; and the same +pusillanimity which the allies had shown at Fornovo, prevented them +from re-forming and engaging with the army of Charles upon the plain. +One hour before daybreak on Tuesday morning, the French broke up their +camp and succeeded in clearing the valley. That night they lodged at +Fiorenzuola, the next at Piacenza, and so on; till on the eighth day +they arrived at Asti without having been so much as incommoded by the +army of the allies in their rear. + +Although the field of Fornovo was in reality so disgraceful to the +Italians, they reckoned it a victory upon the technical pretence that +the camp and baggage of the French had been seized. Illuminations and +rejoicings made the piazza of S. Mark in Venice gay, and Francesco da +Gonzaga had the glorious Madonna della Vittoria painted for him by +Mantegna, in commemoration of what ought only to have been remembered +with shame. + +A fitting conclusion to this sketch, connecting its close with the +commencement, may be found in some remarks upon the manner of warfare +to which the Italians of the Renaissance had become accustomed, and +which proved so futile on the field of Fornovo. During the middle +ages, and in the days of the Communes, the whole male population of +Italy had fought light-armed on foot. Merchant and artisan left the +counting-house and the workshop, took shield and pike, and sallied +forth to attack the barons in their castles, or to meet the Emperor's +troops upon the field. It was with this national militia that the +citizens of Florence freed their _Contado_ of the nobles, and the +burghers of Lombardy gained the battle of Legnano. In course of time, +by a process of change which it is not very easy to trace, heavily +armed cavalry began to take the place of infantry in mediæval warfare. +Men-at-arms, as they were called, encased from head to foot in iron, +and mounted upon chargers no less solidly caparisoned, drove the +foot-soldiers before them at the points of their long lances. Nowhere +in Italy do they seem to have met with the fierce resistance which the +bears of the Swiss Oberland and the bulls of Uri offered to the +knights of Burgundy. No Tuscan Arnold von Winkelried clasped a dozen +lances to his bosom that the foeman's ranks might thus be broken at +the cost of his own life; nor did it occur to the Italian burghers to +meet the charge of the horsemen with squares protected by bristling +spears. They seem, on the contrary, to have abandoned military service +with the readiness of men whose energies were already absorbed in the +affairs of peace. To become a practised and efficient man-at-arms +required long training and a life's devotion. So much time the +burghers of the free towns could not spare to military service, while +the petty nobles were only too glad to devote themselves to so +honourable a calling. Thus it came to pass that a class of +professional fighting-men was gradually formed in Italy, whose +services the burghers and the princes bought, and by whom the wars of +the peninsula were regularly farmed by contract. Wealth and luxury in +the great cities continued to increase; and as the burghers grew more +comfortable, they were less inclined to take the field in their own +persons, and more disposed to vote large sums of money for the +purchase of necessary aid. At the same time this system suited the +despots, since it spared them the peril of arming their own subjects, +while they taxed them to pay the services of foreign captains. War +thus became a commerce. Romagna, the Marches of Ancona, and other +parts of the Papal dominions, supplied a number of petty nobles whose +whole business in life it was to form companies of trained horsemen, +and with these bands to hire themselves out to the republics and the +despots. Gain was the sole purpose of these captains. They sold their +service to the highest bidder, fighting irrespectively of principle or +patriotism, and passing with the coldest equanimity from the camp of +one master to that of his worst foe. It was impossible that true +military spirit should survive this prostitution of the art of war. A +species of mock warfare prevailed in Italy. Battles were fought with a +view to booty more than victory; prisoners were taken for the sake of +ransom; bloodshed was carefully avoided, for the men who fought on +either side in any pitched field had been comrades with their present +foemen in the last encounter, and who could tell how soon the general +of the one host might not need his rival's troops to recruit his own +ranks? Like every genuine institution of the Italian Renaissance, +warfare was thus a work of fine art, a masterpiece of intellectual +subtlety; and like the Renaissance itself, this peculiar form of +warfare was essentially transitional. The cannon and the musket were +already in use; and it only required one blast of gunpowder to turn +the sham-fight of courtly, traitorous, finessing captains of adventure +into something terribly more real. To men like the Marquis of Mantua +war had been a highly profitable game of skill; to men like the +Maréchal de Gié it was a murderous horseplay; and this difference the +Italians were not slow to perceive. When they cast away their lances +at Fornovo, and fled--in spite of their superior numbers--never to +return, one fair-seeming sham of the fifteenth century became a vision +of the past. + + * * * * * + + + + +_FLORENCE AND THE MEDICI_ + + Di Firenze in prima si divisono intra loro i nobili, dipoi i + nobili e il popolo, e in ultimo il popolo e la plebe; e + molte volte occorse che una di queste parti rimasa + superiore, si divise in due.--MACHIAVELLI. + + +I + +Florence, like all Italian cities, owed her independence to the duel +of the Papacy and Empire. The transference of the imperial authority +beyond the Alps had enabled the burghs of Lombardy and Tuscany to +establish a form of self-government. This government was based upon +the old municipal organisation of duumvirs and decemvirs. It was, in +fact, nothing more or less than a survival from the ancient Roman +system. The proof of this was, that while vindicating their rights as +towns, the free cities never questioned the validity of the imperial +title. Even after the peace of Constance in 1183, when Frederick +Barbarossa acknowledged their autonomy, they received within their +walls a supreme magistrate, with power of life and death and ultimate +appeal in all decisive questions, whose title of Potestà indicated +that he represented the imperial power--Potestas. It was not by the +assertion of any right, so much as by the growth of custom, and by the +weakness of the Emperors, that in course of time each city became a +sovereign State. The theoretical supremacy of the Empire prevented any +other authority from taking the first place in Italy. On the other +hand, the practical inefficiency of the Emperors to play their part +encouraged the establishment of numerous minor powers amenable to no +controlling discipline. + +The free cities derived their strength from industry, and had nothing +in common with the nobles of the surrounding country. Broadly +speaking, the population of the towns included what remained in Italy +of the old Roman people. This Roman stock was nowhere stronger than in +Florence and Venice--Florence defended from barbarian incursions by +her mountains and marshes, Venice by the isolation of her lagoons. The +nobles, on the contrary, were mostly of foreign origin--Germans, +Franks, and Lombards, who had established themselves as feudal lords +in castles apart from the cities. The force which the burghs acquired +as industrial communities was soon turned against these nobles. The +larger cities, like Milan and Florence, began to make war upon the +lords of castles, and to absorb into their own territory the small +towns and villages around them. Thus in the social economy of the +Italians there were two antagonistic elements ready to range +themselves beneath any banners that should give the form of legitimate +warfare to their mutual hostility. It was the policy of the Church in +the twelfth century to support the cause of the cities, using them as +a weapon against the Empire, and stimulating the growing ambition of +the burghers. In this way Italy came to be divided into the two +world-famous factions known as Guelf and Ghibelline. The struggle +between Guelf and Ghibelline was the struggle of the Papacy for the +depression of the Empire, the struggle of the great burghs face to +face with feudalism, the struggle of the old Italie stock enclosed in +cities with the foreign nobles established in fortresses. When the +Church had finally triumphed by the extirpation of the House of +Hohenstaufen, this conflict of Guelf and Ghibelline was really ended. +Until the reign of Charles V. no Emperor interfered to any purpose in +Italian affairs. At the same time the Popes ceased to wield a +formidable power. Having won the battle by calling in the French, they +suffered the consequences of this policy by losing their hold on Italy +during the long period of their exile at Avignon. The Italians, left +without either Pope or Emperor, were free to pursue their course of +internal development, and to prosecute their quarrels among +themselves. But though the names of Guelf and Ghibelline lost their +old significance after the year 1266 (the date of King Manfred's +death), these two factions had so divided Italy that they continued to +play a prominent part in her annals. Guelf still meant constitutional +autonomy, meant the burgher as against the noble, meant industry as +opposed to feudal lordship. Ghibelline meant the rule of the few over +the many, meant tyranny, meant the interest of the noble as against +the merchant and the citizen. These broad distinctions must be borne +in mind, if we seek to understand how it was that a city like Florence +continued to be governed by parties, the European force of which had +passed away. + + +II + + +Florence first rose into importance during the papacy of Innocent III. +Up to this date she had been a town of second-rate distinction even in +Tuscany. Pisa was more powerful by arms and commerce. Lucca was the +old seat of the dukes and marquises of Tuscany. But between the years +1200 and 1250 Florence assumed the place she was to hold +thenceforward, by heading the league of Tuscan cities formed to +support the Guelf party against the Ghibellines. Formally adopting the +Guelf cause, the Florentines made themselves the champions of +municipal liberty in Central Italy; and while they declared war +against the Ghibelline cities, they endeavoured to stamp out the very +name of noble in their State. It is not needful to describe the +varying fortunes of the Guelfs and Ghibellines, the burghers and the +nobles, during the thirteenth and the first half of the fourteenth +centuries. Suffice it to say that through all the vicissitudes of that +stormy period the name Guelf became more and more associated with +republican freedom in Florence. At last, after the final triumph of +that party in 1253, the Guelfs remained victors in the city. +Associating the glory of their independence with Guelf principles, the +citizens of Florence perpetuated within their State a faction that, in +its turn, was destined to prove perilous to liberty. + +When it became clear that the republic was to rule itself henceforth +untrammelled by imperial interference, the people divided themselves +into six districts, and chose for each district two Ancients, who +administered the government in concert with the Potestà and the +Captain of the People. The Ancients were a relic of the old Roman +municipal organisation. The Potestà who was invariably a noble +foreigner selected by the people, represented the extinct imperial +right, and exercised the power of life and death within the city. The +Captain of the People, who was also a foreigner, headed the burghers +in their military capacity, for at that period the troops were levied +from the citizens themselves in twenty companies. The body of the +citizens, or the _popolo_, were ultimately sovereigns in the State. +Assembled under the banners of their several companies, they formed a +_parlamento_ for delegating their own power to each successive +government. Their representatives, again, arranged in two councils, +called the Council of the People and the Council of the Commune, under +the presidency of the Captain of the People and the Potestà , ratified +the measures which had previously been proposed and carried by the +executive authority or Signoria. Under this simple State system the +Florentines placed themselves at the head of the Tuscan League, fought +the battles of the Church, asserted their sovereignty by issuing the +golden florin of the republic, and flourished until 1266. + + +III + + +In that year an important change was effected in the Constitution. +The whole population of Florence consisted, on the one hand, of nobles +or Grandi, as they were called in Tuscany, and on the other hand of +working people. The latter, divided into traders and handicraftsmen, +were distributed in guilds called Arti; and at that time there were +seven Greater and five Lesser Arti, the most influential of all being +the Guild of the Wool Merchants. These guilds had their halls for +meeting, their colleges of chief officers, their heads, called Consoli +or Priors, and their flags. In 1266 it was decided that the +administration of the commonwealth should be placed simply and wholly +in the hands of the Arti, and the Priors of these industrial companies +became the lords or Signory of Florence. No inhabitant of the city who +had not enrolled himself as a craftsman in one of the guilds could +exercise any function of burghership. To be _scioperato_, or without +industry, was to be without power, without rank or place of honour in +the State. The revolution which placed the Arts at the head of the +republic had the practical effect of excluding the Grandi altogether +from the government. Violent efforts were made by these noble +families, potent through their territorial possessions and foreign +connections, and trained from boyhood in the use of arms, to recover +the place from which the new laws thrust them: but their menacing +attitude, instead of intimidating the burghers, roused their anger and +drove them to the passing of still more stringent laws. In 1293, after +the Ghibellines had been defeated in the great battle of Campaldino, a +series of severe enactments, called the Ordinances of Justice, were +decreed against the unruly Grandi. All civic rights were taken from +them; the severest penalties were attached to their slightest +infringement of municipal law; their titles to land were limited; the +privilege of living within the city walls was allowed them only under +galling restrictions; and, last not least, a supreme magistrate, named +the Gonfalonier of Justice, was created for the special purpose of +watching them and carrying out the penal code against them. +Henceforward Florence was governed exclusively by merchants and +artisans. The Grandi hastened to enrol themselves in the guilds, +exchanging their former titles and dignities for the solid privilege +of burghership. The exact parallel to this industrial constitution for +a commonwealth, carrying on wars with emperors and princes, holding +haughty captains in its pay, and dictating laws to subject cities, +cannot, I think, be elsewhere found in history. It is as unique as the +Florence of Dante and Giotto is unique. While the people was guarding +itself thus stringently against the Grandi, a separate body was +created for the special purpose of extirpating the Ghibellines. A +permanent committee of vigilance, called the College or the Captains +of the Guelf Party, was established. It was their function to +administer the forfeited possessions of Ghibelline rebels, to hunt out +suspected citizens, to prosecute them for Ghibellinism, to judge them, +and to punish them as traitors to the commonwealth. This body, like a +little State within the State, proved formidable to the republic +itself through the unlimited and undefined sway it exercised over +burghers whom it chose to tax with treason. In course of time it +became the oligarchical element within the Florentine democracy, and +threatened to change the free constitution of the city into a +government conducted by a few powerful families. + +There is no need to dwell in detail on the internal difficulties of +Florence during the first half of the fourteenth century. Two main +circumstances, however, require to be briefly noticed. These are (i) +the contest of the Blacks and Whites, so famous through the part +played in it by Dante; and (ii) the tyranny of the Duke[1] of Athens, +Walter de Brienne. The feuds of the Blacks and Whites broke up the +city into factions, and produced such anarchy that at last it was +found necessary to place the republic under the protection of foreign +potentates. Charles of Valois was first chosen, and after him the Duke +of Athens, who took up his residence in the city. Entrusted with +dictatorial authority, he used his power to form a military despotism. +Though his reign of violence lasted rather less than a year, it bore +important fruits; for the tyrant, seeking to support himself upon the +favour of the common people, gave political power to the Lesser Arts +at the expense of the Greater, and confused the old State-system by +enlarging the democracy. The net result of these events for Florence +was, first, that the city became habituated to rancorous party-strife, +involving exiles and proscriptions; and, secondly, that it lost its +primitive social hierarchy of classes. + + +IV + + +After the Guelfs had conquered the Ghibellines, and the people had +absorbed the Grandi in their guilds, the next chapter in the troubled +history of Florence was the division of the Popolo against itself. +Civil strife now declared itself as a conflict between labour and +capital. The members of the Lesser Arts, craftsmen who plied trades +subordinate to those of the Greater Arts, rose up against their social +and political superiors, demanding a larger share in the government, a +more equal distribution of profits, higher wages, and privileges that +should place them on an absolute equality with the wealthy merchants. +It was in the year 1378 that the proletariate broke out into +rebellion. Previous events had prepared the way for this revolt. First +of all, the republic had been democratised through the destruction of +the Grandi and through the popular policy pursued to gain his own ends +by the Duke of Athens. Secondly, society had been shaken to its very +foundation by the great plague of 1348. Both Boccaccio and Matteo +Villani draw lively pictures of the relaxed morality and loss of order +consequent upon this terrible disaster; nor had thirty years sufficed +to restore their relative position to grades and ranks confounded by +an overwhelming calamity. We may therefore reckon the great plague of +1348 among the causes which produced the anarchy of 1378. Rising in a +mass to claim their privileges, the artisans ejected the Signory from +the Public Palace, and for awhile Florence was at the mercy of the +mob. It is worthy of notice that the Medici, whose name is scarcely +known before this epoch, now came for one moment to the front. +Salvestro de' Medici was Gonfalonier of Justice at the time when the +tumult first broke out. He followed the faction of the handicraftsmen, +and became the hero of the day. I cannot discover that he did more +than extend a sort of passive protection to their cause. Yet there is +no doubt that the attachment of the working classes to the House of +Medici dates from this period. The rebellion of 1378 is known in +Florentine history as the Tumult of the Ciompi. The name Ciompi +strictly means the Wool-Carders. One set of operatives in the city, +and that the largest, gave its title to the whole body of the +labourers. For some months these craftsmen governed the republic, +appointing their own Signory and passing laws in their own interest; +but, as is usual, the proletariate found itself incapable of sustained +government. The ambition and discontent of the Ciompi foamed +themselves away, and industrious working men began to see that trade +was languishing and credit on the wane. By their own act at last they +restored the government to the Priors of the Greater Arti. Still the +movement had not been without grave consequences. It completed the +levelling of classes, which had been steadily advancing from the first +in Florence. After the Ciompi riot there was no longer not only any +distinction between noble and burgher, but the distinction between +greater and lesser guilds was practically swept away. The classes, +parties, and degrees in the republic were so broken up, ground down, +and mingled, that thenceforth the true source of power in the State +was wealth combined with personal ability. In other words, the proper +political conditions had been formed for unscrupulous adventurers. +Florence had become a democracy without social organisation, which +might fall a prey to oligarchs or despots. What remained of deeply +rooted feuds or factions--animosities against the Grandi, hatred for +the Ghibellines, jealousy of labour and capital--offered so many +points of leverage for stirring the passions of the people and for +covering personal ambition with a cloak of public zeal. The time was +come for the Albizzi to attempt an oligarchy, and for the Medici to +begin the enslavement of the State. + + +V + + +The Constitution of Florence offered many points of weakness to the +attacks of such intriguers. In the first place it was in its origin +not a political but an industrial organisation--a simple group of +guilds invested with the sovereign authority. Its two most powerful +engines, the Gonfalonier of Justice and the Guelf College, had been +formed, not with a view to the preservation of the government, but +with the purpose of quelling the nobles and excluding a detested +faction. It had no permanent head, like the Doge of Venice; no fixed +senate like the Venetian Grand Council; its chief magistrates, the +Signory, were elected for short periods of two months, and their mode +of election was open to the gravest criticism. Supposed to be chosen +by lot, they were really selected from lists drawn up by the factions +in power from time to time. These factions contrived to exclude the +names of all but their adherents from the bags, or _borse_, in which +the burghers eligible for election had to be inscribed. Furthermore, +it was not possible for this shifting Signory to conduct affairs +requiring sustained effort and secret deliberation; therefore recourse +was being continually had to dictatorial Commissions. The people, +summoned in parliament upon the Great Square, were asked to confer +plenipotentiary authority upon a committee called _Balia_, who +proceeded to do what they chose in the State, and who retained power +after the emergency for which they were created passed away. The same +instability in the supreme magistracy led to the appointment of +special commissioners for war, and special councils, or _Pratiche_, +for the management of each department. Such supplementary commissions +not only proved the weakness of the central authority, but they were +always liable to be made the instruments of party warfare. The Guelf +College was another and a different source of danger to the State. Not +acting under the control of the Signory, but using its own initiative, +this powerful body could proscribe and punish burghers on the mere +suspicion of Ghibellinism. Though the Ghibelline faction had become an +empty name, the Guelf College excluded from the franchise all and +every whom they chose on any pretext to admonish. Under this mild +phrase, _to admonish_, was concealed a cruel exercise of tyranny--it +meant to warn a man that he was suspected of treason, and that he had +better relinquish the exercise of his burghership. By free use of this +engine of Admonition, the Guelf College rendered their enemies +voiceless in the State, and were able to pack the Signory and the +councils with their own creatures. Another important defect in the +Florentine Constitution was the method of imposing taxes. This was +done by no regular system. The party in power made what estimate it +chose of a man's capacity to bear taxation, and called upon him for +extraordinary loans. In this way citizens were frequently driven into +bankruptcy and exile; and since to be a debtor to the State deprived a +burgher of his civic rights, severe taxation was one of the best ways +of silencing and neutralising a dissentient. + +I have enumerated these several causes of weakness in the Florentine +State-system, partly because they show how irregularly the +Constitution had been formed by the patching and extension of a simple +industrial machine to suit the needs of a great commonwealth; partly +because it was through these defects that the democracy merged +gradually into a despotism. The art of the Medici consisted in a +scientific comprehension of these very imperfections, a methodic use +of them for their own purposes, and a steady opposition to any +attempts made to substitute a stricter system. The Florentines had +determined to be an industrial community, governing themselves on the +co-operative principle, dividing profits, sharing losses, and exposing +their magistrates to rigid scrutiny. All this in theory was excellent. +Had they remained an unambitious and peaceful commonwealth, engaged in +the wool and silk trade, it might have answered. Modern Europe might +have admired the model of a communistic and commercial democracy. But +when they engaged in aggressive wars, and sought to enslave +sister-cities like Pisa and Lucca, it was soon found that their simple +trading constitution would not serve. They had to piece it out with +subordinate machinery, cumbrous, difficult to manage, ill-adapted to +the original structure. Each limb of this subordinate machinery, +moreover, was a _point d'appui_ for insidious and self-seeking party +leaders. + +Florence, in the middle of the fourteenth century, was a vast beehive +of industry. Distinctions of rank among burghers, qualified to vote +and hold office, were theoretically unknown. Highly educated men, of +more than princely wealth, spent their time in shops and +counting-houses, and trained their sons to follow trades. Military +service at this period was abandoned by the citizens; they preferred +to pay mercenary troops for the conduct of their wars. Nor was there, +as in Venice, any outlet for their energies upon the seas. Florence +had no navy, no great port--she only kept a small fleet for the +protection of her commerce. Thus the vigour of the commonwealth was +concentrated on itself; while the influence of the citizens, through +their affiliated trading-houses, correspondents, and agents, extended +like a network over Europe. In a community of this kind it was natural +that wealth--rank and titles being absent--should alone confer +distinction. Accordingly we find that out of the very bosom of the +people a new plutocratic aristocracy begins to rise. The Grandi are +no more; but certain families achieve distinction by their riches, +their numbers, their high spirit, and their ancient place of honour in +the State. These nobles of the purse obtained the name of _Popolani +Nobili_; and it was they who now began to play at high stakes for the +supreme power. In all the subsequent vicissitudes of Florence every +change takes place by intrigue and by clever manipulation of the +political machine. Recourse is rarely had to violence of any kind, and +the leaders of revolutions are men of the yard-measure, never of the +sword. The despotism to which the republic eventually succumbed was no +less commercial than the democracy had been. Florence in the days of +her slavery remained a _Popolo_. + + +VI + + +The opening of the second half of the fourteenth century had been +signalised by the feuds of two great houses, both risen from the +people. These were the Albizzi and the Ricci. At this epoch there had +been a formal closing of the lists of burghers;--henceforth no new +families who might settle in the city could claim the franchise, vote +in the assemblies, or hold magistracies. The Guelf College used their +old engine of admonition to persecute _novi homines_, whom they +dreaded as opponents. At the head of this formidable organisation the +Albizzi placed themselves, and worked it with such skill that they +succeeded in driving the Ricci out of all participation in the +government. The tumult of the Ciompi formed but an episode in their +career toward oligarchy; indeed, that revolution only rendered the +political material of the Florentine republic more plastic in the +hands of intriguers, by removing the last vestiges of class +distinctions and by confusing the old parties of the State. + +When the Florentines in 1387 engaged in their long duel with Gian +Galeazzo Visconti, the difficulty of conducting this war without some +permanent central authority still further confirmed the power of the +rising oligarchs. The Albizzi became daily more autocratic, until in +1393 their chief, Maso degli Albizzi, a man of strong will and prudent +policy, was chosen Gonfalonier of Justice. Assuming the sway of a +dictator he revised the list of burghers capable of holding office, +struck out the private opponents of his house, and excluded all names +but those of powerful families who were well affected towards an +aristocratic government. The great house of the Alberti were exiled in +a body, declared rebels, and deprived of their possessions, for no +reason except that they seemed dangerous to the Albizzi. It was in +vain that the people murmured against these arbitrary acts. The new +rulers were omnipotent in the Signory, which they packed with their +own men, in the great guilds, and in the Guelf College. All the +machinery invented by the industrial community for its self-management +and self-defence was controlled and manipulated by a close body of +aristocrats, with the Albizzi at their head. It seemed as though +Florence, without any visible alteration in her forms of government, +was rapidly becoming an oligarchy even less open than the Venetian +republic. Meanwhile the affairs of the State were most flourishing. +The strong-handed masters of the city not only held the Duke of Milan +in check, and prevented him from turning Italy into a kingdom; they +furthermore acquired the cities of Pisa, Livorno, Arezzo, +Montepulciano, and Cortona, for Florence, making her the mistress of +all Tuscany, with the exception of Siena, Lucca, and Volterra. Maso +degli Albizzi was the ruling spirit of the commonwealth, spending the +enormous sum of 11,500,000 golden florins on war, raising sumptuous +edifices, protecting the arts, and acting in general like a powerful +and irresponsible prince. + +In spite of public prosperity there were signs, however, that this +rule of a few families could not last. Their government was only +maintained by continual revision of the lists of burghers, by +elimination of the disaffected, and by unremitting personal industry. +They introduced no new machinery into the Constitution whereby the +people might be deprived of its titular sovereignty, or their own +dictatorship might be continued with a semblance of legality. Again, +they neglected to win over the new nobles (_nobili popolani_) in a +body to their cause; and thus they were surrounded by rivals ready to +spring upon them when a false step should be made. The Albizzi +oligarchy was a masterpiece of art, without any force to sustain it +but the craft and energy of its constructors. It had not grown up, +like the Venetian oligarchy, by the gradual assimilation to itself of +all the vigour in the State. It was bound, sooner or later, to yield +to the renascent impulse of democracy inherent in Florentine +institutions. + + +VII + + +Maso degli Albizzi died in 1417. He was succeeded in the government by +his old friend, Niccolo da Uzzano, a man of great eloquence and +wisdom, whose single word swayed the councils of the people as he +listed. Together with him acted Maso's son, Rinaldo, a youth of even +more brilliant talents than his father, frank, noble, and +high-spirited, but far less cautious. + +The oligarchy, which these two men undertook to manage, had +accumulated against itself the discontent of overtaxed, disfranchised, +jealous burghers. The times, too, were bad. Pursuing the policy of +Maso, the Albizzi engaged the city in a tedious and unsuccessful war +with Filippo Maria Visconti, which cost 350,000 golden florins, and +brought no credit. In order to meet extraordinary expenses they raised +new public loans, thereby depreciating the value of the old Florentine +funds. "What was worse, they imposed forced subsidies with grievous +inequality upon the burghers, passing over their friends and +adherents, and burdening their opponents with more than could be +borne. This imprudent financial policy began the ruin of the Albizzi. +It caused a clamour in the city for a new system of more just +taxation, which was too powerful to be resisted. The voice of the +people made itself loudly heard; and with the people on this occasion +sided Giovanni de' Medici. This was in 1427. + +It is here that the Medici appear upon that memorable scene where in +the future they are to play the first part. Giovanni de' Medici did +not belong to the same branch of his family as the Salvestro who +favoured the people at the time of the Ciompi Tumult. But he adopted +the same popular policy. To his sons Cosimo and Lorenzo he bequeathed +on his deathbed the rule that they should invariably adhere to the +cause of the multitude, found their influence on that, and avoid the +arts of factious and ambitious leaders. In his own life he had pursued +this course of conduct, acquiring a reputation for civic moderation +and impartiality that endeared him to the people and stood his +children in good stead. Early in his youth Giovanni found himself +almost destitute by reason of the imposts charged upon him by the +oligarchs. He possessed, however, the genius for money-making to a +rare degree, and passed his manhood as a banker, amassing the largest +fortune of any private citizen in Italy. In his old age he devoted +himself to the organisation of his colossal trading business, and +abstained, as far as possible, from political intrigues. Men observed +that they rarely met him in the Public Palace or on the Great Square. + +Cosimo de' Medici was thirty years old when his father Giovanni died, +in 1429. During his youth he had devoted all his time and energy to +business, mastering the complicated affairs of Giovanni's +banking-house, and travelling far and wide through Europe to extend +its connections. This education made him a consummate financier; and +those who knew him best were convinced that his ambition was set on +great things. However quietly he might begin, it was clear that he +intended to match himself, as a leader of the plebeians, against the +Albizzi. The foundations he prepared for future action were equally +characteristic of the man, of Florence, and of the age. Commanding the +enormous capital of the Medicean bank he contrived, at any sacrifice +of temporary convenience, to lend money to the State for war expenses, +engrossing in his own hands a large portion of the public debt of +Florence. At the same time his agencies in various European capitals +enabled him to keep his own wealth floating far beyond the reach of +foes within the city. A few years of this system ended in so complete +a confusion between Cosimo's trade and the finances of Florence that +the bankruptcy of the Medici, however caused, would have compromised +the credit of the State and the fortunes of the fund-holders. Cosimo, +in a word, made himself necessary to Florence by the wise use of his +riches. Furthermore, he kept his eye upon the list of burghers, +lending money to needy citizens, putting good things in the way of +struggling traders, building up the fortunes of men who were disposed +to favour his party in the State, ruining his opponents by the +legitimate process of commercial competition, and, when occasion +offered, introducing new voters into the Florentine Council by paying +off the debts of those who were disqualified by poverty from using the +franchise. While his capital was continually increasing he lived +frugally, and employed his wealth solely for the consolidation of his +political influence. By these arts Cosimo became formidable to the +oligarchs and beloved by the people. His supporters were numerous, and +held together by the bonds of immediate necessity or personal +cupidity. The plebeians and the merchants were all on his side. The +Grandi and the Ammoniti, excluded from the State by the practices of +the Albizzi, had more to hope from the Medicean party than from the +few families who still contrived to hold the reins of government. It +was clear that a conflict to the death must soon commence between the +oligarchy and this new faction. + + +VIII + + +At last, in 1433, war was declared. The first blow was struck by +Rinaldo degli Albizzi, who put himself in the wrong by attacking a +citizen indispensable to the people at large, and guilty of no +unconstitutional act. On September 7th of that year, a year decisive +for the future destinies of Florence, he summoned Cosimo to the Public +Palace, which he had previously occupied with troops at his command. +There he declared him a rebel to the State, and had him imprisoned in +a little square room in the central tower. The tocsin was sounded; the +people were assembled in parliament upon the piazza. The Albizzi held +the main streets with armed men, and forced the Florentines to place +plenipotentiary power for the administration of the commonwealth at +this crisis in the hands of a Balia, or committee selected by +themselves. It was always thus that acts of high tyranny were effected +in Florence. A show of legality was secured by gaining the compulsory +sanction of the people, driven by soldiery into the public square, and +hastily ordered to recognise the authority of their oppressors. + +The bill of indictment against the Medici accused them of sedition in +the year 1378--that is, in the year of the Ciompi Tumult--and of +treasonable practice during the whole course of the Albizzi +administration. It also strove to fix upon them the odium of the +unsuccessful war against the town of Lucca. As soon as the Albizzi had +unmasked their batteries, Lorenzo de' Medici managed to escape from +the city, and took with him his brother Cosimo's children to Venice. +Cosimo remained shut up within the little room called Barberia in +Arnolfo's tower. From that high eagle's nest the sight can range +Valdarno far and wide. Florence with her towers and domes lies below; +and the blue peaks of Carrara close a prospect westward than +which, with its villa-jewelled slopes and fertile gardens, there is +nought more beautiful upon the face of earth. The prisoner can have +paid but little heed to this fair landscape. He heard the frequent +ringing of the great bell that called the Florentines to council, the +tramp of armed men on the piazza, the coming and going of the burghers +in the palace halls beneath. On all sides lurked anxiety and fear of +death. Each mouthful he tasted might be poisoned. For many days he +partook of only bread and water, till his gaoler restored his +confidence by sharing all his meals. In this peril he abode +twenty-four days. The Albizzi, in concert with the Balia they had +formed, were consulting what they might venture to do with him. Some +voted for his execution. Others feared the popular favour, and thought +that if they killed Cosimo this act would ruin their own power. The +nobler natures among them determined to proceed by constitutional +measures. At last, upon September 29th, it was settled that Cosimo +should be exiled to Padua for ten years. The Medici were declared +Grandi, by way of excluding them from political rights. But their +property remained untouched; and on October 3rd, Cosimo was released. + +On the same day Cosimo took his departure. His journey northward +resembled a triumphant progress. He left Florence a simple burgher; he +entered Venice a powerful prince. Though the Albizzi seemed to have +gained the day, they had really cut away the ground beneath their +feet. They committed the fatal mistake of doing both too much and too +little--too much because they declared war against an innocent man, +and roused the sympathies of the whole people in his behalf; too +little, because they had not the nerve to complete their act by +killing him outright and extirpating his party. Machiavelli, in one of +his profoundest and most cynical critiques, remarks that few men know +how to be thoroughly bad with honour to themselves. Their will is +evil; but the grain of good in them--some fear of public opinion, +some repugnance to committing a signal crime--paralyses their arm at +the moment when it ought to have been raised to strike. He instances +Gian Paolo Baglioni's omission to murder Julius II., when that Pope +placed himself within his clutches at Perugia. He might also have +instanced Rinaldo degli Albizzi's refusal to push things to +extremities by murdering Cosimo. It was the combination of despotic +violence in the exile of Cosimo with constitutional moderation in the +preservation of his life, that betrayed the weakness of the oligarchs +and restored confidence to the Medicean party. + + +IX + + +In the course of the year 1434 this party began to hold up its head. +Powerful as the Albizzi were, they only retained the government by +artifice; and now they had done a deed which put at nought their +former arts and intrigues. A Signory favourable to the Medici came +into office, and on September 26th, 1434, Rinaldo in his turn was +summoned to the palace and declared a rebel. He strove to raise the +forces of his party, and entered the piazza at the head of eight +hundred men. The menacing attitude of the people, however, made +resistance perilous. Rinaldo disbanded his troops, and placed himself +under the protection of Pope Eugenius IV., who was then resident in +Florence. This act of submission proved that Rinaldo had not the +courage or the cruelty to try the chance of civil war. Whatever his +motives may have been, he lost his hold upon the State beyond +recovery. On September 29th, a new parliament was summoned; on October +2nd, Cosimo was recalled from exile and the Albizzi were banished. The +intercession of the Pope procured for them nothing but the liberty to +leave Florence unmolested. Einaldo turned his back upon the city he +had governed, never to set foot in it again. On October 6th, Cosimo, +having passed through Padua, Ferrara, and Modena like a conqueror, +reentered the town amid the plaudits of the people, and took up his +dwelling as an honoured guest in the Palace of the Republic. The +subsequent history of Florence is the history of his family. In after +years the Medici loved to remember this return of Cosimo. His +triumphal reception was painted in fresco on the walls of their villa +at Cajano under the transparent allegory of Cicero's entrance into +Rome. + + +X + + +By their brief exile the Medici had gained the credit of injured +innocence, the fame of martyrdom in the popular cause. Their foes had +struck the first blow, and in striking at them had seemed to aim +against the liberties of the republic. The mere failure of their +adversaries to hold the power they had acquired, handed over this +power to the Medici; and the reprisals which the Medici began to take +had the show of justice, not of personal hatred, or petty vengeance. +Cosimo was a true Florentine. He disliked violence, because he knew +that blood spilt cries for blood. His passions, too, were cool and +temperate. No gust of anger, no intoxication of success, destroyed his +balance. His one object, the consolidation of power for his family on +the basis of popular favour, was kept steadily in view; and he would +do nothing that might compromise that end. Yet he was neither generous +nor merciful. We therefore find that from the first moment of his +return to Florence he instituted a system of pitiless and unforgiving +persecution against his old opponents. The Albizzi were banished, root +and branch, with all their followers, consigned to lonely and often to +unwholesome stations through the length and breadth of Italy. If they +broke the bonds assigned them, they were forthwith declared traitors +and their property was confiscated. After a long series of years, by +merely keeping in force the first sentence pronounced upon them, +Cosimo had the cruel satisfaction of seeing the whole of that proud +oligarchy die out by slow degrees in the insufferable tedium of +solitude and exile. Even the high-souled Palla degli Strozzi, who had +striven to remain neutral, and whose wealth and talents were devoted +to the revival of classical studies, was proscribed because to Cosimo +he seemed too powerful. Separated from his children, he died in +banishment at Padua. In this way the return of the Medici involved the +loss to Florence of some noble citizens, who might perchance have +checked the Medicean tyranny if they had stayed to guide the State. +The plebeians, raised to wealth and influence by Cosimo before his +exile, now took the lead in the republic. He used these men as +catspaws, rarely putting himself forward or allowing his own name to +appear, but pulling the wires of government in privacy by means of +intermediate agents. The Medicean party was called at first _Puccini_ +from a certain Puccio, whose name was better known in caucus or +committee than that of his real master. + +To rule through these creatures of his own making taxed all the +ingenuity of Cosimo; but his profound and subtle intellect was suited +to the task, and he found unlimited pleasure in the exercise of his +consummate craft. We have already seen to what extent he used his +riches for the acquisition of political influence. Now that he had +come to power, he continued the same method, packing the Signory and +the Councils with men whom he could hold by debt between his thumb and +finger. His command of the public moneys enabled him to wink at +peculation in State offices; it was part of his system to bind +magistrates and secretaries to his interest by their consciousness of +guilt condoned but not forgotten. Not a few, moreover, owed their +living to the appointments he procured for them. While he thus +controlled the wheel-work of the commonwealth by means of organised +corruption, he borrowed the arts of his old enemies to oppress +dissentient citizens. If a man took an independent line in voting, +and refused allegiance to the Medicean party, he was marked out for +persecution. No violence was used; but he found himself hampered in +his commerce--money, plentiful for others, became scarce for him; his +competitors in trade were subsidised to undersell him. And while the +avenues of industry were closed, his fortune was taxed above its +value, until he had to sell at a loss in order to discharge his public +obligations. In the first twenty years of the Medicean rule, seventy +families had to pay 4,875,000 golden florins of extraordinary imposts, +fixed by arbitrary assessment. + +The more patriotic members of his party looked with dread and loathing +on this system of corruption and exclusion. To their remonstrances +Cosimo replied in four memorable sayings: 'Better the State spoiled +than the State not ours.' 'Governments cannot be carried on with +paternosters.' 'An ell of scarlet makes a burgher.' 'I aim at finite +ends.' These maxims represent the whole man,--first, in his egotism, +eager to gain Florence for his family, at any risk of her ruin; +secondly, in his cynical acceptance of base means to selfish ends; +thirdly, in his bourgeois belief that money makes a man, and fine +clothes suffice for a citizen; fourthly, in his worldly ambition bent +on positive success. It was, in fact, his policy to reduce Florence to +the condition of a rotten borough: nor did this policy fail. One +notable sign of the influence he exercised was the change which now +came over the foreign relations of the republic. Up to the date of his +dictatorship Florence had uniformly fought the battle of freedom in +Italy. It was the chief merit of the Albizzi oligarchy that they +continued the traditions of the mediæval State, and by their vigorous +action checked the growth of the Visconti. Though they engrossed the +government they never forgot that they were first of all things +Florentines, and only in the second place men who owed their power and +influence to office. In a word, they acted like patriotic Tories, like +republican patricians. Therefore they would not ally themselves with +tyrants or countenance the enslavement of free cities by armed +despots. Their subjugation of the Tuscan burghs to Florence was itself +part of a grand republican policy. Cosimo changed all this. When the +Visconti dynasty ended by the death of Filippo Maria in 1447, there +was a chance of restoring the independence of Lombardy. Milan in +effect declared herself a republic, and by the aid of Florence she +might at this moment have maintained her liberty. Cosimo, however, +entered into treaty with Francesco Sforza, supplied him with money, +guaranteed him against Florentine interference, and saw with +satisfaction how he reduced the duchy to his military tyranny. The +Medici were conscious that they, selfishly, had most to gain by +supporting despots who in time of need might help them to confirm +their own authority. With the same end in view, when the legitimate +line of the Bentivogli was extinguished, Cosimo hunted out a bastard +pretender of that family, presented him to the chiefs of the +Bentivogli faction, and had him placed upon the seat of his supposed +ancestors at Bologna. This young man, a certain Santi da Cascese, +presumed to be the son of Ercole de' Bentivogli, was an artisan in a +wool factory when Cosimo set eyes upon him. At first Santi refused the +dangerous honour of governing a proud republic; but the intrigues of +Cosimo prevailed, and the obscure craftsman ended his days a powerful +prince. + +By the arts I have attempted to describe, Cosimo in the course of his +long life absorbed the forces of the republic into himself. While he +shunned the external signs of despotic power he made himself the +master of the State. His complexion was of a pale olive; his stature +short; abstemious and simple in his habits, affable in conversation, +sparing of speech, he knew how to combine that burgher-like civility +for which the Romans praised Augustus, with the reality of a despotism +all the more difficult to combat because it seemed nowhere and was +everywhere. When he died, at the age of seventy-five, in 1464, the +people whom he had enslaved, but whom he had neither injured nor +insulted, honoured him with the title of _Pater Patriæ_. This was +inscribed upon his tomb in S. Lorenzo. He left to posterity the fame +of a great and generous patron,[14] the infamy of a cynical, +self-seeking, bourgeois tyrant. Such combinations of contradictory +qualities were common enough at the time of the Renaissance. Did not +Machiavelli spend his days in tavern-brawls and low amours, his nights +among the mighty spirits of the dead, with whom, when he had changed +his country suit of homespun for the habit of the Court, he found +himself an honoured equal? + + +XI + + +Cosimo had shown consummate skill by governing Florence through a +party created and raised to influence by himself. The jealousy of +these adherents formed the chief difficulty with which his son Piero +had to contend. Unless the Medici could manage to kick down the ladder +whereby they had risen, they ran the risk of losing all. As on a +former occasion, so now they profited by the mistakes of their +antagonists. Three chief men of their own party, Diotisalvi Neroni, +Agnolo Acciaiuoli, and Luca Pitti, determined to shake off the yoke of +their masters, and to repay the Medici for what they owed by leading +them to ruin. Niccolo Soderini, a patriot, indignant at the slow +enslavement of his country, joined them. At first they strove to +undermine the credit of the Medici with the Florentines by inducing +Piero to call in the moneys placed at interest by his father in the +hands of private citizens. This act was unpopular; but it did not +suffice to move a revolution. To proceed by constitutional measures +against the Medici was judged impolitic. Therefore the conspirators +decided to take, if possible, Piero's life. The plot failed, chiefly +owing to the coolness and the cunning of the young Lorenzo, Piero's +eldest son. Public sympathy was strongly excited against the +aggressors. Neroni, Acciaiuoli, and Soderini were exiled. Pitti was +allowed to stay, dishonoured, powerless, and penniless, in Florence. +Meanwhile, the failure of their foes had only served to strengthen the +position of the Medici. The ladder had saved them the trouble of +kicking it down. + +The congratulations addressed on this occasion to Piero and Lorenzo by +the ruling powers of Italy show that the Medici were already regarded +as princes outside Florence. Lorenzo and Giuliano, the two sons of +Piero, travelled abroad to the Courts of Milan and Ferrara with the +style and state of more than simple citizens. At home they occupied +the first place on all occasions of public ceremony, receiving royal +visitors on terms of equality, and performing the hospitalities of the +republic like men who had been born to represent its dignities. +Lorenzo's marriage to Clarice Orsini, of the noble Roman house, was +another sign that the Medici were advancing on the way toward +despotism. Cosimo had avoided foreign alliances for his children. His +descendants now judged themselves firmly planted enough to risk the +odium of a princely match for the sake of the support outside the city +they might win. + + +XII + + + +Piero de' Medici died in December 1469. His son Lorenzo was then +barely twenty-two years of age. The chiefs of the Medicean party, +all-powerful in the State, held a council, in which they resolved to +place him in the same position as his father and grandfather. This +resolve seems to have been formed after mature deliberation, on the +ground that the existing conditions of Italian politics rendered it +impossible to conduct the government without a presidential head. +Florence, though still a democracy, required a permanent chief to +treat on an equality with the princes of the leading cities. Here we +may note the prudence of Cosimo's foreign policy. When he helped to +establish despots in Milan and Bologna he was rendering the presidency +of his own family in Florence necessary. + +Lorenzo, having received this invitation, called attention to his +youth and inexperience. Yet he did not refuse it; and, after a +graceful display of diffidence, he accepted the charge, entering thus +upon that famous political career, in the course of which he not only +established and maintained a balance of power in Italy, with Florence +for the central city, but also contrived to remodel the government of +the republic in the interest of his own family and to strengthen the +Medici by relations with the Papal See. + +The extraordinary versatility of this man's intellectual and social +gifts, his participation in all the literary and philosophical +interests of his century, his large and liberal patronage of art, and +the gaiety with which he joined the people of Florence in their +pastimes--Mayday games and Carnival festivities--strengthened his hold +upon the city in an age devoted to culture and refined pleasure. +Whatever was most brilliant in the spirit of the Italian Benaissance +seemed to be incarnate in Lorenzo. Not merely as a patron and a +dilettante, but as a poet and a critic, a philosopher and scholar, he +proved himself adequate to the varied intellectual ambitions of his +country. Penetrated with the passion for erudition which distinguished +Florence in the fifteenth century, familiar with her painters and her +sculptors, deeply read in the works of her great poets, he conceived +the ideal of infusing the spirit of antique civility into modern life, +and of effecting for society what the artists were performing in their +own sphere. To preserve the native character of the Florentine genius, +while he added the grace of classic form, was the aim to which his +tastes and instincts led him. At the same time, while he made himself +the master of Florentine revels and the Augustus of Renaissance +literature, he took care that beneath his carnival masks and +ball-dress should be concealed the chains which he was forging for the +republic. + +What he lacked, with so much mental brilliancy, was moral greatness. +The age he lived in was an age of selfish despots, treacherous +generals, godless priests. It was an age of intellectual vigour and +artistic creativeness; but it was also an age of mean ambition, sordid +policy, and vitiated principles. Lorenzo remained true in all respects +to the genius of this age: true to its enthusiasm for antique culture, +true to its passion for art, true to its refined love of pleasure; but +true also to its petty political intrigues, to its cynical +selfishness, to its lack of heroism. For Florence he looked no higher +and saw no further than Cosimo had done. If culture was his pastime, +the enslavement of the city by bribery and corruption was the hard +work of his manhood. As is the case with much Renaissance art, his +life was worth more for its decorative detail than for its +constructive design. In richness, versatility, variety, and +exquisiteness of execution, it left little to be desired; yet, viewed +at a distance, and as a whole, it does not inspire us with a sense of +architectonic majesty. + + +XIII + + +Lorenzo's chief difficulties arose from the necessity under which, +like Cosimo, he laboured of governing the city through its old +institutions by means of a party. To keep the members of this party in +good temper, and to gain their approval for the alterations he +effected in the State machinery of Florence, was the problem of his +life. The successful solution of this problem was easier now, after +two generations of the Medicean ascendency, than it had been at first. +Meanwhile the people were maintained in good humour by public shows, +ease, plenty, and a general laxity of discipline. The splendour of +Lorenzo's foreign alliances and the consideration he received from all +the Courts of Italy contributed in no small measure to his popularity +and security at home. By using his authority over Florence to inspire +respect abroad, and by using his foreign credit to impose upon the +burghers, Lorenzo displayed the tact of a true Italian diplomatist. +His genius for statecraft, as then understood, was indeed of a rare +order, equally adapted to the conduct of a complicated foreign policy +and to the control of a suspicious and variable Commonwealth. In one +point alone he was inferior to his grandfather. He neglected commerce, +and allowed his banking business to fall into disorder so hopeless +that in course of time he ceased to be solvent. Meanwhile his personal +expenses, both as a prince in his own palace, and as the +representative of majesty in Florence, continually increased. The +bankruptcy of the Medici, it had long been foreseen, would involve the +public finances in serious confusion. And now, in order to retrieve +his fortunes, Lorenzo was not only obliged to repudiate his debts to +the exchequer, but had also to gain complete disposal of the State +purse. It was this necessity that drove him to effect the +constitutional revolution of 1480, by which he substituted a Privy +Council of seventy members for the old Councils of the State, +absorbing the chief functions of the commonwealth into this single +body, whom he practically nominated at pleasure. The same want of +money led to the great scandal of his reign--the plundering of the +Monte delle Doti, or State Insurance Office Fund for securing dowers +to the children of its creditors. + + +XIV + + +While tracing the salient points of Lorenzo de' Medici's +administration I have omitted to mention the important events which +followed shortly after his accession to power in 1469. What happened +between that date and 1480 was not only decisive for the future +fortunes of the Casa Medici, but it was also eminently characteristic +of the perils and the difficulties which beset Italian despots. The +year 1471 was signalised by a visit by the Duke Galeazzo Maria Sforza +of Milan, and his wife Bona of Savoy, to the Medici in Florence. They +came attended by their whole Court--body guards on horse and foot, +ushers, pages, falconers, grooms, kennel-varlets, and huntsmen. +Omitting the mere baggage service, their train counted two thousand +horses. To mention this incident would be superfluous, had not so +acute an observer as Machiavelli marked it out as a turning-point in +Florentine history. Now, for the first time, the democratic +commonwealth saw its streets filled with a mob of courtiers. Masques, +balls, and tournaments succeeded each other with magnificent variety; +and all the arts of Florence were pressed into the service of these +festivals. Machiavelli says that the burghers lost the last remnant of +their old austerity of manners, and became, like the degenerate +Romans, ready to obey the masters who provided them with brilliant +spectacles. They gazed with admiration on the pomp of Italian +princes, their dissolute and godless living, their luxury and prodigal +expenditure; and when the Medici affected similar habits in the next +generation, the people had no courage to resist the invasion of their +pleasant vices. + +In the same year, 1471, Volterra was reconquered for the Florentines +by Frederick of Urbino. The honours of this victory, disgraced by a +brutal sack of the conquered city, in violation of its articles of +capitulation, were reserved for Lorenzo, who returned in triumph to +Florence. More than ever he assumed the prince, and in his person +undertook to represent the State. + +In the same year, 1471, Francesco della Rovere was raised to the +Papacy with the memorable name of Sixtus IV. Sixtus was a man of +violent temper and fierce passions, restless and impatiently +ambitious, bent on the aggrandisement of the beautiful and wanton +youths, his nephews. Of these the most aspiring was Girolamo Riario, +for whom Sixtus bought the town of Imola from Taddeo Manfredi, in +order that he might possess the title of count and the nucleus of a +tyranny in the Romagna. This purchase thwarted the plans of Lorenzo, +who wished to secure the same advantages for Florence. Smarting with +the sense of disappointment, he forbade the Roman banker, Francesco +Pazzi, to guarantee the purchase-money. By this act Lorenzo made two +mortal foes--the Pope and Francesco Pazzi. Francesco was a thin, pale, +atrabilious fanatic, all nerve and passion, with a monomaniac +intensity of purpose, and a will inflamed and guided by imagination--a +man formed by nature for conspiracy, such a man, in fact, as Shakspere +drew in Cassius. Maddened by Lorenzo's prohibition, he conceived the +notion of overthrowing the Medici in Florence by a violent blow. +Girolamo Riario entered into his views. So did Francesco Salviati, +Archbishop of Pisa, who had private reasons for hostility. These men +found no difficulty in winning over Sixtus to their plot; nor is it +possible to purge the Pope of participation in what followed. I need +not describe by what means Francesco drew the other members of his +family into the scheme, and how he secured the assistance of armed +cut-throats. Suffice it to say that the chief conspirators, with the +exception of the Count Girolamo, betook themselves to Florence, and +there, after the failure of other attempts, decided to murder Lorenzo +and his brother Giuliano in the cathedral on Sunday, April 26th, 1478. +The moment when the priest at the high altar finished the mass, was +fixed for the assassination. Everything was ready. The conspirators, +by Judas kisses and embracements, had discovered that the young men +wore no protective armour under their silken doublets. Pacing the +aisle behind the choir, they feared no treason. And now the lives of +both might easily have been secured, if at the last moment the courage +of the hired assassins had not failed them. Murder, they said, was +well enough; but they could not bring themselves to stab men before +the newly consecrated body of Christ. In this extremity a priest was +found who, 'being accustomed to churches,' had no scruples. He and +another reprobate were told off to Lorenzo. Francesco de' Pazzi +himself undertook Giuliano. The moment for attack arrived. Francesco +plunged his dagger into the heart of Giuliano. Then, not satisfied +with this death-blow, he struck again, and in his heat of passion +wounded his own thigh. Lorenzo escaped with a flesh-wound from the +poniard of the priest, and rushed into the sacristy, where his friend +Poliziano shut and held the brazen door. The plot had failed; for +Giuliano, of the two brothers, was the one whom the conspirators would +the more willingly have spared. The whole church was in an uproar. The +city rose in tumult. Rage and horror took possession of the people. +They flew to the Palazzo Pubblico and to the houses of the Pazzi, +hunted the conspirators from place to place, hung the archbishop by +the neck from the palace windows, and, as they found fresh victims +for their fury, strung them one by one in a ghastly row at his side +above the Square. About one hundred in all were killed. None who had +joined in the plot escaped; for Lorenzo had long arms, and one man, +who fled to Constantinople, was delivered over to his agents by the +Sultan. Out of the whole Pazzi family only Guglielmo, the husband of +Bianca de' Medici, was spared. When the tumult was over, Andrea del +Castagno painted the portraits of the traitors head-downwards upon the +walls of the Bargello Palace, in order that all men might know what +fate awaited the foes of the Medici and of the State of Florence.[15] +Meanwhile a bastard son of Giuliano's was received into the Medicean +household, to perpetuate his lineage. This child, named Giulio, was +destined to be famous in the annals of Italy and Florence under the +title of Pope Clement VII. + + +XV + + +As is usual when such plots miss their mark, the passions excited +redounded to the profit of the injured party. The commonwealth felt +that the blow struck at Lorenzo had been aimed at their majesty. +Sixtus, on the other hand, could not contain his rage at the failure +of so ably planned a _coup de main_. Ignoring that he had sanctioned +the treason, that a priest had put his hand to the dagger, that the +impious deed had been attempted in a church before the very Sacrament +of Christ, whose vicar on earth he was, the Pope now excommunicated +the republic. The reason he alleged was, that the Florentines had +dared to hang an archbishop. + +Thus began a war to the death between Sixtus and Florence. The Pope +inflamed the whole of Italy, and carried on a ruinous campaign in +Tuscany. It seemed as though the republic might lose her subject +cities, always ready to revolt when danger threatened the sovereign +State. Lorenzo's position became critical. Sixtus made no secret of +the hatred he bore him personally, declaring that he fought less with +Florence than with the Medici. To support the odium of this long war +and this heavy interdict alone, was more than he could do. His allies +forsook him. Naples was enlisted on the Pope's side. Milan and the +other States of Lombardy were occupied with their own affairs, and +held aloof. In this extremity he saw that nothing but a bold step +could save him. The league formed by Sixtus must be broken up at any +risk, and, if possible, by his own ability. On December 6th, 1479, +Lorenzo left Florence, unarmed and unattended, took ship at Leghorn, +and proceeded to the court of the enemy, King Ferdinand, at Naples. +Ferdinand was a cruel and treacherous sovereign, who had murdered his +guest, Jacopo Piccinino, at a banquet given in his honour. But +Ferdinand was the son of Alfonso, who, by address and eloquence, had +gained a kingdom from his foe and jailor, Filippo Maria Visconti. +Lorenzo calculated that he too, following Alfonso's policy, might +prove to Ferdinand how little there was to gain from an alliance with +Rome, how much Naples and Florence, firmly united together for offence +and defence, might effect in Italy. + +Only a student of those perilous times can appreciate the courage and +the genius, the audacity combined with diplomatic penetration, +displayed by Lorenzo at this crisis. He calmly walked into the lion's +den, trusting he could tame the lion and teach it, and all in a few +days. Nor did his expectation fail. Though Lorenzo was rather ugly +than handsome, with a dark skin, heavy brows, powerful jaws, and nose +sharp in the bridge and broad at the nostrils, without grace of +carriage or melody of voice, he possessed what makes up for personal +defects--the winning charm of eloquence in conversation, a subtle wit, +profound knowledge of men, and tact allied to sympathy, which placed +him always at the centre of the situation. Ferdinand received him +kindly. The Neapolitan nobles admired his courage and were fascinated +by his social talents. On March 1st, 1480, he left Naples again, +having won over the King by his arguments. When he reached Florence he +was able to declare that he brought home a treaty of peace and +alliance signed by the most powerful foe of the republic. The success +of this bold enterprise endeared Lorenzo more than ever to his +countrymen. In the same year they concluded a treaty with Sixtus, who +was forced against his will to lay down arms by the capture of Otranto +and the extreme peril of Turkish invasion. After the year 1480 Lorenzo +remained sole master in Florence, the arbiter and peacemaker of the +rest of Italy. + + +XVI + + +The conjuration of the Pazzi was only one in a long series of similar +conspiracies. Italian despots gained their power by violence and +wielded it with craft. Violence and craft were therefore used against +them. When the study of the classics had penetrated the nation with +antique ideas of heroism, tyrannicide became a virtue. Princes were +murdered with frightful frequency. Thus Gian Maria Visconti was put to +death at Milan in 1412; Galeazzo Maria Sforza in 1484; the Chiarelli +of Fabriano were massacred in 1435; the Baglioni of Perugia in 1500; +Girolamo Gentile planned the assassination of Galeazzo Sforza at Genoa +in 1476; Niccolo d'Este conspired against his uncle Ercole in 1476; +Stefano Porcari attempted the life of Nicholas V. at Rome in 1453; +Lodovico Sforza narrowly escaped a violent death in 1453. I might +multiply these instances beyond satiety. As it is, I have selected +but a few examples falling, all but one, within the second half of the +fifteenth century. Nearly all these attempts upon the lives of princes +were made in church during the celebration of sacred offices. There +was no superfluity of naughtiness, no wilful sacrilege, in this choice +of an occasion. It only testified to the continual suspicion and +guarded watchfulness maintained by tyrants. To strike at them except +in church was almost impossible. Meanwhile the fate of the +tyrannicides was uniform. Successful or not, they perished. Yet so +grievous was the pressure of Italian despotism, so glorious was the +ideal of Greek and Roman heroism, so passionate the temper of the +people, that to kill a prince at any cost to self appeared the crown +of manliness. This bloodshed exercised a delirious fascination: pure +and base, personal and patriotic motives combined to add intensity of +fixed and fiery purpose to the murderous impulse. Those then who, like +the Medici, aspired to tyranny and sought to found a dynasty of +princes, entered the arena against a host of unknown and unseen +gladiators. + + +XVII + + +On his deathbed, in 1492, Lorenzo lay between two men--Angelo +Poliziano and Girolamo Savonarola. Poliziano incarnated the genial, +radiant, godless spirit of fifteenth-century humanism. Savonarola +represented the conscience of Italy, self-convicted, amid all her +greatness, of crimes that called for punishment. It is said that when +Lorenzo asked the monk for absolution, Savonarola bade him first +restore freedom to Florence. Lorenzo, turned his face to the wall and +was silent. How indeed could he make this city in a moment free, after +sixty years of slow and systematic corruption? Savonarola left him, +and he died unshriven. This legend is doubtful, though it rests on +excellent if somewhat partial authority. It has, at any rate, the +value of a mythus, since it epitomises the attitude assumed by the +great preacher to the prince. Florence enslaved, the soul of Lorenzo +cannot lay its burden down, but must go with all its sins upon it to +the throne of God. + +The year 1492 was a memorable year for Italy. In this year Lorenzo's +death removed the keystone of the arch that had sustained the fabric +of Italian federation. In this year Roderigo Borgia was elected Pope. +In this year Columbus discovered America; Vasco de Gama soon after +opened a new way to the Indies, and thus the commerce of the world +passed from Italy to other nations. In this year the conquest of +Granada gave unity to the Spanish nation. In this year France, through +the lifelong craft of Louis XI., was for the first time united under a +young hot-headed sovereign. On every side of the political horizon +storms threatened. It was clear that a new chapter of European history +had been opened. Then Savonarola raised his voice, and cried that the +crimes of Italy, the abominations of the Church, would speedily be +punished. Events led rapidly to the fulfilment of this prophecy. +Lorenzo's successor, Piero de' Medici, was a vain, irresolute, and +hasty princeling, fond of display, proud of his skill in fencing and +football-playing, with too much of the Orsini blood in his hot veins, +with too little of the Medicean craft in his weak head. The Italian +despots felt they could not trust Piero, and this want of confidence +was probably the first motive that impelled Lodovico Sforza to call +Charles VIII. into Italy in 1494. + +It will not be necessary to dwell upon this invasion of the French, +except in so far as it affected Florence. Charles passed rapidly +through Lombardy, engaged his army in the passes of the Apennines, and +debouched upon the coast where the Magra divided Tuscany from Liguria. +Here the fortresses of Sarzana and Pietra Santa, between the marble +bulwark of Carrara and the Tuscan sea, stopped his further progress. +The keys were held by the Florentines. To force these strong positions +and to pass beyond them seemed impossible. It might have been +impossible if Piero de' Medici had possessed a firmer will. As it was, +he rode off to the French camp, delivered up the forts to Charles, +bound the King by no engagements, and returned not otherwise than +proud of his folly to Florence. A terrible reception awaited him. The +Florentines, in their fury, had risen and sacked the Medicean palace. +It was as much as Piero, with his brothers, could do to escape beyond +the hills to Venice. The despotism of the Medici, so carefully built +up, so artfully sustained and strengthened, was overthrown in a single +day. + + +XVIII + + +Before considering what happened in Florence after the expulsion of +the Medici, it will be well to pause a moment and review the state in +which Lorenzo had left his family. Piero, his eldest son, recognised +as chief of the republic after his father's death, was married to +Alfonsina Orsini, and was in his twenty-second year. Giovanni, his +second son, a youth of seventeen, had just been made cardinal. This +honour, of vast importance for the Casa Medici in the future, he owed +to his sister Maddalena's marriage to Franceschetto Cybo, son of +Innocent VIII. The third of Lorenzo's sons, named Giuliano, was a boy +of thirteen. Giulio, the bastard son of the elder Giuliano, was +fourteen. These four princes formed the efficient strength of the +Medici, the hope of the house; and for each of them, with the +exception of Piero, who died in exile, and of whom no more notice need +be taken, a brilliant destiny was still in store. In the year 1495, +however, they now wandered, homeless and helpless, through the cities +of Italy, each of which was shaken to its foundations by the French +invasion. + + +XIX + + +Florence, left without the Medici, deprived of Pisa and other subject +cities by the passage of the French army, with no leader but the monk +Savonarola, now sought to reconstitute her liberties. During the +domination of the Albizzi and the Medici the old order of the +commonwealth had been completely broken up. The Arti had lost their +primitive importance. The distinctions between the Grandi and the +Popolani had practically passed away. In a democracy that has +submitted to a lengthened course of tyranny, such extinction of its +old life is inevitable. Yet the passion for liberty was still +powerful; and the busy brains of the Florentines were stored with +experience gained from their previous vicissitudes, from \ the study +of antique history, and from the observation of existing constitutions +in the towns of Italy. They now determined to reorganise the State +upon the model of the Venetian republic. The Signory was to remain, +with its old institution of Priors, Gonfalonier, and College, elected +for brief periods. These magistrates were to take the initiative in +debate, to propose measures, and to consider plans of action. The real +power of the State, for voting supplies and ratifying the measures of +the Signory, was vested in a senate of one thousand members, called +the Grand Council, from whom a smaller body of forty, acting as +intermediates between the Council and the Signory, were elected. It is +said that the plan of this constitution originated with Savonarola; +nor is there any doubt that he used all his influence in the pulpit of +the Duomo to render it acceptable to the people. Whoever may have been +responsible for its formation, the new government was carried in +1495, and a large hall for the assembly of the Grand Council was +opened in the Public Palace. + +Savonarola, meanwhile, had become the ruling spirit of Florence. He +gained his great power as a preacher: he used it like a monk. The +motive principle of his action was the passion for reform. To bring +the Church back to its pristine state of purity, without altering its +doctrine or suggesting any new form of creed; to purge Italy of +ungodly customs; to overthrow the tyrants who encouraged evil living, +and to place the power of the State in the hands of sober citizens: +these were his objects. Though he set himself in bold opposition to +the reigning Pope, he had no desire to destroy the spiritual supremacy +of S. Peter's see. Though he burned with an enthusiastic zeal for +liberty, and displayed rare genius for administration, he had no +ambition to rule Florence like a dictator. Savonarola was neither a +reformer in the northern sense of the word, nor yet a political +demagogue. His sole wish was to see purity of manners and freedom of +self-government re-established. With this end in view he bade the +Florentines elect Christ as their supreme chief; and they did so. For +the same end he abstained from appearing in the State Councils, and +left the Constitution to work by its own laws. His personal influence +he reserved for the pulpit; and here he was omnipotent. The people +believed in him as a prophet. They turned to him as the man who knew +what he wanted--as the voice of liberty, the soul of the new régime, +the genius who could breathe into the commonwealth a breath of fresh +vitality. When, therefore, Savonarola preached a reform of manners, he +was at once obeyed. Strict laws were passed enforcing sobriety, +condemning trades of pleasure, reducing the gay customs of Florence to +puritanical austerity. + +Great stress has been laid upon this reaction of the monk-led populace +against the vices of the past. Yet the historian is bound to pronounce +that the reform effected by Savonarola was rather picturesque than +vital. Like all violent revivals of pietism, it produced a no less +violent reaction. The parties within the city who resented the +interference of a preaching friar, joined with the Pope in Rome, who +hated a contumacious schismatic in Savonarola. Assailed by these two +forces at the same moment, and driven upon perilous ground by his own +febrile enthusiasm, Savonarola succumbed. He was imprisoned, tortured, +and burned upon the public square in 1498. + +What Savonarola really achieved for Florence was not a permanent +reform of morality, but a resuscitation of the spirit of freedom. His +followers, called in contempt _I Piagnoni_, or the Weepers, formed the +path of the commonwealth in future; and the memory of their martyr +served as a common bond of sympathy to unite them in times of trial. +It was a necessary consequence of the peculiar part he played that the +city was henceforth divided into factions representing mutually +antagonistic principles. These factions were not created by +Savonarola; but his extraordinary influence accentuated, as it were, +the humours that lay dormant in the State. Families favourable to the +Medici took the name of _Palleschi_. Men who chafed against +puritanical reform, and who were eager for any government that should +secure them their old licence, were known as _Compagnacci_. Meanwhile +the oligarchs, who disliked a democratic Constitution, and thought it +possible to found an aristocracy without the intervention of the +Medici, came to be known as _Gli Ottimati_. Florence held within +itself, from this epoch forward to the final extinction of liberty, +four great parties: the _Piagnoni_, passionate for political freedom +and austerity of life; the _Palleschi_, favourable to the Medicean +cause, and regretful of Lorenzo's pleasant rule; the _Compagnacci_, +intolerant of the reformed republic, neither hostile nor loyal to the +Medici, but desirous of personal licence; the _Ottimati_, astute and +selfish, watching their own advantage, ever-mindful to form a narrow +government of privileged families, disinclined to the Medici, except +when they thought the Medici might be employed as instruments in their +intrigues. + + +XX + + +During the short period of Savonarola's ascendency, Florence was in +form at least a Theocracy, without any titular head but Christ; and as +long as the enthusiasm inspired by the monk lasted, as long as his +personal influence endured, the Constitution of the Grand Council +worked well. After his death it was found that the machinery was too +cumbrous. While adopting the Venetian form of government, the +Florentines had omitted one essential element--the Doge. By referring +measures of immediate necessity to the Grand Council, the republic +lost precious time. Dangerous publicity, moreover, was incurred; and +so large a body often came to no firm resolution. There was no +permanent authority in the State; no security that what had been +deliberated would be carried out with energy; no titular chief, who +could transact affairs with foreign potentates and their ambassadors. +Accordingly, in 1502, it was decreed that the Gonfalonier should hold +office for life--should be in fact a Doge. To this important post of +permanent president Piero Soderini was appointed; and in his hands +were placed the chief affairs of the republic. + +At this point Florence, after all her vicissitudes, had won her way to +something really similar to the Venetian Constitution. Yet the +similarity existed more in form than in fact. The government of +burghers in a Grand Council, with a Senate of forty, and a Gonfalonier +for life, had not grown up gradually and absorbed into itself the +vital forces of the commonwealth. It was a creation of inventive +intelligence, not of national development, in Florence. It had against +it the jealousy of the Ottimati, who felt themselves overshadowed by +the Gonfalonier; the hatred of the Palleschi, who yearned for the +Medici; the discontent of the working classes, who thought the +presence of a Court in Florence would improve trade; last, but not +least, the disaffection of the Compagnacci, who felt they could not +flourish to their heart's content in a free commonwealth. Moreover, +though the name of liberty was on every lip, though the Florentines +talked, wrote, and speculated more about constitutional independence +than they had ever done, the true energy of free institutions had +passed from the city. The corrupt government of Cosimo and Lorenzo +bore its natural fruit now. Egotistic ambition and avarice supplanted +patriotism and industry. It is necessary to comprehend these +circumstances, in order that the next revolution may be clearly +understood. + + +XXI + + +During the ten years which elapsed between 1502 and 1512, Piero +Soderini administered Florence with an outward show of great +prosperity. He regained Pisa, and maintained an honourable foreign +policy in the midst of the wars stirred up by the League of Cambray. +Meanwhile the young princes of the House of Medici had grown to +manhood in exile. The Cardinal Giovanni was thirty-seven in 1512. His +brother Giuliano was thirty-three. Both of these men were better +fitted than their brother Piero to fight the battles of the family. +Giovanni, in particular, had inherited no small portion of the +Medicean craft. During the troubled reign of Julius II. he kept very +quiet, cementing his connections with powerful men in Rome, but making +no effort to regain his hold on Florence. Now the moment for striking +a decisive blow had come. After the battle of Ravenna in 1512, the +French were driven out of Italy, and the Sforzas returned to Milan; +the Spanish troops, under the Viceroy Cardona, remained masters of the +country. Following the camp of these Spaniards, Giovanni de' Medici +entered Tuscany in August, and caused the restoration of the Medici +to be announced in Florence. The people, assembled by Soderini, +resolved to resist to the uttermost. No foreign army should force them +to receive the masters whom they had expelled. Yet their courage +failed on August 29th, when news reached them of the capture and the +sack of Prato. Prato is a sunny little city a few miles distant from +the walls of Florence, famous for the beauty of its women, the +richness of its gardens, and the grace of its buildings. Into this gem +of cities the savage soldiery of Spain marched in the bright autumnal +weather, and turned the paradise into a hell. It is even now +impossible to read of what they did in Prato without shuddering.[16] +Cruelty and lust, sordid greed for gold, and cold delight in +bloodshed, could go no further. Giovanni de' Medici, by nature mild +and voluptuous, averse to violence of all kinds, had to smile +approval, while the Spanish Viceroy knocked thus with mailed hand for +him at the door of Florence. The Florentines were paralysed with +terror. They deposed Soderini and received the Medici. Giovanni and +Giuliano entered their devastated palace in the Via Larga, abolished +the Grand Council, and dealt with the republic as they listed. + + +XXII + + +There was no longer any medium in Florence possible between either +tyranny or some such government as the Medici had now destroyed. The +State was too rotten to recover even the modified despotism of +Lorenzo's days. Each transformation had impaired some portion of its +framework, broken down some of its traditions, and sowed new seeds of +egotism in citizens who saw all things round them change but +self-advantage. Therefore Giovanni and Giuliano felt themselves secure +in flattering the popular vanity by an empty parade of the old +institutions. They restored the Signory and the Gonfalonier, elected +for intervals of two months by officers appointed for this purpose by +the Medici. Florence had the show of a free government. But the Medici +managed all things; and soldiers, commanded by their creature, Paolo +Vettori, held the Palace and the Public Square. The tyranny thus +established was less secure, inasmuch as it openly rested upon +violence, than Lorenzo's power had been; nor were there signs wanting +that the burghers could ill brook their servitude. The conspiracy of +Pietro Paolo Boscoli and Agostino Capponi proved that the Medicean +brothers ran daily risk of life. Indeed, it is not likely that they +would have succeeded in maintaining their authority--for they were +poor and ill-supported by friends outside the city--except for one +most lucky circumstance: that was the election of Giovanni de' Medici +to the Papacy in 1513. + +The creation of Leo X. spread satisfaction throughout Italy. +Politicians trusted that he would display some portion of his father's +ability, and restore peace to the nation. Men of arts and letters +expected everything from a Medicean Pope, who had already acquired the +reputation of polite culture and open-handed generosity. They at any +rate were not deceived. Leo's first words on taking his place in the +Vatican were addressed to his brother Giuliano: 'Let us enjoy the +Papacy, now that God has given it to us;' and his notion of enjoyment +was to surround himself with court-poets, jesters, and musicians, to +adorn his Roman palaces with frescoes, to collect statues and +inscriptions, to listen to Latin speeches, and to pass judgment upon +scholarly compositions. Any one and every one who gave him sensual or +intellectual pleasure, found his purse always open. He lived in the +utmost magnificence, and made Rome the Paris of the Renaissance for +brilliance, immorality, and self-indulgent ease. The politicians had +less reason to be satisfied. Instead of uniting the Italians and +keeping the great Powers of Europe in check, Leo carried on a series +of disastrous petty wars, chiefly with the purpose of establishing the +Medici as princes. He squandered the revenues of the Church, and left +enormous debts behind him--an exchequer ruined and a foreign policy so +confused that peace for Italy could only be obtained by servitude. + +Florence shared in the general rejoicing which greeted Leo's accession +to the Papacy. He was the first Florentine citizen who had received +the tiara, and the popular vanity was flattered by this honour to the +republic. Political theorists, meanwhile, began to speculate what +greatness Florence, in combination with Rome, might rise to. The Pope +was young; he ruled a large territory, reduced to order by his warlike +predecessors. It seemed as though the republic, swayed by him, might +make herself the first city in Italy, and restore the glories of her +Guelf ascendency upon the platform of Renaissance statecraft. There +was now no overt opposition to the Medici in Florence. How to govern +the city from Rome, and how to advance the fortunes of his brother +Giuliano and his nephew Lorenzo (Piero's son, a young man of +twenty-one), occupied the Pope's most serious attention. For Lorenzo +Leo obtained the Duchy of Urbino and the hand of a French princess. +Giuliano was named Gonfalonier of the Church. He also received the +French title of Duke of Nemours and the hand of Filiberta, Princess of +Savoy. Leo entertained a further project of acquiring the crown of +Southern Italy for his brother, and thus of uniting Rome, Florence, +and Naples under the headship of his house. Nor were the Medicean +interests neglected in the Church. Giulio, the Pope's bastard cousin, +was made cardinal. He remained in Rome, acting as vice-chancellor and +doing the hard work of the Papal Government for the pleasure-loving +pontiff. + +To Lorenzo, Duke of Urbino, the titular head of the family, was +committed the government of Florence. During their exile, wandering +from court to court in Italy, the Medici had forgotten what it was to +be burghers, and had acquired the manners of princes. Leo alone +retained enough of caution to warn his nephew that the Florentines +must still be treated as free people. He confirmed the constitution of +the Signory and the Privy Council of seventy established by his +father, bidding Lorenzo, while he ruled this sham republic, to avoid +the outer signs of tyranny. The young duke at first behaved with +moderation, but he could not cast aside his habits of a great lord. +Florence now for the first time saw a regular court established in her +midst, with a prince, who, though he bore a foreign title, was in fact +her master. The joyous days of Lorenzo the Magnificent returned. +Masquerades and triumphs filled the public squares. Two clubs of +pleasure, called the Diamond and the Branch--badges adopted by the +Medici to signify their firmness in disaster and their power of +self-recovery--were formed to lead the revels. The best sculptors and +painters devoted their genius to the invention of costumes and cars. +The city affected to believe that the age of gold had come again. + + +XXIII + + +Fortune had been very favourable to the Medici. They had returned as +princes to Florence. Giovanni was Pope. Giuliano was Gonfalonier of +the Church. Giulio was Cardinal and Archbishop of Florence. Lorenzo +ruled the city like a sovereign. But this prosperity was no less brief +than it was brilliant. A few years sufficed to sweep off all the +chiefs of the great house. Giuliano died in 1516, leaving only a +bastard son Ippolito. Lorenzo died in 1519, leaving a bastard son +Alessandro, and a daughter, six days old, who lived to be the Queen of +France. Leo died in 1521. There remained now no legitimate male +descendants from the stock of Cosimo. The honours and pretensions of +the Medici devolved upon three bastards--on the Cardinal Giulio, and +the two boys, Alessandro and Ippolito. Of these, Alessandro was a +mulatto, his mother having been a Moorish slave in the Palace of +Urbino; and whether his father was Giulio, or Giuliano, or a base +groom, was not known for certain. To such extremities were the Medici +reduced. In order to keep their house alive, they were obliged to +adopt this foundling. It is true that the younger branch of the +family, descended from Lorenzo, the brother of Cosimo, still +flourished. At this epoch it was represented by Giovanni, the great +general known as the Invincible, whose bust so strikingly resembles +that of Napoleon. But between this line of the Medici and the elder +branch there had never been true cordiality. The Cardinal mistrusted +Giovanni. It may, moreover, be added, that Giovanni was himself doomed +to death in the year 1526. + +Giulio de' Medici was left in 1521 to administer the State of Florence +single-handed. He was archbishop, and he resided in the city, holding +it with the grasp of an absolute ruler. Yet he felt his position +insecure. The republic had no longer any forms of self-government; nor +was there a magistracy to whom the despot could delegate his power in +his absence. Giulio's ambition was fixed upon the Papal crown. The +bastards he was rearing were but children. Florence had therefore to +be furnished with some political machinery that should work of itself. +The Cardinal did not wish to give freedom to the city, but clockwork. +He was in the perilous situation of having to rule a commonwealth +without life, without elasticity, without capacity of self-movement, +yet full of such material as, left alone, might ferment, and breed a +revolution. In this perplexity, he had recourse to advisers. The most +experienced politicians, philosophical theorists, practical +diplomatists, and students of antique history were requested to +furnish him with plans for a new constitution, just as you ask an +architect to give you the plan of a new house. This was the field-day +of the doctrinaires. Now was seen how much political sagacity the +Florentines had gained while they were losing liberty. We possess +these several drafts of constitutions. Some recommend tyranny; some +incline to aristocracy, or what Italians called _Governo Stretto_; +some to democracy, or _Governo Largo_; some to an eclectic compound of +the other forms, or _Governo Misto_. More consummate masterpieces of +constructive ingenuity can hardly be imagined. What is omitted in all, +is just what no doctrinaire, no nostrum can communicate--the breath of +life, the principle of organic growth. Things had come, indeed, to a +melancholy pass for Florence when her tyrant, in order to confirm his +hold upon her, had to devise these springs and irons to support her +tottering limbs. + + +XXIV + + +While the archbishop and the doctors were debating, a plot was +hatching in the Rucellai Gardens. It was here that the Florentine +Academy now held their meetings. For this society Machiavelli wrote +his 'Treatise on the Art of War,' and his 'Discourses upon Livy.' The +former was an exposition of Machiavelli's scheme for creating a +national militia, as the only safeguard for Italy, exposed at this +period to the invasions of great foreign armies. The latter is one of +the three or four masterpieces produced by the Florentine school of +critical historians. Stimulated by the daring speculations of +Machiavelli, and fired to enthusiasm by their study of antiquity, the +younger academicians formed a conspiracy for murdering Giulio de' +Medici, and restoring the republic on a Roman model. An intercepted +letter betrayed their plans. Two of the conspirators were taken and +beheaded. Others escaped. But the discovery of this conjuration put a +stop to Giulio's scheme of reforming the State. Henceforth he ruled +Florence like a despot, mild in manners, cautious in the exercise of +arbitrary power, but firm in his autocracy. The Condottiere. +Alessandro Vitelli, with a company of soldiers, was taken into service +for the protection of his person and the intimidation of the citizens. + +In 1523, the Pope, Adrian VI., expired after a short papacy, from +which he gained no honour and Italy no profit. Giulio hurried to Rome, +and, by the clever use of his large influence, caused himself to be +elected with the title of Clement VII. In Florence he left Silvio +Passerini, Cardinal of Cortona, as his vicegerent and the guardian of +the two boys Alessandro and Ippolito. The discipline of many years had +accustomed the Florentines to a government of priests. Still the +burghers, mindful of their ancient liberties, were galled by the yoke +of a Cortonese, sprung up from one of their subject cities; nor could +they bear the bastards who were being reared to rule them. Foreigners +threw it in their teeth that Florence, the city glorious of art and +freedom, was become a stable for mules--_stalla da muli_, in the +expressive language of popular sarcasm. Bastardy, it may be said in +passing, carried with it small dishonour among the Italians. The +Estensi were all illegitimate; the Aragonese house in Naples sprang +from Alfonso's natural son; and children of Popes ranked among the +princes. Yet the uncertainty of Alessandro's birth and the base +condition of his mother made the prospect of this tyrant peculiarly +odious; while the primacy of a foreign cardinal in the midst of +citizens whose spirit was still unbroken, embittered the cup of +humiliation. The Casa Medici held its authority by a slender thread, +and depended more upon the disunion of the burghers than on any power +of its own. It could always reckon on the favour of the lower +populace, who gained profit and amusement from the presence of a +court. The Ottimati again hoped more from a weak despotism than from a +commonwealth, where their privileges would have been merged in the +mass of the Grand Council. Thus the sympathies of the plebeians and +the selfishness of the rich patricians prevented the republic from +asserting itself. On this meagre basis of personal cupidity the Medici +sustained themselves. What made the situation still more delicate, and +at the same time protracted the feeble rule of Clement, was that +neither the Florentines nor the Medici had any army. Face to face with +a potentate so considerable as the Pope, a free State could not be +established without military force. On the other hand, the Medici, +supported by a mere handful of mercenaries, had no power to resist a +popular rising if any external event should inspire the middle classes +with a hope of liberty. + + +XXV + + +Clement assumed the tiara at a moment of great difficulty. Leo had +ruined the finance of Rome. France and Spain were still contending for +the possession of Italy. While acting as Vice-Chancellor, Giulio de' +Medici had seemed to hold the reins with a firm grasp, and men +expected that he would prove a powerful Pope; but in those days he had +Leo to help him; and Leo, though indolent, was an abler man than his +cousin. He planned, and Giulio executed. Obliged to act now for +himself, Clement revealed the weakness of his nature. That weakness +was irresolution, craft without wisdom, diplomacy without knowledge of +men. He raised the storm, and showed himself incapable of guiding it. +This is not the place to tell by what a series of crooked schemes and +cross purposes he brought upon himself the ruin of the Church and +Rome, to relate his disagreement with the Emperor, or to describe +again the sack of the Eternal City by the rabble of the Constable de +Bourbon's army. That wreck of Rome in 1527 was the closing scene of +the Italian Renaissance--the last of the Apocalyptic tragedies +foretold by Savonarola--the death of the old age. + +When the Florentines knew what was happening in Rome, they rose and +forced the Cardinal Passerini to depart with the Medicean bastards +from the city. The youth demanded arms for the defence of the town, +and they received them. The whole male population was enrolled in a +militia. The Grand Council was reformed, and the republic was restored +upon the basis of 1495. Niccolo Capponi was elected Gonfalonier. The +name of Christ was again registered as chief of the commonwealth--to +such an extent did the memory of Savonarola still sway the popular +imagination. The new State hastened to form an alliance with France, +and Malatesta Baglioni was chosen as military Commander-in-Chief. +Meanwhile the city armed itself for siege--Michel Angelo Buonarroti +and Francesco da San Gallo undertaking the construction of new forts +and ramparts. These measures were adopted with sudden decision, +because it was soon known that Clement had made peace with the +Emperor, and that the army which had sacked Rome was going to be +marched on Florence. + + +XXVI + + +In the month of August 1529 the Prince of Orange assembled his forces +at Terni, and thence advanced by easy stages into Tuscany. As he +approached, the Florentines laid waste their suburbs, and threw down +their wreath of towers, in order that the enemy might have no +harbourage or points of vantage for attack. Their troops were +concentrated within the city, where a new Gonfalonier, Francesco +Carducci, furiously opposed to the Medici, and attached to the +Piagnoni party, now ruled. On September 4th the Prince of Orange +appeared before the walls, and opened the memorable siege. It lasted +eight months, at the end of which time, betrayed by their generals, +divided among themselves, and worn out with delays, the Florentines +capitulated. Florence was paid as compensation for the insult offered +to the pontiff in the sack of Rome. + +The long yoke of the Medici had undermined the character of the +Florentines. This, their last glorious struggle for liberty, was but a +flash in the pan--a final flare-up of the dying lamp. The city was not +satisfied with slavery; but it had no capacity for united action. The +Ottimati were egotistic and jealous of the people. The Palleschi +desired to restore the Medici at any price--some of them frankly +wishing for a principality, others trusting that the old +quasi-republican government might still be reinstated. The Red +Republicans, styled Libertini and Arrabbiati, clung together in blind +hatred of the Medicean party; but they had no further policy to guide +them. The Piagnoni, or Frateschi, stuck to the memory of Savonarola, +and believed that angels would descend to guard the battlements when +human help had failed. These enthusiasts still formed the true nerve +of the nation--the class that might have saved the State, if salvation +had been possible. Even as it was, the energy of their fanaticism +prolonged the siege until resistance seemed no longer physically +possible. The hero developed by the crisis was Francesco Ferrucci, a +plebeian who had passed his youth in manual labour, and who now +displayed rare military genius. He fell fighting outside the walls of +Florence. Had he commanded the troops from the beginning, and remained +inside the city, it is just possible that the fate of the war might +have been less disastrous. As it was, Malatesta Baglioni, the +Commander-in-Chief, turned out an arrant scoundrel. He held secret +correspondence with Clement and the Prince of Orange. It was he who +finally sold Florence to her foes, 'putting on his head,' as the Doge +of Venice said before the Senate, 'the cap of the biggest traitor upon +record.' + + +XXVII + + +What remains of Florentine history may be briefly told. Clement, now +the undisputed arbiter of power and honour in the city, chose +Alessandro de' Medici to be prince. Alessandro was created Duke of +Cività di Penna, and married to a natural daughter of Charles V. +Ippolito was made a cardinal. Ippolito would have preferred a secular +to a priestly kingdom; nor did he conceal his jealousy for his cousin. +Therefore Alessandro had him poisoned. Alessandro in his turn was +murdered by his kinsman, Lorenzino de' Medici. Lorenzino paid the +usual penalty of tyrannicide some years later. When Alessandro was +killed in 1539, Clement had himself been dead five years. Thus the +whole posterity of Cosimo de' Medici, with the exception of Catherine, +Queen of France, was utterly extinguished. But the Medici had struck +root so firmly in the State, and had so remodelled it upon the type of +tyranny, that the Florentines were no longer able to do without them. +The chiefs of the Ottimati selected Cosimo, the representative of +Giovanni the Invincible, for their prince, and thus the line of the +elder Lorenzo came at last to power. This Cosimo was a boy of +eighteen, fond of field-sports, and unused to party intrigues. When +Francesco Guicciardini offered him a privy purse of one hundred and +twenty thousand ducats annually, together with the presidency of +Florence, this wily politician hoped that he would rule the State +through Cosimo, and realise at last that dream of the Ottimati, a +_Governo Stretto_ or _di Pochi_. He was notably mistaken in his +calculations. The first days of Cosimo's administration showed that +he possessed the craft of his family and the vigour of his immediate +progenitors, and that he meant to be sole master in Florence. He it +was who obtained the title of Grand Duke of Tuscany from the Pope--a +title confirmed by the Emperor, fortified by Austrian alliances, and +transmitted through his heirs to the present century. + + +XXVIII + + +In this sketch of Florentine history, I have purposely omitted all +details that did not bear upon the constitutional history of the +republic, or on the growth of the Medici as despots; because I wanted +to present a picture of the process whereby that family contrived to +fasten itself upon the freest and most cultivated State in Italy. This +success the Medici owed mainly to their own obstinacy, and to the +weakness of republican institutions in Florence. Their power was +founded upon wealth in the first instance, and upon the ingenuity with +which they turned the favour of the proletariate to use. It was +confirmed by the mistakes and failures of their enemies, by Rinaldo +degli Albizzi's attack on Cosimo, by the conspiracy of Neroni and +Pitti against Piero, and by Francesco de' Pazzi's attempt to +assassinate Lorenzo. It was still further strengthened by the Medicean +sympathy for arts and letters--a sympathy which placed both Cosimo and +Lorenzo at the head of the Renaissance movement, and made them worthy +to represent Florence, the city of genius, in the fifteenth century. +While thus founding and cementing their dynastic influence upon the +basis of a widespread popularity, the Medici employed persistent +cunning in the enfeeblement of the Republic. It was their policy not +to plant themselves by force or acts of overt tyranny, but to corrupt +ambitious citizens, to secure the patronage of public officers, and to +render the spontaneous working of the State machinery impossible. By +pursuing this policy over a long series of years they made the revival +of liberty in 1494, and again in 1527, ineffectual. While exiled from +Florence, they never lost the hope of returning as masters, so long as +the passions they had excited, and they alone could gratify, remained +in full activity. These passions were avarice and egotism, the greed +of the grasping Ottimati, the jealousy of the nobles, the +self-indulgence of the proletariate. Yet it is probable they might +have failed to recover Florence, on one or other of these two +occasions, but for the accident which placed Giovanni de' Medici on +the Papal chair, and enabled him to put Giulio in the way of the same +dignity. From the accession of Leo in 1513 to the year 1527 the Medici +ruled Florence from Rome, and brought the power of the Church into the +service of their despotism. After that date they were still further +aided by the imperial policy of Charles V., who chose to govern Italy +through subject princes, bound to himself by domestic alliances and +powerful interests. One of these was Cosimo, the first Grand Duke of +Tuscany. + + * * * * * + + + + +_THE DEBT OF ENGLISH TO ITALIAN LITERATURE_ + + +To an Englishman one of the chief interests of the study of Italian +literature is derived from the fact that, between England and Italy, +an almost uninterrupted current of intellectual intercourse has been +maintained throughout the last five centuries. The English have never, +indeed, at any time been slavish imitators of the Italians; but Italy +has formed the dreamland of the English fancy, inspiring poets with +their most delightful thoughts, supplying them with subjects, and +implanting in their minds that sentiment of Southern beauty which, +engrafted on our more passionately imaginative Northern nature, has +borne rich fruit in the works of Chaucer, Spenser, Marlowe, Shakspere, +Milton, and the poets of this century. + +It is not strange that Italy should thus in matters of culture have +been the guide and mistress of England. Italy, of all the European +nations, was the first to produce high art and literature in the dawn +of modern civilisation. Italy was the first to display refinement in +domestic life, polish of manners, civilities of intercourse. In Italy +the commerce of courts first developed a society of men and women, +educated by the same traditions of humanistic culture. In Italy the +principles of government were first discussed and reduced to theory. +In Italy the zeal for the classics took its origin; and scholarship, +to which we owe our mental training, was at first the possession of +none almost but Italians. It therefore followed that during the age of +the Renaissance any man of taste or genius, who desired to share the +newly discovered privileges of learning, had to seek Italy. Every one +who wished to be initiated into the secrets of science or philosophy, +had to converse with Italians in person or through books. Every one +who was eager to polish his native language, and to render it the +proper vehicle of poetic thought, had to consult the masterpieces of +Italian literature. To Italians the courtier, the diplomatist, the +artist, the student of statecraft and of military tactics, the +political theorist, the merchant, the man of laws, the man of arms, +and the churchman turned for precedents and precepts. The nations of +the North, still torpid and somnolent in their semi-barbarism, needed +the magnetic touch of Italy before they could awake to intellectual +life. Nor was this all. Long before the thirst for culture possessed +the English mind, Italy had appropriated and assimilated all that +Latin literature contained of strong or splendid to arouse the thought +and fancy of the modern world; Greek, too, was rapidly becoming the +possession of the scholars of Florence and Rome; so that English men +of letters found the spirit of the ancients infused into a modern +literature; models of correct and elegant composition existed for them +in a language easy, harmonious, and not dissimilar in usage to their +own. + +The importance of this service, rendered by Italians to the rest of +Europe, cannot be exaggerated. By exploring, digesting, and +reproducing the classics, Italy made the labour of scholarship +comparatively light for the Northern nations, and extended to us the +privilege of culture without the peril of losing originality in the +enthusiasm for erudition. Our great poets could handle lightly, and +yet profitably, those masterpieces of Greece and Rome, beneath the +weight of which, when first discovered, the genius of the Italians had +wavered. To the originality of Shakspere an accession of wealth +without weakness was brought by the perusal of Italian works, in which +the spirit of the antique was seen as in a modern mirror. Then, in +addition to this benefit of instruction, Italy gave to England a gift +of pure beauty, the influence of which, in refining our national +taste, harmonising the roughness of our manners and our language, and +stimulating our imagination, has been incalculable. It was a not +unfrequent custom for young men of ability to study at the Italian +universities, or at least to undertake a journey to the principal +Italian cities. From their sojourn in that land of loveliness and +intellectual life they returned with their Northern brains most +powerfully stimulated. To produce, by masterpieces of the imagination, +some work of style that should remain as a memento of that glorious +country, and should vie on English soil with the art of Italy, was +their generous ambition. Consequently the substance of the stories +versified by our poets, the forms of our metres, and the cadences of +our prose periods reveal a close attention to Italian originals. + +This debt of England to Italy in the matter of our literature began +with Chaucer. Truly original and national as was the framework of the +'Canterbury Tales,' we can hardly doubt but that Chaucer was +determined in the form adopted for his poem by the example of +Boccaccio. The subject-matter, also, of many of his tales was taken +from Boccaccio's prose or verse. For example, the story of Patient +Grizzel is founded upon one of the legends of the 'Decameron,' while +the Knight's Tale is almost translated from the 'Teseide' of +Boccaccio, and Troilus and Creseide is derived from the 'Filostrato' +of the same author. The Franklin's Tale and the Reeve's Tale +are also based either on stories of Boccaccio or else on French +'Fabliaux,' to which Chaucer, as well as Boccaccio, had access. I do +not wish to lay too much stress upon Chaucer's direct obligations to +Boccaccio, because it is incontestable that the French 'Fabliaux,' +which supplied them both with subjects, were the common property of +the mediæval nations. But his indirect debt in all that concerns +elegant handling of material, and in the fusion of the romantic with +the classic spirit, which forms the chief charm of such tales as the +Palamon and Arcite, can hardly be exaggerated. Lastly, the seven-lined +stanza, called _rime royal_, which Chaucer used with so much effect in +narrative poetry, was probably borrowed from the earlier Florentine +'Ballata,' the last line rhyming with its predecessor being +substituted for the recurrent refrain. Indeed, the stanza itself, as +used by our earliest poets, may be found in Guido Cavalcanti's +'Ballatetta,' beginning, _Posso degli occhi miei_. + +Between Chaucer and Surrey the Muse of England fell asleep; but when +in the latter half of the reign of Henry VIII. she awoke again, it was +as a conscious pupil of the Italian that she attempted new strains and +essayed fresh metres. 'In the latter end of Henry VIII.'s reign,' says +Puttenham, 'sprang up a new company of courtly makers, of whom Sir T. +Wyatt the elder, and Henry Earl of Surrey, were the two chieftains, +who, having travelled into Italy, and there tasted the sweet and +stately measures and style of the Italian poesy, as novices newly +crept out of the schools of Dante, Ariosto, and Petrarch, they greatly +polished our rude and homely manner of vulgar poesy, from that it had +been before, and for that cause may justly be said the first reformers +of our English metre and style.' The chief point in which Surrey +imitated his 'master, Francis Petrarcha,' was in the use of the +sonnet. He introduced this elaborate form of poetry into our +literature; and how it has thriven with us, the masterpieces of +Spenser, Shakspere, Milton, Wordsworth, Keats, Rossetti attest. As +practised by Dante and Petrarch, the sonnet is a poem of fourteen +lines, divided into two quatrains and two triplets, so arranged that +the two quatrains repeat one pair of rhymes, while the two triplets +repeat another pair. Thus an Italian sonnet of the strictest form is +composed upon four rhymes, interlaced with great art. But much +divergence from this rigid scheme of rhyming was admitted even by +Petrarch, who not unfrequently divided the six final lines of the +sonnet into three couplets, interwoven in such a way that the two last +lines never rhymed.[17] + +It has been necessary to say thus much about the structure of the +Italian sonnet, in order to make clear the task which lay before +Surrey and Wyatt, when they sought to transplant it into English. +Surrey did not adhere to the strict fashion of Petrarch: his sonnets +consist either of three regular quatrains concluded with a couplet, +or else of twelve lines rhyming alternately and concluded with a +couplet. Wyatt attempted to follow the order and interlacement of the +Italian rhymes more closely, but he too concluded his sonnet with a +couplet. This introduction of the final couplet was a violation of the +Italian rule, which may be fairly considered as prejudicial to the +harmony of the whole structure, and which has insensibly caused the +English sonnet to terminate in an epigram. The famous sonnet of Surrey +on his love, Geraldine, is an excellent example of the metrical +structure as adapted to the supposed necessities of English rhyming, +and as afterwards adhered to by Shakspere in his long series of +love-poems. Surrey, while adopting the form of the sonnet, kept quite +clear of the Petrarchist's mannerism. His language is simple and +direct: there is no subtilising upon far-fetched conceits, no +wire-drawing of exquisite sentimentalism, although he celebrates in +this, as in his other sonnets, a lady for whom he appears to have +entertained no more than a Platonic or imaginary passion. Surrey was a +great experimentalist in metre. Besides the sonnet, he introduced into +England blank verse, which he borrowed from the Italian _versi +sciolti_, fixing that decasyllable iambic rhythm for English +versification in which our greatest poetical triumphs have been +achieved. + +Before quitting the subject of the sonnet it would, however, be well +to mention the changes which were wrought in its structure by early +poets desirous of emulating the Italians. Shakspere, as already +hinted, adhered to the simple form introduced by Surrey: his stanzas +invariably consist of three separate quatrains followed by a couplet. +But Sir Philip Sidney, whose familiarity with Italian literature was +intimate, and who had resided long in Italy, perceived that without a +greater complexity and interweaving of rhymes the beauty of the poem +was considerably impaired. He therefore combined the rhymes of the two +quatrains, as the Italians had done, leaving himself free to follow +the Italian fashion in the conclusion, or else to wind up after +English usage with a couplet. Spenser and Drummond follow the rule of +Sidney; Drayton and Daniel, that of Surrey and Shakspere. It was not +until Milton that an English poet preserved the form of the Italian +sonnet in its strictness; but, after Milton, the greatest +sonnet-writers--Wordsworth, Keats, and Rossetti--have aimed at +producing stanzas as regular as those of Petrarch. + +The great age of our literature--the age of Elizabeth--was essentially +one of Italian influence. In Italy the Renaissance had reached its +height: England, feeling the new life which had been infused into arts +and letters, turned instinctively to Italy, and adopted her canons of +taste. 'Euphues' has a distinct connection with the Italian discourses +of polite culture. Sidney's 'Arcadia' is a copy of what Boccaccio had +attempted in his classical romances, and Sanazzaro in his +pastorals.[18] Spenser approached the subject of the 'Faery Queen' +with his head full of Ariosto and the romantic poets of Italy. His +sonnets are Italian; his odes embody the Platonic philosophy of the +Italians.[19] The extent of Spenser's deference to the Italians in +matters of poetic art may be gathered from this passage in the +dedication to Sir Walter Raleigh of the 'Faery Queen:' + + I have followed all the antique poets historical: first + Homer, who in the persons of Agamemnon and Ulysses hath + ensampled a good governor and a virtuous man, the one in his + Ilias, the other in his Odysseis; then Virgil, whose like + intention was to do in the person of Æneas; after him + Ariosto comprised them both in his Orlando; and lately Tasso + dissevered them again, and formed both parts in two persons, + namely, that part which they in Philosophy call Ethice, or + virtues of a private man, coloured in his Rinaldo, the other + named Politico in his Goffredo. + +From this it is clear that, to the mind of Spenser, both Ariosto and +Tasso were authorities of hardly less gravity than Homer and Virgil. +Raleigh, in the splendid sonnet with which he responds to this +dedication, enhances the fame of Spenser by affecting to believe that +the great Italian, Petrarch, will be jealous of him in the grave. To +such an extent were the thoughts of the English poets occupied with +their Italian masters in the art of song. + +It was at this time, again, that English literature was enriched by +translations of Ariosto and Tasso--the one from the pen of Sir John +Harrington, the other from that of Fairfax. Both were produced in the +metre of the original--the octave stanza, which, however, did not at +that period take root in England. At the same period the works of many +of the Italian novelists, especially Bandello and Cinthio and +Boccaccio, were translated into English; Painter's 'Palace of +Pleasure' being a treasure-house of Italian works of fiction. Thomas +Hoby translated Castiglione's 'Courtier' in 1561. As a proof of the +extent to which Italian books were read in England at the end of the +sixteenth century, we may take a stray sentence from a letter of +Harvey, in which he disparages the works of Robert Greene:--'Even +Guicciardine's silver histories and Ariosto's golden cantos grow out +of request: and the Countess of Pembroke's "Arcadia" is not green +enough for queasy stomachs; but they must have seen Greene's +"Arcadia," and I believe most eagerly longed for Greene's "Faery +Queen."' + +Still more may be gathered on the same topic from the indignant +protest uttered by Roger Ascham in his 'Schoolmaster' (pp. 78-91, date +1570) against the prevalence of Italian customs, the habit of Italian +travel, and the reading of Italian books translated into English. +Selections of Italian stories rendered into English were extremely +popular; and Greene's tales, which had such vogue that Nash says of +them, 'glad was that printer that might be so blest to pay him dear +for the very dregs of his wit,' were all modelled on the Italian. The +education of a young man of good family was not thought complete +unless he had spent some time in Italy, studied its literature, +admired its arts, and caught at least some tincture of its manners. +Our rude ancestors brought back with them from these journeys many +Southern vices, together with the culture they had gone to seek. The +contrast between the plain dealing of the North and the refined +Machiavellism of the South, between Protestant earnestness in religion +and Popish scepticism, between the homely virtues of England and the +courtly libertinism of Venice or Florence, blunted the moral sense, +while it stimulated the intellectual activity of the English +travellers, and too often communicated a fatal shock to their +principles. _Inglese Italianato è un diavolo incarnato_ passed into a +proverb: we find it on the lips of Parker, of Howell, of Sidney, of +Greene, and of Ascham; while Italy itself was styled by severe +moralists the court of Circe. In James Howell's 'Instructions for +forreine travell' we find this pregnant sentence: 'And being now in +Italy, that great limbique of working braines, he must be very +circumspect in his carriage, for she is able to turne a Saint into a +devill, and deprave the best natures, if one will abandon himselfe, +and become a prey to dissolut courses and wantonesse.' Italy, in +truth, had already become corrupt, and the fruit of her contact with +the nations of the North was seen in the lives of such scholars as +Robert Greene, who confessed that he returned from his travels +instructed 'in all the villanies under the sun.' Many of the scandals +of the Court of James might be ascribed to this aping of Southern +manners. + +Yet, together with the evil of depraved morality, the advantage of +improved culture was imported from Italy into England; and the +constitution of the English genius was young and healthy enough to +purge off the mischief, while it assimilated what was beneficial. This +is very manifest in the history of our drama, which, taking it +altogether, is at the same time the purest and the most varied that +exists in literature; while it may be affirmed without exaggeration +that one of the main impulses to free dramatic composition in England +was communicated by the attraction everything Italian possessed for +the English fancy. It was in the drama that the English displayed the +richness and the splendour of the Renaissance, which had blazed so +gorgeously and at times so balefully below the Alps. The Italy of the +Renaissance fascinated our dramatists with a strange wild glamour--the +contrast of external pageant and internal tragedy, the alternations of +radiance and gloom, the terrible examples of bloodshed, treason, and +heroism emergent from ghastly crimes. Our drama began with a +translation of Ariosto's 'Suppositi' and ended with Davenant's 'Just +Italian.' In the very dawn of tragic composition Greene versified a +portion of the 'Orlando Furioso,' and Marlowe devoted one of his most +brilliant studies to the villanies of a Maltese Jew. Of Shakspere's +plays five are incontestably Italian: several of the rest are +furnished with Italian names to suit the popular taste. Ben Jonson +laid the scene of his most subtle comedy of manners, 'Volpone,' in +Venice, and sketched the first cast of 'Every Man in his Humour' for +Italian characters. Tourneur, Ford, and Webster were so dazzled by the +tragic lustre of the wickedness of Italy that their finest dramas, +without exception, are minute and carefully studied psychological +analyses of great Italian tales of crime. The same, in a less degree, +is true of Middleton and Dekker. Massinger makes a story of the Sforza +family the subject of one of his best plays. Beaumont and Fletcher +draw the subjects of comedies and tragedies alike from the Italian +novelists. Fletcher in his 'Faithful Shepherdess' transfers the +pastoral style of Tasso and Guarini to the North. So close is the +connection between our tragedy and Italian novels that Marston and +Ford think fit to introduce passages of Italian dialogue into the +plays of 'Giovanni and Annabella' and 'Antonio and Mellida.' But the +best proof of the extent to which Italian life and literature had +influenced our dramatists, may be easily obtained by taking down +Halliwell's 'Dictionary of Old Plays,' and noticing that about every +third drama has an Italian title. Meanwhile the poems composed by the +chief dramatists--Shakspere's 'Venus and Adonis,' Marlowe's 'Hero and +Leander,' Marston's 'Pygmalion,' and Beaumont's 'Hermaphrodite'--are +all of them conceived in the Italian style, by men who had either +studied Southern literature, or had submitted to its powerful æsthetic +influences. The Masques, moreover, of Jonson, of Lyly, of Fletcher, +and of Chapman are exact reproductions upon the English court theatres +of such festival pageants as were presented to the Medici at Florence +or to the Este family at Ferrara.[20] Throughout our drama the +influence of Italy, direct or indirect, either as supplying our +playwrights with subjects or as stimulating their imagination, may +thus be traced. Yet the Elizabethan drama is in the highest sense +original. As a work of art pregnant with deepest wisdom, and +splendidly illustrative of the age which gave it birth, it far +transcends anything that Italy produced in the same department. Our +poets have a more masculine judgment, more fiery fancy, nobler +sentiment, than the Italians of any age but that of Dante. What Italy +gave, was the impulse toward creation, not patterns to be +imitated--the excitement of the imagination by a spectacle of so much +grandeur, not rules and precepts for production--the keen sense of +tragic beauty, not any tradition of accomplished art. + +The Elizabethan period of our literature was, in fact, the period +during which we derived most from the Italian nation. + +The study of the Italian language went hand in hand with the study of +Greek and Latin, so that the three together contributed to form the +English taste. Between us and the ancient world stood the genius of +Italy as an interpreter. Nor was this connection broken until far on +into the reign of Charles II. What Milton owed to Italy is clear not +only from his Italian sonnets, but also from the frequent mention of +Dante and Petrarch in his prose works, from his allusions to Boiardo +and Ariosto in the 'Paradise Lost,' and from the hints which he +probably derived from Pulci, Tasso and Andreini. It would, indeed, be +easy throughout his works to trace a continuous vein of Italian +influence in detail. But, more than this, Milton's poetical taste in +general seems to have been formed and ripened by familiarity with the +harmonies of the Italian language. In his Tractate on Education +addressed to Mr. Hartlib, he recommends that boys should be instructed +in the Italian pronunciation of vowel sounds, in order to give +sonorousness and dignity to elocution. This slight indication supplies +us with a key to the method of melodious structure employed by Milton +in his blank verse. Those who have carefully studied the harmonies of +the 'Paradise Lost,' know how all-important are the assonances of the +vowel sounds of _o_ and _a_ in its most musical passages. It is just +this attention to the liquid and sonorous recurrences of open vowels +that we should expect from a poet who proposed to assimilate his +diction to that of the Italians. + +After the age of Milton the connection between Italy and England is +interrupted. In the seventeenth century Italy herself had sunk into +comparative stupor, and her literature was trivial. France not only +swayed the political destinies of Europe, but also took the lead in +intellectual culture. Consequently, our poets turned from Italy to +France, and the French spirit pervaded English literature throughout +the period of the Restoration and the reigns of William and Queen Anne. +Yet during this prolonged reaction against the earlier movement of +English literature, as manifested in Elizabethanism, the influence of +Italy was not wholly extinct. Dryden's 'Tales from Boccaccio' are no +insignificant contribution to our poetry, and his 'Palamon and +Arcite,' through Chaucer, returns to the same source. But when, at the +beginning of this century, the Elizabethan tradition was revived, then +the Italian influence reappeared more vigorous than ever. The metre of +'Don Juan,' first practised by Frere and then adopted by Lord Byron, +is Pulci's octave stanza; the manner is that of Berni, Folengo, and +the Abbé Casti, fused and heightened by the brilliance of Byron's +genius into a new form. The subject of Shelley's strongest work of art +is Beatrice Cenci. Rogers's poem is styled 'Italy.' Byron's dramas are +chiefly Italian. Leigh Hunt repeats the tale of Francesca da Rimini. +Keats versifies Boccaccio's 'Isabella.' Passing to contemporary poets, +Rossetti has acclimatised in English the metres and the manner of the +earliest Italian lyrists. Swinburne dedicates his noblest song to the +spirit of liberty in Italy. Even George Eliot and Tennyson have each +of them turned stories of Boccaccio into verse. The best of Mrs. +Browning's poems, 'Casa Guidi Windows' and 'Aurora Leigh,' are steeped +in Italian thought and Italian imagery. Browning's longest poem is a +tale of Italian crime; his finest studies in the 'Men and Women' are +portraits of Italian character of the Renaissance period. But there is +more than any mere enumeration of poets and their work can set forth, +in the connection between Italy and England. That connection, so far +as the poetical imagination is concerned, is vital. As poets in the +truest sense of the word, we English live and breathe through sympathy +with the Italians. The magnetic touch which is required to inflame the +imagination of the North, is derived from Italy. The nightingales of +English song who make our oak and beech copses resonant in spring with +purest melody, are migratory birds, who have charged their souls in +the South with the spirit of beauty, and who return to warble native +wood-notes in a tongue which is their own. + +What has hitherto been said about the debt of the English poets to +Italy, may seem to imply that our literature can be regarded as to +some extent a parasite on that of the Italians. Against such a +conclusion no protest too energetic could be uttered. What we have +derived directly from the Italian poets are, first, some +metres--especially the sonnet and the octave stanza, though the latter +has never taken firm root in England. 'Terza rima,' attempted by +Shelley, Byron, Morris, and Mrs. Browning, has not yet become +acclimatised. Blank verse, although originally remodelled by Surrey +upon the _versi sciolti_ of the Italians, has departed widely from +Italian precedent, first by its decasyllabic structure, whereas +Italian verse consists of hendecasyllables; and, secondly, by its +greater force, plasticity, and freedom. The Spenserian stanza, again, +is a new and original metre peculiar to our literature; though it is +possible that but for the complex structures of Italian lyric verse, +it might not have been fashioned for the 'Faery Queen.' Lastly, the +so-called heroic couplet is native to England; at any rate, it is in +no way related to Italian metre. Therefore the only true Italian +exotic adopted without modification into our literature is the sonnet. + +In the next place, we owe to the Italians the subject-matter of many +of our most famous dramas and our most delightful tales in verse. But +the English treatment of these histories and fables has been uniformly +independent and original. Comparing Shakspere's 'Romeo and Juliet' +with Bandello's tale, Webster's 'Duchess of Malfy' with the version +given from the Italian in Painter's 'Palace of Pleasure,' and +Chaucer's Knight's Tale with the 'Teseide' of Boccaccio, we perceive +at once that the English poets have used their Italian models merely +as outlines to be filled in with freedom, as the canvas to be +embroidered with a tapestry of vivid groups. Nothing is more manifest +than the superiority of the English genius over the Italian in all +dramatic qualities of intense passion, profound analysis, and living +portrayal of character in action. The mere rough detail of Shakspere's +'Othello' is to be found in Cinthio's Collection of Novelle; but let +an unprejudiced reader peruse the original, and he will be no more +deeply affected by it than by any touching story of treachery, +jealousy, and hapless innocence. The wily subtleties of Iago, the +soldierly frankness of Cassio, the turbulent and volcanic passions of +Othello, the charm of Desdemona, and the whole tissue of vivid +incidents which make 'Othello' one of the most tremendous extant +tragedies of characters in combat, are Shakspere's, and only +Shakspere's. This instance, indeed, enables us exactly to indicate +what the English owed to Italy and what was essentially their own. +From that Southern land of Circe about which they dreamed, and which +now and then they visited, came to their imaginations a +spirit-stirring breath of inspiration. It was to them the country of +marvels, of mysterious crimes, of luxurious gardens and splendid +skies, where love was more passionate and life more picturesque, and +hate more bloody and treachery more black, than in our Northern +climes. Italy was a spacious grove of wizardry, which mighty poets, on +the quest of fanciful adventure, trod with fascinated senses and +quickened pulses. But the strong brain which converted what they heard +and read and saw of that charmed land into the stuff of golden romance +or sable tragedy, was their own. + +English literature has been defined a literature of genius. + +Our greatest work in art has been achieved not so much by inspiration, +subordinate to sentiments of exquisite good taste or guided by +observance of classical models, as by audacious sallies of pure +inventive power. This is true as a judgment of that constellation +which we call our drama, of the meteor Byron, of Milton and Dryden, +who are the Jupiter and Mars of our poetic system, and of the stars +which stud our literary firmament under the names of Shelley, Keats, +Wordsworth, Chatterton, Scott, Coleridge, Clough, Blake, Browning, +Swinburne, Tennyson. There are only a very few of the English poets, +Pope and Gray, for example, in whom the free instincts of genius are +kept systematically in check by the laws of the reflective +understanding. Now Italian literature is in this respect all unlike +our own. It began, indeed, with Dante, as a literature pre-eminently +of genius; but the spirit of scholarship assumed the sway as early as +the days of Petrarch and Boccaccio, and after them Italian has been +consistently a literature of taste. By this I mean that even the +greatest Italian poets have sought to render their style correct, have +endeavoured to subordinate their inspiration to what they considered +the rules of sound criticism, and have paid serious attention to their +manner as independent of the matter they wished to express. The +passion for antiquity, so early developed in Italy, delivered the +later Italian poets bound hand and foot into the hands of Horace. +Poliziano was content to reproduce the classic authors in a mosaic +work of exquisite translations. Tasso was essentially a man of talent, +producing work of chastened beauty by diligent attention to the rule +and method of his art. Even Ariosto submitted the liberty of his swift +spirit to canons of prescribed elegance. While our English poets have +conceived and executed without regard for the opinion of the learned +and without obedience to the usages of language--Shakspere, for +example, producing tragedies which set Aristotle at defiance, and +Milton engrafting Latinisms on the native idiom--the Italian poets +thought and wrote with the fear of Academies before their eyes, and +studied before all things to maintain the purity of the Tuscan tongue. +The consequence is that the Italian and English literatures are +eminent for very different excellences. All that is forcible in the +dramatic presentation of life and character and action, all that is +audacious in imagination and capricious in fancy, whatever strength +style can gain from the sallies of original and untrammelled +eloquence, whatever beauty is derived from spontaneity and native +grace, belong in abundant richness to the English. On the other hand, +the Italian poets present us with masterpieces of correct and studied +diction, with carefully elaborated machinery, and with a style +maintained at a uniform level of dignified correctness. The weakness +of the English proceeds from inequality and extravagance; it is the +weakness of self-confident vigour, intolerant of rule, rejoicing in +its own exuberant resources. The weakness of the Italian is due to +timidity and moderation; it is the weakness that springs not so much +from a lack of native strength as from the over-anxious expenditure of +strength upon the attainment of finish, polish, and correctness. Hence +the two nations have everything to learn from one another. Modern +Italian poets may seek by contact with Shakspere and Milton to gain a +freedom from the trammels imposed upon them by the slavish followers +of Petrarch; while the attentive perusal of Tasso should be +recommended to all English people who have no ready access to the +masterpieces of Greek and Latin literature. + +Another point of view may be gained by noticing the pre-dominant tone +of the two literatures. Whenever English poetry is really great, it +approximates to the tragic and the stately; whereas the Italians are +peculiarly felicitous in the smooth and pleasant style, which combines +pathos with amusement, and which does not trespass beyond the region +of beauty into the domain of sublimity or terror. Italian poetry is +analogous to Italian painting and Italian music: it bathes the soul in +a plenitude of charms, investing even the most solemn subjects with +loveliness. Rembrandt and Albert Dürer depict the tragedies of the +Sacred History with a serious and awful reality: Italian painters, +with a few rare but illustrious exceptions, shrink from approaching +them from any point of view but that of harmonious melancholy. Even so +the English poets stir the soul to its very depths by their profound +and earnest delineations of the stern and bitter truths of the world: +Italian poets environ all things with the golden haze of an artistic +harmony; so that the soul is agitated by no pain at strife with the +persuasions of pure beauty. + + * * * * * + + + + +_POPULAR SONGS OF TUSCANY_ + + +It is a noticeable fact about the popular songs of Tuscany that they +are almost exclusively devoted to love. The Italians in general have +no ballad literature resembling that of our Border or that of Spain. +The tragic histories of their noble families, the great deeds of their +national heroes, and the sufferings of their country during centuries +of warfare, have left but few traces in their rustic poetry. It is +true that some districts are less utterly barren than others in these +records of the past. The Sicilian people's poetry, for example, +preserves a memory of the famous Vespers; and one or two terrible +stories of domestic tragedy, like the tale of Rosmunda in 'La Donna +Lombarda,' the romance of the Baronessa di Carini, and the so-called +Caso di Sciacca, may still be heard upon the lips of the people. But +these exceptions are insignificant in comparison with the vast mass of +songs which deal with love; and I cannot find that Tuscany, where the +language of this minstrelsy is purest, and where the artistic +instincts of the race are strongest, has anything at all approaching +to our ballads.[21] Though the Tuscan contadini are always singing, it +rarely happens that + + The plaintive numbers flow + For old, unhappy, far-off things, + And battles long ago. + +On the contrary, we may be sure, when we hear their voices ringing +through the olive-groves or macchi, that they are chanting + + Some more humble lay, + Familiar matter of to-day,-- + Some natural sorrow, loss, or pain, + That has been, and may be again; + +or else, since their melodies are by no means uniformly sad, some +ditty of the joyousness of springtime or the ecstasy of love. + +This defect of anything corresponding to our ballads of 'Chevy Chase,' +or 'Sir Patrick Spens,' or 'Gil Morrice,' in a poetry which is still +so vital with the life of past centuries, is all the more remarkable +because Italian history is distinguished above that of other nations +by tragic episodes peculiarly suited to poetic treatment. Many of +these received commemoration in the fourteenth century from Dante; +others were embodied in the _novelle_ of Boccaccio and Cinthio and +Bandello, whence they passed into the dramas of Shakspere, Webster, +Ford, and their contemporaries. But scarcely an echo can be traced +through all the volumes of the recently collected popular songs. We +must seek for an explanation of this fact partly in the conditions of +Italian life, and partly in the nature of the Italian imagination. +Nowhere in Italy do we observe that intimate connection between the +people at large and the great nobles which generates the sympathy of +clanship. Politics in most parts of the peninsula fell at a very +early period into the hands either of irresponsible princes, who ruled +like despots, or else of burghers, who administered the state within +the walls of their Palazzo Pubblico. The people remained passive +spectators of contemporary history. The loyalty of subjects to their +sovereign which animates the Spanish ballads, the loyalty of retainers +to their chief which gives life to the tragic ballads of the Border, +did not exist in Italy. Country-folk felt no interest in the doings of +Visconti or Medici or Malatesti sufficient to arouse the enthusiasm of +local bards or to call forth the celebration of their princely +tragedies in verse. Amid the miseries of foreign wars and home +oppression, it seemed better to demand from verse and song some +mitigation of the woes of life, some expression of personal emotion, +than to record the disasters which to us at a distance appear poetic +in their grandeur. + +These conditions of popular life, although unfavourable to the +production of ballad poetry, would not, however, have been sufficient +by themselves to check its growth, if the Italians had been strongly +impelled to literature of this type by their nature. The real reason +why their _Volkslieder_ are amorous and personal is to be found in the +quality of their imagination. The Italian genius is not creatively +imaginative in the highest sense. The Italians have never, either in +the ancient or the modern age, produced a great drama or a national +epic, the 'Æneid' and the 'Divine Comedy' being obviously of different +species from the 'Iliad' or the 'Nibelungen Lied.' Modern Italians, +again, are distinguished from the French, the Germans, and the English +in being the conscious inheritors of an older, august, and strictly +classical civilisation. The great memories of Rome weigh down their +faculties of invention. It would also seem as though they shrank in +their poetry from the representation of what is tragic and +spirit-stirring. They incline to what is cheerful, brilliant, or +pathetic. The dramatic element in human life, external to the +personality of the poet, which exercised so strong a fascination over +our ballad-bards and playwrights, has but little attraction for the +Italian. When he sings, he seeks to express his own individual +emotions--his love, his joy, his jealousy, his anger, his despair. The +language which he uses is at the same time direct in its intensity, +and hyperbolical in its display of fancy; but it lacks those +imaginative touches which exalt the poetry of personal passion into a +sublimer region. Again, the Italians are deficient in a sense of the +supernatural. The wraiths that cannot rest because their love is still +unsatisfied, the voices which cry by night over field and fell, the +water-spirits and forest fairies, the second-sight of coming woes, the +presentiment of death, the warnings and the charms and spells, which +fill the popular poetry of all Northern nations, are absent in Italian +songs. In the whole of Tigri's collection I only remember one mention +of a ghost. It is not that the Italians are deficient in superstitions +of all kinds. Every one has heard of their belief in the evil eye, for +instance. But they do not connect this kind of fetichism with their +poetry; and even their greatest poets, with the exception of Dante, +have shown no capacity or no inclination for enhancing the imaginative +effect of their creations by an appeal to the instinct of mysterious +awe. + +The truth is that the Italians as a race are distinguished as much by +a firm grasp upon the practical realities of existence as by powerful +emotions. They have but little of that dreamy _Schwärmerei_ with which +the people of the North are largely gifted. The true sphere of their +genius is painting. What appeals to the imagination through the eyes, +they have expressed far better than any other modern nation. But +their poetry, like their music, is deficient in tragic sublimity and +in the higher qualities of imaginative creation. + +It may seem paradoxical to say this of the nation which produced +Dante. But we must remember not to judge races by single and +exceptional men of genius. Petrarch, the Troubadour of exquisite +emotions, Boccaccio, who touches all the keys of life so lightly, +Ariosto, with the smile of everlasting April on his lips, and Tasso, +excellent alone when he confines himself to pathos or the picturesque, +are no exceptions to what I have just said. Yet these poets pursued +their art with conscious purpose. The tragic splendour of Greece, the +majesty of Rome, were not unknown to them. Far more is it true that +popular poetry in Italy, proceeding from the hearts of uncultivated +peasants and expressing the national character in its simplicity, +displays none of the stuff from which the greatest works of art in +verse, epics and dramas, can be wrought. But within its own sphere of +personal emotion, this popular poetry is exquisitely melodious, +inexhaustibly rich, unique in modern literature for the direct +expression which it has given to every shade of passion. + +Signor Tigri's collection,[22] to which I shall confine my attention +in this paper, consists of eleven hundred and eighty-five _rispetti_, +with the addition of four hundred and sixty-one _stornelli_. Rispetto, +it may be said in passing, is the name commonly given throughout Italy +to short poems, varying from six to twelve lines, constructed on the +principle of the octave stanza. That is to say, the first part of the +rispetto consists of four or six lines with alternate rhymes, while +one or more couplets, called the _ripresa_, complete the poem.[23] +The stornello, or ritournelle, never exceeds three lines, and owes +its name to the return which it makes at the end of the last line to +the rhyme given by the emphatic word of the first. Browning, in his +poem of 'Fra Lippo Lippi,' has accustomed English ears to one common +species of the stornello,[24] which sets out with the name of a +flower, and rhymes with it, as thus: + + Fior di narciso. + Prigionero d'amore mi son reso, + Nel rimirare il tuo leggiadro viso. + +The divisions of those two sorts of songs, to which Tigri gives names +like The Beauty of Women, The Beauty of Men, Falling in Love, +Serenades, Happy Love, Unhappy Love, Parting, Absence, Letters, Return +to Home, Anger and Jealousy, Promises, Entreaties and Reproaches, +Indifference, Treachery and Abandonment, prove with what fulness the +various phases of the tender passion are treated. Through the whole +fifteen hundred the one theme of Love is never relinquished. Only two +persons, 'I' and 'thou,' appear upon the scene; yet so fresh and so +various are the moods of feeling, that one can read them from first to +last without too much satiety. + +To seek for the authors of these ditties would be useless. Some of +them may be as old as the fourteenth century; others may have been +made yesterday. Some are the native product of the Tuscan mountain +villages, especially of the regions round Pistoja and Siena, where on +the spurs of the Apennines the purest Italian is vernacular. Some, +again, are importations from other provinces, especially from Sicily +and Naples, caught up by the peasants of Tuscany and adapted to their +taste and style; for nothing travels faster than a _Volkslied_. Born +some morning in a noisy street of Naples, or on the solitary slopes of +Radicofani, before the week is out, a hundred voices are repeating it. +Waggoners and pedlars carry it across the hills to distant towns. It +floats with the fishermen from bay to bay, and marches with the +conscript to his barrack in a far-off province. Who was the first to +give it shape and form? No one asks, and no one cares. A student well +acquainted with the habits of the people in these matters says, 'If +they knew the author of a ditty, they would not learn it, far less if +they discovered that it was a scholar's.' If the cadence takes their +ear, they consecrate the song at once by placing it upon the honoured +list of 'ancient lays.' Passing from lip to lip and from district to +district, it receives additions and alterations, and becomes the +property of a score of provinces. Meanwhile the poet from whose soul +it blossomed that first morning like a flower, remains contented with +obscurity. The wind has carried from his lips the thistledown of song, +and sown it on a hundred hills and meadows, far and wide. After such +wise is the birth of all truly popular compositions. Who knows, for +instance, the veritable author of many of those mighty German chorals +which sprang into being at the period of the Reformation? The first +inspiration was given, probably, to a single mind; but the melody, as +it has reached us, is the product of a thousand. This accounts for the +variations which in different dialects and districts the same song +presents. Meanwhile, it is sometimes possible to trace the authorship +of a ballad with marked local character to an improvisatore famous in +his village, or to one of those professional rhymesters whom the +country-folk employ in the composition of love-letters to their +sweethearts at a distance.[25] Tommaseo, in the preface to his 'Canti +Popolari,' mentions in particular a Beatrice di Pian degli Ontani, +whose poetry was famous through the mountains of Pistoja; and Tigri +records by name a little girl called Cherubina, who made rispetti by +the dozen as she watched her sheep upon the hills. One of the songs in +his collection (p. 181) contains a direct reference to the village +letter-writer:-- + + Salutatemi, bella, lo scrivano; + Non lo conosco e non so chi si sia. + A me mi pare un poeta sovrano, + Tanto gli è sperto nella poesia.[26] + +While I am writing thus about the production and dissemination of +these love-songs, I cannot help remembering three days and nights +which I once spent at sea between Genoa and Palermo, in the company of +some conscripts who were going to join their regiment in Sicily. They +were lads from the Milanese and Liguria, and they spent a great +portion of their time in composing and singing poetry. One of them had +a fine baritone voice; and when the sun had set, his comrades gathered +round him and begged him to sing to them 'Con quella patetica tua +voce.' Then followed hours of singing, the low monotonous melodies of +his ditties harmonising wonderfully with the tranquillity of night, so +clear and calm that the sky and all its stars were mirrored on the +sea, through which we moved as if in a dream. Sometimes the songs +provoked conversation, which, as is usual in Italy, turned mostly upon +'le bellezze delle donne.' I remember that once an animated discussion +about the relative merits of blondes and brunettes nearly ended in a +quarrel, when the youngest of the whole band, a boy of about +seventeen, put a stop to the dispute by theatrically raising his eyes +and arms to heaven and crying, 'Tu sei innamorato d' una grande Diana +cacciatrice nera, ed io d' una bella Venere bionda.' Though they were +but village lads, they supported their several opinions with arguments +not unworthy of Firenzuola, and showed the greatest delicacy of +feeling in the treatment of a subject which could scarcely have failed +to reveal any latent coarseness. + +The purity of all the Italian love-songs collected by Tigri is very +remarkable.[27] Although the passion expressed in them is Oriental in +its vehemence, not a word falls which could offend a virgin's ear. The +one desire of lovers is lifelong union in marriage. The _damo_--for so +a sweetheart is termed in Tuscany--trembles until he has gained the +approval of his future mother-in-law, and forbids the girl he is +courting to leave her house to talk to him at night:-- + + Dice che tu tì affacci alia finestra; + Ma non tì dice che tu vada fuora, + Perchè, la notte, è cosa disonesta. + +All the language of his love is respectful. _Signore_, or master of my +soul, _madonna, anima mia, dolce mio ben, nobil persona,_ are the +terms of adoration with which he approaches his mistress. The +elevation of feeling and perfect breeding which Manzoni has so well +delineated in the loves of Renzo and Lucia are traditional among +Italian country-folk. They are conscious that true gentleness is no +matter of birth or fortune:-- + + E tu non mi lasciar per poverezza, + Chè povertà non guasta gentilezza.[28] + + +This in itself constitutes an important element of culture, and +explains to some extent the high romantic qualities of their +impassioned poetry. The beauty of their land reveals still more. 'O +fortunatos nimium sua si bona norint!' Virgil's exclamation is as true +now as it was when he sang the labours of Italian country-folk some +nineteen centuries ago. To a traveller from the north there is a +pathos even in the contrast between the country in which these +children of a happier climate toil, and those bleak, winter-beaten +fields where our own peasants pass their lives. The cold nights and +warm days of Tuscan springtime are like a Swiss summer. They make rich +pasture and a hardy race of men. Tracts of corn and oats and rye +alternate with patches of flax in full flower, with meadows yellow +with buttercups or pink with ragged robin; the young vines, running +from bough to bough of elm and mulberry, are just coming into leaf. +The poplars are fresh with bright green foliage. On the verge of this +blooming plain stand ancient cities ringed with hills, some rising to +snowy Apennines, some covered with white convents and sparkling with +villas. Cypresses shoot, black and spirelike, amid grey clouds of +olive-boughs upon the slopes; and above, where vegetation borders on +the barren rock, are masses of ilex and arbutus interspersed with +chestnut-trees not yet in leaf. Men and women are everywhere at work, +ploughing with great white oxen, or tilling the soil with spades six +feet in length--Sabellian ligones. The songs of nightingales among +acacia-trees, and the sharp scream of swallows wheeling in air, mingle +with the monotonous chant that always rises from the country-people at +their toil. Here and there on points of vantage, where the hill-slopes +sink into the plain, cluster white villages with flower-like +campanili. It is there that the veglia, or evening rendezvous of +lovers, the serenades and balls and feste, of which one hears so much +in the popular minstrelsy, take place. Of course it would not be +difficult to paint the darker shades of this picture. Autumn comes, +when the contadini of Lucca and Siena and Pistoja go forth to work in +the unwholesome marshes of the Maremma, or of Corsica and Sardinia. +Dismal superstitions and hereditary hatreds cast their blight over a +life externally so fair. The bad government of centuries has perverted +in many ways the instincts of a people naturally mild and cheerful and +peace-loving. But as far as nature can make men happy, these +husbandmen are surely to be reckoned fortunate, and in their songs we +find little to remind us of what is otherwise than sunny in their lot. + +A translator of these _Volkslieder_ has to contend with difficulties +of no ordinary kind. The freshness of their phrases, the spontaneity +of their sentiments, and the melody of their unstudied cadences, are +inimitable. So again is the peculiar effect of their frequent +transitions from the most fanciful imagery to the language of prose. +No mere student can hope to rival, far less to reproduce, in a foreign +tongue, the charm of verse which sprang untaught from the hearts of +simple folk, which lives unwritten on the lips of lovers, and which +should never be dissociated from singing.[29] There are, besides, +peculiarities in the very structure of the popular rispetto. The +constant repetition of the same phrase with slight variations, +especially in the closing lines of the _ripresa_ of the Tuscan +rispetto, gives an antique force and flavour to these ditties, like +that which we appreciate in our own ballads, but which may easily, in +the translation, degenerate into weakness and insipidity. The Tuscan +rhymester, again, allows himself the utmost licence. It is usual to +find mere assonances like _bene_ and _piacere, oro_ and _volo, ala_ +and _alata_, in the place of rhymes; while such remote resemblances of +sound as _colli_ and _poggi_, _lascia_ and _piazza_, are far from +uncommon. To match these rhymes by joining 'home' and 'alone,' 'time' +and 'shine,' &c, would of course be a matter of no difficulty; but it +has seemed to me on the whole best to preserve, with some exceptions, +such accuracy as the English ear requires. I fear, however, that, +after all, these wild-flowers of song, transplanted to another climate +and placed in a hothouse, will appear but pale and hectic by the side +of their robuster brethren of the Tuscan hills. + +In the following serenade many of the peculiarities which +I have just noticed occur. I have also adhered to the irregularity of +rhyme which may be usually observed about the middle of the poem (p. +103):-- + + Sleeping or waking, thou sweet face, + Lift up thy fair and tender brow: + List to thy love in this still place; + He calls thee to thy window now: + But bids thee not the house to quit, + Since in the night this were not meet. + Come to thy window, stay within; + I stand without, and sing and sing: + Come to thy window, stay at home; + I stand without, and make my moan. + +Here is a serenade of a more impassioned character (p. 99):-- + + I come to visit thee, my beauteous queen, + Thee and the house where thou art harboured: + All the long way upon my knees, my queen, + I kiss the earth where'er thy footsteps tread. + I kiss the earth, and gaze upon the wall, + Whereby thou goest, maid imperial! + I kiss the earth, and gaze upon the house, + Whereby thou farest, queen most beauteous! + +In the next the lover, who has passed the whole night beneath his +sweetheart's window, takes leave at the break of day. The feeling of +the half-hour before dawn, when the sound of bells rises to meet the +growing light, and both form a prelude to the glare and noise of day, +is expressed with much unconscious poetry (p. 105):-- + + I see the dawn e'en now begin to peer: + Therefore I take my leave, and cease to sing, + See how the windows open far and near, + And hear the bells of morning, how they ring! + Through heaven and earth the sounds of ringing swell; + Therefore, bright jasmine flower, sweet maid, farewell! + Through heaven and Rome the sound of ringing goes; + Farewell, bright jasmine flower, sweet maiden rose! +The next is more quaint (p. 99):-- + + I come by night, I come, my soul aflame; + I come in this fair hour of your sweet sleep; + And should I wake you up, it were a shame. + I cannot sleep, and lo! I break your sleep. + To wake you were a shame from your deep rest; + Love never sleeps, nor they whom Love hath blest. + +A very great many rispetti are simple panegyrics of the beloved, to +find similitude for whose beauty heaven and earth are ransacked. The +compliment of the first line in the following song is perfect (p. +23):-- + + Beauty was born with you, fair maid: + The sun and moon inclined to you; + On you the snow her whiteness laid + The rose her rich and radiant hue: + Saint Magdalen her hair unbound, + And Cupid taught you how to wound-- + How to wound hearts Dan Cupid taught: + Your beauty drives me love-distraught. + +The lady in the next was December's child (p. 25):-- + + O beauty, born in winter's night, + Born in the month of spotless snow: + Your face is like a rose so bright; + Your mother may be proud of you! + She may be proud, lady of love, + Such sunlight shines her house above: + She may be proud, lady of heaven, + Such sunlight to her home is given. + +The sea wind is the source of beauty to another (p. 16):-- + + Nay, marvel not you are so fair; + For you beside the sea were born: + The sea-waves keep you fresh and fair, + Like roses on their leafy thorn. + If roses grow on the rose-bush, + Your roses through midwinter blush; + If roses bloom on the rose-bed, + Your face can show both white and red. + +The eyes of a fourth are compared, after quite a new and original +fashion, to stars (p. 210):-- + + The moon hath risen her plaint to lay + Before the face of Love Divine. + Saying in heaven she will not stay, + Since you have stolen what made her shine: + Aloud she wails with sorrow wan,-- + She told her stars and two are gone: + They are not there; you have them now; + They are the eyes in your bright brow. + +Nor are girls less ready to praise their lovers, but that they do not +dwell so much on physical perfection. Here is a pleasant greeting (p. +124):-- + + O welcome, welcome, lily white, + Thou fairest youth of all the valley! + When I'm with you, my soul is light; + I chase away dull melancholy. + I chase all sadness from my heart: + Then welcome, dearest that thou art! + I chase all sadness from my side: + Then welcome, O my love, my pride! + I chase all sadness far away: + Then welcome, welcome, love, to-day! + +The image of a lily is very prettily treated in the next (p 79):-- + + I planted a lily yestreen at my window; + I set it yestreen, and to-day it sprang up: + When I opened the latch and leaned out of my window, + It shadowed my face with its beautiful cup. + O lily, my lily, how tall you are grown! + Remember how dearly I loved you, my own. + O lily, my lily, you'll grow to the sky! + Remember I love you for ever and aye. + +The same thought of love growing like a flower receives another turn +(p. 69):-- + + On yonder hill I saw a flower; + And, could it thence be hither borne, + I'd plant it here within my bower, + And water it both eve and morn. + Small water wants the stem so straight; + 'Tis a love-lily stout as fate. + Small water wants the root so strong: + 'Tis a love-lily lasting long. + Small water wants the flower so sheen: + 'Tis a love-lily ever green. + +Envious tongues have told a girl that her complexion is not good. She +replies, with imagery like that of Virgil's 'Alba ligustra cadunt, +vaccinia nigra leguntur' (p. 31):-- + + Think it no grief that I am brown, + For all brunettes are born to reign: + White is the snow, yet trodden down; + Black pepper kings need not disdain: + White snow lies mounded on the vales + Black pepper's weighed in brazen scales. + +Another song runs on the same subject (p. 38):-- + + The whole world tells me that I'm brown, + The brown earth gives us goodly corn: + The clove-pink too, however brown, + Yet proudly in the hand 'tis borne. + They say my love is black, but he + Shines like an angel-form to me: + They say my love is dark as night; + To me he seems a shape of light. + +The freshness of the following spring song recalls the ballads of the +Val de Vire in Normandy (p. 85):-- + + It was the morning of the first of May, + Into the close I went to pluck a flower; + And there I found a bird of woodland gay, + Who whiled with songs of love the silent hour. + O bird, who fliest from fair Florence, how + Dear love begins, I prithee teach me now!-- + Love it begins with music and with song, + And ends with sorrow and with sighs ere long. + +Love at first sight is described (p. 79):-- + + The very moment that we met, + That moment love began to beat: + One glance of love we gave, and swore + Never to part for evermore; + We swore together, sighing deep, + Never to part till Death's long sleep. + +Here too is a memory of the first days of love (p. 79):-- + + If I remember, it was May + When love began between us two: + The roses in the close were gay, + The cherries blackened on the bough. + O cherries black and pears so green! + Of maidens fair you are the queen. + Fruit of black cherry and sweet pear! + Of sweethearts you're the queen, I swear. + +The troth is plighted with such promises as these (p. 230):-- + + Or ere I leave you, love divine, + Dead tongues shall stir and utter speech, + And running rivers flow with wine, + And fishes swim upon the beach; + Or ere I leave or shun you, these + Lemons shall grow on orange-trees. + +The girl confesses her love after this fashion (p. 86):-- + + Passing across the billowy sea, + I let, alas, my poor heart fall; + I bade the sailors bring it me; + They said they had not seen it fall. + I asked the sailors, one and two; + They said that I had given it you. + I asked the sailors, two and three; + They said that I had given it thee. +It is not uncommon to speak of love as a sea. Here is a curious play +upon this image (p. 227):-- + + Ho, Cupid! Sailor Cupid, ho! + Lend me awhile that bark of thine; + For on the billows I will go, + To find my love who once was mine: + And if I find her, she shall wear + A chain around her neck so fair, + Around her neck a glittering bond, + Four stars, a lily, a diamond. + +It is also possible that the same thought may occur in the second line +of the next ditty (p. 120):-- + + Beneath the earth I'll make a way + To pass the sea and come to you. + People will think I'm gone away; + But, dear, I shall be seeing you. + People will say that I am dead; + But we'll pluck roses white and red: + People will think I'm lost for aye; + But we'll pluck roses, you and I. + +All the little daily incidents are beautified by love. Here is a +lover who thanks the mason for making his window so close upon the +road that he can see his sweetheart as she passes (p. 118):-- + + Blest be the mason's hand who built + This house of mine by the roadside, + And made my window low and wide + For me to watch my love go by. + And if I knew when she went by, + My window should be fairly gilt; + And if I knew what time she went, + My window should be flower-besprent. + +Here is a conceit which reminds one of the pretty epistle of +Philostratus, in which the footsteps of the beloved are called +_[Greek: erêreismena philêmpta]_ (p. 117):-- + + What time I see you passing by; + I sit and count the steps you take: + You take the steps; I sit and sigh: + Step after step, my sighs awake. + Tell me, dear love, which more abound, + My sighs or your steps on the ground? + Tell me, dear love, which are the most, + Your light steps or the sighs they cost? + +A girl complains that she cannot see her lover's house (p. 117):- + + I lean upon the lattice, and look forth + To see the house where my lover dwells. + There grows an envious tree that spoils my mirth: + Cursed be the man who set it on these hills! + But when those jealous boughs are all unclad, + I then shall see the cottage of my lad: + When once that tree is rooted from the hills, + I'll see the house wherein my lover dwells. + +In the same mood a girl who has just parted from her sweetheart is +angry with the hill beyond which he is travelling (p. 167):-- + + I see and see, yet see not what I would: + I see the leaves atremble on the tree: + I saw my love where on the hill he stood, + Yet see him not drop downward to the lea. + O traitor hill, what will you do? + I ask him, live or dead, from you. + O traitor hill, what shall it be? + I ask him, live or dead, from thee. + +All the songs of love in absence are very quaint. Here is one which +calls our nursery rhymes to mind (p. 119):-- + +I would I were a bird so free, +That I had wings to fly away: +Unto that window I would flee, +Where stands my love and grinds all day. +Grind, miller, grind; the water's deep! +I cannot grind; love makes me weep. +Grind, miller, grind; the waters flow! +I cannot grind; love wastes me so. + +The next begins after the same fashion, but breaks into a very shower +of benedictions (p. 118):-- + + Would God I were a swallow free, + That I had wings to fly away: + Upon the miller's door I'd be, + Where stands my love and grinds all day: + Upon the door, upon the sill, + Where stays my love;--God bless him still! + God bless my love, and blessed be + His house, and bless my house for me; + Yea, blest be both, and ever blest + My lover's house, and all the rest! + +The girl alone at home in her garden sees a wood-dove flying by and +calls to it (p. 179):-- + + O dove, who fliest far to yonder hill, + Dear dove, who in the rock hast made thy nest, + Let me a feather from thy pinion pull, + For I will write to him who loves me best. + And when I've written it and made it clear, + I'll give thee back thy feather, dove so dear: + And when I've written it and sealed it, then + I'll give thee back thy feather love-laden. + +A swallow is asked to lend the same kind service (p. 179):-- + + O swallow, swallow, flying through the air, + Turn, turn, I prithee, from thy flight above! + Give me one feather from thy wing so fair, + For I will write a letter to my love. + When I have written it and made it clear, + I'll give thee back thy feather, swallow dear; + When I have written it on paper white, + I'll make, I swear, thy missing feather right; + When once 'tis written on fair leaves of gold, + I'll give thee back thy wing and flight so bold. + + +Long before Tennyson's song in the 'Princess,' it would seem that +swallows were favourite messengers of love. In the next song which I +translate, the repetition of one thought with delicate variation is +full of character (p. 178):-- + + O swallow, flying over hill and plain, + If thou shouldst find my love, oh bid him come! + And tell him, on these mountains I remain + Even as a lamb who cannot find her home: + And tell him, I am left all, all alone, + Even as a tree whose flowers are overblown: + And tell him, I am left without a mate + Even as a tree whose boughs are desolate: + And tell him, I am left uncomforted + Even as the grass upon the meadows dead. + +The following is spoken by a girl who has been watching the lads of +the village returning from their autumn service in the plain, and +whose damo comes the last of all (p. 240):-- + + O dear my love, you come too late! + What found you by the way to do? + I saw your comrades pass the gate, + But yet not you, dear heart, not you! + If but a little more you'd stayed, + With sighs you would have found me dead; + If but a while you'd keep me crying, + With sighs you would have found me dying. + +The _amantium irae_ find a place too in these rustic ditties. A girl +explains to her sweetheart (p. 240):-- + + 'Twas told me and vouchsafed for true, + Your kin are wroth as wroth can be; + For loving me they swear at you, + They swear at you because of me; + Your father, mother, all your folk, + Because you love me, chafe and choke! + Then set your kith and kin at ease; + Set them at ease and let me die: + Set the whole clan of them at ease; + Set them at ease and see me die! + +Another suspects that her damo has paid his suit to a rival (p. +200):-- + + On Sunday morning well I knew + Where gaily dressed you turned your feet; + And there were many saw it too, + And came to tell me through the street: + And when they spoke, I smiled, ah me! + But in my room wept privately; + And when they spoke, I sang for pride, + But in my room alone I sighed. + +Then come reconciliations (p. 223):-- + + Let us make peace, my love, my bliss! + For cruel strife can last no more. + If you say nay, yet I say yes: + 'Twixt me and you there is no war. + Princes and mighty lords make peace; + And so may lovers twain, I wis: + Princes and soldiers sign a truce; + And so may two sweethearts like us: + Princes and potentates agree; + And so may friends like you and me. + +There is much character about the following, which is spoken by the +damo (p. 223):-- + + As yonder mountain height I trod, + I chanced to think of your dear name; + I knelt with clasped hands on the sod, + And thought of my neglect with shame: + I knelt upon the stone, and swore + Our love should bloom as heretofore. + +Sometimes the language of affection takes a more imaginative tone, as +in the following (p. 232):-- + + Dearest, what time you mount to heaven above, + I'll meet you holding in my hand my heart: + You to your breast shall clasp me full of love, + And I will lead you to our Lord apart. + + Our Lord, when he our love so true hath known, + Shall make of our two hearts one heart alone; + One heart shall make of our two hearts, to rest + In heaven amid the splendours of the blest. + +This was the woman's. Here is the man's (p. 113):-- + + If I were master of all loveliness, + I'd make thee still more lovely than thou art: + If I were master of all wealthiness, + Much gold and silver should be thine, sweetheart: + If I were master of the house of hell, + I'd bar the brazen gates in thy sweet face; + Or ruled the place where purging spirits dwell, + I'd free thee from that punishment apace. + Were I in paradise and thou shouldst come, + I'd stand aside, my love, to make thee room; + Were I in paradise, well seated there, + I'd quit my place to give it thee, my fair! + +Sometimes, but very rarely, weird images are sought to clothe passion, +as in the following (p. 136):-- + + Down into hell I went and thence returned: + Ah me! alas! the people that were there! + I found a room where many candles burned, + And saw within my love that languished there. + When as she saw me, she was glad of cheer, + And at the last she said: Sweet soul of mine; + Dost thou recall the time long past, so dear, + When thou didst say to me, Sweet soul of mine? + Now kiss me on the mouth, my dearest, here; + Kiss me that I for once may cease to pine! + So sweet, ah me, is thy dear mouth, so dear, + That of thy mercy prithee sweeten mine! + Now, love, that thou hast kissed me, now, I say, + Look not to leave this place again for aye. + +Or again in this (p. 232):-- + + Methinks I hear, I hear a voice that cries: + Beyond the hill it floats upon the air. + It is my lover come to bid me rise, + If I am fain forthwith toward heaven to fare. + But I have answered him, and said him No! + I've given my paradise, my heaven, for you: + Till we together go to paradise, + I'll stay on earth and love your beauteous eyes. + +But it is not with such remote and eerie thoughts that the rustic muse +of Italy can deal successfully. Far better is the following +half-playful description of love-sadness (p. 71):-- + + Ah me, alas! who know not how to sigh! + Of sighs I now full well have learned the art: + Sighing at table when to eat I try, + Sighing within my little room apart, + Sighing when jests and laughter round me fly, + Sighing with her and her who know my heart: + I sigh at first, and then I go on sighing; + 'Tis for your eyes that I am ever sighing: + I sigh at first, and sigh the whole year through; + And 'tis your eyes that keep me sighing so. + +The next two rispetti, delicious in their naïveté, might seem to have +been extracted from the libretto of an opera, but that they lack the +sympathising chorus, who should have stood at hand, ready to chime in +with 'he,' 'she,' and 'they,' to the 'I,' 'you,' and 'we' of the +lovers (p. 123):-- + + Ah, when will dawn that glorious day + When you will softly mount my stair? + My kin shall bring you on the way; + I shall be first to greet you there. + Ah, when will dawn that day of bliss + When we before the priest say Yes? + + Ah, when will dawn that blissful day + When I shall softly mount your stair, + Your brothers meet me on the way, + And one by one I greet them there? + When comes the day, my staff, my strength, + To call your mother mine at length? + When will the day come, love of mine, + I shall be yours and you be mine? + +Hitherto the songs have told only of happy love, or of love returned. +Some of the best, however, are unhappy. Here is one, for instance, +steeped in gloom (p. 142):-- + + They have this custom in fair Naples town; + They never mourn a man when he is dead: + The mother weeps when she has reared a son + To be a serf and slave by love misled; + The mother weeps when she a son hath born + To be the serf and slave of galley scorn; + The mother weeps when she a son gives suck + To be the serf and slave of city luck. + +The following contains a fine wild image, wrought out with strange +passion in detail (p. 300):-- + + I'll spread a table brave for revelry, + And to the feast will bid sad lovers all. + For meat I'll give them my heart's misery; + For drink I'll give these briny tears that fall. + Sorrows and sighs shall be the varletry, + To serve the lovers at this festival: + The table shall be death, black death profound; + Weep, stones, and utter sighs, ye walls around! + The table shall be death, yea, sacred death; + Weep, stones, and sigh as one that sorroweth! + +Nor is the next a whit less in the vein of mad Jeronimo (p. 304):-- + + High up, high up, a house I'll rear, + High up, high up, on yonder height; + At every window set a snare, + With treason, to betray the night; + With treason, to betray the stars, + Since I'm betrayed by my false feres; + With treason, to betray the day, + Since Love betrayed me, well away! + +The vengeance of an Italian reveals itself in the energetic song which +I quote next (p. 303):-- + + I have a sword; 'twould cut a brazen bell, + Tough steel 'twould cut, if there were any need: + I've had it tempered in the streams of hell + By masters mighty in the mystic rede: + I've had it tempered by the light of stars; + Then let him come whose skin is stout as Mars; + I've had it tempered to a trenchant blade; + Then let him come who stole from me my maid. + +More mild, but brimful of the bitterness of a soul to whom the whole +world has become but ashes in the death of love, is the following +lament (p. 143):-- + + Call me the lovely Golden Locks no more, + But call me Sad Maid of the golden hair. + If there be wretched women, sure I think + I too may rank among the most forlorn. + I fling a palm into the sea; 'twill sink: + Others throw lead, and it is lightly borne. + What have I done, dear Lord, the world to cross? + Gold in my hand forthwith is turned to dross. + How have I made, dear Lord, dame Fortune wroth? + Gold in my hand forthwith is turned to froth. + What have I done, dear Lord, to fret the folk? + Gold in my hand forthwith is turned to smoke. + +Here is pathos (p. 172):-- + + The wood-dove who hath lost her mate, + She lives a dolorous life, I ween; + She seeks a stream and bathes in it, + And drinks that water foul and green: + With other birds she will not mate, + Nor haunt, I wis, the flowery treen; + She bathes her wings and strikes her breast; + Her mate is lost: oh, sore unrest! + +And here is fanciful despair (p. 168):-- + + I'll build a house of sobs and sighs, + With tears the lime I'll slack; + And there I'll dwell with weeping eyes + Until my love come back: + And there I'll stay with eyes that burn + Until I see my love return. + +The house of love has been deserted, and the lover comes to moan +beneath its silent eaves (p. 171):-- + + Dark house and window desolate! + Where is the sun which shone so fair? + 'Twas here we danced and laughed at fate: + Now the stones weep; I see them there. + They weep, and feel a grievous chill: + Dark house and widowed window-sill! + +And what can be more piteous than this prayer? (p. 809):-- + + Love, if you love me, delve a tomb, + And lay me there the earth beneath; + After a year, come see my bones, + And make them dice to play therewith. + But when you're tired of that game, + Then throw those dice into the flame; + But when you're tired of gaming free, + Then throw those dice into the sea. + +The simpler expression of sorrow to the death is, as usual, more +impressive. A girl speaks thus within sight of the grave (p. 808):-- + + Yes, I shall die: what wilt thou gain? + The cross before my bier will go; + And thou wilt hear the bells complain, + The _Misereres_ loud and low. + Midmost the church thou'lt see me lie + With folded hands and frozen eye; + Then say at last, I do repent!-- + Nought else remains when fires are spent. + +Here is a rustic Oenone (p. 307):-- + + Fell death, that fliest fraught with woe! + Thy gloomy snares the world ensphere: + Where no man calls, thou lov'st to go; + But when we call, thou wilt not hear. + Fell death, false death of treachery, + Thou makest all content but me. + +Another is less reproachful, but scarcely less sad (p. 308):-- + + Strew me with blossoms when I die, + Nor lay me 'neath the earth below; + Beyond those walls, there let me lie, + Where oftentimes we used to go. + There lay me to the wind and rain; + Dying for you, I feel no pain: + There lay me to the sun above; + Dying for you, I die of love. + +Yet another of these pitiful love-wailings displays much poetry of +expression (p. 271):-- + + I dug the sea, and delved the barren sand: + I wrote with dust and gave it to the wind: + Of melting snow, false Love, was made thy band, + Which suddenly the day's bright beams unbind. + Now am I ware, and know my own mistake-- + How false are all the promises you make; + Now am I ware, and know the fact, ah me! + That who confides in you, deceived will be. + +It would scarcely be well to pause upon these very doleful ditties. +Take, then, the following little serenade, in which the lover on his +way to visit his mistress has unconsciously fallen on the same thought +as Bion (p. 85):-- + + Yestreen I went my love to greet, + By yonder village path below: + Night in a coppice found my feet; + I called the moon her light to show-- + O moon, who needs no flame to fire thy face, + Look forth and lend me light a little space! + +Enough has been quoted to illustrate the character of the Tuscan +popular poetry. These village rispetti bear the same relation to the +canzoniere of Petrarch as the 'savage drupe' to the 'suave plum.' They +are, as it were, the wild stock of that highly artificial flower of +art. Herein lies, perhaps, their chief importance. As in our ballad +literature we may discern the stuff of the Elizabethan drama +undeveloped, so in the Tuscan people's songs we can trace the crude +form of that poetic instinct which produced the sonnets to Laura. It +is also very probable that some such rustic minstrelsy preceded the +Idylls of Theocritus and the Bucolics of Virgil; for coincidences of +thought and imagery, which can scarcely be referred to any conscious +study of the ancients, are not a few. Popular poetry has this great +value for the student of literature: it enables him to trace those +forms of fancy and of feeling which are native to the people, and +which must ultimately determine the character of national art, however +much that may be modified by culture. + + * * * * * + + + + +_POPULAR ITALIAN POETRY OF THE RENAISSANCE_ + + +The semi-popular poetry of the Italians in the fifteenth century +formed an important branch of their national literature, and +flourished independently of the courtly and scholastic studies which +gave a special character to the golden age of the revival. While the +latter tended to separate the people from the cultivated classes, the +former established a new link of connection between them, different +indeed from that which existed when smiths and carters repeated the +Canzoni of Dante by heart in the fourteenth century, but still +sufficiently real to exercise a weighty influence over the national +development. Scholars like Angelo Poliziano, princes like Lorenzo de' +Medici, men of letters like Feo Belcari and Benivieni, borrowed from +the people forms of poetry, which they handled with refined taste, and +appropriated to the uses of polite literature. The most important of +these forms, native to the people but assimilated by the learned +classes, were the Miracle Play or 'Sacra Rappresentazione;' the +'Ballata' or lyric to be sung while dancing; the 'Canto +Carnascialesco' or Carnival Chorus; the 'Rispetto' or short +love-ditty; the 'Lauda' or hymn; the 'Maggio' or May-song; and the +'Madrigale' or little part-song. + +At Florence, where even under the despotism of the Medici a show of +republican life still lingered, all classes joined in the amusements +of carnival and spring time; and this poetry of the dance, the +pageant, and the villa flourished side by side with the more serious +efforts of the humanistic muse. It is not my purpose in this place to +inquire into the origins of each lyrical type, to discuss the +alterations they may have undergone at the hands of educated +versifiers, or to define their several characteristics; but only to +offer translations of such as seem to me best suited to represent the +genius of the people and the age. + +In the composition of the poetry in question, Angelo Poliziano was +indubitably the most successful. This giant of learning, who filled +the lecture-rooms of Florence with students of all nations, and whose +critical and rhetorical labours marked an epoch in the history of +scholarship, was by temperament a poet, and a poet of the people. +Nothing was easier for him than to throw aside his professor's mantle, +and to improvise 'Ballate' for the girls to sing as they danced their +'Carola' upon the Piazza di Santa Trinità in summer evenings. The +peculiarity of this lyric is that it starts with a couplet, which also +serves as refrain, supplying the rhyme to each successive stanza. The +stanza itself is identical with our rime royal, if we count the +couplet in the place of the seventh line. The form is in itself so +graceful and is so beautifully treated by Poliziano that I cannot +content myself with fewer than four of his _Ballate_.[30] The first is +written on the world-old theme of 'Gather ye rosebuds while ye may.' + + + I went a roaming, maidens, one bright day, + In a green garden in mid month of May. + + Violets and lilies grew on every side + Mid the green grass, and young flowers wonderful, + Golden and white and red and azure-eyed; + Toward which I stretched my hands, eager to pull + Plenty to make my fair curls beautiful, + To crown my rippling curls with garlands gay. + + I went a roaming, maidens, one bright day, + In a green garden in mid month of May. + + But when my lap was full of flowers I spied + Roses at last, roses of every hue; + Therefore I ran to pluck their ruddy pride, + Because their perfume was so sweet and true + That all my soul went forth with pleasure new, + With yearning and desire too soft to say. + + I went a roaming, maidens, one bright day, + In a green garden in mid month of May. + + I gazed and gazed. Hard task it were to tell + How lovely were the roses in that hour: + One was but peeping from her verdant shell, + And some were faded, some were scarce in flower: + Then Love said: Go, pluck from the blooming bower + Those that thou seest ripe upon the spray. + + I went a roaming, maidens, one bright day, + In a green garden in mid month of May. + + For when the full rose quits her tender sheath, + When she is sweetest and most fair to see, + Then is the time to place her in thy wreath, + Before her beauty and her freshness flee. + Gather ye therefore roses with great glee, + Sweet girls, or ere their perfume pass away. + + I went a roaming, maidens, one bright day, + In a green garden in mid month of May. + +The next Ballata is less simple, but is composed with the same +intention. It may here be parenthetically mentioned that the courtly +poet, when he applied himself to this species of composition, invented +a certain rusticity of incident, scarcely in keeping with the spirit +of his art. It was in fact a conventional feature of this species of +verse that the scene should be laid in the country, where the burgher, +on a visit to his villa, is supposed to meet with a rustic beauty who +captivates his eyes and heart. Guido Cavalcanti, in his celebrated +Ballata, 'In un boschetto trovai pastorella,' struck the keynote of +this music, which, it may be reasonably conjectured, was imported into +Italy through Provençal literature from the pastorals of Northern +France. The lady so quaintly imaged by a bird in the following Ballata +of Poliziano is supposed to have been Monna Ippolita Leoncina of +Prato, white-throated, golden-haired, and dressed in crimson silk. + + I found myself one day all, all alone, + For pastime in a field with blossoms strewn. + + I do not think the world a field could show + With herbs of perfume so surpassing rare; + But when I passed beyond the green hedge-row, + A thousand flowers around me flourished fair, + White, pied and crimson, in the summer air; + Among the which I heard a sweet bird's tone. + + I found myself one day all, all alone, + For pastime in a field with blossoms strewn. + + Her song it was so tender and so clear + That all the world listened with love; then I + With stealthy feet a-tiptoe drawing near, + Her golden head and golden wings could spy, + Her plumes that flashed like rubies 'neath the sky, + Her crystal beak and throat and bosom's zone. + + I found myself one day all, all alone, + For pastime in a field with blossoms strewn. + + Fain would I snare her, smit with mighty love; + But arrow-like she soared, and through the air + Fled to her nest upon the boughs above; + Wherefore to follow her is all my care, + For haply I might lure her by some snare + Forth from the woodland wild where she is flown. + + I found myself one day all, all alone, + For pastime in a field with blossoms strewn. + + Yea, I might spread some net or woven wile; + But since of singing she doth take such pleasure, + Without or other art or other guile + I seek to win her with a tuneful measure; + Therefore in singing spend I all my leisure, + To make by singing this sweet bird my own. + + I found myself one day all, all alone, + For pastime in a field with blossoms strewn. + +The same lady is more directly celebrated in the next Ballata, where +Poliziano calls her by her name, Ippolita. I have taken the liberty of +substituting Myrrha for this somewhat unmanageable word. + + He who knows not what thing is Paradise, + Let him look fixedly on Myrrha's eyes. + + From Myrrha's eyes there flieth, girt with fire, + An angel of our lord, a laughing boy, + Who lights in frozen hearts a flaming pyre, + And with such sweetness doth the soul destroy, + That while it dies, it murmurs forth its joy; + Oh blessed am I to dwell in Paradise! + + He who knows not what thing is Paradise, + Let him look fixedly on Myrrha's eyes. + + From Myrrha's eyes a virtue still doth move, + So swift and with so fierce and strong a flight, + That it is like the lightning of high Jove, + Riving of iron and adamant the might; + Nathless the wound doth carry such delight + That he who suffers dwells in Paradise. + + He who knows not what thing is Paradise, + Let him look fixedly on Myrrha's eyes. + + From Myrrha's eyes a lovely messenger + Of joy so grave, so virtuous, doth flee, + That all proud souls are bound to bend to her; + So sweet her countenance, it turns the key + Of hard hearts locked in cold security: + Forth flies the prisoned soul to Paradise. + + He who knows not what thing is Paradise, + Let him look fixedly on Myrrha's eyes. + + In Myrrha's eyes beauty doth make her throne, + And sweetly smile and sweetly speak her mind: + Such grace in her fair eyes a man hath known + As in the whole wide world he scarce may find: + Yet if she slay him with a glance too kind, + He lives again beneath her gazing eyes. + + He who knows not what thing is Paradise, + Let him look fixedly on Myrrha's eyes. + +The fourth Ballata sets forth the fifteenth-century Italian code of +love, the code of the Novelle, very different in its avowed laxity +from the high ideal of the trecentisti poets. + + I ask no pardon if I follow Love; + Since every gentle heart is thrall thereof. + + From those who feel the fire I feel, what use + Is there in asking pardon? These are so + Gentle, kind-hearted, tender, piteous, + That they will have compassion, well I know. + From such as never felt that honeyed woe, + I seek no pardon: nought they know of Love. + + I ask no pardon if I follow Love; + Since every gentle heart is thrall thereof. + + Honour, pure love, and perfect gentleness, + Weighed in the scales of equity refined, + Are but one thing: beauty is nought or less, + Placed in a dame of proud and scornful mind. + Who can rebuke me then if I am kind + So far as honesty comports and Love? + + I ask no pardon if I follow Love; + Since every gentle heart is thrall thereof. + + Let him rebuke me whose hard heart of stone + Ne'er felt of Love the summer in his vein! + I pray to Love that who hath never known + Love's power, may ne'er be blessed with Love's great gain; + But he who serves our lord with might and main, + May dwell for ever in the fire of Love! + + I ask no pardon if I follow Love; + Since every gentle heart is thrall thereof. + + Let him rebuke me without cause who will; + For if he be not gentle, I fear nought: + My heart obedient to the same love still + Hath little heed of light words envy-fraught: + So long as life remains, it is my thought + To keep the laws of this so gentle Love. + + I ask no pardon if I follow Love; + Since every gentle heart is thrall thereof. + +This Ballata is put into a woman's mouth. Another, ascribed to Lorenzo +de' Medici, expresses the sadness of a man who has lost the favour of +his lady. It illustrates the well-known use of the word _Signore_ for +mistress in Florentine poetry. + + How can I sing light-souled and fancy-free, + When my loved lord no longer smiles on me? + + Dances and songs and merry wakes I leave + To lovers fair, more fortunate and gay; + Since to my heart so many sorrows cleave + That only doleful tears are mine for aye: + Who hath heart's ease, may carol, dance, and play + While I am fain to weep continually. + + How can I sing light-souled and fancy-free, + When my loved lord no longer smiles on me? + + I too had heart's ease once, for so Love willed, + When my lord loved me with love strong and great: + But envious fortune my life's music stilled, + And turned to sadness all my gleeful state. + Ah me! Death surely were less desolate + Than thus to live and love-neglected be! + + How can I sing light-souled and fancy-free, + When my loved lord no longer smiles on me? + + One only comfort soothes my heart's despair, + And mid this sorrow lends my soul some cheer; + Unto my lord I ever yielded fair + Service of faith untainted pure and clear; + If then I die thus guiltless, on my bier + It may be she will shed one tear for me. + + How can I sing light-souled and fancy-free, + When my loved lord no longer smiles on me? + +The Florentine _Rispetto_ was written for the most part in octave +stanzas, detached or continuous. The octave stanza in Italian +literature was an emphatically popular form; and it is still largely +used in many parts of the peninsula for the lyrical expression of +emotion.[31] Poliziano did no more than treat it with his own +facility, sacrificing the unstudied raciness of his popular models to +literary elegance. + +Here are a few of these detached stanzas or _Rispetti Spicciolati_:-- + + Upon that day when first I saw thy face, + I vowed with loyal love to worship thee. + Move, and I move; stay, and I keep my place: + Whate'er thou dost, will I do equally. + + In joy of thine I find most perfect grace, + And in thy sadness dwells my misery: + Laugh, and I laugh; weep, and I too will weep. + Thus Love commands, whose laws I loving keep. + + Nay, be not over-proud of thy great grace, + Lady! for brief time is thy thief and mine. + White will he turn those golden curls, that lace + Thy forehead and thy neck so marble-fine. + Lo! while the flower still flourisheth apace, + Pluck it: for beauty but awhile doth shine. + Fair is the rose at dawn; but long ere night + Her freshness fades, her pride hath vanished quite. + + Fire, fire! Ho, water! for my heart's afire! + Ho, neighbours! help me, or by God I die! + See, with his standard, that great lord, Desire! + He sets my heart aflame: in vain I cry. + Too late, alas! The flames mount high and higher. + Alack, good friends! I faint, I fail, I die. + Ho! water, neighbours mine! no more delay I + My heart's a cinder if you do but stay. + + Lo, may I prove to Christ a renegade, + And, dog-like, die in pagan Barbary; + Nor may God's mercy on my soul be laid, + If ere for aught I shall abandon thee: + Before all-seeing God this prayer be made-- + When I desert thee, may death feed on me: + Now if thy hard heart scorn these vows, be sure + That without faith none may abide secure. + + I ask not, Love, for any other pain + To make thy cruel foe and mine repent, + Only that thou shouldst yield her to the strain + Of these my arms, alone, for chastisement; + Then would I clasp her so with might and main, + That she should learn to pity and relent, + And, in revenge for scorn and proud despite, + A thousand times I'd kiss her forehead white. + + Not always do fierce tempests vex the sea, + Nor always clinging clouds offend the sky; + Cold snows before the sunbeams haste to flee, + Disclosing flowers that 'neath their whiteness lie; + The saints each one doth wait his day to see, + And time makes all things change; so, therefore, I + Ween that 'tis wise to wait my turn, and say, + That who subdues himself, deserves to sway. + +It will be observed that the tone of these poems is not passionate nor +elevated. Love, as understood in Florence of the fifteenth century, +was neither; nor was Poliziano the man to have revived Platonic +mysteries or chivalrous enthusiasms. When the octave stanzas, written +with this amorous intention, were strung together into a continuous +poem, this form of verse took the title of _Rispetto Gontinuato_. In +the collection of Poliziano's poems there are several examples of the +long Rispetto, carelessly enough composed, as may be gathered from the +recurrence of the same stanzas in several poems. All repeat the old +arguments, the old enticements to a less than lawful love. The one +which I have chosen for translation, styled _Serenata ovvero Lettera +in Istrambotti_, might be selected as an epitome of Florentine +convention in the matter of love-making. + + O thou of fairest fairs the first and queen, + Most courteous, kind, and honourable dame, + Thine ear unto thy servant's singing lean, + Who loves thee more than health, or wealth, or fame; + For thou his shining planet still hast been, + And day and night he calls on thy fair name: + First wishing thee all good the world can give, + Next praying in thy gentle thoughts to live. + + He humbly prayeth that thou shouldst be kind + To think upon his pure and perfect faith, + And that such mercy in thy heart and mind + Should reign, as so much beauty argueth: + A thousand, thousand hints, or he were blind, + Of thy great courtesy he reckoneth: + Wherefore thy loyal subject now doth sue + Such guerdon only as shall prove them true. + + He knows himself unmeet for love from thee, + Unmeet for merely gazing on thine eyes; + Seeing thy comely squires so plenteous be, + That there is none but 'neath thy beauty sighs: + Yet since thou seekest fame and bravery, + Nor carest aught for gauds that others prize, + And since he strives to honour thee alway, + He still hath hope to gain thy heart one day. + + Virtue that dwells untold, unknown, unseen, + Still findeth none to love or value it; + Wherefore his faith, that hath so perfect been, + Not being known, can profit him no whit: + He would find pity in thine eyes, I ween, + If thou shouldst deign to make some proof of it; + The rest may flatter, gape, and stand agaze; + Him only faith above the crowd doth raise. + + Suppose that he might meet thee once alone, + Face unto face, without or jealousy, + Or doubt or fear from false misgiving grown, + And tell his tale of grievous pain to thee, + Sure from thy breast he'd draw full many a moan. + And make thy fair eyes weep right plenteously: + Yea, if he had but skill his heart to show, + He scarce could fail to win thee by its woe. + + Now art thou in thy beauty's blooming hour; + Thy youth is yet in pure perfection's prime: + Make it thy pride to yield thy fragile flower, + Or look to find it paled by envious time: + For none to stay the flight of years hath power, + And who culls roses caught by frosty rime? + Give therefore to thy lover, give, for they + Too late repent who act not while they may. + + Time flies: and lo! thou let'st it idly fly: + There is not in the world a thing more dear; + And if thou wait to see sweet May pass by, + Where find'st thou roses in the later year? + He never can, who lets occasion die: + Now that thou canst, stay not for doubt or fear; + But by the forelock take the flying hour, + Ere change begins, and clouds above thee lower. + + Too long 'twixt yea and nay he hath been wrung; + Whether he sleep or wake he little knows, + Or free or in the bands of bondage strung: + Nay, lady, strike, and let thy lover loose! + What joy hast thou to keep a captive hung? + Kill him at once, or cut the cruel noose: + No more, I prithee, stay; but take thy part: + Either relax the bow, or speed the dart. + + Thou feedest him on words and windiness, + On smiles, and signs, and bladders light as air; + Saying, thou fain wouldst comfort his distress, + But dar'st not, canst not: nay, dear lady fair, + All things are possible beneath the stress + Of will, that flames above the soul's despair! + Dally no longer: up, set to thy hand; + Or see his love unclothed and naked stand. + + For he hath sworn, and by this oath will bide, + E'en though his life be lost in the endeavour, + To leave no way, nor art, nor wile untried, + Until he pluck the fruit he sighs for ever: + And, though he still would spare thy honest pride, + The knot that binds him he must loose or sever; + Thou too, O lady, shouldst make sharp thy knife, + If thou art fain to end this amorous strife. + + Lo! if thou lingerest still in dubious dread, + Lest thou shouldst lose fair fame of honesty, + Here hast thou need of wile and warihead, + To test thy lover's strength in screening thee; + Indulge him, if thou find him well bestead, + Knowing that smothered love flames outwardly: + Therefore, seek means, search out some privy way; + Keep not the steed too long at idle play. + + Or if thou heedest what those friars teach, + I cannot fail, lady, to call thee fool: + Well may they blame our private sins and preach; + But ill their acts match with their spoken rule; + The same pitch clings to all men, one and each. + There, I have spoken: set the world to school + With this true proverb, too, be well acquainted + The devil's ne'er so black as he is painted. + + Nor did our good Lord give such grace to thee + That thou shouldst keep it buried in thy breast, + But to reward thy servant's constancy, + Whose love and loyal faith thou hast repressed: + Think it no sin to be some trifle free, + Because thou livest at a lord's behest; + For if he take enough to feed his fill, + To cast the rest away were surely ill. + + They find most favour in the sight of heaven + Who to the poor and hungry are most kind; + A hundred-fold shall thus to thee be given + By God, who loves the free and generous mind; + Thrice strike thy breast, with pure contrition riven, + Crying: I sinned; my sin hath made me blind!-- + He wants not much: enough if he be able + To pick up crumbs that fall beneath thy table. + + Wherefore, O lady, break the ice at length; + Make thou, too, trial of love's fruits and flowers: + When in thine arms thou feel'st thy lover's strength, + Thou wilt repent of all these wasted hours; + Husbands, they know not love, its breadth and length, + Seeing their hearts are not on fire like ours: + Things longed for give most pleasure; this I tell thee: + If still thou doubtest let the proof compel thee. + + What I have spoken is pure gospel sooth; + I have told all my mind, withholding nought: + And well, I ween, thou canst unhusk the truth, + And through the riddle read the hidden thought: + Perchance if heaven still smile upon my youth, + Some good effect for me may yet be wrought: + Then fare thee well; too many words offend: + She who is wise is quick to comprehend. + +The levity of these love-declarations and the fluency of their vows +show them to be 'false as dicers' oaths,' mere verses of the moment, +made to please a facile mistress. One long poem, which cannot be +styled a Rispetto, but is rather a Canzone of the legitimate type, +stands out with distinctness from the rest of Poliziano's love-verses. +It was written by him for Giuliano de' Medici, in praise of the fair +Simonetta. The following version attempts to repeat its metrical +effects in some measure:-- + + My task it is, since thus Love wills, who strains + And forces all the world beneath his sway, + In lowly verse to say + The great delight that in my bosom reigns. + For if perchance I took but little pains + To tell some part of all the joy I find, + I might be deem'd unkind + By one who knew my heart's deep happiness. + He feels but little bliss who hides his bliss; + Small joy hath he whose joy is never sung; + And he who curbs his tongue + Through cowardice, knows but of love the name. + Wherefore to succour and augment the fame + Of that pure, virtuous, wise, and lovely may, + Who like the star of day + Shines mid the stars, or like the rising sun, + Forth from my burning heart the words shall run. + Far, far be envy, far be jealous fear, + With discord dark and drear, + And all the choir that is of love the foe.-- + The season had returned when soft winds blow, + The season friendly to young lovers coy, + Which bids them clothe their joy + In divers garbs and many a masked disguise. + Then I to track the game 'neath April skies + Went forth in raiment strange apparellèd, + And by kind fate was led + Unto the spot where stayed my soul's desire. + The beauteous nymph who feeds my soul with fire, + I found in gentle, pure, and prudent mood, + In graceful attitude, + Loving and courteous, holy, wise, benign. + So sweet, so tender was her face divine, + So gladsome, that in those celestial eyes + Shone perfect paradise, + Yea, all the good that we poor mortals crave. + Around her was a band so nobly brave + Of beauteous dames, that as I gazed at these + Methought heaven's goddesses + That day for once had deigned to visit earth. + But she who gives my soul sorrow and mirth, + Seemed Pallas in her gait, and in her face + Venus; for every grace + And beauty of the world in her combined. + Merely to think, far more to tell my mind + Of that most wondrous sight, confoundeth me, + For mid the maidens she + Who most resembled her was found most rare. + Call ye another first among the fair; + Not first, but sole before my lady set: + Lily and violet + And all the flowers below the rose must bow. + Down from her royal head and lustrous brow + The golden curls fell sportively unpent, + While through the choir she went + With feet well lessoned to the rhythmic sound. + Her eyes, though scarcely raised above the ground, + Sent me by stealth a ray divinely fair; + But still her jealous hair + Broke the bright beam, and veiled her from my gaze. + She, born and nursed in heaven for angels' praise, + No sooner saw this wrong, than back she drew, + With hand of purest hue, + Her truant curls with kind and gentle mien. + Then from her eyes a soul so fiery keen, + So sweet a soul of love she cast on mine, + That scarce can I divine + How then I 'scaped from burning utterly. + These are the first fair signs of love to be, + That bound my heart with adamant, and these + The matchless courtesies + Which, dreamlike, still before mine eyes must hover. + This is the honeyed food she gave her lover, + To make him, so it pleased her, half-divine; + Nectar is not so fine, + Nor ambrosy, the fabled feast of Jove. + Then, yielding proofs more clear and strong of love, + As though to show the faith within her heart, + She moved, with subtle art, + Her feet accordant to the amorous air. + But while I gaze and pray to God that ne'er + Might cease that happy dance angelical, + O harsh, unkind recall! + Back to the banquet was she beckonèd. + She, with her face at first with pallor spread, + Then tinted with a blush of coral dye, + 'The ball is best!' did cry, + Gentle in tone and smiling as she spake. + But from her eyes celestial forth did break + Favour at parting; and I well could see + Young love confusedly + Enclosed within the furtive fervent gaze, + Heating his arrows at their beauteous rays, + For war with Pallas and with Dian cold. + Fairer than mortal mould, + She moved majestic with celestial gait; + And with her hand her robe in royal state + Raised, as she went with pride ineffable. + Of me I cannot tell, + Whether alive or dead I there was left. + Nay, dead, methinks! since I of thee was reft, + Light of my life! and yet, perchance, alive-- + Such virtue to revive + My lingering soul possessed thy beauteous face, + But if that powerful charm of thy great grace + Could then thy loyal lover so sustain, + Why comes there not again + More often or more soon the sweet delight? + Twice hath the wandering moon with borrowed light + Stored from her brother's rays her crescent horn, + Nor yet hath fortune borne + Me on the way to so much bliss again. + Earth smiles anew; fair spring renews her reign: + The grass and every shrub once more is green; + The amorous birds begin, + From winter loosed, to fill the field with song. + See how in loving pairs the cattle throng; + The bull, the ram, their amorous jousts enjoy: + Thou maiden, I a boy, + Shall we prove traitors to love's law for aye? + Shall we these years that are so fair let fly? + Wilt thou not put thy flower of youth to use? + Or with thy beauty choose + To make him blest who loves thee best of all? + Haply I am some hind who guards the stall, + Or of vile lineage, or with years outworn, + Poor, or a cripple born, + Or faint of spirit that you spurn me so? + Nay, but my race is noble and doth grow + With honour to our land, with pomp and power; + My youth is yet in flower, + And it may chance some maiden sighs for me. + My lot it is to deal right royally + With all the goods that fortune spreads around, + For still they more abound, + Shaken from her full lap, the more I waste. + My strength is such as whoso tries shall taste; + Circled with friends, with favours crowned am I: + Yet though I rank so high + Among the blest, as men may reckon bliss, + Still without thee, my hope, my happiness, + It seems a sad, and bitter thing to live! + Then stint me not, but give + That joy which holds all joys enclosed in one. + Let me pluck fruits at last, not flowers alone! + +With much that is frigid, artificial, and tedious in this +old-fashioned love-song, there is a curious monotony of sweetness +which commends it to our ears; and he who reads it may remember the +profile portrait of Simonetta from the hand of Piero della Francesca +in the Pitti Palace at Florence. + +It is worth comparing Poliziano's treatment of popular or semi-popular +verse-forms with his imitations of Petrarch's manner. For this purpose +I have chosen a _Canzone_, clearly written in competition with the +celebrated 'Chiare, fresche e dolci acque,' of Laura's lover. While +closely modelled upon Petrarch's form and similar in motive, this +Canzone preserves Poliziano's special qualities of fluency and +emptiness of content. + + Hills, valleys, caves and fells, + With flowers and leaves and herbage spread; + Green meadows; shadowy groves where light is low; + Lawns watered with the rills + That cruel Love hath made me shed, + Cast from these cloudy eyes so dark with woe; + Thou stream that still dost know + What fell pangs pierce my heart, + So dost thou murmur back my moan; + Lone bird that chauntest tone for tone, + While in our descant drear Love sings his part: + Nymphs, woodland wanderers, wind and air; + List to the sound out-poured from my despair! + Seven times and once more seven + The roseate dawn her beauteous brow + Enwreathed with orient jewels hath displayed; + Cynthia once more in heaven + Hath orbed her horns with silver now; + While in sea waves her brother's light was laid; + Since this high mountain glade + Felt the white footsteps fall + Of that proud lady, who to spring + Converts whatever woodland thing + She may o'ershadow, touch, or heed at all. + Here bloom the flowers, the grasses spring + From her bright eyes, and drink what mine must bring. + Yea, nourished with my tears + Is every little leaf I see, + And the stream rolls therewith a prouder wave. + Ah me! through what long years + Will she withhold her face from me, + Which stills the stormy skies howe'er they rave? + Speak! or in grove or cave + If one hath seen her stray, + Plucking amid those grasses green + Wreaths for her royal brows serene, + Flowers white and blue and red and golden gay! + Nay, prithee, speak, if pity dwell + Among these woods, within this leafy dell! + O Love! 'twas here we saw, + Beneath the new-fledged leaves that spring + From this old beech, her fair form lowly laid:-- + The thought renews my awe! + How sweetly did her tresses fling + Waves of wreathed gold unto the winds that strayed + Fire, frost within me played, + While I beheld the bloom + Of laughing flowers--O day of bliss!-- + Around those tresses meet and kiss, + And roses in her lap of Love the home! + Her grace, her port divinely fair, + Describe it, Love! myself I do not dare. + In mute intent surprise + I gazed, as when a hind is seen + To dote upon its image in a rill; + Drinking those love-lit eyes, + Those hands, that face, those words serene, + That song which with delight the heaven did fill, + That smile which thralls me still, + Which melteth stones unkind, + Which in this woodland wilderness + Tames every beast and stills the stress + Of hurrying waters. Would that I could find + Her footprints upon field or grove! + I should not then be envious of Jove. + Thou cool stream rippling by, + Where oft it pleased her to dip + Her naked foot, how blest art thou! + Ye branching trees on high, + That spread your gnarled roots on the lip + Of yonder hanging rock to drink heaven's dew! + She often leaned on you, + She who is my life's bliss! + Thou ancient beech with moss o'ergrown, + How do I envy thee thy throne, + Found worthy to receive such happiness! + Ye winds, how blissful must ye be, + Since ye have borne to heaven her harmony! + The winds that music bore, + And wafted it to God on high, + That Paradise might have the joy thereof. + Flowers here she plucked, and wore + Wild roses from the thorn hard by: + This air she lightened with her look of love: + This running stream above, + She bent her face!--Ah me! + Where am I? What sweet makes me swoon? + What calm is in the kiss of noon? + Who brought me here? Who speaks? What melody? + Whence came pure peace into my soul? + What joy hath rapt me from my own control? + +Poliziano's refrain is always: 'Gather ye rosebuds while ye may. It is +spring-time now and youth. Winter and old age are coming!' A _Maggio_, +or May-day song, describing the games, dances, and jousting matches of +the Florentine lads upon the morning of the first of May, expresses +this facile philosophy of life with a quaintness that recalls Herrick. +It will be noticed that the Maggio is built, so far as rhymes go, on +the same system as Poliziano's Ballata. It has considerable historical +interest, for the opening couplet is said to be Guido Cavalcanti's, +while the whole poem is claimed by Roscoe for Lorenzo de' Medici, and +by Carducci with better reason for Poliziano. + + Welcome in the May + And the woodland garland gay! + + Welcome in the jocund spring + Which bids all men lovers be! + Maidens, up with carolling, + With your sweethearts stout and free, + With roses and with blossoms ye + Who deck yourselves this first of May! + + Up, and forth into the pure + Meadows, mid the trees and flowers! + Every beauty is secure + With so many bachelors: + Beasts and birds amid the bowers + Burn with love this first of May. + + Maidens, who are young and fair, + Be not harsh, I counsel you; + For your youth cannot repair + Her prime of spring, as meadows do: + None be proud, but all be true + To men who love, this first of May. + + Dance and carol every one + Of our band so bright and gay! + See your sweethearts how they run + Through the jousts for you to-day! + She who saith her lover nay, + Will deflower the sweets of May, + + Lads in love take sword and shield + To make pretty girls their prize: + Yield ye, merry maidens, yield + To your lovers' vows and sighs: + Give his heart back ere it dies: + Wage not war this first of May. + + He who steals another's heart, + Let him give his own heart too: + Who's the robber? 'Tis the smart + Little cherub Cupid, who + Homage comes to pay with you, + Damsels, to the first of May. + + Love comes smiling; round his head + Lilies white and roses meet: + 'Tis for you his flight is sped. + Fair one, haste our king to greet: + Who will fling him blossoms sweet + Soonest on this first of May? + + Welcome, stranger! welcome, king! + Love, what hast thou to command? + That each girl with wreaths should ring + Her lover's hair with loving hand, + That girls small and great should band + In Love's ranks this first of May. + +The _Canto Carnascialesco_, for the final development if not for the +invention of which all credit must be given to Lorenzo de' Medici, +does not greatly differ from the Maggio in structure. It admitted, +however, of great varieties, and was generally more complex in its +interweaving of rhymes. Yet the essential principle of an exordium +which should also serve for a refrain, was rarely, if ever, departed +from. Two specimens of the Carnival Song will serve to bring into +close contrast two very different aspects of Florentine history. The +earlier was composed by Lorenzo de' Medici at the height of his power +and in the summer of Italian independence. It was sung by masquers +attired in classical costume, to represent Bacchus and his crew. + + Fair is youth and void of sorrow; + But it hourly flies away.-- + Youths and maids, enjoy to-day; + Nought ye know about to-morrow. + + This is Bacchus and the bright + Ariadne, lovers true! + They, in flying time's despite, + Each with each find pleasure new; + These their Nymphs, and all their crew + Keep perpetual holiday.-- + Youths and maids, enjoy to-day; + Nought ye know about to-morrow. + + These blithe Satyrs, wanton-eyed, + Of the Nymphs are paramours: + Through the caves and forests wide + They have snared them mid the flowers; + Warmed with Bacchus, in his bowers, + Now they dance and leap alway.-- + Youths and maids, enjoy to-day; + Nought ye know about to-morrow. + + These fair Nymphs, they are not loth + To entice their lovers' wiles. + None but thankless folk and rough + Can resist when Love beguiles. + Now enlaced, with wreathèd smiles, + All together dance and play.-- + Youths and maids, enjoy to-day; + Nought ye know about to-morrow. + + See this load behind them plodding + On the ass! Silenus he, + Old and drunken, merry, nodding, + Full of years and jollity; + Though he goes so swayingly, + Yet he laughs and quaffs alway.-- + Youths and maids, enjoy to-day; + Nought ye know about to-morrow. + + Midas treads a wearier measure: + All he touches turns to gold: + If there be no taste of pleasure, + What's the use of wealth untold? + What's the joy his fingers hold, + When he's forced to thirst for aye?-- + Youths and maids, enjoy to-day; + Nought ye know about to-morrow. + + Listen well to what we're saying; + Of to-morrow have no care! + Young and old together playing, + Boys and girls, be blithe as air! + Every sorry thought forswear! + Keep perpetual holiday.--- + Youths and maids, enjoy to-day; + Nought ye know about to-morrow. + + Ladies and gay lovers young! + Long live Bacchus, live Desire! + Dance and play; let songs be sung; + Let sweet love your bosoms fire; + In the future come what may!--- + Youths and maids, enjoy to-day! + Nought ye know about to-morrow. + + Fair is youth and void of sorrow; + But it hourly flies away. + +The next, composed by Antonio Alamanni, after Lorenzo's death and the +ominous passage of Charles VIII., was sung by masquers habited as +skeletons. The car they rode on, was a Car of Death designed by Piero +di Cosimo, and their music was purposely gloomy. If in the jovial days +of the Medici the streets of Florence had rung to the thoughtless +refrain, 'Nought ye know about to-morrow,' they now re-echoed with a +cry of 'Penitence;' for times had strangely altered, and the heedless +past had brought forth a doleful present. The last stanza of +Alamanni's chorus is a somewhat clumsy attempt to adapt the too real +moral of his subject to the customary mood of the Carnival. + + + Sorrow, tears, and penitence + Are our doom of pain for aye; + This dead concourse riding by + Hath no cry but penitence! + + E'en as you are, once were we: + You shall be as now we are: + We are dead men, as you see: + We shall see you dead men, where + Nought avails to take great care, + After sins, of penitence. + + We too in the Carnival + Sang our love-songs through the town; + Thus from sin to sin we all + Headlong, heedless, tumbled down:-- + Now we cry, the world around, + Penitence! oh, Penitence! + + Senseless, blind, and stubborn fools! + Time steals all things as he rides: + Honours, glories, states, and schools, + Pass away, and nought abides; + Till the tomb our carcase hides, + And compels this penitence. + + This sharp scythe you see us bear, + Brings the world at length to woe: + But from life to life we fare; + And that life is joy or woe: + All heaven's bliss on him doth flow + Who on earth does penitence. + + Living here, we all must die; + Dying, every soul shall live: + For the King of kings on high + This fixed ordinance doth give: + Lo, you all are fugitive! + Penitence! Cry Penitence! + + Torment great and grievous dole + Hath the thankless heart mid you; + But the man of piteous soul + Finds much honour in our crew: + Love for loving is the due + That prevents this penitence. + + Sorrow, tears, and penitence + Are our doom of pain for aye: + This dead concourse riding by + Hath no cry but Penitence! + +One song for dancing, composed less upon the type of the Ballata than +on that of the Carnival Song, may here be introduced, not only in +illustration of the varied forms assumed by this style of poetry, but +also because it is highly characteristic of Tuscan town-life. This +poem in the vulgar style has been ascribed to Lorenzo de' Medici, but +probably without due reason. It describes the manners and customs of +female street gossips. + + Since you beg with such a grace, + How can I refuse a song, + Wholesome, honest, void of wrong, + On the follies of the place? + + Courteously on you I call; + Listen well to what I sing: + For my roundelay to all + May perchance instruction bring, + And of life good lessoning.-- + When in company you meet, + Or sit spinning, all the street + Clamours like a market-place. + + Thirty of you there may be; + Twenty-nine are sure to buzz, + And the single silent she + Racks her brains about her coz:-- + Mrs. Buzz and Mrs. Huzz, + Mind your work, my ditty saith; + Do not gossip till your breath + Fails and leaves you black of face! + + Governments go out and in:-- + You the truth must needs discover. + Is a girl about to win + A brave husband in her lover?-- + Straight you set to talk him over: + 'Is he wealthy?' 'Does his coat + Fit?' 'And has he got a vote?' + 'Who's his father?' 'What's his race?' + + Out of window one head pokes; + Twenty others do the same:-- + Chatter, clatter!--creaks and croaks + All the year the same old game!-- + 'See my spinning!' cries one dame, + 'Five long ells of cloth, I trow!' + Cries another, 'Mine must go, + Drat it, to the bleaching base!' + + 'Devil take the fowl!' says one: + 'Mine are all bewitched, I guess; + Cocks and hens with vermin run, + Mangy, filthy, featherless.' + Says another: 'I confess + Every hair I drop, I keep-- + Plague upon it, in a heap + Falling off to my disgrace!' + + If you see a fellow walk + Up or down the street and back, + How you nod and wink and talk, + Hurry-skurry, cluck and clack!-- + 'What, I wonder, does he lack + Here about?'--'There's something wrong!' + Till the poor man's made a song + For the female populace. + + It were well you gave no thought + To such idle company; + Shun these gossips, care for nought + But the business that you ply. + You who chatter, you who cry, + Heed my words; be wise, I pray: + Fewer, shorter stories say: + Bide at home, and mind your place. + + Since you beg with such a grace, + How can I refuse a song, + Wholesome, honest, void of wrong, + On the follies of the place? + +The _Madrigale_, intended to be sung in parts, was another species of +popular poetry cultivated by the greatest of Italian writers. Without +seeking examples from such men as Petrarch, Michelangelo, or Tasso, +who used it as a purely literary form, I will content myself with a +few Madrigals by anonymous composers, more truly popular in style, and +more immediately intended for music.[32] The similarity both of manner +and matter, between these little poems and the Ballate, is obvious. +There is the same affectation of rusticity in both. + + _Cogliendo per un prato._ + + Plucking white lilies in a field I saw + Fair women, laden with young Love's delight: + Some sang, some danced; but all were fresh and bright. + Then by the margin of a fount they leaned, + And of those flowers made garlands for their hair-- + Wreaths for their golden tresses quaint and rare. + Forth from the field I passed, and gazed upon + Their loveliness, and lost my heart to one. + + _Togliendo l' una all' altra._ + + One from the other borrowing leaves and flowers, + I saw fair maidens 'neath the summer trees, + Weaving bright garlands with low love-ditties. + Mid that sweet sisterhood the loveliest + Turned her soft eyes to me, and whispered, 'Take!' + Love-lost I stood, and not a word I spake. + My heart she read, and her fair garland gave: + Therefore I am her servant to the grave. + + _Appress' un fiume chiaro_. + + Hard by a crystal stream + Girls and maids were dancing round + A lilac with fair blossoms crowned. + Mid these I spied out one + So tender-sweet, so love-laden, + She stole my heart with singing then: + Love in her face so lovely-kind + And eyes and hands my soul did bind. + + _Di riva in riva_. + + From lawn to lea Love led me down the valley, + Seeking my hawk, where 'neath a pleasant hill + I spied fair maidens bathing in a rill. + Lina was there all loveliness excelling; + The pleasure of her beauty made me sad, + And yet at sight of her my soul was glad. + Downward I cast mine eyes with modest seeming, + And all a tremble from the fountain fled: + For each was naked as her maidenhead. + Thence singing fared I through a flowery plain, + Where bye and bye I found my hawk again! + + _Nel chiaro fiume_. + + Down a fair streamlet crystal-clear and pleasant + I went a fishing all alone one day, + And spied three maidens bathing there at play. + Of love they told each other honeyed stories, + While with white hands they smote the stream, to wet + Their sunbright hair in the pure rivulet. + Gazing I crouched among thick flowering leafage, + Till one who spied a rustling branch on high, + Turned to her comrades with a sudden cry, + And 'Go! Nay, prithee go!' she called to me: + 'To stay were surely but scant courtesy.' + + _Quel sole che nutrica._ + + The sun which makes a lily bloom, + Leans down at times on her to gaze-- + Fairer, he deems, than his fair rays: + Then, having looked a little while, + He turns and tells the saints in bliss + How marvellous her beauty is. + Thus up in heaven with flute and string + Thy loveliness the angels sing. + + _Di novo è giunt'._ + + Lo: here hath come an errant knight + On a barbed charger clothed in mail: + His archers scatter iron hail. + At brow and breast his mace he aims; + Who therefore hath not arms of proof, + Let him live locked by door and roof; + Until Dame Summer on a day + That grisly knight return to slay. + +Poliziano's treatment of the octave stanza for Rispetti was +comparatively popular. But in his poem of 'La Giostra,' written to +commemorate the victory of Giuliano de' Medici in a tournament and to +celebrate his mistress, he gave a new and richer form to the metre +which Boccaccio had already used for epic verse. The slight and +uninteresting framework of this poem, which opened a new sphere for +Italian literature, and prepared the way for Ariosto's golden cantos, +might be compared to one of those wire baskets which children steep in +alum water, and incrust with crystals, sparkling, artificial, +beautiful with colours not their own. The mind of Poliziano held, as +it were, in solution all the images and thoughts of antiquity, all the +riches of his native literature. In that vast reservoir of poems and +mythologies and phrases, so patiently accumulated, so tenaciously +preserved, so thoroughly assimilated, he plunged the trivial subject +he had chosen, and triumphantly presented to the world the _spolia +opima_ of scholarship and taste. What mattered it that the theme was +slight? The art was perfect, the result splendid. One canto of 125 +stanzas describes the youth of Giuliano, who sought to pass his life +among the woods, a hunter dead to love, but who was doomed to be +ensnared by Cupid. The chase, the beauty of Simonetta, the palace of +Venus, these are the three subjects of a book as long as the first +Iliad. The second canto begins with dreams and prophecies of glory to +be won by Giuliano in the tournament. But it stops abruptly. The +tragic catastrophe of the Pazzi Conjuration cut short Poliziano's +panegyric by the murder of his hero. Meanwhile the poet had achieved +his purpose. His torso presented to Italy a model of style, a piece of +written art adequate to the great painting of the Renaissance period, +a double star of poetry which blent the splendours of the ancient and +the modern world. To render into worthy English the harmonies of +Poliziano is a difficult task. Yet this must be attempted if an +English reader is to gain any notion of the scope and substance of the +Italian poet's art. In the first part of the poem we are placed, as it +were, at the mid point between the 'Hippolytus' of Euripides and +Shakspere's 'Venus and Adonis.' The cold hunter Giuliano is to see +Simonetta, and seeing, is to love her. This is how he first discovers +the triumphant beauty:[33] + + White is the maid, and white the robe around her, + With buds and roses and thin grasses pied; + Enwreathèd folds of golden tresses crowned her, + Shadowing her forehead fair with modest pride: + + The wild wood smiled; the thicket where he found her, + To ease his anguish, bloomed on every side: + Serene she sits, with gesture queenly mild, + And with her brow tempers the tempests wild. + +After three stanzas of this sort, in which the poet's style is more +apparent than the object he describes, occurs this charming picture:-- + + Reclined he found her on the swarded grass + In jocund mood; and garlands she had made + Of every flower that in the meadow was, + Or on her robe of many hues displayed; + But when she saw the youth before her pass, + Raising her timid head awhile she stayed; + Then with her white hand gathered up her dress, + And stood, lap-full of flowers, in loveliness. + + Then through the dewy field with footstep slow + The lingering maid began to take her way, + Leaving her lover in great fear and woe, + For now he longs for nought but her alway: + The wretch, who cannot bear that she should go, + Strives with a whispered prayer her feet to stay; + And thus at last, all trembling, all afire, + In humble wise he breathes his soul's desire: + + 'Whoe'er thou art, maid among maidens queen, + Goddess, or nymph--nay, goddess seems most clear-- + If goddess, sure my Dian I have seen; + If mortal, let thy proper self appear! + Beyond terrestrial beauty is thy mien; + I have no merit that I should be here! + What grace of heaven, what lucky star benign + Yields me the sight of beauty so divine?' + +A conversation ensues, after which Giuliano departs utterly lovesick, +and Cupid takes wing exultingly for Cyprus, where his mother's palace +stands. In the following picture of the house of Venus, who shall say +how much of Ariosto's Alcina and Tasso's Armida is contained? Cupid +arrives, and the family of Love is filled with joy at Giuliano's +conquest. From the plan of the poem it is clear that its beauties are +chiefly those of detail. They are, however, very great. How perfect, +for example, is the richness combined with delicacy of the following +description of a country life:-- + +BOOK I. STANZAS 17-21. + + How far more safe it is, how far more fair, + To chase the flying deer along the lea; + Through ancient woods to track their hidden lair, + Far from the town, with long-drawn subtlety: + To scan the vales, the hills, the limpid air, + The grass and flowers, clear ice, and streams so free; + To hear the birds wake from their winter trance, + The wind-stirred leaves and murmuring waters dance. + + How sweet it were to watch the young goats hung + From toppling crags, cropping the tender shoot, + While in thick pleachèd shade the shepherd sung + His uncouth rural lay and woke his flute; + To mark, mid dewy grass, red apples flung, + And every bough thick set with ripening fruit, + The butting rams, kine lowing o'er the lea, + And cornfields waving like the windy sea. + + Lo! how the rugged master of the herd + Before his flock unbars the wattled cote; + Then with his rod and many a rustic word + He rules their going: or 'tis sweet to note + The delver, when his toothèd rake hath stirred + The stubborn clod, his hoe the glebe hath smote; + Barefoot the country girl, with loosened zone, + Spins, while she keeps her geese 'neath yonder stone. + + After such happy wise, in ancient years, + Dwelt the old nations in the age of gold; + Nor had the fount been stirred of mothers' tears + For sons in war's fell labour stark and cold; + Nor trusted they to ships the wild wind steers, + Nor yet had oxen groaning ploughed the wold; + Their houses were huge oaks, whose trunks had store + Of honey, and whose boughs thick acorns bore. + + Nor yet, in that glad time, the accursèd thirst + Of cruel gold had fallen on this fair earth: + Joyous in liberty they lived at first; + Unploughed the fields sent forth their teeming birth; + Till fortune, envious of such concord, burst + The bond of law, and pity banned and worth; + Within their breasts sprang luxury and that rage + Which men call love in our degenerate age. + +We need not be reminded that these stanzas are almost a cento from +Virgil, Hesiod, and Ovid. The merits of the translator, adapter, and +combiner, who knew so well how to cull their beauties and adorn them +with a perfect dress of modern diction, are so eminent that we cannot +deny him the title of a great poet. It is always in picture-painting +more than in dramatic presentation that Poliziano excels. Here is a +basrelief of Venus rising from the Ocean foam:-- + + +STANZAS 99-107. + + In Thetis' lap, upon the vexed Egean, + The seed deific from Olympus sown, + Beneath dim stars and cycling empyrean + Drifts like white foam across the salt waves blown; + Thence, born at last by movements hymenean, + Rises a maid more fair than man hath known; + Upon her shell the wanton breezes waft her; + She nears the shore, while heaven looks down with laughter + + Seeing the carved work you would cry that real + Were shell and sea, and real the winds that blow; + The lightning of the goddess' eyes you feel, + The smiling heavens, the elemental glow: + White-vested Hours across the smooth sands steal, + With loosened curls that to the breezes flow; + Like, yet unlike, are all their beauteous faces, + E'en as befits a choir of sister Graces. + + Well might you swear that on those waves were riding + The goddess with her right hand on her hair, + And with the other the sweet apple hiding; + And that beneath her feet, divinely fair, + Fresh flowers sprang forth, the barren sands dividing; + Then that, with glad smiles and enticements rare, + The three nymphs round their queen, embosoming her, + Threw the starred mantle soft as gossamer. + + The one, with hands above her head upraised, + Upon her dewy tresses fits a wreath, + With ruddy gold and orient gems emblazed; + The second hangs pure pearls her ears beneath; + The third round shoulders white and breast hath placed + Such wealth of gleaming carcanets as sheathe + Their own fair bosoms, when the Graces sing + Among the gods with dance and carolling. + + Thence might you see them rising toward the spheres, + Seated upon a cloud of silvery white; + The trembling of the cloven air appears + Wrought in the stone, and heaven serenely bright; + The gods drink in with open eyes and ears + Her beauty, and desire her bed's delight; + Each seems to marvel with a mute amaze-- + Their brows and foreheads wrinkle as they gaze. + +The next quotation shows Venus in the lap of Mars, and Visited by +Cupid:-- + + STANZAS 122--124. + + Stretched on a couch, outside the coverlid, + Love found her, scarce unloosed from Mars' embrace; + He, lying back within her bosom, fed + His eager eyes on nought but her fair face; + + Roses above them like a cloud were shed, + To reinforce them in the amorous chace; + While Venus, quick with longings unsuppressed, + A thousand times his eyes and forehead kissed. + + Above, around, young Loves on every side + Played naked, darting birdlike to and fro; + And one, whose plumes a thousand colours dyed, + Fanned the shed roses as they lay arow; + One filled his quiver with fresh flowers, and hied + To pour them on the couch that lay below; + Another, poised upon his pinions, through + The falling shower soared shaking rosy dew: + + For, as he quivered with his tremulous wing, + The wandering roses in their drift were stayed;-- + Thus none was weary of glad gambolling; + Till Cupid came, with dazzling plumes displayed, + Breathless; and round his mother's neck did fling + His languid arms, and with his winnowing made + Her heart burn:--very glad and bright of face, + But, with his flight, too tired to speak apace. + +These pictures have in them the very glow of Italian painting. +Sometimes we seem to see a quaint design of Piero di Cosimo, with +bright tints and multitudinous small figures in a spacious landscape. +Sometimes it is the languid grace of Botticelli, whose soul became +possessed of classic inspiration as it were in dreams, and who has +painted the birth of Venus almost exactly as Poliziano imagined it. +Again, we seize the broader beauties of the Venetian masters, or the +vehemence of Giulio Romano's pencil. To the last class belong the two +next extracts:-- + + STANZAS 104--107. + + + In the last square the great artificer + Had wrought himself crowned with Love's perfect palm; + Black from his forge and rough, he runs to her, + Leaving all labour for her bosom's calm: + Lips joined to lips with deep love-longing stir, + Fire in his heart, and in his spirit balm; + Far fiercer flames through breast and marrow fly + Than those which heat his forge in Sicily. + + Jove, on the other side, becomes a bull, + Goodly and white, at Love's behest, and rears + His neck beneath his rich freight beautiful: + She turns toward the shore that disappears, + With frightened gesture; and the wonderful + Gold curls about her bosom and her ears + Float in the wind; her veil waves, backward borne; + This hand still clasps his back, and that his horn. + + With naked feet close-tucked beneath her dress, + She seems to fear the sea that dares not rise: + So, imaged in a shape of drear distress, + In vain unto her comrades sweet she cries; + They left amid the meadow-flowers, no less + For lost Europa wail with weeping eyes: + Europa, sounds the shore, bring back our bliss + But the bull swims and turns her feet to kiss. + + Here Jove is made a swan, a golden shower, + Or seems a serpent, or a shepherd-swain, + To work his amorous will in secret hour; + Here, like an eagle, soars he o'er the plain, + Love-led, and bears his Ganymede, the flower + Of beauty, mid celestial peers to reign; + The boy with cypress hath his fair locks crowned, + Naked, with ivy wreathed his waist around. + + + STANZAS 110--112. + + + Lo! here again fair Ariadne lies, + And to the deaf winds of false Theseus plains. + And of the air and slumber's treacheries; + Trembling with fear even as a reed that strain. + And quivers by the mere 'neath breezy skies: + Her very speechless attitude complains-- + No beast there is so cruel as thou art, + No beast less loyal to my broken heart. + + Throned on a car, with ivy crowned and vine, + Rides Bacchus, by two champing tigers driven: + Around him on the sand deep-soaked with brine + Satyrs and Bacchantes rush; the skies are riven + With shouts and laughter; Fauns quaff bubbling wine + From horns and cymbals; Nymphs, to madness driven, + Trip, skip, and stumble; mixed in wild enlacements, + Laughing they roll or meet for glad embracements. + + Upon his ass Silenus, never sated, + With thick, black veins, wherethrough the must is soaking, + Nods his dull forehead with deep sleep belated; + His eyes are wine-inflamed, and red, and smoking: + Bold Mænads goad the ass so sorely weighted, + With stinging thyrsi; he sways feebly poking + The mane with bloated fingers; Fauns behind him, + E'en as he falls, upon the crupper bind him. + +We almost seem to be looking at the frescoes in some Trasteverine +palace, or at the canvas of one of the sensual Genoese painters. The +description of the garden of Venus has the charm of somewhat +artificial elegance, the exotic grace of style, which attracts us in +the earlier Renaissance work:-- + + The leafy tresses of that timeless garden + Nor fragile brine nor fresh snow dares to whiten; + Frore winter never comes the rills to harden, + Nor winds the tender shrubs and herbs to frighten; + Glad Spring is always here, a laughing warden; + Nor do the seasons wane, but ever brighten; + Here to the breeze young May, her curls unbinding, + With thousand flowers her wreath is ever winding. + +Indeed it may be said with truth that Poliziano's most eminent faculty +as a descriptive poet corresponded exactly to the genius of the +painters of his day. To produce pictures radiant with Renaissance +colouring, and vigorous with Renaissance passion, was the function of +his art, not to express profound thought or dramatic situations. This +remark might be extended with justice to Ariosto, and Tasso, and +Boiardo. The great narrative poets of the Renaissance in Italy were +not dramatists; nor were their poems epics: their forte lay in the +inexhaustible variety and beauty of their pictures. + +Of Poliziano's plagiarism--if this be the right word to apply to the +process of assimilation and selection, by means of which the +poet-scholar of Florence taught the Italians how to use the riches of +the ancient languages and their own literature--here are some +specimens. In stanza 42 of the 'Giostra' he says of Simonetta:-- + + E 'n lei discerne un non so che divino. + + +Dante has the line:-- + + Vostri risplende un non so che divino. + +In the 44th he speaks about the birds:-- + + E canta ogni augelletto in suo latino. + +This comes from Cavalcanti's:-- + + E cantinne gli augelli. + Ciascuno in suo latino. + +Stanza 45 is taken bodily from Claudian, Dante, and Cavalcanti. It +would seem as though Poliziano wished to show that the classic and +medieval literature of Italy was all one, and that a poet of the +Renaissance could carry on the continuous tradition in his own style. +A, line in stanza 54 seems perfectly original:-- + + E già dall'alte ville il fumo esala. + +It comes straight from Virgil:-- + + Et jam summa pocul villarum culmina fumant. + +In the next stanza the line-- + + Tal che 'l ciel tutto rasserenò d'intorno, + +is Petrarch's. So in the 56th, is the phrase 'il dolce andar +celeste.' In stanza 57-- + + Par che 'l cor del petto se gli schianti, + +belongs to Boccaccio. In stanza 60 the first line:-- + + La notte che le cose ci nasconde, + +together with its rhyme, 'sotto le amate fronde,' is borrowed from the +23rd canto of the 'Paradiso.' In the second line, 'Stellato ammanto' +is Claudian's 'stellantes sinus' applied to the heaven. When we reach +the garden of Venus we find whole passages translated from Claudian's +'Marriage of Honorius,' and from the 'Metamorphoses' of Ovid. + +Poliziano's second poem of importance, which indeed may historically +be said to take precedence of 'La Giostra,' was the so-called tragedy +of 'Orfeo.' The English version of this lyrical drama must be reserved +for a separate study: yet it belongs to the subject of this, inasmuch +as the 'Orfeo' is a classical legend treated in a form already +familiar to the Italian people. Nearly all the popular kinds of poetry +of which specimens have been translated in this chapter, will be found +combined in its six short scenes. + + * * * * * + + + + +_ORFEO_ + + +The 'Orfeo' of Messer Angelo Poliziano ranks amongst the most +important poems of the fifteenth century. It was composed at Mantua in +the short space of two days, on the occasion of Cardinal Francesco +Gonzaga's visit to his native town in 1472. But, though so hastily put +together, the 'Orfeo' marks an epoch in the evolution of Italian +poetry. It is the earliest example of a secular drama, containing +within the compass of its brief scenes the germ of the opera, the +tragedy, and the pastoral play. In form it does not greatly differ +from the 'Sacre Rappresentazioni' of the fifteenth century, as those +miracle plays were handled by popular poets of the earlier +Renaissance. But while the traditional octave stanza is used for the +main movement of the piece, Poliziano has introduced episodes of +_terza rima_, madrigals, a carnival song, a _ballata_, and, above all, +choral passages which have in them the future melodrama of the musical +Italian stage. The lyrical treatment of the fable, its capacity for +brilliant and varied scenic effects, its combination of singing with +action, and the whole artistic keeping of the piece, which never +passes into genuine tragedy, but stays within the limits of romantic +pathos, distinguish the 'Orfeo' as a typical production of Italian +genius. Thus, though little better than an improvisation, it combines +the many forms of verse developed by the Tuscans at the close of the +Middle Ages, and fixes the limits beyond which their dramatic poets, +with a few exceptions, were not destined to advance. Nor was the +choice of the fable without significance. Quitting the Bible stories +and the Legends of Saints, which supplied the mediaeval playwright +with material, Poliziano selects a classic story: and this story might +pass for an allegory of Italy, whose intellectual development the +scholar-poet ruled. Orpheus is the power of poetry and art, softening +stubborn nature, civilising men, and prevailing over Hades for a +season. He is the right hero of humanism, the genius of the +Renaissance, the tutelary god of Italy, who thought she could resist +the laws of fate by verse and elegant accomplishments. To press this +kind of allegory is unwise; for at a certain moment it breaks in our +hands. And yet in Eurydice the fancy might discover Freedom, the true +spouse of poetry and art; Orfeo's last resolve too vividly depicts the +vice of the Renaissance; and the Mænads are those barbarous armies +destined to lay waste the plains of Italy, inebriate with wine and +blood, obeying a new lord of life on whom the poet's harp exerts no +charm. But a truce to this spinning of pedantic cobwebs. Let Mercury +appear, and let the play begin. + + +_THE FABLE OF ORPHEUS_ + + MERCURY _announces the show_. + + Ho, silence! Listen! There was once a hind, + Son of Apollo, Aristaeus hight, + Who loved with so untamed and fierce a mind + Eurydice, the wife of Orpheus wight, + That chasing her one day with will unkind + He wrought her cruel death in love's despite; + For, as she fled toward the mere hard by, + A serpent stung her, and she had to die. + + Now Orpheus, singing, brought her back from hell, + But could not keep the law the fates ordain: + Poor wretch, he backward turned and broke the spell; + So that once more from him his love was ta'en. + Therefore he would no more with women dwell, + And in the end by women he was slain. + + _Enter_ A SHEPHERD, _who says_-- + + Nay, listen, friends! Fair auspices are given, + Since Mercury to earth hath come from heaven. + + + + SCENE I + + MOPSUS, _an old shepherd_. + + + Say, hast thou seen a calf of mine, all white + Save for a spot of black upon her front, + Two feet, one flank, and one knee ruddy-bright? + + ARISTAEUS, _a young shepherd_. + + Friend Mopsus, to the margin of this fount + No herds have come to drink since break of day; + Yet may'st thou hear them low on yonder mount. + Go, Thyrsis, search the upland lawn, I pray! + Thou Mopsus shalt with me the while abide; + For I would have thee listen to my lay. + + _[Exit_ THYRSIS. + + 'Twas yester morn where trees yon cavern hide, + I saw a nymph more fair than Dian, who + Had a young lusty lover at her side: + But when that more than woman met my view, + The heart within my bosom leapt outright, + And straight the madness of wild Love I knew. + Since then, dear Mopsus, I have no delight; + But weep and weep: of food and drink I tire, + And without slumber pass the weary night. + + MOPSUS. + + Friend Aristaeus, if this amorous fire + Thou dost not seek to quench as best may be, + Thy peace of soul will vanish in desire. + Thou know'st that love is no new thing to me: + I've proved how love grown old brings bitter pain: + Cure it at once, or hope no remedy; + For if thou find thee in Love's cruel chain, + Thy bees, thy blossoms will be out of mind, + Thy fields, thy vines, thy flocks, thy cotes, thy grain + + ARISTAEUS. + + Mopsus, thou speakest to the deaf and blind: + Waste not on me these wingèd words, I pray, + Lest they be scattered to the inconstant wind, + I love, and cannot wish to say love nay; + Nor seek to cure so charming a disease: + They praise Love best who most against him say. + Yet if thou fain wouldst give my heart some ease, + Forth from thy wallet take thy pipe, and we + Will sing awhile beneath the leafy trees; + For well my nymph is pleased with melody. + + THE SONG. + + Listen, ye wild woods, to my roundelay; + Since the fair nymph will hear not, though I pray. + + The lovely nymph is deaf to my lament, + Nor heeds the music of this rustic reed; + Wherefore my flocks and herds are ill content, + Nor bathe their hoof where grows the water weed, + Nor touch the tender herbage on the mead; + So sad, because their shepherd grieves, are they. + + Listen, ye wild woods, to my roundelay; + Since the fair nymph will hear not, though I pray. + + The herds are sorry for their master's moan; + The nymph heeds not her lover though he die, + The lovely nymph, whose heart is made of stone-- + Nay steel, nay adamant! She still doth fly + Far, far before me, when she sees me nigh, + Even as a lamb flies fern the wolf away. + + Listen, ye wild woods, to my roundelay; + Since the fair nymph will hear not, though I pray. + + Nay, tell her, pipe of mine, how swift doth flee + Beauty together with our years amain; + Tell her how time destroys all rarity, + Nor youth once lost can be renewed again; + Tell her to use the gifts that yet remain: + Roses and violets blossom not alway. + + Listen, ye wild woods, to my roundelay; + Since the fair nymph will hear not, though I pray. + + Carry, ye winds, these sweet words to her ears, + Unto the ears of my loved nymph, and tell + How many tears I shed, what bitter tears! + Beg her to pity one who loves so well: + Say that my life is frail and mutable, + And melts like rime before the rising day. + + Listen, ye wild woods, to my roundelay; + Since the fair nymph will hear not, though I pray. + + MOPSUS. + + Less sweet, methinks the voice of waters falling + From cliffs that echo back their murmurous song; + Less sweet the summer sound of breezes calling + Through pine-tree tops sonorous all day long; + Than are thy rhymes, the soul of grief enthralling, + Thy rhymes o'er field and forest borne along: + If she but hear them, at thy feet she'll fawn.-- + Lo, Thyrsis, hurrying homeward from the lawn! + + [_Re-enters_ THYRSIS. + + ARISTAEUS. + + What of the calf? Say, hast thou seen her now? + + THYRSIS, _the cowherd_. + + I have, and I'd as lief her throat were cut! + She almost ripped my bowels up, I vow, + Running amuck with horns well set to butt: + Nathless I've locked her in the stall below: + She's blown with grass, I tell you, saucy slut! + + ARISTAEUS. + + Now, prithee, let me hear what made you stay + So long upon the upland lawns away? + + THYRSIS. + + Walking, I spied a gentle maiden there, + Who plucked wild flowers upon the mountain side: + I scarcely think that Venus is more fair, + Of sweeter grace, most modest in her pride: + She speaks, she sings, with voice so soft and rare, + That listening streams would backward roll their tide: + Her face is snow and roses; gold her head; + All, all alone she goes, white-raimented, + + ARISTAEUS. + + Stay, Mopsus! I must follow: for 'tis she + Of whom I lately spoke. So, friend, farewell! + + MOPSUS. + + Hold, Aristaeus, lest for her or thee + Thy boldness be the cause of mischief fell! + + ARISTAEUS. + + Nay, death this day must be my destiny, + Unless I try my fate and break the spell. + Stay therefore, Mopsus, by the fountain stay! + I'll follow her, meanwhile, yon mountain way. + + [_Exit_ ARISTAEUS. + + MOPSUS. + + Thyrsis, what thinkest thou of thy loved lord? + See'st thou that all his senses are distraught? + Couldst thou not speak some seasonable word, + Tell him what shame this idle love hath wrought? + + THYRSIS. + + Free speech and servitude but ill accord, + Friend Mopsus, and the hind is folly-fraught + Who rates his lord! He's wiser far than I. + To tend these kine is all my mastery. + + + + SCENE II + + ARISTAEUS, _in pursuit of_ EURYDICE. + + Flee not from me, maiden! + Lo, I am thy friend! + Dearer far than life I hold thee. + List, thou beauty-laden, + To these prayers attend: + Flee not, let my arms enfold thee! + Neither wolf nor bear will grasp thee: + That I am thy friend I've told thee: + Stay thy course then; let me clasp thee!-- + Since thou'rt deaf and wilt not heed me, + Since thou'rt still before me flying, + While I follow panting, dying, + Lend me wings, Love, wings to speed me! + + [_Exit_ ARISTAEUS, _pursuing_ EURYDICE. + + + + SCENE III + + A DRYAD. + + Sad news of lamentation and of pain, + Dear sisters, hath my voice to bear to you: + I scarcely dare to raise the dolorous strain. + Eurydice by yonder stream lies low; + The flowers are fading round her stricken head, + And the complaining waters weep their woe. + The stranger soul from that fair house hath fled; + And she, like privet pale, or white May-bloom + Untimely plucked, lies on the meadow, dead. + Hear then the cause of her disastrous doom! + A snake stole forth and stung her suddenly. + I am so burdened with this weight of gloom + That, lo, I bid you all come weep with me! + + CHORUS OF DRYADS. + + Let the wide air with our complaint resound! + For all heaven's light is spent. + Let rivers break their bound, + Swollen with tears outpoured from our lament! + + Fell death hath ta'en their splendour from the skies: + The stars are sunk in gloom. + Stern death hath plucked the bloom + Of nymphs:--Eurydice down-trodden lies. + Weep, Love! The woodland cries. + Weep, groves and founts; + Ye craggy mounts; you leafy dell, + Beneath whose boughs she fell, + Bend every branch in time with this sad sound. + + Let the wide air with our complaint resound! + + Ah, fortune pitiless! Ah, cruel snake! + Ah, luckless doom of woes! + Like a cropped summer rose, + Or lily cut, she withers on the brake. + Her face, which once did make + Our age so bright + With beauty's light, is faint and pale; + And the clear lamp doth fail, + Which shed pure splendour all the world around + + Let the wide air with our complaint resound! + + Who e'er will sing so sweetly, now she's gone? + Her gentle voice to hear, + The wild winds dared not stir; + And now they breathe but sorrow, moan for moan: + So many joys are flown, + Such jocund days + Doth Death erase with her sweet eyes! + Bid earth's lament arise, + And make our dirge through heaven and sea rebound! + + Let the wide air with our complaint resound! + + A DRYAD. + + 'Tis surely Orpheus, who hath reached the hill, + With harp in hand, glad-eyed and light of heart! + He thinks that his dear love is living still. + My news will stab him with a sudden smart: + An unforeseen and unexpected blow + Wounds worst and stings the bosom's tenderest part. + Death hath disjoined the truest love, I know, + That nature yet to this low world revealed, + And quenched the flame in its most charming glow. + Go, sisters, hasten ye to yonder field, + Where on the sward lies slain Eurydice; + Strew her with flowers and grasses! I must yield + This man the measure of his misery. + + [_Exeunt_ DRYADS. _Enter_ ORPHEUS, _singing_. + + ORPHEUS. + + _Musa, triumphales titulos et gesta canamus + Herculis, et forti monstra subacta manu; + Ut timidae malri pressos ostenderit angues, + Intrepidusque fero riserit ore puer._ + + A DRYAD. + + Orpheus, I bring thee bitter news. Alas! + Thy nymph who was so beautiful, is slain! + flying from Aristaeus o'er the grass, + What time she reached yon stream that threads the plain, + + A snake which lurked mid flowers where she did pass, + Pierced her fair foot with his envenomed bane: + So fierce, so potent was the sting, that she + Died in mid course. Ah, woe that this should be! + + [ORPHEUS _turns to go in silence._ + + MNESILLUS, _the satyr_. + + Mark ye how sunk in woe + The poor wretch forth doth pass, + And may not answer, for his grief, one word? + On some lone shore, unheard, + Far, far away, he'll go, + And pour his heart forth to the winds, alas! + I'll follow and observe if he + Moves with his moan the hills to sympathy. + + [_Follows_ ORPHEUS. + + ORPHEUS. + + Let us lament, O lyre disconsolate! + Our wonted music is in tune no more. + Lament we while the heavens revolve, and let + The nightingale be conquered on Love's shore! + O heaven, O earth, O sea, O cruel fate! + How shall I bear a pang so passing sore? + Eurydice, my love! O life of mine! + On earth I will no more without thee pine! + I will go down unto the doors of Hell, + And see if mercy may be found below: + Perchance we shall reverse fate's spoken spell + With tearful songs and words of honeyed woe: + Perchance will Death be pitiful; for well + With singing have we turned the streams that flow; + Moved stones, together hind and tiger drawn, + And made trees dance upon the forest lawn. + + [_Passes from sight on his way to Hades._ + + MNESILLUS. + + The staff of Fate is strong + And will not lightly bend, + Nor yet the stubborn gates of steely Hell. + Nay, I can see full well + His life will not be long: + Those downward feet no more will earthward wend. + What marvel if they lose the light, + Who make blind Love their guide by day and night! + + + + SCENE IV + + ORPHEUS, _at the gate of Hell._ + + Pity, nay pity for a lover's moan! + Ye Powers of Hell, let pity reign in you! + To your dark regions led me Love alone: + Downward upon his wings of light I flew. + Hush, Cerberus! Howl not by Pluto's throne! + For when you hear my tale of misery, you, + Nor you alone, but all who here abide + In this blind world, will weep by Lethe's tide. + There is no need, ye Furies, thus to rage; + To dart those snakes that in your tresses twine: + Knew ye the cause of this my pilgrimage, + Ye would lie down and join your moans with mine. + Let this poor wretch but pass, who war doth wage + With heaven, the elements, the powers divine! + I beg for pity or for death. No more! + But open, ope Hell's adamantine door! + + [ORPHEUS _enters Hell._ + + PLUTO. + + What man is he who with his golden lyre + Hath moved the gates that never move, + While the dead folk repeat his dirge of love? + The rolling stone no more doth tire + Swart Sisyphus on yonder hill; + And Tantalus with water slakes his fire; + The groans of mangled Tityos are still; + Ixion's wheel forgets to fly; + The Danaids their urns can fill: + I hear no more the tortured spirits cry; + But all find rest in that sweet harmony. + + PROSERPINE. + + Dear consort, since, compelled by love of thee, + I left the light of heaven serene, + And came to reign in hell, a sombre queen; + The charm of tenderest sympathy + Hath never yet had power to turn + My stubborn heart, or draw forth tears from me. + Now with desire for yon sweet voice I yearn; + Nor is there aught so dear + As that delight. Nay, be not stern + To this one prayer! Relax thy brows severe, + And rest awhile with me that song to hear! + + [ORPHEUS _stands before the throne._ + + ORPHEUS. + + Ye rulers of the people lost in gloom, + Who see no more the jocund light of day! + Ye who inherit all things that the womb + Of Nature and the elements display! + Hear ye the grief that draws me to the tomb! + Love, cruel Love, hath led me on this way: + Not to chain Cerberus I hither come, + But to bring back my mistress to her home. + A serpent hidden among flowers and leaves + Stole my fair mistress--nay, my heart--from me: + Wherefore my wounded life for ever grieves, + Nor can I stand against this agony. + Still, if some fragrance lingers yet and cleaves + Of your famed love unto your memory, + If of that ancient rape you think at all, + Give back Eurydice!--On you I call. + All things ere long unto this bourne descend: + All mortal lives to you return at last: + Whate'er the moon hath circled, in the end + Must fade and perish in your empire vast: + Some sooner and some later hither wend; + Yet all upon this pathway shall have passed: + This of our footsteps is the final goal; + And then we dwell for aye in your control. + Therefore the nymph I love is left for you + When nature leads her deathward in due time: + But now you've cropped the tendrils as they grew, + The grapes unripe, while yet the sap did climb: + Who reaps the young blades wet with April dew, + Nor waits till summer hath o'erpassed her prime? + Give back, give back my hope one little day!-- + Not for a gift, but for a loan I pray. + I pray not to you by the waves forlorn + Of marshy Styx or dismal Acheron, + By Chaos where the mighty world was born, + Or by the sounding flames of Phlegethon; + But by the fruit which charmed thee on that morn + When thou didst leave our world for this dread throne! + O queen! if thou reject this pleading breath, + I will no more return, but ask for death! + + PROSERPINE. + + Husband, I never guessed + That in our realm oppressed + Pity could find a home to dwell: + But now I know that mercy teems in Hell. + I see Death weep; her breast + Is shaken by those tears that faultless fell. + Let then thy laws severe for him be swayed + By love, by song, by the just prayers he prayed! + + PLUTO. + + She's thine, but at this price: + Bend not on her thine eyes, + Till mid the souls that live she stay. + See that thou turn not back upon the way! + Check all fond thoughts that rise! + Else will thy love be torn from thee away. + I am well pleased that song so rare as thine + The might of my dread sceptre should incline. + + + + SCENE V + + ORPHEUS, _sings._ + + _Ite tritumphales circum mea tempora lauri. + Vicimus Eurydicen: reddita vita mihi est, + Haec mea praecipue victoria digna coronâ. + Oredimus? an lateri juncta puella meo?_ + + EURYDICE. + + All me! Thy love too great + Hath lost not thee alone! + I am torn from thee by strong Fate. + No more I am thine own. + In vain I stretch these arms. Back, back to Hell + I'm drawn, I'm drawn. My Orpheus, fare thee well! + + [EURYDICE _disappears._ + + ORPHEUS. + + Who hath laid laws on Love? + Will pity not be given + For one short look so full thereof? + Since I am robbed of heaven, + Since all my joy so great is turned to pain, + I will go back and plead with Death again! + + [TISIPHONE _blocks his way._ + + TISIPHONE. + + Nay, seek not back to turn! + Vain is thy weeping, all thy words are vain. + Eurydice may not complain + Of aught but thee--albeit her grief is great. + Vain are thy verses 'gainst the voice of Fate! + How vain thy song! For Death is stern! + Try not the backward path: thy feet refrain! + The laws of the abyss are fixed and firm remain. + + + + SCENE VI + + ORPHEUS. + + What sorrow-laden song shall e'er be found + To match the burden of my matchless woe? + How shall I make the fount of tears abound, + To weep apace with grief's unmeasured flow? + Salt tears I'll waste upon the barren ground, + So long as life delays me here below; + And since my fate hath wrought me wrong so sore, + I swear I'll never love a woman more! + Henceforth I'll pluck the buds of opening spring, + The bloom of youth when life is loveliest, + Ere years have spoiled the beauty which they bring: + This love, I swear, is sweetest, softest, best! + Of female charms let no one speak or sing; + Since she is slain who ruled within my breast. + He who would seek my converse, let him see + That ne'er he talk of woman's love to me! + How pitiful is he who changes mind + For woman! for her love laments or grieves! + Who suffers her in chains his will to bind, + Or trusts her words lighter than withered leaves, + Her loving looks more treacherous than the wind! + A thousand times she veers; to nothing cleaves: + Follows who flies; from him who follows, flees; + And comes and goes like waves on stormy seas! + High Jove confirms the truth of what I said, + Who, caught and bound in love's delightful snare, + Enjoys in heaven his own bright Ganymed: + Phoebus on earth had Hyacinth the fair: + Hercules, conqueror of the world, was led + Captive to Hylas by this love so rare.-- + Advice for husbands! Seek divorce, and fly + Far, far away from female company! + + [_Enter a_ MAENAD _leading a train of_ BACCHANTES. + + A MAENAD. + + Ho! Sisters! Up! Alive! + See him who doth our sex deride! + Hunt him to death, the slave! + Thou snatch the thyrsus! Thou this oak-tree rive! + Cast down this doeskin and that hide! + We'll wreak our fury on the knave! + Yea, he shall feel our wrath, the knave! + He shall yield up his hide + Riven as woodmen fir-trees rive! + No power his life can save; + Since women he hath dared deride! + Ho! To him, sisters! Ho! Alive! + + [ORPHEUS _is chased off the scene and slain: the_ MAENADS + _then return._ + + A MAENAD. + + Ho! Bacchus! Ho! I yield thee thanks for this! + Through all the woodland we the wretch have borne: + So that each root is slaked with blood of his: + Yea, limb from limb his body have we torn + Through the wild forest with a fearful bliss: + His gore hath bathed the earth by ash and thorn!-- + Go then! thy blame on lawful wedlock fling! + Ho! Bacchus! take the victim that we bring! + + CHORUS OF MAENADS. + + Bacchus! we all must follow thee! + Bacchus! Bacchus! Ohé! Ohé! + + With ivy coronals, bunch and berry, + Crown we our heads to worship thee! + Thou hast bidden us to make merry + Day and night with jollity! + Drink then! Bacchus is here! Drink free, + And hand ye the drinking-cup to me! + Bacchus! we all must follow thee! + Bacchus! Bacchus! Ohé! Ohé! + + See, I have emptied my horn already: + Stretch hither your beaker to me, I pray: + Are the hills and the lawns where we roam unsteady? + Or is it my brain that reels away? + Let every one run to and fro through the hay, + As ye see me run! Ho! after me! + Bacchus! we all must follow thee! + Bacchus! Bacchus! Ohé! Ohé! + + Methinks I am dropping in swoon or slumber: + Am I drunken or sober, yes or no? + What are these weights my feet encumber? + You too are tipsy, well I know! + Let every one do as ye see me do, + Let every one drink and quaff like me! + Bacchus! we all must follow thee! + Bacchus! Bacchus! Ohé! Ohé! + + Cry Bacchus! Cry Bacchus! Be blithe and merry, + Tossing wine down your throats away! + Let sleep then come and our gladness bury: + Drink you, and you, and you, while ye may! + Dancing is over for me to-day. + Let every one cry aloud Evohé! + Bacchus! we all must follow thee! + Bacchus! Bacchus! Ohé! Ohé! + +Though an English translation can do little toward rendering the +facile graces of Poliziano's style, that 'roseate fluency' for which +it has been praised by his Italian admirers, the main qualities of the +'Orfeo' as a composition may be traced in this rough copy. Of dramatic +power, of that mastery over the deeper springs of human nature which +distinguished the first effort of the English muse in Marlowe's +plays, there is but little. A certain adaptation of the language to +the characters, as in the rudeness of Thyrsis when contrasted with the +rustic elegance of Aristæus, a touch of simple feeling in Eurydice's +lyrical outcry of farewell, a discrimination between the tender +sympathy of Proserpine and Pluto's stern relenting, a spirited +presentation of the Bacchanalian _furore_ in the Mænads, an attempt to +model the Satyr Mnesillus as apart from human nature and yet +sympathetic to its anguish, these points constitute the chief dramatic +features of the melodrama. Orpheus himself is a purely lyrical +personage. Of character, he can scarcely be said to have anything +marked; and his part rises to its height precisely in that passage +where the lyrist has to be displayed. Before the gates of Hades and +the throne of Proserpine he sings, and his singing is the right +outpouring of a poet's soul; each octave resumes the theme of the last +stanza with a swell of utterance, a crescendo of intonation that +recalls the passionate and unpremeditated descant of a bird upon the +boughs alone. To this true quality of music is added the +persuasiveness of pleading. That the violin melody of his incomparable +song is lost, must be reckoned a great misfortune. We have good reason +to believe that the part of Orpheus was taken by Messer Baccio +Ugolini, singing to the viol. Here too it may be mentioned that a +_tondo_ in monochrome, painted by Signorelli among the arabesques at +Orvieto, shows Orpheus at the throne of Plato, habited as a poet with +the laurel crown and playing on a violin of antique form. It would be +interesting to know whether a rumour of the Mantuan pageant had +reached the ears of the Cortonese painter. + +If the whole of the 'Orfeo' had been conceived and executed with the +same artistic feeling as the chief act, it would have been a really +fine poem independently of its historical interest. But we have only +to turn the page and read the lament uttered for the loss of Eurydice, +in order to perceive Poliziano's incapacity for dealing with his hero +in a situation of greater difficulty. The pathos which might have made +us sympathise with Orpheus in his misery, the passion, approaching to +madness, which might have justified his misogyny, are absent. It is +difficult not to feel that in this climax of his anguish he was a poor +creature, and that the Mænads served him right. Nothing illustrates +the defect of real dramatic imagination better than this failure to +dignify the catastrophe. Gifted with a fine lyrical inspiration, +Poliziano seems to have already felt the Bacchic chorus which forms so +brilliant a termination to his play, and to have forgotten his duty +to the unfortunate Orpheus, whose sorrow for Eurydice is stultified +and made unmeaning by the prosaic expression of a base resolve. It may +indeed be said in general that the 'Orfeo' is a good poem only where +the situation is not so much dramatic as lyrical, and that its finest +passage--the scene in Hades--was fortunately for its author one in +which the dramatic motive had to be lyrically expressed. In this +respect, as in many others, the 'Orfeo' combines the faults and merits +of the Italian attempts at melo-tragedy. To break a butterfly upon the +wheel is, however, no fit function of criticism: and probably no one +would have smiled more than the author of this improvisation, at the +thought of its being gravely dissected just four hundred years after +the occasion it was meant to serve had long been given over to +oblivion. + +_NOTE_ + +Poliziano's 'Orfeo' was dedicated to Messer Carlo Canale, the husband +of that famous Vannozza who bore Lucrezia and Cesare Borgia to +Alexander VI. As first published in 1494, and as republished from time +to time up to the year 1776, it carried the title of 'La Favola di +Orfeo,' and was not divided into acts. Frequent stage-directions +sufficed, as in the case of Florentine 'Sacre Rappresentazioni,' for +the indication of the scenes. In this earliest redaction of the +'Orfeo' the chorus of the Dryads, the part of Mnesillus, the lyrical +speeches of Proserpine and Pluto, and the first lyric of the Mænads +are either omitted or represented by passages in _ottava rima_. In the +year 1776 the Padre Ireneo Affò printed at Venice a new version of +'Orfeo, Tragedia di Messer Angelo Poliziano,' collated by him from two +MSS. This play is divided into five acts, severally entitled +'Pastoricus,' 'Nymphas Habet,' 'Heroïcus,' 'Necromanticus,' and +'Bacchanalis.' The stage-directions are given partly in Latin, partly +in Italian; and instead of the 'Announcement of the Feast' by Mercury, +a prologue consisting of two octave stanzas is appended. A Latin +Sapphic ode in praise of the Cardinal Gonzaga, which was interpolated +in the first version, is omitted, and certain changes are made in the +last soliloquy of Orpheus. There is little doubt, I think, that the +second version, first given to the press by the Padre Affò, was +Poliziano's own recension of his earlier composition. I have therefore +followed it in the main, except that I have not thought it necessary +to observe the somewhat pedantic division into acts, and have +preferred to use the original 'Announcement of the Feast,' which +proves the integral connection between this ancient secular play and +the Florentine Mystery or 'Sacra Rappresentazione.' The last soliloquy +of Orpheus, again, has been freely translated by me from both versions +for reasons which will be obvious to students of the original. I have +yet to make a remark upon one detail of my translation. In line 390 +(part of the first lyric of the Mænads) the Italian gives us:-- + + Spezzata come il fabbro il cribro spezza. + +This means literally: 'Riven as a blacksmith rives a sieve or +boulter.' Now sieves are made in Tuscany of a plate of iron, pierced +with holes; and the image would therefore be familiar to an Italian. I +have, however, preferred to translate thus:-- + + Riven as woodmen fir-trees rive, + +instead of giving:-- + + Riven as blacksmiths boulters rive, + +because I thought that the second and faithful version would be +unintelligible as well as unpoetical for English readers. + + * * * * * + + + + +_EIGHT SONNETS OF PETRARCH_ + + +ON THE PAPAL COURT AT AVIGNON + + Fountain of woe! Harbour of endless ire! + Thou school of errors, haunt of heresies! + Once Rome, now Babylon, the world's disease, + That maddenest men with fears and fell desire! + O forge of fraud! O prison dark and dire, + Where dies the good, where evil breeds increase! + Thou living Hell! Wonders will never cease + If Christ rise not to purge thy sins with fire. + Founded in chaste and humble poverty, + Against thy founders thou dost raise thy horn, + Thou shameless harlot! And whence flows this pride? + Even from foul and loathed adultery, + The wage of lewdness. Constantine, return! + Not so: the felon world its fate must bide. + + * * * * * + + +TO STEFANO COLONNA + +WRITTEN FROM VAUCLUSE + + Glorius Colonna, thou on whose high head + Rest all our hopes and the great Latin name, + Whom from the narrow path of truth and fame + The wrath of Jove turned not with stormful dread: + Here are no palace-courts, no stage to tread; + But pines and oaks the shadowy valleys fill + Between the green fields and the neighbouring hill, + Where musing oft I climb by fancy led. + These lift from earth to heaven our soaring soul, + While the sweet nightingale, that in thick bowers + Through darkness pours her wail of tuneful woe, + Doth bend our charmed breast to love's control; + But thou alone hast marred this bliss of ours, + Since from our side, dear lord, thou needs must go. + + + +IN VITA DI MADONNA LAURA. XI + +ON LEAVING AVIGNON + + + Backward at every weary step and slow + These limbs I turn which with great pain I bear; + Then take I comfort from the fragrant air + That breathes from thee, and sighing onward go. + But when I think how joy is turned to woe, + Remembering my short life and whence I fare, + I stay my feet for anguish and despair, + And cast my tearful eyes on earth below. + At times amid the storm of misery + This doubt assails me: how frail limbs and poor + Can severed from their spirit hope to live. + Then answers Love: Hast thou no memory + How I to lovers this great guerdon give, + Free from all human bondage to endure? + + * * * * * + + +IN VITA DI MADONNA LAURA. XII + +THOUGHTS IN ABSENCE + + The wrinkled sire with hair like winter snow + Leaves the beloved spot where he hath passed his years, + Leaves wife and children, dumb with bitter tears, + To see their father's tottering steps and slow. + Dragging his aged limbs with weary woe, + In these last days of life he nothing fears, + But with stout heart his fainting spirit cheers, + And spent and wayworn forward still doth go; + Then comes to Rome, following his heart's desire, + To gaze upon the portraiture of Him + Whom yet he hopes in heaven above to see: + Thus I, alas! my seeking spirit tire, + Lady, to find in other features dim + The longed for, loved, true lineaments of thee. + + +IN VITA DI MADONNA LAURA. LII + +OH THAT I HAD WINGS LIKE A DOVE! + + I am so tired beneath the ancient load + Of my misdeeds and custom's tyranny, + That much I fear to fail upon the road + And yield my soul unto mine enemy. + 'Tis true a friend from whom all splendour flowed, + To save me came with matchless courtesy: + Then flew far up from sight to heaven's abode, + So that I strive in vain his face to see. + Yet still his voice reverberates here below: + Oh ye who labour, lo! the path is here; + Come unto me if none your going stay! + What grace, what love, what fate surpassing fear + Shall give me wings like dove's wings soft as snow, + That I may rest and raise me from the clay? + + * * * * * + +IN MORTE DI MADONNA LAURA. XXIV + + + The eyes whereof I sang my fervid song, + The arms, the hands, the feet, the face benign, + Which severed me from what was rightly mine, + And made me sole and strange amid the throng, + The crispèd curls of pure gold beautiful, + And those angelic smiles which once did shine + Imparadising earth with joy divine, + Are now a little dust--dumb, deaf, and dull. + And yet I live! wherefore I weep and wail, + Left alone without the light I loved so long, + Storm-tossed upon a bark that hath no sail. + Then let me here give o'er my amorous song; + The fountains of old inspiration fail, + And nought but woe my dolorous chords prolong. + + +IN MORTE DI MADONNA LAURA. XXXIV + + + In thought I raised me to the place where she + Whom still on earth I seek and find not, shines; + There 'mid the souls whom the third sphere confines, + More fair I found her and less proud to me. + She took my hand and said: Here shalt thou be + With me ensphered, unless desires mislead; + Lo! I am she who made thy bosom bleed, + Whose day ere eve was ended utterly: + My bliss no mortal heart can understand; + Thee only do I lack, and that which thou + So loved, now left on earth, my beauteous veil. + Ah! wherefore did she cease and loose my hand? + For at the sound of that celestial tale + I all but stayed in paradise till now. + + * * * * * + + +IN MORTE DI MADONNA LAURA. LXXIV + + + The flower of angels and the spirits blest, + Burghers of heaven, on that first day when she + Who is my lady died, around her pressed + Fulfilled with wonder and with piety. + What light is this? What beauty manifest? + Marvelling they cried: for such supremacy + Of splendour in this age to our high rest + Hath never soared from earth's obscurity. + She, glad to have exchanged her spirit's place, + Consorts with those whose virtues most exceed; + At times the while she backward turns her face + To see me follow--seems to wait and plead: + Therefore toward heaven my will and soul I raise, + Because I hear her praying me to speed. + + * * * * * + + FOOTNOTES: + + + [Footnote 1: We may compare with Venice what is known about + the ancient Hellenic city of Sybaris. Sybaris and Ravenna + were the Greek and Roman Venice of antiquity.] + + [Footnote 2: His first wife was a daughter of the great + general of the Venetians against Francesco Sforza. Whether + Sigismondo murdered her, as Sansovino seems to imply in his + _Famiglie Illustri_, or whether he only repudiated her after + her father's execution on the Piazza di San Marco, admits of + doubt. About the question of Sigismondo's marriage with + Isotta there is also some uncertainty. At any rate she had + been some time his mistress before she became his wife.] + + [Footnote 3: For the place occupied in the evolution of + Italian scholarship by this Greek sage, see my 'Revival of + Learning,' _Renaissance in Italy_, part 2.] + + [Footnote 4: The account of this church given by Æneas + Sylvius Piccolomini (Pii Secondi, Comment., ii. 92) + deserves quotation: 'Ædificavit tamen nobile templum + Arimini in honorem divi Francisci, verum ita gentilibus + operibus implevit, ut non tam Christianorum quam infidelium + dæmones adorantium templum esse videatur.'] + + [Footnote 5: Almost all the facts of Alberti's life are to + be found in the Latin biography included in Muratori. It has + been conjectured, and not without plausibility, by the last + editor of Alberti's complete works, Bonucci, that this Latin + life was penned by Alberti himself.] + + [Footnote 6: There is in reality no doubt or problem about + this Saint Clair. She was born in 1275, and joined the + Augustinian Sisterhood, dying young, in 1308, as Abbess of + her convent. Continual and impassioned meditation on the + Passion of our Lord impressed her heart with the signs of + His suffering which have been described above. I owe this + note to the kindness of an anonymous correspondent, whom I + here thank.] + + [Footnote 7: The balance of probability leans against + Isabella in this affair. At the licentious court of the + Medici she lived with unpardonable freedom. Troilo Orsini + was himself assassinated in Paris by Bracciano's orders a + few years afterwards.] + + [Footnote 8: I have amplified and corrected this chronicle + by the light of Professor Gnoli's monograph, _Vittoria + Accoramboni_, published by Le Monnier at Florence in 1870.] + + [Footnote 9: In dealing with Webster's tragedy, I have + adhered to his use and spelling of names.] + + [Footnote 10: The fresco of the Coronation of the Virgin + upon the semi-dome of S. Giovanni is the work of a copyist, + Cesare Aretusi. But part of the original fresco, which was + removed in 1684, exists in a good state of preservation at + the end of the long gallery of the library.] + + [Footnote 11: See the chapter on Euripides in my _Studies of + Greek Poets_, First Series, for a further development of + this view of artistic evolution.] + + [Footnote 12: I find that this story is common in the + country round Canossa. It is mentioned by Professor A. + Ferretti in his monograph entitled _Canossa, Studi e + Ricerche_, Reggio, 1876, a work to which I am indebted, and + which will repay careful study.] + + [Footnote 13: Charles claimed under the will of René of + Anjou, who in turn claimed under the will of Joan II.] + + [Footnote 14: For an estimate of Cosimo's services to art + and literature, his collection of libraries, his great + buildings, his generosity to scholars, and his promotion of + Greek studies, I may refer to my _Renaissance in Italy_: + 'The Revival of Learning,' chap. iv.] + + [Footnote 15: Giottino had painted the Duke of Athens, in + like manner, on the same walls.] + + [Footnote 16: See _Archivio Storico_.] + + [Footnote 17: The order of rhymes runs thus: _a, b, b, a, a, + b, b, a, c, d, c, d, c, d_; or in the terzets, _c, d, e, c, + d, e_, or _c, d, e, d, c, e_, and so forth.] + + [Footnote 18: It has extraordinary interest for the student + of our literary development, inasmuch as it is full of + experiments in metres, which have never thriven on English + soil. Not to mention the attempt to write in asclepiads and + other classical rhythms, we might point to Sidney's _terza + rima_, poems with _sdrucciolo_ or treble rhymes. This + peculiar and painful form he borrowed from Ariosto and + Sanazzaro; but even in Italian it cannot be handled without + sacrifice of variety, without impeding the metrical movement + and marring the sense.] + + [Footnote 19: The stately structure of the _Prothalamion_ + and _Epithalamion_ is a rebuilding of the Italian Canzone. + His Eclogues, with their allegories, repeat the manner of + Petrarch's minor Latin poems.] + + [Footnote 20: Marlowe makes Gaveston talk of 'Italian + masques.' At the same time, in the prologue to + _Tamburlaine_, he shows that he was conscious of the new and + nobler direction followed by the drama in England.] + + [Footnote 21: This sentence requires some qualification. In + his _Poesia Popolare Italiana_, 1878, Professor d'Ancona + prints a Pisan, a Venetian, and two Lombard versions of our + Border ballad 'Where hae ye been, Lord Randal, my son,' so + close in general type and minor details to the English, + German, Swedish, and Finnish versions of this Volkslied as + to suggest a very ancient community of origin. It remains as + yet, however, an isolated fact in the history of Italian + popular poetry.] + + [Footnote 22: _Canti Popolari Toscani_, raccolti e annotati + da Giuseppe Tigri. Volume unico. Firenze: G. Barbèra, 1869.] + + [Footnote 23: This is a description of the Tuscan rispetto. + In Sicily the stanza generally consists of eight lines + rhyming alternately throughout, while in the North of Italy + it is normally a simple quatrain. The same poetical material + assumes in Northern, Central, and Southern Italy these + diverge but associated forms.] + + [Footnote 24: This song, called Ciure (Sicilian for _fiore_) + in Sicily, is said by Signor Pitré to be in disrepute there. + He once asked an old dame of Palermo to repeat him some of + these ditties. Her answer was, 'You must get them from light + women; I do not know any. They sing them in bad houses and + prisons, where, God be praised, I have never been.' In + Tuscany there does not appear to be so marked a distinction + between the flower song and the rispetto.] + + [Footnote 25: Much light has lately been thrown on the + popular poetry of Italy; and it appears that contemporary + improvisatori trust more to their richly stocked memories + and to their power of recombination than to original or + novel inspiration. It is in Sicily that the vein of truly + creative lyric utterance is said to flow most freely and + most copiously at the present time.] + + [Footnote 26: 'Remember me, fair one, to the scrivener. I do + not know him or who he is, but he seems to me a sovereign + poet, so cunning is he in his use of verse.'] + + [Footnote 27: It must be remarked that Tigri draws a strong + contrast in this respect between the songs of the mountain + districts which he has printed and those of the towns, and + that Pitrè, in his edition of Sicilian _Volkslieder_, + expressly alludes to the coarseness of a whole class which + he had omitted. The MSS. of Sicilian and Tuscan songs, + dating from the fifteenth century and earlier, yield a fair + proportion of decidedly obscene compositions. Yet the fact + stated above is integrally correct. When acclimatised in the + large towns, the rustic Muse not unfrequently assumes a garb + of grossness. At home, among the fields and on the + mountains, she remains chaste and romantic.] + + [Footnote 28: In a rispetto, of which I subjoin a + translation, sung by a poor lad to a mistress of higher + rank, love itself is pleaded as the sign of a gentle soul:-- + + My state is poor: I am not meet + To court so nobly born a love; + For poverty hath tied my feet, + Trying to climb too far above. + Yet am I gentle, loving thee; + Nor need thou shun my poverty. + + [Footnote 29: When the Cherubina, of whom mention has been + made above, was asked by Signor Tigri to dictate some of her + rispetti, she answered, 'O signore! ne dico tanti quando li + canto! . . . ma ora . . . bisognerebbe averli tutti in + visione; se no, proprio non vengono.'] + + [Footnote 30: I need hardly guard myself against being + supposed to mean that the form of _Ballata_ in question was + the only one of its kind in Italy.] + + [Footnote 31: See my _Sketches in Italy and Greece_, p. + 114.] + + [Footnote 32: The originals will be found in Carducci's + _Studi Letterari_, p. 273 _et seq._ I have preserved their + rhyming structure.] + + [Footnote 33: Stanza XLIII. All references are made to + Carducci's excellent edition, _Le Stanze, l'Orfeo e le Rime + di Messer Angelo Ambrogini Poliziano._ Firenze: G. Barbéra. + 1863.] + + + + + +End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of Sketches and Studies in Italy and +Greece, Second Series, by John Addington Symonds + +*** END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 14634 *** diff --git a/14634-h/14634-h.htm b/14634-h/14634-h.htm new file mode 100644 index 0000000..8fa5a21 --- /dev/null +++ b/14634-h/14634-h.htm @@ -0,0 +1,12644 @@ + +<!DOCTYPE HTML PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD HTML 4.0 Transitional//EN"> + +<head> +<meta name="generator" content="HTML Tidy, see www.w3.org"> +<title>The Project Gutenberg eBook of SKETCHES AND STUDIES IN ITALY +AND GREECE BY JOHN ADDINGTON SYMONDS</title> +<meta http-equiv="content-type" content="text/html; charset=UTF-8"> +<style type="text/css"> + + + + +/*<![CDATA[ XML blockout */ +<!-- +A { + TEXT-DECORATION: none; +} +P { + MARGIN-TOP: 0.75em; MARGIN-BOTTOM: 0.75em; TEXT-ALIGN: justify; +} +H1 { + TEXT-ALIGN: center; +} +H2 { + TEXT-ALIGN: center; +} +H3 { + TEXT-ALIGN: center; +} +H4 { + TEXT-ALIGN: center; +} +H5 { + TEXT-ALIGN: center; +} +H6 { + TEXT-ALIGN: center; +} + +HR { + WIDTH: 33%; +} +HR.full { + WIDTH: 100%; HEIGHT: 5px; +} +A:link { + COLOR: blue; TEXT-DECORATION: none; +} +LINK { + COLOR: blue; TEXT-DECORATION: none; +} +A:visited { + COLOR: blue; TEXT-DECORATION: none; +} +A:hover { + COLOR: red; +} + + +BODY { + MARGIN-LEFT: 7%; MARGIN-RIGHT: 8%; +} +.linenum { + LEFT: 4%; POSITION: absolute; TOP: auto; +} +.note { + MARGIN-BOTTOM: 1em; MARGIN-LEFT: 2em; MARGIN-RIGHT: 2em; +} +.blkquot { + MARGIN-LEFT: 4em; MARGIN-RIGHT: 4em; +} +.pagenum { + FONT-SIZE: smaller; LEFT: 92%; POSITION: absolute; + TEXT-ALIGN: right; +} +.newpage { + display: none; +} +.sidenote { + CLEAR: right; MARGIN-TOP: 1em; PADDING-LEFT: 1em; + FONT-SIZE: smaller; FLOAT: right; + MARGIN-BOTTOM: 1em; WIDTH: 20%; +} + +ins.correction {border-bottom-style: dotted; border-bottom-color: red; + border-bottom-width:1px; +} + +.poem { + MARGIN-LEFT: 10%; MARGIN-RIGHT: 10%; TEXT-ALIGN: left; +} + + +.poem BR { + DISPLAY: none; +} +.poem .stanza { + MARGIN: 1em 0em; +} +.poem SPAN { + DISPLAY: block; PADDING-LEFT: 3em; MARGIN: 0px; TEXT-INDENT: -3em; +} +.poem SPAN.i2 { + DISPLAY: block; MARGIN-LEFT: 2em; +} +.poem SPAN.i4 { + DISPLAY: block; MARGIN-LEFT: 4em; +} +.poem .caesura { + VERTICAL-ALIGN: -200%; +} +LI.indent { + MARGIN-LEFT: 5%; +} + + </style> + </head> +<body> +<div>*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 14634 ***</div> + +<div style= +" background-color: white; color: black; border-style: ridge;"> + +<center> +<h1>SKETCHES AND STUDIES <br /> + +IN<br /> + +ITALY AND GREECE</h1> +</center> +</div> + +<h3>BY</h3> +<h2>JOHN ADDINGTON SYMONDS</h2> + + + + + +<br /> +<br /> +<br /> +<br /> +<h3><a href="#CONTENTS">CONTENTS</a></h3> +<br /> +<br /> +<br /> +<br /> +<br /> +<h4>AUTHOR OF "RENAISSANCE IN ITALY", "STUDIES OF THE GREEK POETS," ETC</h4> +<br /> +<br /> +<br /> +<br /> +<br /> +<h4>SECOND SERIES</h4> +<br /> +<br /> +<br /> +<br /> +<br /> +<h3>LONDON<br /> +JOHN MURRAY, ALBEMARLE STREET, W.<br /> +<br /> +1914</h3> +<br /> +<br /> +<br /> +<h5><i>All rights reserved</i></h5> +<br /> +<br /> +<br /> +<br /> +<br /> +<br /> + +<table summary="printing history"> + +<tr> +<td> FIRST EDITION </td><td>(<i>Smith, Elder & co.</i>)</td> +<td align="left"><i>October, 1898</i></td> +</tr> + +<tr> +<td><i>Reprinted</i></td><td></td> +<td align="left"><i>May, 1900</i></td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td><i>Reprinted</i></td><td></td> +<td align="left"><i>June, 1902</i></td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td><i>Reprinted</i></td><td></td> +<td align="left"><i>November, 1905</i></td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td><i>Reprinted</i></td><td></td> +<td align="left"><i>December, 1907</i></td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td><i>Reprinted</i></td><td></td> +<td align="left"><i>February, 1914</i></td> +</tr> + +<tr> +<td><i>Taken over by John Murray</i> </td><td></td> +<td align="left"><i>January, 1917</i></td> +</tr> + +</table> +<br /> +<br /> +<br /> +<br /> +<br /> + + +<h6><i>Printed in Great Britain at</i><br /> +<b>THE BALLANTYNE PRESS</b> +<i>by</i> +<b>SPOTTISWOODE,<br /> +BALLANTYNE & co. LTD.</b> +<i>Colchester, London & Eton</i></h6> +<br /> +<br /> +<br /> +<br /> +<br /> + +<a name="CONTENTS"><b>CONTENTS</b></a> +<br /> +<br /> +<table summary="toc"> +<tr> +<td>CHAPTER</td> +<td align="left"> PAGE</td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td>RAVENNA</td> +<td align="left"><a href="#RAVENNA"><b>1</b></a></td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td>RIMINI</td> +<td align="left"><a href="#RIMINI"><b>14</b></a></td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td>MAY IN UMBRIA</td> +<td align="left"><a href="#MAY_IN_UMBRIA"><b>32</b></a></td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td>THE PALACE OF URBINO</td> +<td align="left"><a href="#THE_PALACE_OF_URBINO"><b>50</b></a></td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td>VITTORIA ACCORAMBONI</td> +<td align="left"><a href="#VITTORIA_ACCORAMBONI"><b>88</b></a></td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td>AUTUMN WANDERINGS</td> +<td align="left"><a href="#AUTUMN_WANDERINGS"><b>127</b></a></td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td>PARMA</td> +<td align="left"><a href="#PARMA"><b>147</b></a></td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td>CANOSSA</td> +<td align="left"><a href="#CANOSSA"><b>163</b></a></td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td>FORNOVO</td> +<td align="left"><a href="#FORNOVO"><b>180</b></a></td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td>FLORENCE AND THE MEDICI</td> +<td align="left"><a href="#FLORENCE_AND_THE_MEDICI"><b>201</b></a></td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td>THE DEBT OF ENGLISH TO ITALIAN LITERATURE</td> +<td align="left"><a href="#THE_DEBT_OF_ENGLISH_TO_ITALIAN_LITERATURE"><b>258</b></a></td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td>POPULAR SONGS OF TUSCANY</td> +<td align="left"><a href="#POPULAR_SONGS_OF_TUSCANY"><b>276</b></a></td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td>POPULAR ITALIAN POETRY OF THE RENAISSANCE</td> +<td align="left"><a href="#POPULAR_ITALIAN_POETRY_OF_THE_RENAISSANCE"><b>305</b></a></td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td>THE 'ORFEO' OF POLIZIANO</td> +<td align="left"><a href="#ORFEO"><b>345</b></a></td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td>EIGHT SONNETS OF PETRARCH</td> +<td align="left"><a href="#EIGHT_SONNETS_OF_PETRARCH"><b>365</b></a></td> +</tr> + +<tr> +<td><a href="#FOOTNOTES">FOOTNOTES</a><td align="left"></td> +</tr> +</table> +<br /> +<br /> +<br /> +<br /> +<br /> +<h2>SKETCHES AND STUDIES IN ITALY AND GREECE</h2> + + + + + +<br /><br /><br /> +<hr style="width: 100%;" /> +<h2><a name="RAVENNA" id="RAVENNA" /><i>RAVENNA</i></a></h2> +<hr style="width: 100%;" /> +<br /> +<p>The Emperor Augustus chose Ravenna for one of his two naval stations, +and in course of time a new city arose by the sea-shore, which +received the name of Portus Classis. Between this harbour and the +mother city a third town sprang up, and was called Cæsarea. Time and +neglect, the ravages of war, and the encroaching powers of Nature have +destroyed these settlements, and nothing now remains of the three +cities but Ravenna. It would seem that in classical times Ravenna +stood, like modern Venice, in the centre of a huge lagune, the fresh +waters of the Ronco and the Po mixing with the salt waves of the +Adriatic round its very walls. The houses of the city were built on +piles; canals instead of streets formed the means of communication, +and these were always filled with water artificially conducted from +the southern estuary of the Po. Round Ravenna extended a vast morass, +for the most part under shallow water, but rising at intervals into +low islands like the Lido or Murano or Torcello which surround Venice. +These islands were celebrated for their fertility: the vines and +fig-trees and pomegranates, springing from a fat and fruitful soil, +watered with constant moisture, and fostered by a mild sea-wind and +liberal sunshine, yielded crops that for luxuriance and quality +surpassed the harvests of any orchards on the mainland. All the +conditions of life in old Ravenna seem to have resembled those of +modern Venice; the people went about in gondolas, and in the early +morning barges laden with fresh fruit or meat and vegetables flocked +from all quarters to the city of the sea.[1] Water also had to be +procured from the neighbouring shore, for, as Martial says, a well at +Ravenna was more valuable than a vineyard. Again, between the city and +the mainland ran a long low causeway all across the lagune like that +on which the trains now glide into Venice. Strange to say, the air of +Ravenna was remarkably salubrious: this fact, and the ease of life +that prevailed there, and the security afforded by the situation of +the town, rendered it a most desirable retreat for the monarchs of +Italy during those troublous times in which the empire nodded to its +fall. Honorius retired to its lagunes for safety; Odoacer, who +dethroned the last Cæsar of the West, succeeded him; and was in turn, +supplanted by Theodoric the Ostrogoth. Ravenna, as we see it now, +recalls the peaceful and half-Roman rule of the great Gothic king. His +palace, his churches, and the mausoleums in which his daughter +Amalasuntha laid the hero's bones, have survived the sieges of +Belisarius and Astolphus, the conquest of Pepin, the bloody quarrels +of Iconoclasts with the children of the Roman Church, the mediæval +wars of Italy, the victory of Gaston de Foix, and still stand gorgeous +with marbles and mosaics in spite of time and the decay of all around +them.</p> + +<p>As early as the sixth century, the sea had already retreated to such a +distance from Ravenna that orchards and gardens were cultivated on +the spot where once the galleys of the Cæsars rode at anchor. Groves +of pines sprang up along the shore, and in their lofty tops the music +of the wind moved like the ghost of waves and breakers plunging upon +distant sands. This Pinetum stretches along the shore of the Adriatic +for about forty miles, forming a belt of variable width between the +great marsh and the tumbling sea. From a distance the bare stems and +velvet crowns of the pine-trees stand up like palms that cover an +oasis on Arabian sands; but at a nearer view the trunks detach +themselves from an inferior forest-growth of juniper and thorn and ash +and oak, the tall roofs of the stately firs shooting their breadth of +sheltering greenery above the lower and less sturdy brushwood. It is +hardly possible to imagine a more beautiful and impressive scene than +that presented by these long alleys of imperial pines. They grow so +thickly one behind another, that we might compare them to the pipes of +a great organ, or the pillars of a Gothic church, or the basaltic +columns of the Giant's Causeway. Their tops are evergreen and laden +with the heavy cones, from which Ravenna draws considerable wealth. +Scores of peasants are quartered on the outskirts of the forest, whose +business it is to scale the pines and rob them of their fruit at +certain seasons of the year. Afterwards they dry the fir-cones in the +sun, until the nuts which they contain fall out. The empty husks are +sold for firewood, and the kernels in their stony shells reserved for +exportation. You may see the peasants, men, women, and boys, sorting +them by millions, drying and sifting them upon the open spaces of the +wood, and packing them in sacks to send abroad through Italy. The +<i>pinocchi</i> or kernels of the stone-pine are largely used in cookery, +and those of Ravenna are prized for their good quality and aromatic +flavour. When roasted or pounded, they taste like a softer and more +mealy kind of almonds. The task of gathering this harvest is not a +little dangerous. Men have to cut notches in the straight shafts, and +having climbed, often to the height of eighty feet, to lean upon the +branches, and detach the fir-cones with a pole—and this for every +tree. Some lives, they say, are yearly lost in the business.</p> + +<p>As may be imagined, the spaces of this great forest form the haunt of +innumerable living creatures. Lizards run about by myriads in the +grass. Doves coo among the branches of the pines, and nightingales +pour their full-throated music all day and night from thickets of +white-thorn and acacia. The air is sweet with aromatic scents: the +resin of the pine and juniper, the mayflowers and acacia-blossoms, the +violets that spring by thousands in the moss, the wild roses and faint +honeysuckles which throw fragrant arms from bough to bough of ash or +maple, join to make one most delicious perfume. And though the air +upon the neighbouring marsh is poisonous, here it is dry, and spreads +a genial health. The sea-wind murmuring through these thickets at +nightfall or misty sunrise, conveys no fever to the peasants stretched +among their flowers. They watch the red rays of sunset flaming through +the columns of the leafy hall, and flaring on its fretted rafters of +entangled boughs; they see the stars come out, and Hesper gleam, an +eye of brightness, among dewy branches; the moon walks silver-footed +on the velvet tree-tops, while they sleep beside the camp-fires; fresh +morning wakes them to the sound of birds and scent of thyme and +twinkling of dewdrops on the grass around. Meanwhile ague, fever, and +death have been stalking all night long about the plain, within a few +yards of their couch, and not one pestilential breath has reached the +charmed precincts of the forest.</p> + +<p>You may ride or drive for miles along green aisles between the pines +in perfect solitude; and yet the creatures of the wood, the sunlight +and the birds, the flowers and tall majestic columns at your side, +prevent all sense of loneliness or fear. Huge oxen haunt the +wilderness—grey creatures, with mild eyes and spreading horns and +stealthy tread. Some are patriarchs of the forest, the fathers and +the mothers of many generations who have been carried from their sides +to serve in ploughs or waggons on the Lombard plain. Others are +yearling calves, intractable and ignorant of labour. In order to +subdue them to the yoke, it is requisite to take them very early from +their native glades, or else they chafe and pine away with weariness. +Then there is a sullen canal, which flows through the forest from the +marshes to the sea; it is alive with frogs and newts and snakes. You +may see these serpents basking on the surface among thickets of the +flowering rush, or coiled about the lily leaves and flowers—lithe +monsters, slippery and speckled, the tyrants of the fen.</p> + +<p>It is said that when Dante was living at Ravenna he would spend whole +days alone among the forest glades, thinking of Florence and her civil +wars, and meditating cantos of his poem. Nor have the influences of +the pine-wood failed to leave their trace upon his verse. The charm of +its summer solitude seems to have sunk into his soul; for when he +describes the whispering of winds and singing birds among the boughs +of his terrestrial paradise, he says:—</p> + +<p> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Non però dal lor esser dritto sparte</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">Tanto, che gli augelletti per le cime</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">Lasciasser d' operare ogni lor arte:</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Ma con piena letizia l' aure prime,</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">Cantando, ricevano intra le foglie,</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">Che tenevan bordone alle sue rime</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Tal, qual di ramo in ramo si raccoglie</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">Per la pineta in sul lito di Chiassi</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">Quand' Eolo Scirocco fuor discioglie.</span><br /> +</p> + +<p>With these verses in our minds, while wandering down the grassy +aisles, beside the waters of the solitary place, we seem to meet that +lady singing as she went, and plucking flower by flower, 'like +Proserpine when Ceres lost a daughter, and she lost her spring.' +There, too, the vision of the griffin and the car, of singing +maidens, and of Beatrice descending to the sound of Benedictus and of +falling flowers, her flaming robe and mantle green as grass, and veil +of white, and olive crown, all flashed upon the poet's inner eye, and +he remembered how he bowed before her when a boy. There is yet another +passage in which it is difficult to believe that Dante had not the +pine-forest in his mind. When Virgil and the poet were waiting in +anxiety before the gates of Dis, when the Furies on the wall were +tearing their breasts and crying, 'Venga Medusa, e si 'l farem di +smalto,' suddenly across the hideous river came a sound like that +which whirlwinds make among the shattered branches and bruised stems +of forest-trees; and Dante, looking out with fear upon the foam and +spray and vapour of the flood, saw thousands of the damned flying +before the face of one who forded Styx with feet unwet. 'Like frogs,' +he says, 'they fled, who scurry through the water at the sight of +their foe, the serpent, till each squats and hides himself close to +the ground.' The picture of the storm among the trees might well have +occurred to Dante's mind beneath the roof of pine-boughs. Nor is there +any place in which the simile of the frogs and water-snake attains +such dignity and grandeur. I must confess that till I saw the ponds +and marshes of Ravenna, I used to fancy that the comparison was +somewhat below the greatness of the subject; but there so grave a note +of solemnity and desolation is struck, the scale of Nature is so +large, and the serpents coiling in and out among the lily leaves and +flowers are so much in their right place, that they suggest a scene by +no means unworthy of Dante's conception.</p> + +<p>Nor is Dante the only singer who has invested this wood with poetical +associations. It is well known that Boccaccio laid his story of +'Honoria' in the pine-forest, and every student of English literature +must be familiar with the noble tale in verse which Dryden has founded +on this part of the 'Decameron.' We all of us have followed Theodore, +and watched with him the tempest swelling in the grove, and seen the +hapless ghost pursued by demon hounds and hunter down the glades. This +story should be read while storms are gathering upon the distant sea, +or thunderclouds descending from the Apennines, and when the pines +begin to rock and surge beneath the stress of labouring winds. Then +runs the sudden flash of lightning like a rapier through the boughs, +the rain streams hissing down, and the thunder 'breaks like a whole +sea overhead.'</p> + +<p>With the Pinetum the name of Byron will be for ever associated. During +his two years' residence in Ravenna he used to haunt its wilderness, +riding alone or in the company of friends. The inscription placed +above the entrance to the house he occupied alludes to it as one of +the objects which principally attracted the poet to the neighbourhood +of Ravenna: 'Impaziente di visitare l' antica selva, che inspirò già +il Divino e Giovanni Boccaccio.' We know, however, that a more +powerful attraction, in the person of the Countess Guiccioli, +maintained his fidelity to 'that place of old renown, once in the +Adrian Sea, Ravenna.'</p> + +<p>Between the Bosco, as the people of Ravenna call this pine-wood, and +the city, the marsh stretches for a distance of about three miles. It +is a plain intersected by dykes and ditches, and mapped out into +innumerable rice-fields. For more than half a year it lies under +water, and during the other months exhales a pestilential vapour, +which renders it as uninhabitable as the Roman Campagna; yet in +springtime this dreary flat is even beautiful. The young blades of the +rice shoot up above the water, delicately green and tender. The +ditches are lined with flowering rush and golden flags, while white +and yellow lilies sleep in myriads upon the silent pools. Tamarisks +wave their pink and silver tresses by the road, and wherever a plot of +mossy earth emerges from the marsh, it gleams with purple orchises and +flaming marigolds; but the soil beneath is so treacherous and spongy, +that these splendid blossoms grow like flowers in dreams or fairy +stories. You try in vain to pick them; they elude your grasp, and +flourish in security beyond the reach of arm or stick.</p> + +<p>Such is the sight of the old town of Classis. Not a vestige of the +Roman city remains, not a dwelling or a ruined tower, nothing but the +ancient church of S. Apollinare in Classe. Of all desolate buildings +this is the most desolate. Not even the deserted grandeur of S. Paolo +beyond the walls of Rome can equal it. Its bare round campanile gazes +at the sky, which here vaults only sea and plain—a perfect dome, +star-spangled like the roof of Galla Placidia's tomb. Ravenna lies low +to west, the pine-wood stretches away in long monotony to east. There +is nothing else to be seen except the spreading marsh, bounded by dim +snowy Alps and purple Apennines, so very far away that the level rack +of summer clouds seem more attainable and real. What sunsets and +sunrises that tower must see; what glaring lurid afterglows in August, +when the red light scowls upon the pestilential fen; what sheets of +sullen vapour rolling over it in autumn; what breathless heats, and +rainclouds big with thunder; what silences; what unimpeded blasts of +winter winds! One old monk tends this deserted spot. He has the huge +church, with its echoing aisles and marble columns and giddy +bell-tower and cloistered corridors, all to himself. At rare +intervals, priests from Ravenna come to sing some special mass at +these cold altars; pious folk make vows to pray upon their mouldy +steps and kiss the relics which are shown on great occasions. But no +one stays; they hurry, after muttering their prayers, from the +fever-stricken spot, reserving their domestic pieties and customary +devotions for the brighter and newer chapels of the fashionable +churches in Ravenna. So the old monk is left alone to sweep the marsh +water from his church floor, and to keep the green moss from growing +too thickly on its monuments. A clammy conferva covers everything +except the mosaics upon tribune, roof, and clerestory, which defy the +course of age. Christ on His throne <i>sedet aternumque sedebit: </i> the +saints around him glitter with their pitiless uncompromising eyes and +wooden gestures, as if twelve centuries had not passed over them, and +they were nightmares only dreamed last night, and rooted in a sick +man's memory. For those gaunt and solemn forms there is no change of +life or end of days. No fever touches them; no dampness of the wind +and rain loosens their firm cement. They stare with senseless faces in +bitter mockery of men who live and die and moulder away beneath. Their +poor old guardian told us it was a weary life. He has had the fever +three times, and does not hope to survive many more Septembers. The +very water that he drinks is brought him from Ravenna; for the vast +fen, though it pours its overflow upon the church floor, and spreads +like a lake around, is death to drink. The monk had a gentle woman's +voice and mild brown eyes. What terrible crime had consigned him to +this living tomb? For what past sorrow is he weary of his life? What +anguish of remorse has driven him to such a solitude? Yet he looked +simple and placid; his melancholy was subdued and calm, as if life +were over for him, and he were waiting for death to come with a +friend's greeting upon noiseless wings some summer night across the +fen-lands in a cloud of soft destructive fever-mist.</p> + +<p>Another monument upon the plain is worthy of a visit. It is the +so-called Colonna dei Francesi, a <i>cinquecento</i> pillar of Ionic +design, erected on the spot where Gaston de Foix expired victorious +after one of the bloodiest battles ever fought. The Ronco, a straight +sluggish stream, flows by the lonely spot; mason bees have covered +with laborious stucco-work the scrolls and leafage of its ornaments, +confounding epitaphs and trophies under their mud houses. A few +cypress-trees stand round it, and the dogs and chickens of a +neighbouring farmyard make it their rendezvous. Those mason bees are +like posterity, which settles down upon the ruins of a Baalbec or a +Luxor, setting up its tents, and filling the fair spaces of Hellenic +or Egyptian temples with clay hovels. Nothing differs but the scale; +and while the bees content themselves with filling up and covering, +man destroys the silent places of the past which he appropriates.</p> + +<p>In Ravenna itself, perhaps what strikes us most is the abrupt +transition everywhere discernible from monuments of vast antiquity to +buildings of quite modern date. There seems to be no interval between +the marbles and mosaics of Justinian or Theodoric and the +insignificant frippery of the last century. The churches of +Ravenna—S. Vitale, S. Apollinare, and the rest—are too well known, +and have been too often described by enthusiastic antiquaries, to need +a detailed notice in this place. Every one is aware that the +ecclesiastical customs and architecture of the early Church can be +studied in greater perfection here than elsewhere. Not even the +basilicas and mosaics of Rome, nor those of Palermo and Monreale, are +equal for historical interest to those of Ravenna. Yet there is not +one single church which remains entirely unaltered and unspoiled. The +imagination has to supply the atrium or outer portico from one +building, the vaulted baptistery with its marble font from another, +the pulpits and ambones from a third the tribune from a fourth, the +round brick bell-tower from a fifth, and then to cover all the concave +roofs and chapel walls with grave and glittering mosaics.</p> + +<p>There is nothing more beautiful in decorative art than the mosaics of +such tiny buildings as the tomb of Galla Placidia or the chapel of the +Bishop's Palace. They are like jewelled and enamelled cases; not an +inch of wall can be seen which is not covered with elaborate patterns +of the brightest colours. Tall date-palms spring from the floor with +fruit and birds among their branches, and between them stand the +pillars and apostles of the Church. In the spandrels and lunettes +above the arches and the windows angels fly with white extended wings. +On every vacant place are scrolls and arabesques of foliage,—birds +and beasts, doves drinking from the vase, and peacocks spreading +gorgeous plumes—a maze of green and gold and blue. Overhead, the +vault is powdered with stars gleaming upon the deepest azure, and in +the midst is set an aureole embracing the majestic head of Christ, or +else the symbol of the sacred fish, or the hand of the Creator +pointing from a cloud. In Galla Placidia's tomb these storied vaults +spring above the sarcophagi of empresses and emperors, each lying in +the place where he was laid more than twelve centuries ago. The light +which struggles through the narrow windows serves to harmonise the +brilliant hues and make a gorgeous gloom.</p> + +<p>Besides these more general and decorative subjects, many of the +churches are adorned with historical mosaics, setting forth the Bible +narrative or incidents from the life of Christian emperors and kings. +In S. Apollinare Nuovo there is a most interesting treble series of +such mosaics extending over both walls of the nave. On the left hand, +as we enter, we see the town of Classis; on the right the palace of +Theodoric, its doors and loggie rich with curtains, and its friezes +blazing with coloured ornaments. From the city gate of Classis virgins +issue, and proceed in a long line until they reach Madonna seated on a +throne, with Christ upon her knees, and the three kings in adoration +at her feet. From Theodoric's palace door a similar procession of +saints and martyrs carry us to Christ surrounded by archangels. Above +this double row of saints and virgins stand the fathers and prophets +of the Church, and highest underneath the roof are pictures from the +life of our Lord. It will be remembered in connection with these +subjects that the women sat upon the left and the men upon the right +side of the church. Above the tribune, at the east end of the church, +it was customary to represent the Creative Hand, or the monogram of +the Saviour, or the head of Christ with the letters A and [Greek Ô]. +Moses and Elijah frequently stand on either side to symbolise the +transfiguration, while the saints and bishops specially connected with +the church appeared upon a lower row. Then on the side walls were +depicted such subjects as Justinian and Theodora among their +courtiers, or the grant of the privileges of the church to its first +founder from imperial patrons, with symbols of the old Hebraic +ritual—Abel's lamb, the sacrifice of Isaac, Melchisedec's offering of +bread and wine,—which were regarded as the types of Christian +ceremonies. The baptistery was adorned with appropriate mosaics +representing Christ's baptism in Jordan.</p> + +<p>Generally speaking, one is struck with the dignity of these designs, +and especially with the combined majesty and sweetness of the face of +Christ. The sense for harmony of hue displayed in their composition is +marvellous. It would be curious to trace in detail the remnants of +classical treatment which may be discerned—Jordan, for instance, +pours his water from an urn like a river-god crowned with sedge—or to +show what points of ecclesiastical tradition are established these +ancient monuments. We find Mariolatry already imminent, the names of +the three kings, Kaspar, Melchior, and Balthazar, the four evangelists +as we now recognise them, and many of the rites and vestments which +Ritualists of all denominations regard with superstitious reverence.</p> + +<p>There are two sepulchral monuments in Ravenna which cannot be passed +over unnoticed. The one is that of Theodoric the Goth, crowned by its +semisphere of solid stone, a mighty tomb, well worthy of the conqueror +and king. It stands in a green field, surrounded by acacias, where the +nightingales sing ceaselessly in May. The mason bees have covered it, +and the water has invaded its sepulchral vaults. In spite of many +trials, it seems that human art is unable to pump out the pond and +clear the frogs and efts from the chamber where the great Goth was +laid by Amalasuntha.</p> + +<p>The other is Dante's temple, with its basrelief and withered garlands. +The story of his burial, and of the discovery of his real tomb, is +fresh in the memory of every one. But the 'little cupola, more neat +than solemn,' of which Lord Byron speaks, will continue to be the goal +of many a pilgrimage. For myself—though I remember Chateaubriand's +bareheaded genuflection on its threshold, Alfieri's passionate +prostration at the altar-tomb, and Byron's offering of poems on the +poet's shrine—I confess that a single canto of the 'Inferno,' a +single passage of the 'Vita Nuova,' seems more full of soul-stirring +associations than the place where, centuries ago, the mighty dust was +laid. It is the spirit that lives and makes alive. And Dante's spirit +seems more present with us under the pine-branches of the Bosco than +beside his real or fancied tomb. 'He is risen,'—'Lo, I am with you +alway'—these are the words that ought to haunt us in a +burying-ground. There is something affected and self-conscious in +overpowering grief or enthusiasm or humiliation at a tomb.</p> + + +<h5><a href="#CONTENTS">CONTENTS</a></h5> +<br /><br /> +<hr style="width: 100%;" /> +<h2><a name="RIMINI" id="RIMINI" /><i>RIMINI</i></a></h2> +<hr style="width: 100%;" /> +<br /> +<p>SIGISMONDO PANDOLFO MALATESTA AND LEO BATTISTA ALBERTI</p> +<br /><br /> + +<p>Rimini is a city of about 18,000 souls, famous for its Stabilmento de' +Bagni and its antiquities, seated upon the coast of the Adriatic, a +little to the south-east of the world-historical Rubicon. It is our +duty to mention the baths first among its claims to distinction, +since the prosperity and cheerfulness of the little town depend on +them in a great measure. But visitors from the north will fly from +these, to marvel at the bridge which Augustus built and Tiberius +completed, and which still spans the Marecchia with five gigantic +arches of white Istrian limestone, as solidly as if it had not borne +the tramplings of at least three conquests. The triumphal arch, too, +erected in honour of Augustus, is a notable monument of Roman +architecture. Broad, ponderous, substantial, tufted here and there +with flowering weeds, and surmounted with mediaeval machicolations, +proving it to have sometimes stood for city gate or fortress, it +contrasts most favourably with the slight and somewhat gimcrack arch +of Trajan in the sister city of Ancona. Yet these remains of the +imperial pontifices, mighty and interesting as they are, sink into +comparative insignificance beside the one great wonder of Rimini, the +cathedral remodelled for Sigismondo Pandolfo Malatesta by Leo Battista +Alberti in 1450. This strange church, one of the earliest extant +buildings in which the Neopaganism of the Renaissance showed itself in +full force, brings together before our memory two men who might be +chosen as typical in their contrasted characters of the transitional +age which gave them birth.</p> + +<p>No one with any tincture of literary knowledge is ignorant of the fame +at least of the great Malatesta family—the house of the Wrongheads, +as they were rightly called by some prevision of their future part in +Lombard history. The readers of the twenty-seventh and twenty-eighth +cantos of the 'Inferno' have all heard of</p> + +<p> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">E il mastin vecchio e il nuovo da Verucchio</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 3em;">Che fecer di Montagna il mal governo,</span><br /> +</p> + +<p>while the story of Francesca da Polenta, who was wedded to the +hunchback Giovanni Malatesta and murdered by him with her lover Paolo, +is known not merely to students of Dante, but to readers of Byron and +Leigh Hunt, to admirers of Flaxman, Ary Scheffer, Doré—to all, in +fact, who have of art and letters any love.</p> + +<p>The history of these Malatesti, from their first establishment under +Otho III. as lieutenants for the Empire in the Marches of Ancona, down +to their final subjugation by the Papacy in the age of the +Renaissance, is made up of all the vicissitudes which could befall a +mediaeval Italian despotism. Acquiring an unlawful right over the +towns of Rimini, Cesena, Sogliano, Ghiacciuolo, they ruled their petty +principalities like tyrants by the help of the Guelf and Ghibelline +factions, inclining to the one or the other as it suited their humour +or their interest, wrangling among themselves, transmitting the +succession of their dynasty through bastards and by deeds of force, +quarrelling with their neighbours the Counts of Urbino, alternately +defying and submitting to the Papal legates in Romagna, serving as +condottieri in the wars of the Visconti and the state of Venice, and +by their restlessness and genius for military intrigues contributing +in no slight measure to the general disturbance of Italy. The +Malatesti were a race of strongly marked character: more, perhaps, +than any other house of Italian tyrants, they combined for generations +those qualities of the fox and the lion, which Machiavelli thought +indispensable to a successful despot. Son after son, brother with +brother, they continued to be fierce and valiant soldiers, cruel in +peace, hardy in war, but treasonable and suspicious in all +transactions that could not be settled by the sword. Want of union, +with them as with the Baglioni and many other of the minor noble +families in Italy, prevented their founding a substantial dynasty. +Their power, based on force, was maintained by craft and crime, and +transmitted through tortuous channels by intrigue. While false in +their dealings with the world at large, they were diabolical in the +perfidy with which they treated one another. No feudal custom, no +standard of hereditary right, ruled the succession in their family. +Therefore the ablest Malatesta for the moment clutched what he could +of the domains that owned his house for masters. Partitions among sons +or brothers, mutually hostile and suspicious, weakened the whole +stock. Yet they were great enough to hold their own for centuries +among the many tyrants who infested Lombardy. That the other princely +families of Romagna, Emilia, and the March were in the same state of +internal discord and dismemberment, was probably one reason why the +Malatesti stood their ground so firmly as they did.</p> + +<p>So far as Rimini is concerned, the house of Malatesta culminated in +Sigismondo Pandolfo, son of Gian Galeazzo Visconti's general, the +perfidious Pandolfo. It was he who built the Rocca, or castle of the +despots, which stands a little way outside the town, commanding a fair +view of Apennine tossed hill-tops and broad Lombard plain, and who +remodelled the Cathedral of S. Francis on a plan suggested by the +greatest genius of the age. Sigismondo Pandolfo Malatesta was one of +the strangest products of the earlier Renaissance. To enumerate the +crimes which he committed within the sphere of his own family, +mysterious and inhuman outrages which render the tale of the Cenci +credible, would violate the decencies of literature. A thoroughly +bestial nature gains thus much with posterity that its worst qualities +must be passed by in silence. It is enough to mention that he murdered +three wives in succession,<a name="FNanchor_2_2" id="FNanchor_2_2" /></a><a href="#Footnote_2_2" class="fnanchor">[2]</a> Bussoni di Carmagnuola, Guinipera +d'Este, and Polissena Sforza, on various pretexts of infidelity, and +carved horns upon his own tomb with this fantastic legend +underneath:—</p> + +<p> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Porto le corna ch' ognuno le vede,</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">E tal le porta che non se lo crede.</span><br /> +</p> + +<p>He died in wedlock with the beautiful and learned Isotta degli Atti, +who had for some time been his mistress. But, like most of the +Malatesti, he left no legitimate offspring. Throughout his life he was +distinguished for bravery and cunning, for endurance of fatigue and +rapidity of action, for an almost fretful rashness in the execution of +his schemes, and for a character terrible in its violence. He was +acknowledged as a great general; yet nothing succeeded with him. The +long warfare which he carried on against the Duke of Montefeltro ended +in his discomfiture. Having begun by defying the Holy See, he was +impeached at Rome for heresy, parricide, incest, adultery, rape, and +sacrilege, burned in effigy by Pope Pius II., and finally restored to +the bosom of the Church, after suffering the despoliation of almost +all his territories, in 1463. The occasion on which this fierce and +turbulent despiser of laws human and divine was forced to kneel as a +penitent before the Papal legate in the gorgeous temple dedicated to +his own pride, in order that the ban of excommunication might be +removed from Rimini, was one of those petty triumphs, interesting +chiefly for their picturesqueness, by which the Popes confirmed their +questionable rights over the cities of Romagna. Sigismondo, shorn of +his sovereignty, took the command of the Venetian troops against the +Turks in the Morea, and returned in 1465, crowned with laurels, to die +at Rimini in the scene of his old splendour.</p> + +<p>A very characteristic incident belongs to this last act of his life. +Dissolute, treacherous, and inhuman as he was, the tyrant of Rimini +had always encouraged literature, and delighted in the society of +artists. He who could brook no contradiction from a prince or soldier, +allowed the pedantic scholars of the sixteenth century to dictate to +him in matters of taste, and sat with exemplary humility at the feet +of Latinists like Porcellio, Basinio, and Trebanio. Valturio, the +engineer, and Alberti, the architect, were his familiar friends; and +the best hours of his life were spent in conversation with these men. +Now that he found himself upon the sacred soil of Greece, he was +determined not to return to Italy empty-handed. Should he bring +manuscripts or marbles, precious vases or inscriptions in half-legible +Greek character? These relics were greedily sought for by the +potentates of Italian cities; and no doubt Sigismondo enriched his +library with some such treasures. But he obtained a nobler +prize—nothing less than the body of a saint of scholarship, the +authentic bones of the great Platonist, Gemisthus Pletho.<a name="FNanchor_3_3" id="FNanchor_3_3" /></a><a href="#Footnote_3_3" class="fnanchor">[3]</a> These he +exhumed from their Greek grave and caused them to be deposited in a +stone sarcophagus outside the cathedral of his building in Rimini. The +Venetians, when they stole the body of S. Mark from Alexandria, were +scarcely more pleased than was Sigismondo with the acquisition of this +Father of the Neopagan faith. Upon the tomb we still may read this +legend: 'Jemisthii Bizantii philosopher sua temp principis reliquum +Sig. Pan. Mal. Pan. F. belli Pelop adversus Turcor regem Imp ob +ingentem eruditorum quo flagrat amorem huc afferendum introque +mittendum curavit MCCCCLXVI.' Of the Latinity of the inscription much +cannot be said; but it means that 'Sigismondo Pandolfo Malatesta, +having served as general against the Turks in the Morea, induced by +the great love with which he burns for all learned men, brought and +placed here the remains of Gemisthus of Byzantium, the prince of the +philosophers of his day.'</p> + +<p>Sigismondo's portrait, engraved on medals, and sculptured upon every +frieze and point of vantage in the Cathedral of Rimini, well denotes +the man. His face is seen in profile. The head, which is low and flat +above the forehead, rising swiftly backward from the crown, carries a +thick bushy shock of hair curling at the ends, such as the Italians +call a <i>zazzera</i>. The eye is deeply sunk, with long venomous flat +eyelids, like those which Leonardo gives to his most wicked faces. The +nose is long and crooked, curved like a vulture's over a petulant +mouth, with lips deliberately pressed together, as though it were +necessary to control some nervous twitching. The cheek is broad, and +its bone is strongly marked. Looking at these features in repose, we +cannot but picture to our fancy what expression they might assume +under a sudden fit of fury, when the sinews of the face were +contracted with quivering spasms, and the lips writhed in sympathy +with knit forehead and wrinkled eyelids.</p> + +<p>Allusion has been made to the Cathedral of S. Francis at Rimini, as +the great ornament of the town, and the chief monument of Sigismondo's +fame. It is here that all the Malatesti lie. Here too is the chapel +consecrated to Isotta, 'Divæ Isottæ Sacrum;' and the tombs of the +Malatesta ladies, 'Malatestorum domûs heroidum sepulchrum;' and +Sigismondo's own grave with the cuckold's horns and scornful epitaph. +Nothing but the fact that the church is duly dedicated to S. Francis, +and that its outer shell of classic marble encases an old Gothic +edifice, remains to remind us that it is a Christian place of +worship.<a name="FNanchor_4_4" id="FNanchor_4_4" /></a><a href="#Footnote_4_4" class="fnanchor">[4]</a> It has no sanctity, no spirit of piety. The pride of the +tyrant whose legend—'Sigismundus Pandulphus Malatesta Pan. F. Fecit +Anno Gratiæ MCCCCL'—occupies every arch and stringcourse of the +architecture, and whose coat-of-arms and portrait in medallion, with +his cipher and his emblems of an elephant and a rose, are wrought in +every piece of sculptured work throughout the building, seems so to +fill this house of prayer that there is no room left for God. Yet the +Cathedral of Rimini remains a monument of first-rate importance for +all students who seek to penetrate the revived Paganism of the +fifteenth century. It serves also to bring a far more interesting +Italian of that period than the tyrant of Rimini himself, before our +notice.</p> + +<p>In the execution of his design, Sigismondo received the assistance of +one of the most remarkable men of this or any other age. Leo Battista +Alberti, a scion of the noble Florentine house of that name, born +during the exile of his parents, and educated in the Venetian +territory, was endowed by nature with aptitudes, faculties, and +sensibilities so varied, as to deserve the name of universal genius. +Italy in the Renaissance period was rich in natures of this sort, to +whom nothing that is strange or beautiful seemed unfamiliar, and who, +gifted with a kind of divination, penetrated the secrets of the world +by sympathy. To Pico della Mirandola, Lionardo da Vinci, and Michel +Agnolo Buonarroti may be added Leo Battista Alberti. That he achieved +less than his great compeers, and that he now exists as the shadow of +a mighty name, was the effect of circumstances. He came half a century +too early into the world, and worked as a pioneer rather than a +settler of the realm which Lionardo ruled as his demesne. Very early +in his boyhood Alberti showed the versatility of his talents. The use +of arms, the management of horses, music, painting, modelling for +sculpture, mathematics, classical and modern literature, physical +science as then comprehended, and all the bodily exercises proper to +the estate of a young nobleman, were at his command. His biographer +asserts that he was never idle, never subject to ennui or fatigue. He +used to say that books at times gave him the same pleasure as +brilliant jewels or perfumed flowers: hunger and sleep could not keep +him from them then. At other times the letters on the page appeared to +him like twining and contorted scorpions, so that he preferred to gaze +on anything but written scrolls. He would then turn to music or +painting, or to the physical sports in which he excelled. The language +in which this alternation of passion and disgust for study is +expressed, bears on it the stamp of Alberti's peculiar temperament, +his fervid and imaginative genius, instinct with subtle sympathies and +strange repugnances. Flying from his study, he would then betake +himself to the open air. No one surpassed him in running, in +wrestling, in the force with which he cast his javelin or discharged +his arrows. So sure was his aim and so skilful his cast, that he could +fling a farthing from the pavement of the square, and make it ring +against a church roof far above. When he chose to jump, he put his +feet together and bounded over the shoulders of men standing erect +upon the ground. On horseback he maintained perfect equilibrium, and +seemed incapable of fatigue. The most restive and vicious animals +trembled under him and became like lambs. There was a kind of +magnetism in the man. We read, besides these feats of strength and +skill, that he took pleasure in climbing mountains, for no other +purpose apparently than for the joy of being close to nature.</p> + +<p>In this, as in many other of his instincts, Alberti was before his +age. To care for the beauties of landscape unadorned by art, and to +sympathise with sublime or rugged scenery, was not in the spirit of +the Renaissance. Humanity occupied the attention of poets and +painters; and the age was yet far distant when the pantheistic feeling +for the world should produce the art of Wordsworth and of Turner. Yet +a few great natures even then began to comprehend the charm and +mystery which the Greeks had imaged in their Pan, the sense of an +all-pervasive spirit in wild places, the feeling of a hidden want, the +invisible tie which makes man a part of rocks and woods and streams +around him. Petrarch had already ascended the summit of Mont Ventoux, +to meditate, with an exaltation of the soul he scarcely understood, +upon the scene spread at his feet and above his head. Æneas Sylvius +Piccolomini delighted in wild places for no mere pleasure of the +chase, but for the joy he took in communing with nature. How S. +Francis found God in the sun and the air, the water and the stars, we +know by his celebrated hymn; and of Dante's acute observation, every +canto of the 'Divine Comedy' is witness.</p> + +<p>Leo Alberti was touched in spirit by even a deeper and a stranger +pathos than any of these men: 'In the early spring, when he beheld the +meadows and hills covered with flowers, and saw the trees and plants +of all kinds bearing promise of fruit, his heart became exceeding +sorrowful; and when in autumn he looked on fields heavy with harvest +and orchards apple-laden, he felt such grief that many even saw him +weep for the sadness of his soul.' It would seem that he scarcely +understood the source of this sweet trouble: for at such times he +compared the sloth and inutility of men with the industry and +fertility of nature; as though this were the secret of his melancholy. +A poet of our century has noted the same stirring of the spirit, and +has striven to account for it:—</p> + +<p> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Tears from the depth of some divine despair</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Rise in the heart, and gather to the eyes,</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">In looking on the happy autumn fields,</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">And thinking of the days that are no more.</span><br /> +</p> + +<p>Both Alberti and Tennyson have connected the <i>mal du pays</i> of the +human soul for that ancient country of its birth, the mild Saturnian +earth from which we sprang, with a sense of loss. It is the waste of +human energy that affects Alberti; the waste of human life touches the +modern poet. Yet both perhaps have scarcely interpreted their own +spirit; for is not the true source of tears deeper and more secret? +Man is a child of nature in the simplest sense; and the stirrings of +the secular breasts that gave him suck, and on which he even now must +hang, have potent influences over his emotions.</p> + +<p>Of Alberti's extraordinary sensitiveness to all such impressions many +curious tales are told. The sight of refulgent jewels, of flowers, and +of fair landscapes, had the same effect upon his nerves as the sound +of the Dorian mood upon the youths whom Pythagoras cured of passion by +music. He found in them an anodyne for pain, a restoration from +sickness. Like Walt Whitman, who adheres to nature by closer and more +vital sympathy than any other poet of the modern world, Alberti felt +the charm of excellent old age no less than that of florid youth. 'On +old men gifted with a noble presence and hale and vigorous, he gazed +again and again, and said that he revered in them the delights of +nature (<i>naturæ delitias</i>).' Beasts and birds and all living creatures +moved him to admiration for the grace with which they had been gifted, +each in his own kind. It is even said that he composed a funeral +oration for a dog which he had loved and which died.</p> + +<p>To this sensibility for all fair things in nature, Alberti added the +charm of a singularly sweet temper and graceful conversation. The +activity of his mind, which was always being exercised on subjects of +grave speculation, removed him from the noise and bustle of +commonplace society. He was somewhat silent, inclined to solitude, +and of a pensive countenance; yet no man found him difficult of +access: his courtesy was exquisite, and among familiar friends he was +noted for the flashes of a delicate and subtle wit. Collections were +made of his apophthegms by friends, and some are recorded by his +anonymous biographer.<a name="FNanchor_5_5" id="FNanchor_5_5" /></a><a href="#Footnote_5_5" class="fnanchor">[5]</a> Their finer perfume, as almost always happens +with good sayings which do not certain the full pith of a proverb, but +owe their force, in part at least, to the personality of their author, +and to the happy moment of their production, has evanesced. Here, +however, is one which seems still to bear the impress of Alberti's +genius: 'Gold is the soul of labour, and labour the slave of +pleasure.' Of women he used to say that their inconstancy was an +antidote to their falseness; for if a woman could but persevere in +what she undertook, all the fair works of men would be ruined. One of +his strongest moral sentences is aimed at envy, from which he suffered +much in his own life, and against which he guarded with a curious +amount of caution. His own family grudged the distinction which his +talents gained for him, and a dark story is told of a secret attempt +made by them to assassinate him through his servants. Alberti met +these ignoble jealousies with a stately calm and a sweet dignity of +demeanour, never condescending to accuse his relatives, never seeking +to retaliate, but acting always for the honour of his illustrious +house. In the same spirit of generosity he refused to enter into wordy +warfare with detractors and calumniators, sparing the reputation even +of his worst enemy when chance had placed him in his power. This +moderation both of speech and conduct was especially distinguished in +an age which tolerated the fierce invectives of Filelfo, and applauded +the vindictive courage of Cellini. To money Alberti showed a calm +indifference. He committed his property to his friends and shared with +them in common. Nor was he less careless about vulgar fame, spending +far more pains in the invention of machinery and the discovery of +laws, than in their publication to the world. His service was to +knowledge, not to glory. Self-control was another of his eminent +qualities. With the natural impetuosity of a large heart, and the +vivacity of a trained athlete, he yet never allowed himself to be +subdued by anger or by sensual impulses, but took pains to preserve +his character unstained and dignified before the eyes of men. A story +is told of him which may remind us of Goethe's determination to +overcome his giddiness. In his youth his head was singularly sensitive +to changes of temperature; but by gradual habituation he brought +himself at last to endure the extremes of heat and cold bareheaded. In +like manner he had a constitutional disgust for onions and honey; so +powerful, that the very sight of these things made him sick. Yet by +constantly viewing and touching what was disagreeable, he conquered +these dislikes; and proved that men have a complete mastery over what +is merely instinctive in their nature. His courage corresponded to his +splendid physical development. When a boy of fifteen, he severely +wounded himself in the foot. The gash had to be probed and then sewn +up. Alberti not only bore the pain of this operation without a groan, +but helped the surgeon with his own hands; and effected a cure of the +fever which succeeded by the solace of singing to his cithern. For +music he had a genius of the rarest order; and in painting he is said +to have achieved success. Nothing, however, remains of his work and +from what Vasari says of it, we may fairly conclude that he gave less +care to the execution of finished pictures, than to drawings +subsidiary to architectural and mechanical designs. His biographer +relates that when he had completed a painting, he called children and +asked them what it meant. If they did not know, he reckoned it a +failure. He was also in the habit of painting from memory. While at +Venice, he put on canvas the faces of friends at Florence whom he had +not seen for months. That the art of painting was subservient in his +estimation to mechanics, is indicated by what we hear about the +camera, in which he showed landscapes by day and the revolutions of +the stars by night, so lively drawn that the spectators were affected +with amazement. The semi-scientific impulse to extend man's mastery +over nature, the magician's desire to penetrate secrets, which so +powerfully influenced the development of Lionardo's genius, seems to +have overcome the purely æsthetic instincts of Alberti, so that he +became in the end neither a great artist like Raphael, nor a great +discoverer like Galileo, but rather a clairvoyant to whom the miracles +of nature and of art lie open.</p> + +<p>After the first period of youth was over, Leo Battista Alberti devoted +his great faculties and all his wealth of genius to the study of the +law—then, as now, the quicksand of the noblest natures. The industry +with which he applied himself to the civil and ecclesiastical codes +broke his health. For recreation he composed a Latin comedy called +'Philodoxeos,' which imposed upon the judgment of scholars, and was +ascribed as a genuine antique to Lepidus, the comic poet. Feeling +stronger, Alberti returned at the age of twenty to his law studies, +and pursued them in the teeth of disadvantages. His health was still +uncertain, and the fortune of an exile reduced him to the utmost want. +It was no wonder that under these untoward circumstances even his +Herculean strength gave way. Emaciated and exhausted, he lost the +clearness of his eyesight, and became subject to arterial +disturbances, which filled his ears with painful sounds. This nervous +illness is not dissimilar to that which Rousseau describes in the +confessions of his youth. In vain, however, his physicians warned +Alberti of impending peril. A man of so much stanchness, accustomed +to control his nature with an iron will, is not ready to accept +advice. Alberti persevered in his studies, until at last the very seat +of intellect was invaded. His memory began to fail him for names, +while he still retained with wonderful accuracy whatever he had seen +with his eyes. It was now impossible to think of law as a profession. +Yet since he could not live without severe mental exercise, he had +recourse to studies which tax the verbal memory less than the +intuitive faculties of the reason. Physics and mathematics became his +chief resource; and he devoted his energies to literature. His +'Treatise on the Family' may be numbered among the best of those +compositions on social and speculative subjects in which the Italians +of the Renaissance sought to rival Cicero. His essays on the arts are +mentioned by Vasari with sincere approbation. Comedies, interludes, +orations, dialogues, and poems flowed with abundance from his facile +pen. Some were written in Latin, which he commanded more than fairly; +some in the Tuscan tongue, of which owing to the long exile of his +family in Lombardy, he is said to have been less a master. It was +owing to this youthful illness, from which apparently his constitution +never wholly recovered, that Alberti's genius was directed to +architecture.</p> + +<p>Through his friendship with Flavio Biondo, the famous Roman antiquary, +Alberti received an introduction to Nicholas V. at the time when this, +the first great Pope of the Renaissance, was engaged in rebuilding the +palaces and fortifications of Rome. Nicholas discerned the genius of +the man, and employed him as his chief counsellor in all matters of +architecture. When the Pope died, he was able, while reciting his long +Latin will upon his deathbed, to boast that he had restored the Holy +See to its due dignity, and the Eternal City to the splendour worthy +of the seat of Christendom. The accomplishment of the second part of +his work he owed to the genius of Alberti. After doing thus much for +Rome under Thomas of Sarzana, and before beginning to beautify +Florence at the instance of the Rucellai family, Alberti entered the +service of the Malatesta, and undertook to remodel the Cathedral of S. +Francis at Rimini. He found it a plain Gothic structure with apse and +side chapels. Such churches are common enough in Italy, where pointed +architecture never developed its true character of complexity and +richness, but was doomed to the vast vacuity exemplified in S. +Petronio of Bologna. He left it a strange medley of mediæval and +Renaissance work, a symbol of that dissolving scene in the world's +pantomime, when the spirit of classic art, as yet but little +comprehended, was encroaching on the early Christian taste. Perhaps +the mixture of styles so startling in S. Francesco ought not to be +laid to the charge of Alberti, who had to execute the task of turning +a Gothic into a classic building. All that he could do was to alter +the whole exterior of the church, by affixing a screen-work of Roman +arches and Corinthian pilasters, so as to hide the old design and yet +to leave the main features of the fabric, the windows and doors +especially, <i>in statu quo</i>. With the interior he dealt upon the same +general principle, by not disturbing its structure, while he covered +every available square inch of surface with decorations alien to the +Gothic manner. Externally, S. Francesco is perhaps the most original +and graceful of the many attempts made by Italian builders to fuse the +mediæval and the classic styles. For Alberti attempted nothing less. A +century elapsed before Palladio, approaching the problem from a +different point of view, restored the antique in its purity, and +erected in the Palazzo della Ragione of Vicenza an almost unique +specimen of resuscitated Roman art.</p> + +<p>Internally, the beauty of the church is wholly due to its exquisite +wall-ornaments. These consist for the most part of low reliefs in a +soft white stone, many of them thrown out upon a blue ground in the +style of Della Robbia. Allegorical figures designed with the purity of +outline we admire in Botticelli, draperies that Burne-Jones might +copy, troops of singing boys in the manner of Donatello, great angels +traced upon the stone so delicately that they seem to be rather drawn +than sculptured, statuettes in niches, personifications of all arts +and sciences alternating with half-bestial shapes of satyrs and +sea-children:—such are the forms which fill the spaces of the chapel +walls, and climb the pilasters, and fret the arches, in such abundance +that had the whole church been finished as it was designed, it would +have presented one splendid though bizarre effect of incrustation. +Heavy screens of Verona marble, emblazoned in open arabesques with the +ciphers of Sigismondo and Isotta, with coats-of-arms, emblems, and +medallion portraits, shut the chapels from the nave. Who produced all +this sculpture it is difficult to say. Some of it is very good: much +is indifferent. We may hazard the opinion that, besides Bernardo +Ciuffagni, of whom Vasari speaks, some pupils of Donatello and +Benedetto da Majano worked at it. The influence of the sculptors of +Florence is everywhere perceptible.</p> + +<p>Whatever be the merit of these reliefs, there is no doubt that they +fairly represent one of the most interesting moments in the history of +modern art. Gothic inspiration had failed; the early Tuscan style of +the Pisani had been worked out; Michelangelo was yet far distant, and +the abundance of classic models had not overwhelmed originality. The +sculptors of the school of Ghiberti and Donatello, who are represented +in this church, were essentially pictorial, preferring low to high +relief, and relief in general to detached figures. Their style, like +the style of Boiardo in poetry, of Botticelli in painting, is specific +to Italy in the middle of the fifteenth century. Mediæval standards of +taste were giving way to classical, Christian sentiment to Pagan; yet +the imitation of the antique had not been carried so far as to efface +the spontaneity of the artist, and enough remained of Christian +feeling to tinge the fancy with a grave and sweet romance. The +sculptor had the skill and mastery to express his slightest shade of +thought with freedom, spirit, and precision. Yet his work showed no +sign of conventionality, no adherence to prescribed rules. Every +outline, every fold of drapery, every attitude was pregnant, to the +artist's own mind at any rate, with meaning. In spite of its +symbolism, what he wrought was never mechanically figurative, but +gifted with the independence of its own beauty, vital with an +inbreathed spirit of life. It was a happy moment, when art had reached +consciousness, and the artist had not yet become self-conscious. The +hand and the brain then really worked together for the procreation of +new forms of grace, not for the repetition of old models, or for the +invention of the strange and startling. 'Delicate, sweet, and +captivating,' are good adjectives to express the effect produced upon +the mind by the contemplation even of the average work of this period.</p> + +<p>To study the flowing lines of the great angels traced upon the walls +of the Chapel of S. Sigismund in the Cathedral of Rimini, to follow +the undulations of their drapery that seems to float, to feel the +dignified urbanity of all their gestures, is like listening to one of +those clear early Italian compositions for the voice, which surpasses +in suavity of tone and grace of movement all that Music in her +full-grown vigour has produced. There is indeed something infinitely +charming in the crepuscular moments of the human mind. Whether it be +the rathe loveliness of an art still immature, or the beauty of art +upon the wane—whether, in fact, the twilight be of morning or of +evening, we find in the masterpieces of such periods a placid calm and +chastened pathos, as of a spirit self-withdrawn from vulgar cares, +which in the full light of meridian splendour is lacking. In the +Church of S. Francesco at Rimini the tempered clearness of the dawn is +just about to broaden into day.</p> + +<h5><a href="#CONTENTS">CONTENTS</a></h5> +<br /><br /> +<hr style="width: 100%;" /> +<h2><a name="MAY_IN_UMBRIA" id="MAY_IN_UMBRIA" /><i>MAY IN UMBRIA</i></a></h2> +<hr style="width: 100%;" /> +<br /> +<p>FROM ROME TO TERNI</p> +<br /><br /> + +<p>We left Rome in clear sunset light. The Alban Hills defined themselves +like a cameo of amethyst upon a pale blue distance; and over the +Sabine Mountains soared immeasurable moulded domes of alabaster +thunderclouds, casting deep shadows, purple and violet, across the +slopes of Tivoli. To westward the whole sky was lucid, like some +half-transparent topaz, flooded with slowly yellowing sunbeams. The +Campagna has often been called a garden of wild-flowers. Just now +poppy and aster, gladiolus and thistle, embroider it with patterns +infinite and intricate beyond the power of art. They have already mown +the hay in part; and the billowy tracts of greyish green, where no +flowers are now in bloom, supply a restful groundwork to those +brilliant patches of diapered <i>fioriture</i>. These are like +praying-carpets spread for devotees upon the pavement of a mosque +whose roof is heaven. In the level light the scythes of the mowers +flash as we move past. From their bronzed foreheads the men toss +masses of dark curls. Their muscular flanks and shoulders sway +sideways from firm yet pliant reins. On one hill, fronting the sunset, +there stands a herd of some thirty huge grey oxen, feeding and raising +their heads to look at us, with just a flush of crimson on their +horns and dewlaps. This is the scale of Mason's and of Costa's +colouring. This is the breadth and magnitude of Rome.</p> + +<p>Thus, through dells of ilex and oak, yielding now a glimpse of Tiber +and S. Peter's, now opening on a purple section of the distant Sabine +Hills, we came to Monte Rotondo. The sun sank; and from the flames +where he had perished, Hesper and the thin moon, very white and keen, +grew slowly into sight. Now we follow the Tiber, a swollen, hurrying, +turbid river, in which the mellowing Western sky reflects itself. This +changeful mirror of swift waters spreads a dazzling foreground to +valley, hill, and lustrous heaven. There is orange on the far horizon, +and a green ocean above, in which sea-monsters fashioned from the +clouds are floating. Yonder swims an elf with luminous hair astride +upon a sea-horse, and followed by a dolphin plunging through the fiery +waves. The orange deepens into dying red. The green divides into +daffodil and beryl. The blue above grows fainter, and the moon and +stars shine stronger.</p> + +<p>Through these celestial changes we glide into a landscape fit for +Francia and the early Umbrian painters. Low hills to right and left; +suavely modelled heights in the far distance; a very quiet width of +plain, with slender trees ascending into the pellucid air; and down in +the mystery of the middle distance a glimpse of heaven-reflecting +water. The magic of the moon and stars lends enchantment to this +scene. No painting could convey their influences. Sometimes both +luminaries tremble, all dispersed and broken, on the swirling river. +Sometimes they sleep above the calm cool reaches of a rush-grown mere. +And here and there a ruined turret, with a broken window and a tuft +of shrubs upon the rifted battlement, gives value to the fading pallor +of the West. The last phase in the sunset is a change to blue-grey +monochrome, faintly silvered with starlight; hills, Tiber, fields and +woods, all floating in aërial twilight. There is no definition of +outline now. The daffodil of the horizon has faded into scarcely +perceptible pale greenish yellow.</p> + +<p>We have passed Stimigliano. Through the mystery of darkness we hurry +past the bridges of Augustus and the lights of Narni.</p> + + +<p>THE CASCADES OF TERNI</p> + + +<p>The Velino is a river of considerable volume which rises in the +highest region of the Abruzzi, threads the upland valley of Rieti, and +precipitates itself by an artificial channel over cliffs about seven +hundred feet in height into the Nera. The water is densely charged +with particles of lime. This calcareous matter not only tends +continually to choke its bed, but clothes the precipices over which +the torrent thunders with fantastic drapery of stalactite; and, +carried on the wind in foam, incrusts the forests that surround the +falls with fine white dust. These famous cascades are undoubtedly the +most sublime and beautiful which Europe boasts; and their situation is +worthy of so great a natural wonder. We reach them through a noble +mid-Italian landscape, where the mountain forms are austere and boldly +modelled, but the vegetation, both wild and cultivated, has something +of the South-Italian richness. The hillsides are a labyrinth of box +and arbutus, with coronilla in golden bloom. The turf is starred with +cyclamens and orchises. Climbing the staircase paths beside the falls +in morning sunlight, or stationed on the points of vantage that +command their successive cataracts, we enjoyed a spectacle which might +be compared in its effect upon the mind to the impression left by a +symphony or a tumultuous lyric. The turbulence and splendour, the +swiftness and resonance, the veiling of the scene in smoke of +shattered water-masses, the withdrawal of these veils according as the +volume of the river slightly shifted in its fall, the rainbows +shimmering on the silver spray, the shivering of poplars hung above +impendent precipices, the stationary grandeur of the mountains keeping +watch around, the hurry and the incoherence of the cataracts, the +immobility of force and changeful changelessness in nature, were all +for me the elements of one stupendous poem. It was like an ode of +Shelley translated into symbolism, more vivid through inarticulate +appeal to primitive emotion than any words could be.</p> + + +<p>MONTEFALCO</p> + + +<p>The rich land of the Clitumnus is divided into meadows by transparent +watercourses, gliding with a glassy current over swaying reeds. +Through this we pass, and leave Bevagna to the right, and ascend one +of those long gradual roads which climb the hills where all the cities +of the Umbrians perch. The view expands, revealing Spello, Assisi, +Perugia on its mountain buttress, and the far reaches northward of the +Tiber valley. Then Trevi and Spoleto came into sight, and the severe +hill-country above Gubbio in part disclosed itself. Over Spoleto the +fierce witch-haunted heights of Norcia rose forbidding. This is the +kind of panorama that dilates the soul. It is so large, so dignified, +so beautiful in tranquil form. The opulent abundance of the plain +contrasts with the severity of mountain ranges desolately grand; and +the name of each of all those cities thrills the heart with memories.</p> + +<p>The main object of a visit to Montefalco is to inspect its many +excellent frescoes; painted histories of S. Francis and S. Jerome, by +Benozzo Gozzoli; saints, angels, and Scripture episodes by the gentle +Tiberio d'Assisi. Full justice had been done to these, when a little +boy, seeing us lingering outside the church of S. Chiara, asked +whether we should not like to view the body of the saint. This +privilege could be purchased at the price of a small fee. It was only +necessary to call the guardian of her shrine at the high altar. +Indolent, and in compliant mood, with languid curiosity and half an +hour to spare, we assented. A handsome young man appeared, who +conducted us with decent gravity into a little darkened chamber behind +the altar. There he lighted wax tapers, opened sliding doors in what +looked like a long coffin, and drew curtains. Before us in the dim +light there lay a woman covered with a black nun's dress. Only her +hands, and the exquisitely beautiful pale contour of her face +(forehead, nose, mouth, and chin, modelled in purest outline, as +though the injury of death had never touched her) were visible. Her +closed eyes seemed to sleep. She had the perfect peace of Luini's S. +Catherine borne by the angels to her grave on Sinai. I have rarely +seen anything which surprised and touched me more. The religious +earnestness of the young custode, the hushed adoration of the +country-folk who had silently assembled round us, intensified the +sympathy-inspiring beauty of the slumbering girl. Could Julia, +daughter of Claudius, have been fairer than this maiden, when the +Lombard workmen found her in her Latin tomb, and brought her to be +worshipped on the Capitol? S. Chiara's shrine was hung round with her +relics; and among these the heart extracted from her body was +suspended. Upon it, apparently wrought into the very substance of the +mummied flesh, were impressed a figure of the crucified Christ, the +scourge, and the five stigmata. The guardian's faith in this +miraculous witness to her sainthood, the gentle piety of the men and +women who knelt before it, checked all expressions of incredulity. We +abandoned ourselves to the genius of the place; forgot even to ask +what Santa Chiara was sleeping here; and withdrew, toned to a not +unpleasing melancholy. The world-famous S. Clair, the spiritual sister +of S. Francis, lies in Assisi. I have often asked myself, Who, then, +was this nun? What history had she? And I think now of this girl as of +a damsel of romance, a Sleeping Beauty in the wood of time, secluded +from intrusive elements of fact, and folded in the love and faith of +her own simple worshippers. Among the hollows of Arcadia, how many +rustic shrines in ancient days held saints of Hellas, apocryphal, +perhaps, like this, but hallowed by tradition and enduring homage!<a name="FNanchor_6_6" id="FNanchor_6_6" /></a><a href="#Footnote_6_6" class="fnanchor">[6]</a></p> + + +<p>FOLIGNO</p> + + +<p>In the landscape of Raphael's votive picture, known as the Madonna di +Foligno, there is a town with a few towers, placed upon a broad plain +at the edge of some blue hills. Allowing for that license as to +details which imaginative masters permitted themselves in matters of +subordinate importance, Raphael's sketch is still true to Foligno. The +place has not materially changed since the beginning of the sixteenth +century. Indeed, relatively to the state of Italy at large, it is +still the same as in the days of ancient Rome. Foligno forms a station +of commanding interest between Rome and the Adriatic upon the great +Flaminian Way. At Foligno the passes of the Apennines debouch into the +Umbrian plain, which slopes gradually toward the valley of the Tiber, +and from it the valley of the Nera is reached by an easy ascent +beneath the walls of Spoleto. An army advancing from the north by the +Metaurus and the Furlo Pass must find itself at Foligno; and the level +champaign round the city is well adapted to the maintenance and +exercises of a garrison. In the days of the Republic and the Empire, +the value of this position was well understood; but Foligno's +importance, as the key to the Flaminian Way, was eclipsed by two +flourishing cities in its immediate vicinity, Hispellum and Mevania, +the modern Spello and Bevagna. We might hazard a conjecture that the +Lombards, when they ruled the Duchy of Spoleto, following their usual +policy of opposing new military centres to the ancient Roman +municipia, encouraged Fulginium at the expense of her two neighbours. +But of this there is no certainty to build upon. All that can be +affirmed with accuracy is that in the Middle Ages, while Spello and +Bevagna declined into the inferiority of dependent burghs, Foligno +grew in power and became the chief commune of this part of Umbria. It +was famous during the last centuries of struggle between the Italian +burghers and their native despots, for peculiar ferocity in civil +strife. Some of the bloodiest pages in mediæval Italian history are +those which relate the vicissitudes of the Trinci family, the +exhaustion of Foligno by internal discord, and its final submission to +the Papal power. Since railways have been carried from Rome through +Narni and Spoleto to Ancona and Perugia, Foligno has gained +considerably in commercial and military status. It is the point of +intersection for three lines; the Italian government has made it a +great cavalry depôt, and there are signs of reviving traffic in its +decayed streets. Whether the presence of a large garrison has already +modified the population, or whether we may ascribe something to the +absence of Roman municipal institutions in the far past, and to the +savagery of the mediæval period, it is difficult to say. Yet the +impression left by Foligno upon the mind is different from that of +Assisi, Spello, and Montefalco, which are distinguished for a certain +grace and gentleness in their inhabitants.</p> + +<p>My window in the city wall looks southward across the plain to +Spoleto, with Montefalco perched aloft upon the right, and Trevi on +its mountain-bracket to the left. From the topmost peaks of the Sabine +Apennines, gradual tender sloping lines descend to find their quiet in +the valley of Clitumnus. The space between me and that distance is +infinitely rich with every sort of greenery, dotted here and there +with towers and relics of baronial houses. The little town is in +commotion; for the working men of Foligno and its neighbourhood have +resolved to spend their earnings on a splendid festa—horse-races, and +two nights of fireworks. The acacias and paulownias on the ramparts +are in full bloom of creamy white and lilac. In the glare of Bengal +lights these trees, with all their pendulous blossoms, surpassed the +most fantastic of artificial decorations. The rockets sent aloft into +the sky amid that solemn Umbrian landscape were nowise out of harmony +with nature. I never sympathised with critics who resent the intrusion +of fireworks upon scenes of natural beauty. The Giessbach, lighted up +at so much per head on stated evenings, with a band playing and a +crowd of cockneys staring, presents perhaps an incongruous spectacle. +But where, as here at Foligno, a whole city has made itself a +festival, where there are multitudes of citizens and soldiers and +country-people slowly moving and gravely admiring, with the decency +and order characteristic of an Italian crowd, I have nothing but a +sense of satisfaction.</p> + +<p>It is sometimes the traveller's good fortune in some remote place to +meet with an inhabitant who incarnates and interprets for him the +<i>genius loci</i> as he has conceived it. Though his own subjectivity will +assuredly play a considerable part in such an encounter, transferring +to his chance acquaintance qualities he may not possess, and +connecting this personality in some purely imaginative manner with +thoughts derived from study, or impressions made by nature; yet the +stranger will henceforth become the meeting-point of many memories, +the central figure in a composition which derives from him its +vividness. Unconsciously and innocently he has lent himself to the +creation of a picture, and round him, as around the hero of a myth, +have gathered thoughts and sentiments of which he had himself no +knowledge. On one of these nights I had been threading the aisles of +acacia-trees, now glaring red, now azure, as the Bengal lights kept +changing. My mind instinctively went back to scenes of treachery and +bloodshed in the olden time, when Gorrado Trinci paraded the mangled +remnants of three hundred of his victims, heaped on mule-back, through +Foligno, for a warning to the citizens. As the procession moved along +the ramparts, I found myself in contest with a young man, who readily +fell into conversation. He was very tall, with enormous breadth of +shoulders, and long sinewy arms, like Michelangelo's favourite models. +His head was small, curled over with crisp black hair. Low forehead, +and thick level eyebrows absolutely meeting over intensely bright +fierce eyes. The nose descending straight from the brows, as in a +statue of Hadrian's age. The mouth full-lipped, petulant, and +passionate above a firm round chin. He was dressed in the shirt, white +trousers, and loose white jacket of a contadino; but he did not move +with a peasant's slouch, rather with the elasticity and alertness of +an untamed panther. He told me that he was just about to join a +cavalry regiment; and I could well imagine, when military dignity was +added to that gait, how grandly he would go. This young man, of whom I +heard nothing more after our half-hour's conversation among the +crackling fireworks and roaring cannon, left upon my mind an +indescribable impression of dangerousness—of 'something fierce and +terrible, eligible to burst forth.' Of men like this, then, were +formed the Companies of Adventure who flooded Italy with villany, +ambition, and lawlessness in the fifteenth century. Gattamelata, who +began life as a baker's boy at Narni and ended it with a bronze statue +by Donatello on the public square in Padua, was of this breed. Like +this were the Trinci and their bands of murderers. Like this were the +bravi who hunted Lorenzaccio to death at Venice. Like this was Pietro +Paolo Baglioni, whose fault, in the eyes of Machiavelli, was that he +could not succeed in being 'perfettamente tristo.' Beautiful, but +inhuman; passionate, but cold; powerful, but rendered impotent for +firm and lofty deeds by immorality and treason; how many centuries of +men like this once wasted Italy and plunged her into servitude! Yet +what material is here, under sterner discipline, and with a nobler +national ideal, for the formation of heroic armies. Of such stuff, +doubtless, were the Roman legionaries. When will the Italians learn to +use these men as Fabius or as Cæsar, not as the Vitelli and the Trinci +used them? In such meditations, deeply stirred by the meeting of my +own reflections with one who seemed to represent for me in life and +blood the spirit of the place which had provoked them, I said farewell +to Cavallucci, and returned to my bedroom on the city wall. The last +rockets had whizzed and the last cannons had thundered ere I fell +asleep.</p> + + +<p>SPELLO</p> + + +<p>Spello contains some not inconsiderable antiquities—the remains of a +Roman theatre, a Roman gate with the heads of two men and a woman +leaning over it, and some fragments of Roman sculpture scattered +through its buildings. The churches, especially those of S.M. Maggiore +and S. Francesco, are worth a visit for the sake of Pinturicchio. +Nowhere, except in the Piccolomini Library at Siena, can that +master's work in fresco be better studied than here. The satisfaction +with which he executed the wall paintings in S. Maria Maggiore is +testified by his own portrait introduced upon a panel in the +decoration of the Virgin's chamber. The scrupulously rendered details +of books, chairs, window seats, &c., which he here has copied, remind +one of Carpaccio's study of S. Benedict at Venice. It is all sweet, +tender, delicate, and carefully finished; but without depth, not even +the depth of Perugino's feeling. In S. Francesco, Pinturicchio, with +the same meticulous refinement, painted a letter addressed to him by +Gentile Baglioni. It lies on a stool before Madonna and her court of +saints. Nicety of execution, technical mastery of fresco as a medium +for Dutch detail-painting, prettiness of composition, and cheerfulness +of colouring, are noticeable throughout his work here rather than +either thought or sentiment. S. Maria Maggiore can boast a fresco of +Madonna between a young episcopal saint and Catherine of Alexandria +from the hand of Perugino. The rich yellow harmony of its tones, and +the graceful dignity of its emotion, conveyed no less by a certain +Raphaelesque pose and outline than by suavity of facial expression, +enable us to measure the distance between this painter and his +quasi-pupil Pinturicchio.</p> + +<p>We did not, however, drive to Spello to inspect either Roman +antiquities or frescoes, but to see an inscription on the city walls +about Orlando. It is a rude Latin elegiac couplet, saying that, 'from +the sign below, men may conjecture the mighty members of Roland, +nephew of Charles; his deeds are written in history.' Three agreeable +old gentlemen of Spello, who attended us with much politeness, and +were greatly interested in my researches, pointed out a mark +waist-high upon the wall, where Orlando's knee is reported to have +reached. But I could not learn anything about a phallic monolith, +which is said by Guerin or Panizzi to have been identified with the +Roland myth at Spello. Such a column either never existed here, or +had been removed before the memory of the present generation.</p> + + +<p>EASTER MORNING AT ASSISI</p> + + +<p>We are in the lower church of S. Francesco. High mass is being sung, +with orchestra and organ and a choir of many voices. Candles are +lighted on the altar, over-canopied with Giotto's allegories. From the +low southern windows slants the sun, in narrow bands, upon the +many-coloured gloom and embrowned glory of these painted aisles. Women +in bright kerchiefs kneel upon the stones, and shaggy men from the +mountains stand or lean against the wooden benches. There is no moving +from point to point. Where we have taken our station, at the +north-western angle of the transept, there we stay till mass be over. +The whole low-vaulted building glows duskily; the frescoed roof, the +stained windows, the figure-crowded pavements blending their rich but +subdued colours, like hues upon some marvellous moth's wings, or like +a deep-toned rainbow mist discerned in twilight dreams, or like such +tapestry as Eastern queens, in ancient days, wrought for the pavilion +of an empress. Forth from this maze of mingling tints, indefinite in +shade and sunbeams, lean earnest, saintly faces—ineffably +pure—adoring, pitying, pleading; raising their eyes in ecstasy to +heaven, or turning them in ruth toward earth. Men and women of whom +the world was not worthy—at the hands of those old painters they have +received the divine grace, the dovelike simplicity, whereof Italians +in the fourteenth century possessed the irrecoverable secret. Each +face is a poem; the counterpart in painting to a chapter from the +Fioretti di San Francesco. Over the whole scene—in the architecture, +in the frescoes, in the coloured windows, in the gloom, on the +people, in the incense, from the chiming bells, through the +music—broods one spirit: the spirit of him who was 'the co-espoused, +co-transforate with Christ;' the ardent, the radiant, the beautiful in +soul; the suffering, the strong, the simple, the victorious over self +and sin; the celestial who trampled upon earth and rose on wings of +ecstasy to heaven; the Christ-inebriated saint of visions supersensual +and life beyond the grave. Far down below the feet of those who +worship God through him, S. Francis sleeps; but his soul, the +incorruptible part of him, the message he gave the world, is in the +spaces round us. This is his temple. He fills it like an unseen god. +Not as Phoebus or Athene, from their marble pedestals; but as an +abiding spirit, felt everywhere, nowhere seized, absorbing in itself +all mysteries, all myths, all burning exaltations, all abasements, all +love, self-sacrifice, pain, yearning, which the thought of Christ, +sweeping the centuries, hath wrought for men. Let, therefore, choir +and congregation raise their voices on the tide of prayers and +praises; for this is Easter morning—Christ is risen! Our sister, +Death of the Body, for whom S. Francis thanked God in his hymn, is +reconciled to us this day, and takes us by the hand, and leads us to +the gate whence floods of heavenly glory issue from the faces of a +multitude of saints. Pray, ye poor people; chant and pray. If all be +but a dream, to wake from this were loss for you indeed!</p> + + +<p>PERUSIA AUGUSTA</p> + + +<p>The piazza in front of the Prefettura is my favourite resort on these +nights of full moon. The evening twilight is made up partly of sunset +fading over Thrasymene and Tuscany; partly of moonrise from the +mountains of Gubbio and the passes toward Ancona. The hills are capped +with snow, although the season is so forward. Below our parapets the +bulk of S. Domenico, with its gaunt perforated tower, and the finer +group of S. Pietro, flaunting the arrowy 'Pennacchio di Perugia,' jut +out upon the spine of hill which dominates the valley of the Tiber. As +the night gloom deepens, and the moon ascends the sky, these buildings +seem to form the sombre foreground to some French etching. Beyond them +spreads the misty moon-irradiated plain of Umbria. Over all rise +shadowy Apennines, with dim suggestions of Assisi, Spello, Foligno, +Montefalco, and Spoleto on their basements. Little thin whiffs of +breezes, very slight and searching, flit across, and shiver as they +pass from Apennine to plain. The slowly moving population—women in +veils, men winter-mantled—pass to and fro between the buildings and +the grey immensity of sky. Bells ring. The bugles of the soldiers blow +retreat in convents turned to barracks. Young men roam the streets +beneath, singing May songs. Far, far away upon the plain, red through +the vitreous moonlight ringed with thundery gauze, fires of unnamed +castelli smoulder. As we lean from ledges eighty feet in height, gas +vies with moon in chequering illuminations on the ancient walls; +Etruscan mouldings, Roman letters, high-piled hovels, suburban +world-old dwellings plastered like martins' nests against the masonry.</p> + +<p>Sunlight adds more of detail to this scene. To the right of Subasio, +where the passes go from Foligno towards Urbino and Ancona, heavy +masses of thundercloud hang every day; but the plain and +hill-buttresses are clear in transparent blueness. First comes Assisi, +with S.M. degli Angeli below; then Spello; then Foligno; then Trevi; +and, far away, Spoleto; with, reared against those misty battlements, +the village height of Montefalco—the 'ringhiera dell' Umbria,' as +they call it in this country. By daylight, the snow on yonder peaks is +clearly visible, where the Monti della Sibilla tower up above the +sources of the Nera and Velino from frigid wastes of Norcia. The lower +ranges seem as though painted, in films of airiest and palest azure, +upon china; and then comes the broad green champaign, flecked with +villages and farms. Just at the basement of Perugia winds Tiber, +through sallows and grey poplar-trees, spanned by ancient arches of +red brick, and guarded here and there by castellated towers. The mills +beneath their dams and weirs are just as Raphael drew them; and the +feeling of air and space reminds one, on each coign of vantage, of +some Umbrian picture. Every hedgerow is hoary with May-bloom and +honeysuckle. The oaks hang out their golden-dusted tassels. Wayside +shrines are decked with laburnum boughs and iris blossoms plucked from +the copse-woods, where spires of purple and pink orchis variegate the +thin, fine grass. The land waves far and wide with young corn, emerald +green beneath the olive-trees, which take upon their under-foliage +tints reflected from this verdure or red tones from the naked earth. A +fine race of <i>contadini</i>, with large, heroically graceful forms, and +beautiful dark eyes and noble faces, move about this garden, intent on +ancient, easy tillage of the kind Saturnian soil.</p> + + +<p>LA MAGIONE</p> + + +<p>On the road from Perugia to Cortona, the first stage ends at La +Magione, a high hill-village commanding the passage from the Umbrian +champaign to the lake of Thrasymene.</p> + +<p>It has a grim square fortalice above it, now in ruins, and a stately +castle to the south-east, built about the time of Braccio. Here took +place that famous diet of Cesare Borgia's enemies, when the son of +Alexander VI. was threatening Bologna with his arms, and bidding fair +to make himself supreme tyrant of Italy in 1502. It was the policy of +Cesare to fortify himself by reducing the fiefs of the Church to +submission, and by rooting out the dynasties which had acquired a +sort of tyranny in Papal cities. The Varani of Camerino and the +Manfredi of Faenza had been already extirpated. There was only too +good reason to believe that the turn of the Vitelli at Città di +Castello, of the Baglioni at Perugia, and of the Bentivogli at Bologna +would come next. Pandolfo Petrucci at Siena, surrounded on all sides +by Cesare's conquests, and specially menaced by the fortification of +Piombino, felt himself in danger. The great house of the Orsini, who +swayed a large part of the Patrimony of S. Peter's, and were closely +allied to the Vitelli, had even graver cause for anxiety. But such was +the system of Italian warfare, that nearly all these noble families +lived by the profession of arms, and most of them were in the pay of +Cesare. When, therefore, the conspirators met at La Magione, they were +plotting against a man whose money they had taken, and whom they had +hitherto aided in his career of fraud and spoliation.</p> + +<p>The diet consisted of the Cardinal Orsini, an avowed antagonist of +Alexander VI.; his brother Paolo, the chieftain of the clan; +Vitellozzo Vitelli, lord of Città di Castello; Gian-Paolo Baglioni, +made undisputed master of Perugia by the recent failure of his cousin +Grifonetto's treason; Oliverotto, who had just acquired the March of +Fermo by the murder of his uncle Giovanni da Fogliani; Ermes +Bentivoglio, the heir of Bologna; and Antonio da Venafro, the +secretary of Pandolfo Petrueci. These men vowed hostility on the basis +of common injuries and common fear against the Borgia. But they were +for the most part stained themselves with crime, and dared not trust +each other, and could not gain the confidence of any respectable power +in Italy except the exiled Duke of Urbino. Procrastination was the +first weapon used by the wily Cesare, who trusted that time would sow +among his rebel captains suspicion and dissension. He next made +overtures to the leaders separately, and so far succeeded in his +perfidious policy as to draw Vitellozzo Vitelli, Oliverotto da Fermo, +Paolo Orsini, and Francesco Orsini, Duke of Gravina, into his nets at +Sinigaglia. Under pretext of fair conference and equitable settlement +of disputed claims, he possessed himself of their persons, and had +them strangled—two upon December 31, and two upon January 18, 1503. +Of all Cesare's actions, this was the most splendid for its successful +combination of sagacity and policy in the hour of peril, of persuasive +diplomacy, and of ruthless decision when the time to strike his blow +arrived.</p> + + +<p>CORTONA</p> + + +<p>After leaving La Magione, the road descends upon the lake of +Thrasymene through oak-woods full of nightingales. The lake lay +basking, leaden-coloured, smooth and waveless, under a misty, +rain-charged, sun-irradiated sky. At Passignano, close beside its +shore, we stopped for mid-day. This is a little fishing village of +very poor people, who live entirely by labour on the waters. They +showed us huge eels coiled in tanks, and some fine specimens of the +silver carp—Reina del Lago. It was off one of the eels that we made +our lunch; and taken, as he was, alive from his cool lodging, he +furnished a series of dishes fit for a king.</p> + +<p>Climbing the hill of Cortona seemed a quite interminable business. It +poured a deluge. Our horses were tired, and one lean donkey, who, +after much trouble, was produced from a farmhouse and yoked in front +of them, rendered but little assistance.</p> + +<p>Next day we duly saw the Muse and Lamp in the Museo, the Fra +Angelicos, and all the Signorellis. One cannot help thinking that too +much fuss is made nowadays about works of art—running after them for +their own sakes, exaggerating their importance, and detaching them as +objects of study, instead of taking them with sympathy and +carelessness as pleasant or instructive adjuncts to our actual life. +Artists, historians of art, and critics are forced to isolate +pictures; and it is of profit to their souls to do so. But simple +folk, who have no aesthetic vocation, whether creative or critical, +suffer more than is good for them by compliance with mere fashion. +Sooner or later we shall return to the spirit of the ages which +produced these pictures, and which regarded them with less of an +industrious bewilderment than they evoke at present.</p> + +<p>I am far indeed from wishing to decry art, the study of art, or the +benefits to be derived from its intelligent enjoyment. I only mean to +suggest that we go the wrong way to work at present in this matter. +Picture and sculpture galleries accustom us to the separation of art +from life. Our methods of studying art, making a beginning of +art-study while traveling, tend to perpetuate this separation. It is +only on reflection, after long experience, that we come to perceive +that the most fruitful moments in our art education have been casual +and unsought, in quaint nooks and unexpected places, where nature, +art, and life are happily blent.</p> + +<p>The Palace of the Commune at Cortona is interesting because of the +shields of Florentine governors, sculptured on blocks of grey stone, +and inserted in its outer walls—Peruzzi, Albizzi, Strozzi, Salviati, +among the more ancient—de' Medici at a later epoch. The revolutions +in the Republic of Florence may be read by a herald from these +coats-of-arms and the dates beneath them.</p> + +<p>The landscape of this Tuscan highland satisfies me more and more with +sense of breadth and beauty. From S. Margherita above the town the +prospect is immense and wonderful and wild—up into those brown, +forbidding mountains; down to the vast plain; and over to the cities +of Chiusi, Montepulciano, and Foiano. The jewel of the view is +Trasimeno, a silvery shield encased with serried hills, and set upon +one corner of the scene, like a precious thing apart and meant for +separate contemplation. There is something in the singularity and +circumscribed completeness of the mountain-girded lake, diminished by +distance, which would have attracted Lionardo da Vinci's pencil, had +he seen it.</p> + +<p>Cortona seems desperately poor, and the beggars are intolerable. One +little blind boy, led by his brother, both frightfully ugly and ragged +urchins, pursued us all over the city, incessantly whining 'Signore +Padrone!' It was only on the threshold of the inn that I ventured to +give them a few coppers, for I knew well that any public beneficence +would raise the whole swarm of the begging population round us. +Sitting later in the day upon the piazza of S. Domenico, I saw the +same blind boy taken by his brother to play. The game consists, in the +little creature throwing his arms about the trunk of a big tree, and +running round and round it, clasping it. This seemed to make him quite +inexpressibly happy. His face lit up and beamed with that inner +beatitude blind people show—a kind of rapture shining over it, as +though nothing could be more altogether delightful. This little boy +had the smallpox at eight months, and has never been able to see +since. He looks sturdy, and may live to be of any age—doomed always, +is that possible, to beg?</p> + + +<p>CHIUSI</p> + + +<p>What more enjoyable dinner can be imagined than a flask of excellent +Montepulciano, a well-cooked steak, and a little goat's cheese in the +inn of the Leone d'Oro at Chiusi? The windows are open, and the sun is +setting. Monte Cetona bounds the view to the right, and the wooded +hills of Città della Pieve to the left. The deep green dimpled valley +goes stretching away toward Orvieto; and at its end a purple mountain +mass, distinct and solitary, which may peradventure be Soracte! The +near country is broken into undulating hills, forested with fine +olives and oaks; and the composition of the landscape, with its +crowning villages, is worthy of a background to an Umbrian picture. +The breadth and depth and quiet which those painters loved, the space +of lucid sky, the suggestion of winding waters in verdant fields, all +are here. The evening is beautiful—golden light streaming softly from +behind us on this prospect, and gradually mellowing to violet and blue +with stars above.</p> + +<p>At Chiusi we visited several Etruscan tombs, and saw their red and +black scrawled pictures. One of the sepulchres was a well-jointed +vault of stone with no wall-paintings. The rest had been scooped out +of the living tufa. This was the excuse for some pleasant hours spent +in walking and driving through the country. Chiusi means for me the +mingling of grey olives and green oaks in limpid sunlight; deep leafy +lanes; warm sandstone banks; copses with nightingales and cyclamens +and cuckoos; glimpses of a silvery lake; blue shadowy distances; the +bristling ridge of Monte Cetona; the conical towers, Becca di Questo +and Becca di Quello, over against each other on the borders; ways +winding among hedgerows like some bit of England in June, but not so +full of flowers. It means all this, I fear, for me far more than +theories about Lars Porsenna and Etruscan ethnology.</p> + + +<p>GUBBIO</p> + + +<p>Gubbio ranks among the most ancient of Italian hill-towns. With its +back set firm against the spine of central Apennines, and piled, house +over house, upon the rising slope, it commands a rich tract of upland +champaign, bounded southward toward Perugia and Foligno by peaked and +rolling ridges. This amphitheatre, which forms its source of wealth +and independence, is admirably protected by a chain of natural +defences; and Gubbio wears a singularly old-world aspect of antiquity +and isolation. Houses climb right to the crests of gaunt bare peaks; +and the brown mediæval walls with square towers which protected them +upon the mountain side, following the inequalities of the ground, are +still a marked feature in the landscape. It is a town of steep streets +and staircases, with quaintly framed prospects, and solemn vistas +opening at every turn across the lowland. One of these views might be +selected for especial notice. In front, irregular buildings losing +themselves in country as they straggle by the roadside; then the open +post-road with a cypress to the right; afterwards, the rich green +fields, and on a bit of rising ground an ancient farmhouse with its +brown dependencies; lastly, the blue hills above Fossato, and far away +a wrack of tumbling clouds. All this enclosed by the heavy archway of +the Porta Romana, where sunlight and shadow chequer the mellow tones +of a dim fresco, indistinct with age, but beautiful.</p> + +<p>Gubbio has not greatly altered since the middle ages. But poor people +are now living in the palaces of noblemen and merchants. These new +inhabitants have walled up the fair arched windows and slender portals +of the ancient dwellers, spoiling the beauty of the streets without +materially changing the architectural masses. In that witching hour +when the Italian sunset has faded, and a solemn grey replaces the +glowing tones of daffodil and rose, it is not difficult, here dreaming +by oneself alone, to picture the old noble life—the ladies moving +along those open loggias, the young men in plumed caps and curling +hair with one foot on those doorsteps, the knights in armour and the +sumpter mules and red-robed Cardinals defiling through those gates +into the courts within. The modern bricks and mortar with which that +picturesque scene has been overlaid, the ugly oblong windows and +bright green shutters which now interrupt the flowing lines of arch +and gallery; these disappear beneath the fine remembered touch of a +sonnet sung by Folgore, when still the Parties had their day, and this +deserted city was the centre of great aims and throbbing aspirations.</p> + +<p>The names of the chief buildings in Gubbio are strongly suggestive of +the middle ages. They abut upon a Piazza de' Signori. One of them, the +Palazzo del Municipio, is a shapeless unfinished block of masonry. It +is here that the Eugubine tables, plates of brass with Umbrian and +Roman incised characters, are shown. The Palazzo de' Consoli has +higher architectural qualities, and is indeed unique among Italian +palaces for the combination of massiveness with lightness in a +situation of unprecedented boldness. Rising from enormous +substructures mortised into the solid hillside, it rears its vast +rectangular bulk to a giddy height above the town; airy loggias +imposed on great forbidding masses of brown stone, shooting aloft into +a light aërial tower. The empty halls inside are of fair proportions +and a noble size, and the views from the open colonnades in all +directions fascinate. But the final impression made by the building is +one of square, tranquil, massive strength—perpetuity embodied in +masonry—force suggesting facility by daring and successful addition +of elegance to hugeness. Vast as it is, this pile is not forbidding, +as a similarly weighty structure in the North would be. The fine +quality of the stone and the delicate though simple mouldings of the +windows give it an Italian grace.</p> + +<p>These public palaces belong to the age of the Communes, when Gubbio +was a free town, with a policy of its own, and an important part to +play in the internecine struggles of Pope and Empire, Guelf and +Ghibelline. The ruined, deserted, degraded Palazzo Ducale reminds us +of the advent of the despots. It has been stripped of all its +tarsia-work and sculpture. Only here and there a Fe.D., with the +cupping-glass of Federigo di Montefeltro, remains to show that Gubbio +once became the fairest fief of the Urbino duchy. S. Ubaldo, who gave +his name to this duke's son, was the patron of Gubbio, and to him the +cathedral is dedicated—one low enormous vault, like a cellar or +feudal banqueting hall, roofed with a succession of solid Gothic +arches. This strange old church, and the House of Canons, buttressed +on the hill beside it, have suffered less from modernisation than most +buildings in Gubbio. The latter, in particular, helps one to +understand what this city of grave palazzi must have been, and how the +mere opening of old doors and windows would restore it to its +primitive appearance. The House of the Canons has, in fact, not yet +been given over to the use of middle-class and proletariate.</p> + +<p>At the end of a day in Gubbio, it is pleasant to take our ease in the +primitive hostelry, at the back of which foams a mountain-torrent, +rushing downward from the Apennines. The Gubbio wine is very fragrant, +and of a rich ruby colour. Those to whom the tints of wine and jewels +give a pleasure not entirely childish, will take delight in its +specific blending of tawny hues with rose. They serve the table still, +at Gubbio, after the antique Italian fashion, covering it with a +cream-coloured linen cloth bordered with coarse lace—the creases of +the press, the scent of old herbs from the wardrobe, are still upon +it—and the board is set with shallow dishes of warm, white +earthenware, basket-worked in open lattice at the edge, which contain +little separate messes of meat, vegetables, cheese, and comfits. The +wine stands in strange, slender phials of smooth glass, with stoppers; +and the amber-coloured bread lies in fair round loaves upon the cloth. +Dining thus is like sitting down to the supper at Emmaus, in some +picture of Gian Bellini or of Masolino. The very bareness of the +room—its open rafters, plastered walls, primitive settees, and +red-brick floor, on which a dog sits waiting for a bone—enhances the +impression of artistic delicacy in the table.</p> + + +<p>FROM GUBBIO TO FANO</p> + + +<p>The road from Gubbio, immediately after leaving the city, enters a +narrow Alpine ravine, where a thin stream dashes over dark, red rocks, +and pendent saxifrages wave to the winds. The carriage in which we +travelled at the end of May, one morning, had two horses, which our +driver soon supplemented with a couple of white oxen. Slowly and +toilsomely we ascended between the flanks of barren hills—gaunt +masses of crimson and grey crag, clothed at their summits with short +turf and scanty pasture. The pass leads first to the little town of +Scheggia, and is called the Monte Calvo, or bald mountain. At +Scheggia, it joins the great Flaminian Way, or North road of the Roman +armies. At the top there is a fine view over the conical hills that +dominate Gubbio, and, far away, to noble mountains above the Furlo and +the Foligno line of railway to Ancona. Range rises over range, +crossing at unexpected angles, breaking into sudden precipices, and +stretching out long, exquisitely modelled outlines, as only Apennines +can do, in silvery sobriety of colours toned by clearest air. Every +square piece of this austere, wild landscape forms a varied picture, +whereof the composition is due to subtle arrangements of lines always +delicate; and these lines seem somehow to have been determined in +their beauty by the vast antiquity of the mountain system, as though +they all had taken time to choose their place and wear down into +harmony. The effect of tempered sadness was heightened for us by +stormy lights and dun clouds, high in air, rolling vapours and flying +shadows, over all the prospect, tinted in ethereal grisaille.</p> + +<p>After Scheggia, one enters a land of meadow and oak-trees. This is the +sacred central tract of Jupiter Apenninus, whose fane—</p> + +<p> +<span style="margin-left: 4em;">Delubra Jovis saxoque minantes</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Apenninigenis cultae pastoribus arae</span><br /> +</p> + +<p>—once rose behind us on the bald Iguvian summits. A second little +pass leads from this region to the Adriatic side of the Italian +watershed, and the road now follows the Barano downward toward the +sea. The valley is fairly green with woods, where mistletoe may here +and there be seen on boughs of oak, and rich with cornfields. Cagli is +the chief town of the district, and here they show one of the best +pictures left to us by Raphael's father, Giovanni Santi. It is a +Madonna, attended by S. Peter, S. Francis, S. Dominic, S. John, and +two angels. One of the angels is traditionally supposed to have been +painted from the boy Raphael, and the face has something which reminds +us of his portraits. The whole composition, excellent in modelling, +harmonious in grouping, soberly but strongly coloured, with a peculiar +blending of dignity and sweetness, grace and vigour, makes one wonder +why Santi thought it necessary to send his son from his own workshop +to study under Perugino. He was himself a master of his art, and this, +perhaps the most agreeable of his paintings, has a masculine sincerity +which is absent from at least the later works of Perugino.</p> + +<p>Some miles beyond Cagli, the real pass of the Furlo begins. It owes +its name to a narrow tunnel bored by Vespasian in the solid rock, +where limestone crags descend on the Barano. The Romans called this +gallery Petra Pertusa, or Intercisa, or more familiarly Forulus, +whence comes the modern name. Indeed, the stations on the old +Flaminian Way are still well marked by Latin designations; for Cagli +is the ancient Calles, and Fossombrone is Forum Sempronii, and Fano +the Fanum Fortunæ. Vespasian commemorated this early achievement in +engineering by an inscription carved on the living stone, which still +remains; and Claudian, when he sang the journey of his Emperor +Honorius from Rimini to Rome, speaks thus of what was even then an +object of astonishment to travellers:—</p> + +<p> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Laetior hinc fano recipit fortuna vetusto,</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Despiciturque vagus praerupta valle Metaurus,</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Qua mons arte patens vivo se perforat arcu</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Admittitque viam sectae per viscera rupis.</span><br /> +</p> + +<p>The Forulus itself may now be matched, on any Alpine pass, by several +tunnels of far mightier dimensions; for it is narrow, and does not +extend more than 126 feet in length. But it occupies a fine position +at the end of a really imposing ravine. The whole Furlo Pass might, +without too much exaggeration, be described as a kind of Cheddar on +the scale of the Via Mala. The limestone rocks, which rise on either +hand above the gorge to an enormous height, are noble in form and +solemn, like a succession of gigantic portals, with stupendous +flanking obelisks and pyramids. Some of these crag-masses rival the +fantastic cliffs of Capri, and all consist of that southern mountain +limestone which changes from pale yellow to blue grey and dusky +orange. A river roars precipitately through the pass, and the +roadsides wave with many sorts of campanulas—a profusion of azure and +purple bells upon the hard white stone. Of Roman remains there is +still enough (in the way of Roman bridges and bits of broken masonry) +to please an antiquary's eye. But the lover of nature will dwell +chiefly on the picturesque qualities of this historic gorge, so alien +to the general character of Italian scenery, and yet so remote from +anything to which Swiss travelling accustoms one.</p> + +<p>The Furlo breaks out into a richer land of mighty oaks and waving +cornfields, a fat pastoral country, not unlike Devonshire in detail, +with green uplands, and wild-rose tangled hedgerows, and much running +water, and abundance of summer flowers. At a point above Fossombrone, +the Barano joins the Metauro, and here one has a glimpse of far-away +Urbino, high upon its mountain eyrie. It is so rare, in spite of +immemorial belief, to find in Italy a wilderness of wild flowers, that +I feel inclined to make a list of those I saw from our carriage +windows as we rolled down lazily along the road to Fossombrone. Broom, +and cytisus, and hawthorn mingled with roses, gladiolus, and sainfoin. +There were orchises, and clematis, and privet, and wild-vine, vetches +of all hues, red poppies, sky-blue cornflowers, and lilac pimpernel. +In the rougher hedges, dogwood, honeysuckle, pyracanth, and acacia +made a network of white bloom and blushes. Milk-worts of all bright +and tender tints combined with borage, iris, hawkweeds, harebells, +crimson clover, thyme, red snap-dragon, golden asters, and dreamy +love-in-a-mist, to weave a marvellous carpet such as the looms of +Shiraz or of Cashmere never spread. Rarely have I gazed on Flora in +such riot, such luxuriance, such self-abandonment to joy. The air was +filled with fragrances. Songs of cuckoos and nightingales echoed from +the copses on the hillsides. The sun was out, and dancing over all the +landscape.</p> + +<p>After all this, Fano was very restful in the quiet sunset. It has a +sandy stretch of shore, on which the long, green-yellow rollers of the +Adriatic broke into creamy foam, beneath the waning saffron light over +Pesaro and the rosy rising of a full moon. This Adriatic sea carries +an English mind home to many a little watering-place upon our coast. +In colour and the shape of waves it resembles our Channel.</p> + +<p>The sea-shore is Fano's great attraction; but the town has many +churches, and some creditable pictures, as well as Roman antiquities. +Giovanni Santi may here be seen almost as well as at Cagli; and of +Perugino there is one truly magnificent altar-piece—lunette, great +centre panel, and predella—dusty in its present condition, but +splendidly painted, and happily not yet restored or cleaned. It is +worth journeying to Fano to see this. Still better would the journey +be worth the traveller's while if he could be sure to witness such a +game of <i>Pallone</i> as we chanced upon in the Via dell' Arco di +Augusto—lads and grown-men, tightly girt, in shirt sleeves, driving +the great ball aloft into the air with cunning bias and calculation of +projecting house-eaves. I do not understand the game; but it was +clearly played something after the manner of our football, that is to +say; with sides, and front and back players so arranged as to cover +the greatest number of angles of incidence on either wall.</p> + +<p>Fano still remembers that it is the Fane of Fortune. On the fountain +in the market-place stands a bronze Fortuna, slim and airy, offering +her veil to catch the wind. May she long shower health and prosperity +upon the modern watering-place of which she is the patron saint!</p> +<h5><a href="#CONTENTS">CONTENTS</a></h5> + +<br /><br /> +<hr style="width: 100%;" /> + +<h2><a name="THE_PALACE_OF_URBINO" id="THE_PALACE_OF_URBINO" /><i>THE PALACE OF URBINO</i></a></h2> + +<hr style="width: 100%;" /> +<br /> +<p>I</p> +<br /> +<p>At Rimini, one spring, the impulse came upon my wife and me to make +our way across San Marino to Urbino. In the Piazza, called +apocryphally after Julius Cæsar, I found a proper <i>vetturino</i>, with a +good carriage and two indefatigable horses. He was a splendid fellow, +and bore a great historic name, as I discovered when our bargain was +completed. 'What are you called?' I asked him. '<i>Filippo Visconti, per +servirla!</i>' was the prompt reply. Brimming over with the darkest +memories of the Italian Renaissance, I hesitated when I heard this +answer. The associations seemed too ominous. And yet the man himself +was so attractive—tall, stalwart, and well looking—no feature of his +face or limb of his athletic form recalling the gross tyrant who +concealed worse than Caligula's ugliness from sight in secret +chambers—that I shook this preconception from my mind. As it turned +out, Filippo Visconti had nothing in common with his infamous namesake +but the name. On a long and trying journey, he showed neither sullen +nor yet ferocious tempers; nor, at the end of it, did he attempt by +any master-stroke of craft to wheedle from me more than his fair pay; +but took the meerschaum pipe I gave him for a keepsake, with the frank +goodwill of an accomplished gentleman. The only exhibition of his hot +Italian blood which I remember did his humanity credit.</p> + +<p>While we were ascending a steep hillside, he jumped from his box to +thrash a ruffian by the roadside for brutal treatment to a little boy. +He broke his whip, it is true, in this encounter; risked a dangerous +quarrel; and left his carriage, with myself and wife inside it, to the +mercy of his horses in a somewhat perilous position. But when he came +back, hot and glowing, from this deed of justice, I could only applaud +his zeal.</p> + +<p>An Italian of this type, handsome as an antique statue, with the +refinement of a modern gentleman and that intelligence which is innate +in a race of immemorial culture, is a fascinating being. He may be +absolutely ignorant in all book-learning. He may be as ignorant as a +Bersagliere from Montalcino with whom I once conversed at Rimini, who +gravely said that he could walk in three months to North America, and +thought of doing it when his term of service was accomplished. But he +will display, as this young soldier did, a grace and ease of address +which are rare in London drawing-rooms; and by his shrewd remarks upon +the cities he has visited, will show that he possesses a fine natural +taste for things of beauty. The speech of such men, drawn from the +common stock of the Italian people, is seasoned with proverbial +sayings, the wisdom of centuries condensed in a few nervous words. +When emotion fires their brain, they break into spontaneous eloquence, +or suggest the motive of a poem by phrases pregnant with imagery.</p> + +<p>For the first stage of the journey out of Rimini, Filippo's two horses +sufficed. The road led almost straight across the level between +quickset hedges in white bloom. But when we reached the long steep +hill which ascends to San Marino, the inevitable oxen were called out, +and we toiled upwards leisurely through cornfields bright with red +anemones and sweet narcissus. At this point pomegranate hedges +replaced the May-thorns of the plain. In course of time our <i>bovi</i> +brought us to the Borgo, or lower town, whence there is a further +ascent of seven hundred feet to the topmost hawk's-nest or acropolis +of the republic. These we climbed on foot, watching the view expand +around us and beneath. Crags of limestone here break down abruptly to +the rolling hills, which go to lose themselves in field and shore. +Misty reaches of the Adriatic close the world to eastward. Cesena, +Rimini, Verucchio, and countless hill-set villages, each isolated on +its tract of verdure conquered from the stern grey soil, define the +points where Montefeltri wrestled with Malatestas in long bygone +years. Around are marly mountain-flanks in wrinkles and gnarled +convolutions like some giant's brain, furrowed by rivers crawling +through dry wasteful beds of shingle. Interminable ranges of gaunt +Apennines stretch, tier by tier, beyond; and over all this landscape, +a grey-green mist of rising crops and new-fledged oak-trees lies like +a veil upon the nakedness of Nature's ruins.</p> + +<p>Nothing in Europe conveys a more striking sense of geological +antiquity than such a prospect. The denudation and abrasion of +innumerable ages, wrought by slow persistent action of weather and +water on an upheaved mountain mass, are here made visible. Every wave +in that vast sea of hills, every furrow in their worn flanks, tells +its tale of a continuous corrosion still in progress. The dominant +impression is one of melancholy. We forget how Romans, countermarching +Carthaginians, trod the land beneath us. The marvel of San Marino, +retaining independence through the drums and tramplings of the last +seven centuries, is swallowed in a deeper sense of wonder. We turn +instinctively in thought to Leopardi's musings on man's destiny at war +with unknown nature-forces and malignant rulers of the universe.</p> + + +<p> +<span style="margin-left: 7em;">Omai disprezza</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Te, la natura, il brutto</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Poter che, ascoso, a comun danno impera,</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">E l' infinita vanità del tutto.</span><br /> +</p> + +<p>And then, straining our eyes southward, we sweep the dim blue distance +for Recanati, and remember that the poet of modern despair and +discouragement was reared in even such a scene as this.</p> + +<p>The town of San Marino is grey, narrow-streeted, simple; with a great, +new, decent, Greek-porticoed cathedral, dedicated to the eponymous +saint. A certain austerity defines it from more picturesque +hill-cities with a less uniform history. There is a marble statue of +S. Marino in the choir of his church; and in his cell is shown the +stone bed and pillow on which he took austere repose. One narrow +window near the saint's abode commands a proud but melancholy +landscape of distant hills and seaboard. To this, the great absorbing +charm of San Marino, our eyes instinctively, recurrently, take +flight. It is a landscape which by variety and beauty thralls +attention, but which by its interminable sameness might grow almost +overpowering. There is no relief. The gladness shed upon far humbler +Northern lands in May is ever absent here. The German word +<i>Gemüthlichkeit</i>, the English phrase 'a home of ancient peace,' are +here alike by art and nature untranslated into visibilities. And yet +(as we who gaze upon it thus are fain to think) if peradventure the +intolerable <i>ennui</i> of this panorama should drive a citizen of San +Marino into out-lands, the same view would haunt him whithersoever he +went—the swallows of his native eyrie would shrill through his +sleep—he would yearn to breathe its fine keen air in winter, and to +watch its iris-hedges deck themselves with blue in spring;—like +Virgil's hero, dying, he would think of San Marino: <i>Aspicit, et +dulces moriens reminiscitur Argos</i>. Even a passing stranger may feel +the mingled fascination and oppression of this prospect—the monotony +which maddens, the charm which at a distance grows upon the mind, +environing it with memories.</p> + +<p>Descending to the Borgo, we found that Filippo Visconti had ordered a +luncheon of excellent white bread, pigeons, and omelette, with the +best red muscat wine I ever drank, unless the sharp air of the hills +deceived my appetite. An Italian history of San Marino, including its +statutes, in three volumes, furnished intellectual food. But I confess +to having learned from these pages little else than this: first, that +the survival of the Commonwealth through all phases of European +politics had been semi-miraculous; secondly, that the most eminent San +Marinesi had been lawyers. It is possible on a hasty deduction from +these two propositions (to which, however, I am far from wishing to +commit myself), that the latter is a sufficient explanation of the +former.</p> + +<p>From San Marino the road plunges at a break-neck pace. We are now in +the true Feltrian highlands, whence the Counts of Montefeltro issued +in the twelfth century. Yonder eyrie is San Leo, which formed the key +of entrance to the duchy of Urbino in campaigns fought many hundred +years ago. Perched on the crest of a precipitous rock, this fortress +looks as though it might defy all enemies but famine. And yet San Leo +was taken and re-taken by strategy and fraud, when Montefeltro, +Borgia, Malatesta, Rovere, contended for dominion in these valleys. +Yonder is Sta. Agata, the village to which Guidobaldo fled by night +when Valentino drove him from his dukedom. A little farther towers +Carpegna, where one branch of the Montefeltro house maintained a +countship through seven centuries, and only sold their fief to Rome in +1815. Monte Coppiolo lies behind, Pietra Rubia in front: two other +eagles' nests of the same brood. What a road it is!</p> + +<p>It beats the tracks on Exmoor. The uphill and downhill of Devonshire +scorns compromise or mitigation by <i>détour</i> and zigzag. But here +geography is on a scale so far more vast, and the roadway is so far +worse metalled than with us in England—knotty masses of talc and +nodes of sandstone cropping up at dangerous turnings—that only +Dante's words describe the journey:—</p> + +<p> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Vassi in Sanleo, e discendesi in Noli,</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Montasi su Bismantova in cacume</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Con esso i piè; ma qui convien ch' uom voli.</span><br /> +</p> + +<p>Of a truth, our horses seemed rather to fly than scramble up and down +these rugged precipices; Visconti cheerily animating them with the +brave spirit that was in him, and lending them his wary driver's help +of hand and voice at need.</p> + +<p>We were soon upon a cornice-road between the mountains and the +Adriatic: following the curves of gulch and cleft ravine; winding +round ruined castles set on points of vantage; the sea-line high +above their grass-grown battlements, the shadow-dappled champaign +girdling their bastions mortised on the naked rock. Except for the +blue lights across the distance, and the ever-present sea, these +earthy Apennines would be too grim. Infinite air and this spare veil +of spring-tide greenery on field and forest soothe their sternness. +Two rivers, swollen by late rains, had to be forded. Through one of +these, the Foglia, bare-legged peasants led the way. The horses waded +to their bellies in the tawny water. Then more hills and vales; green +nooks with rippling corn-crops; secular oaks attired in golden +leafage. The clear afternoon air rang with the voices of a thousand +larks overhead. The whole world seemed quivering with light and +delicate ethereal sound. And yet my mind turned irresistibly to +thoughts of war, violence, and pillage. How often has this +intermediate land been fought over by Montefeltro and Brancaleoni, by +Borgia and Malatesta, by Medici and Della Rovere! Its <i>contadini</i> are +robust men, almost statuesque in build, and beautiful of feature. No +wonder that the Princes of Urbino, with such materials to draw from, +sold their service and their troops to Florence, Rome, S. Mark, and +Milan. The bearing of these peasants is still soldierly and proud. Yet +they are not sullen or forbidding like the Sicilians, whose habits of +life, for the rest, much resemble theirs. The villages, there as here, +are few and far between, perched high on rocks, from which the folk +descend to till the ground and reap the harvest. But the southern +<i>brusquerie</i> and brutality are absent from this district. The men have +something of the dignity and slow-eyed mildness of their own huge +oxen. As evening fell, more solemn Apennines upreared themselves to +southward. The Monte d'Asdrubale, Monte Nerone, and Monte Catria hove +into sight. At last, when light was dim, a tower rose above the +neighbouring ridge, a broken outline of some city barred the sky-line. +Urbino stood before us. Our long day's march was at an end.</p> + +<p>The sunset was almost spent, and a four days' moon hung above the +western Apennines, when we took our first view of the palace. It is a +fancy-thralling work of wonder seen in that dim twilight; like some +castle reared by Atlante's magic for imprisonment of Ruggiero, or +palace sought in fairyland by Astolf winding his enchanted horn. Where +shall we find its like, combining, as it does, the buttressed +battlemented bulk of mediæval strongholds with the airy balconies, +suspended gardens, and fantastic turrets of Italian pleasure-houses? +This unique blending of the feudal past with the Renaissance spirit of +the time when it was built, connects it with the art of Ariosto—or +more exactly with Boiardo's epic. Duke Federigo planned his palace at +Urbino just at the moment when the Count of Scandiano had began to +chaunt his lays of Roland in the Castle of Ferrara. Chivalry, +transmuted by the Italian genius into something fanciful and quaint, +survived as a frail work of art. The men-at-arms of the Condottieri +still glittered in gilded hauberks. Their helmets waved with plumes +and bizarre crests. Their surcoats blazed with heraldries; their +velvet caps with medals bearing legendary emblems. The pomp and +circumstance of feudal war had not yet yielded to the cannon of the +Gascon or the Switzer's pike. The fatal age of foreign invasions had +not begun for Italy. Within a few years Charles VIII.'s holiday +excursion would reveal the internal rottenness and weakness of her +rival states, and the peninsula for half a century to come would be +drenched in the blood of Frenchmen, Germans, Spaniards, fighting for +her cities as their prey. But now Lorenzo de' Medici was still alive. +The famous policy which bears his name held Italy suspended for a +golden time in false tranquillity and independence. The princes who +shared his culture and his love of art were gradually passing into +modern noblemen, abandoning the savage feuds and passions of more +virile centuries, yielding to luxury and scholarly enjoyments. The +castles were becoming courts, and despotisms won by force were +settling into dynasties.</p> + +<p>It was just at this epoch that Duke Federigo built his castle at +Urbino. One of the ablest and wealthiest Condottieri of his time, one +of the best instructed and humanest of Italian princes, he combined in +himself the qualities which mark that period of transition. And these +he impressed upon his dwelling-house, which looks backward to the +mediæval fortalice and forward to the modern palace. This makes it the +just embodiment in architecture of Italian romance, the perfect +analogue of the 'Orlando Innamorato.' By comparing it with the castle +of the Estes at Ferrara and the Palazzo del Te of the Gonzagas at +Mantua, we place it in its right position between mediæval and +Renaissance Italy, between the age when principalities arose upon the +ruins of commercial independence and the age when they became dynastic +under Spain.</p> + +<p>The exigencies of the ground at his disposal forced Federigo to give +the building an irregular outline. The fine façade, with its embayed +<i>loggie</i> and flanking turrets, is placed too close upon the city +ramparts for its due effect. We are obliged to cross the deep ravine +which separates it from a lower quarter of the town, and take our +station near the Oratory of S. Giovanni Battista, before we can +appreciate the beauty of its design, or the boldness of the group it +forms with the cathedral dome and tower and the square masses of +numerous out-buildings. Yet this peculiar position of the palace, +though baffling to a close observer of its details, is one of singular +advantage to the inhabitants. Set on the verge of Urbino's towering +eminence, it fronts a wave-tossed sea of vales and mountain summits +toward the rising and the setting sun. There is nothing but +illimitable air between the terraces and loggias of the Duchess's +apartments and the spreading pyramid of Monte Catria.</p> + +<p>A nobler scene is nowhere swept from palace windows than this, which +Castiglione touched in a memorable passage at the end of his +'Cortegiano.' To one who in our day visits Urbino, it is singular how +the slight indications of this sketch, as in some silhouette, bring +back the antique life, and link the present with the past—a hint, +perhaps, for reticence in our descriptions. The gentlemen and ladies +of the court had spent a summer night in long debate on love, rising +to the height of mystical Platonic rapture on the lips of Bembo, when +one of them exclaimed, 'The day has broken!' 'He pointed to the light +which was beginning to enter by the fissures of the windows. Whereupon +we flung the casements wide upon that side of the palace which looks +toward the high peak of Monte Catria, and saw that a fair dawn of rosy +hue was born already in the eastern skies, and all the stars had +vanished except the sweet regent of the heaven of Venus, who holds the +borderlands of day and night; and from her sphere it seemed as though +a gentle wind were breathing, filling the air with eager freshness, +and waking among the numerous woods upon the neighbouring hills the +sweet-toned symphonies of joyous birds.'</p> + + +<p>II</p> + +<p>The House of Montefeltro rose into importance early in the twelfth +century. Frederick Barbarossa erected their fief into a county in +1160. Supported by imperial favour, they began to exercise an +undefined authority over the district, which they afterwards converted +into a duchy. But, though Ghibelline for several generations, the +Montefeltri were too near neighbours of the Papal power to free +themselves from ecclesiastical vassalage. Therefore in 1216 they +sought and obtained the title of Vicars of the Church. Urbino +acknowledged them as semi-despots in their double capacity of Imperial +and Papal deputies. Cagli and Gubbio followed in the fourteenth +century. In the fifteenth, Castel Durante was acquired from the +Brancaleoni by warfare, and Fossombrone from the Malatestas by +purchase. Numerous fiefs and villages fell into their hands upon the +borders of Rimini in the course of a continued struggle with the House +of Malatesta: and when Fano and Pesaro were added at the opening of +the sixteenth century, the domain over which they ruled was a compact +territory, some forty miles square, between the Adriatic and the +Apennines. From the close of the thirteenth century they bore the +title of Counts of Urbino. The famous Conte Guido, whom Dante placed +among the fraudulent in hell, supported the honours of the house and +increased its power by his political action, at this epoch. But it was +not until the year 1443 that the Montefeltri acquired their ducal +title. This was conferred by Eugenius IV. upon Oddantonio, over whose +alleged crimes and indubitable assassination a veil of mystery still +hangs. He was the son of Count Guidantonio, and at his death the +Montefeltri of Urbino were extinct in the legitimate line. A natural +son of Guidantonio had been, however, recognised in his father's +lifetime, and married to Gentile, heiress of Mercatello. This was +Federigo, a youth of great promise, who succeeded his half-brother in +1444 as Count of Urbino. It was not until 1474 that the ducal title +was revived for him.</p> + +<p>Duke Frederick was a prince remarkable among Italian despots for +private virtues and sober use of his hereditary power. He spent his +youth at Mantua, in that famous school of Vittorino da Feltre, where +the sons and daughters of the first Italian nobility received a model +education in humanities, good manners, and gentle physical +accomplishments. More than any of his fellow-students Frederick +profited by this rare scholar's discipline. On leaving school he +adopted the profession of arms, as it was then practised, and joined +the troop of the Condottiere Niccolò Piccinino. Young men of his own +rank, especially the younger sons and bastards of ruling families, +sought military service under captains of adventure. If they +succeeded they were sure to make money. The coffers of the Church and +the republics lay open to their not too scrupulous hands; the wealth +of Milan and Naples was squandered on them in retaining-fees and +salaries for active service. There was always the further possibility +of placing a coronet upon their brows before they died, if haply they +should wrest a town from their employers, or obtain the cession of a +province from a needy Pope. The neighbours of the Montefeltri in +Umbria, Romagna, and the Marches of Ancona were all of them +Condottieri. Malatestas of Rimini and Pesaro, Vitelli of Città di +Castello, Varani of Camerino, Baglioni of Perugia, to mention only a +few of the most eminent nobles, enrolled themselves under the banners +of plebeian adventurers like Piccinino and Sforza Attendolo. Though +their family connections gave them a certain advantage, the system was +essentially democratic. Gattamelata and Carmagnola sprang from +obscurity by personal address and courage to the command of armies. +Colleoni fought his way up from the grooms to princely station and the +<i>bâton</i> of S. Mark. Francesco Sforza, whose father had begun life as a +tiller of the soil, seized the ducal crown of Milan, and founded a +house which ranked among the first in Europe.</p> + +<p>It is not needful to follow Duke Frederick in his military career. We +may briefly remark that when he succeeded to Urbino by his brother's +death in 1444, he undertook generalship on a grand scale. His own +dominions supplied him with some of the best troops in Italy. He was +careful to secure the goodwill of his subjects by attending personally +to their interests, relieving them of imposts, and executing equal +justice. He gained the then unique reputation of an honest prince, +paternally disposed toward his dependents. Men flocked to his +standards willingly, and he was able to bring an important contingent +into any army. These advantages secured for him alliances with +Francesco Sforza, and brought him successively into connection with +Milan, Venice, Florence, the Church of Naples. As a tactician in the +field he held high rank among the generals of the age, and so +considerable were his engagements that he acquired great wealth in the +exercise of his profession. We find him at one time receiving 8000 +ducats a month as war-pay from Naples, with a peace pension of 6000. +While Captain-General of the League, he drew for his own use in war +45,000 ducats of annual pay. Retaining-fees and pensions in the name +of past services swelled his income, the exact extent of which has +not, so far as I am aware, been estimated, but which must have made +him one of the richest of Italian princes. All this wealth he spent +upon his duchy, fortifying and beautifying its cities, drawing youths +of promise to his court, maintaining a great train of life, and +keeping his vassals in good-humour by the lightness of a rule which +contrasted favourably with the exactions of needier despots.</p> + +<p>While fighting for the masters who offered him <i>condotta</i> in the +complicated wars of Italy, Duke Frederick used his arms, when occasion +served, in his own quarrels. Many years of his life were spent in a +prolonged struggle with his neighbour Sigismondo Pandolfo Malatesta, +the bizarre and brilliant tyrant of Rimini, who committed the fatal +error of embroiling himself beyond all hope of pardon with the Church, +and who died discomfited in the duel with his warier antagonist. +Urbino profited by each mistake of Sigismondo, and the history of this +long desultory strife with Rimini is a history of gradual +aggrandisement and consolidation for the Montefeltrian duchy.</p> + +<p>In 1459 Duke Frederick married his second wife, Battista, daughter of +Alessandro Sforza, Lord of Pesaro. Their portraits, painted by Piero +della Francesca, are to be seen in the Uffizzi at Florence. Some years +earlier, Frederick lost his right eye and had the bridge of his nose +broken in a jousting match outside the town-gate of Urbino. After this +accident, he preferred to be represented in profile—the profile so +well known to students of Italian art on medals and basreliefs. It was +not without medical aid and vows fulfilled by a mother's +self-sacrifice to death, if we may trust the diarists of Urbino, that +the ducal couple got an heir. In 1472, however, a son was born to +them, whom they christened Guido Paolo Ubaldo. He proved a youth of +excellent parts and noble nature—apt at study, perfect in all +chivalrous accomplishments. But he inherited some fatal physical +debility, and his life was marred with a constitutional disease, which +then received the name of gout, and which deprived him of the free use +of his limbs. After his father's death in 1482, Naples, Florence, and +Milan continued Frederick's war engagements to Guidobaldo. The prince +was but a boy of ten. Therefore these important <i>condotte</i> must be +regarded as compliments and pledges for the future. They prove to what +a pitch Duke Frederick had raised the credit of his state and war +establishment. Seven years later, Guidobaldo married Elisabetta, +daughter of Francesco Gonzaga, Marquis of Mantua. This union, though a +happy one, was never blessed with children; and in the certainty of +barrenness, the young Duke thought it prudent to adopt a nephew as +heir to his dominions. He had several sisters, one of whom, Giovanna, +had been married to a nephew of Sixtus IV., Giovanni della Rovere, +Lord of Sinigaglia and Prefect of Rome. They had a son, Francesco +Maria, who, after his adoption by Guidobaldo, spent his boyhood at +Urbino.</p> + +<p>The last years of the fifteenth century were marked by the sudden rise +of Cesare Borgia to a power which threatened the liberties of Italy. +Acting as General for the Church, he carried his arms against the +petty tyrants of Romagna, whom he dispossessed and extirpated. His +next move was upon Camerino and Urbino. He first acquired Camerino, +having lulled Guidobaldo into false security by treacherous +professions of goodwill. Suddenly the Duke received intelligence that +the Borgia was marching on him over Cagli. This was in the middle of +June 1502. It is difficult to comprehend the state of weakness in +which Guidobaldo was surprised, or the panic which then seized him. He +made no efforts to rouse his subjects to resistance, but fled by night +with his nephew through rough mountain roads, leaving his capital and +palace to the marauder. Cesare Borgia took possession without striking +a blow, and removed the treasures of Urbino to the Vatican. His +occupation of the duchy was not undisturbed, however; for the people +rose in several places against him, proving that Guidobaldo had +yielded too hastily to alarm. By this time the fugitive was safe in +Mantua, whence he returned, and for a short time succeeded in +establishing himself again at Urbino. But he could not hold his own +against the Borgias, and in December, by a treaty, he resigned his +claims and retired to Venice, where he lived upon the bounty of S. +Mark. It must be said, in justice to the Duke, that his constitutional +debility rendered him unfit for active operations in the field. +Perhaps he could not have done better than thus to bend beneath the +storm.</p> + +<p>The sudden death of Alexander VI. and the election of a Della Rovere +to the Papacy in 1503 changed Guidobaldo's prospects. Julius II. was +the sworn foe of the Borgias and the close kinsman of Urbino's heir. +It was therefore easy for the Duke to walk into his empty palace on +the hill, and to reinstate himself in the domains from which he had so +recently been ousted. The rest of his life was spent in the retirement +of his court, surrounded with the finest scholars and the noblest +gentlemen of Italy. The ill-health which debarred him from the active +pleasures and employments of his station, was borne with uniform +sweetness of temper and philosophy.</p> + +<p>When he died, in 1508, his nephew, Francesco Maria della Rovere, +succeeded to the duchy, and once more made the palace of Urbino the +resort of men-at-arms and captains. He was a prince of very violent +temper: of its extravagance history has recorded three remarkable +examples. He murdered the Cardinal of Pavia with his own hand in the +streets of Ravenna; stabbed a lover of his sister to death at Urbino; +and in a council of war knocked Francesco Guicciardini down with a +blow of his fist. When the history of Italy came to be written, +Guicciardini was probably mindful of that insult, for he painted +Francesco Maria's character and conduct in dark colours. At the same +time this Duke of Urbino passed for one of the first generals of the +age. The greatest stain upon his memory is his behaviour in the year +1527, when, by dilatory conduct of the campaign in Lombardy, he +suffered the passage of Frundsberg's army unopposed, and afterwards +hesitated to relieve Rome from the horrors of the sack. He was the +last Italian Condottiere of the antique type; and the vices which +Machiavelli exposed in that bad system of mercenary warfare were +illustrated on these occasions. During his lifetime, the conditions of +Italy were so changed by Charles V.'s imperial settlement in 1530, +that the occupation of Condottiere ceased to have any meaning. Strozzi +and Farnesi, who afterwards followed this profession, enlisted in the +ranks of France or Spain, and won their laurels in Northern Europe.</p> + +<p>While Leo X. held the Papal chair, the duchy of Urbino was for a while +wrested from the house of Della Rovere, and conferred upon Lorenzo de' +Medici. Francesco Maria made a better fight for his heritage than +Guidobaldo had done. Yet he could not successfully resist the power of +Rome. The Pope was ready to spend enormous sums of money on this petty +war; the Duke's purse was shorter, and the mercenary troops he was +obliged to use, proved worthless in the field. Spaniards, for the +most part, pitted against Spaniards, they suffered the campaigns to +degenerate into a guerilla warfare of pillage and reprisals. In 1517 +the duchy was formally ceded to Lorenzo. But this Medici did not live +long to enjoy it, and his only child Catherine, the future Queen of +France, never exercised the rights which had devolved upon her by +inheritance. The shifting scene of Italy beheld Francesco Maria +reinstated in Urbino after Leo's death in 1522.</p> + +<p>This Duke married Leonora Gonzaga, a princess of the House of Mantua. +Their portraits, painted by Titian, adorn the Venetian room of the +Uffizzi. Of their son, Guidobaldo II., little need be said. He was +twice married, first to Giulia Varano, Duchess by inheritance of +Camerino; secondly, to Vittoria Farnese, daughter of the Duke of +Parma. Guidobaldo spent a lifetime in petty quarrels with his +subjects, whom he treated badly, attempting to draw from their pockets +the wealth which his father and the Montefeltri had won in military +service. He intervened at an awkward period of Italian politics. The +old Italy of despots, commonwealths, and Condottieri, in which his +predecessors played substantial parts, was at an end. The new Italy of +Popes and Austro-Spanish dynasties had hardly settled into shape. +Between these epochs, Guidobaldo II., of whom we have a dim and hazy +presentation on the page of history, seems somehow to have fallen +flat. As a sign of altered circumstances, he removed his court to +Pesaro, and built the great palace of the Della Roveres upon the +public square.</p> + +<p>Guidobaldaccio, as he was called, died in 1574, leaving an only son, +Francesco Maria II., whose life and character illustrate the new age +which had begun for Italy. He was educated in Spain at the court of +Philip II., where he spent more than two years. When he returned, his +Spanish haughtiness, punctilious attention to etiquette, and +superstitious piety attracted observation. The violent temper of the +Della Roveres, which Francesco Maria I. displayed in acts of +homicide, and which had helped to win his bad name for Guidobaldaccio, +took the form of sullenness in the last Duke. The finest episode in +his life was the part he played in the battle of Lepanto, under his +old comrade, Don John of Austria. His father forced him to an +uncongenial marriage with Lucrezia d'Este, Princess of Ferrara. She +left him, and took refuge in her native city, then honoured by the +presence of Tasso and Guarini. He bore her departure with +philosophical composure, recording the event in his diary as something +to be dryly grateful for. Left alone, the Duke abandoned himself to +solitude, religious exercises, hunting, and the economy of his +impoverished dominions. He became that curious creature, a man of +narrow nature and mediocre capacity, who, dedicated to the cult of +self, is fain to pass for saint and sage in easy circumstances. He +married, for the second time, a lady, Livia della Rovere, who belonged +to his own family, but had been born in private station. She brought +him one son, the Prince Federigo-Ubaldo. This youth might have +sustained the ducal honours of Urbino, but for his sage-saint father's +want of wisdom. The boy was a spoiled child in infancy. Inflated with +Spanish vanity from the cradle, taught to regard his subjects as +dependents on a despot's will, abandoned to the caprices of his own +ungovernable temper, without substantial aid from the paternal piety +or stoicism, he rapidly became a most intolerable princeling. His +father married him, while yet a boy, to Claudia de' Medici, and +virtually abdicated in his favour. Left to his own devices, Federigo +chose companions from the troupes of players whom he drew from Venice. +He filled his palaces with harlots, and degraded himself upon the +stage in parts of mean buffoonery. The resources of the duchy were +racked to support these parasites. Spanish rules of etiquette and +ceremony were outraged by their orgies. His bride brought him one +daughter, Vittoria, who afterwards became the wife of Ferdinand, Grand +Duke of Tuscany. Then in the midst of his low dissipation and +offences against ducal dignity, he died of apoplexy at the early age +of eighteen—the victim, in the severe judgment of history, of his +father's selfishness and want of practical ability.</p> + +<p>This happened in 1623. Francesco Maria was stunned by the blow. His +withdrawal from the duties of the sovereignty in favour of such a son +had proved a constitutional unfitness for the duties of his station. +The life he loved was one of seclusion in a round of pious exercises, +petty studies, peddling economies, and mechanical amusements. A +powerful and grasping Pope was on the throne of Rome. Urban at this +juncture pressed Francesco Maria hard; and in 1624 the last Duke of +Urbino devolved his lordships to the Holy See. He survived the formal +act of abdication seven years; when he died, the Pontiff added his +duchy to the Papal States, which thenceforth stretched from Naples to +the bounds of Venice on the Po.</p> + + +<p>III</p> + +<p>Duke Frederick began the palace at Urbino in 1454, when he was still +only Count. The architect was Luziano of Lauranna, a Dalmatian; and +the beautiful white limestone, hard as marble, used in the +construction, was brought from the Dalmatian coast. This stone, like +the Istrian stone of Venetian buildings, takes and retains the chisel +mark with wonderful precision. It looks as though, when fresh, it must +have had the pliancy of clay, so delicately are the finest curves in +scroll or foliage scooped from its substance. And yet it preserves +each cusp and angle of the most elaborate pattern with the crispness +and the sharpness of a crystal.</p> + +<p>When wrought by a clever craftsman, its surface has neither the +waxiness of Parian, nor the brittle edge of Carrara marble; and it +resists weather better than marble of the choicest quality. This may +be observed in many monuments of Venice, where the stone has been long +exposed to sea-air. These qualities of the Dalmatian limestone, no +less than its agreeable creamy hue and smooth dull polish, adapt it to +decoration in low relief. The most attractive details in the palace at +Urbino are friezes carved of this material in choice designs of early +Renaissance dignity and grace. One chimney-piece in the Sala degli +Angeli deserves especial comment. A frieze of dancing Cupids, with +gilt hair and wings, their naked bodies left white on a ground of +ultramarine, is supported by broad flat pilasters. These are engraved +with children holding pots of flowers; roses on one side, carnations +on the other. Above the frieze another pair of angels, one at each +end, hold lighted torches; and the pyramidal cap of the chimney is +carved with two more, flying, and supporting the eagle of the +Montefeltri on a raised medallion. Throughout the palace we notice +emblems appropriate to the Houses of Montefeltro and Della Rovere: +their arms, three golden bends upon a field of azure: the Imperial +eagle, granted when Montefeltro was made a fief of the Empire: the +Garter of England, worn by the Dukes Federigo and Guidobaldo: the +ermine of Naples: the <i>ventosa</i>, or cupping-glass, adopted for a +private badge by Frederick: the golden oak-tree on an azure field of +Della Rovere: the palm-tree, bent beneath a block of stone, with its +accompanying motto, <i>Inclinata Resurgam</i>: the cipher, FE DX. Profile +medallions of Federigo and Guidobaldo, wrought in the lowest possible +relief, adorn the staircases. Round the great courtyard runs a frieze +of military engines and ensigns, trophies, machines, and implements of +war, alluding to Duke Frederick's profession of Condottiere. The +doorways are enriched with scrolls of heavy-headed flowers, acanthus +foliage, honeysuckles, ivy-berries, birds and boys and sphinxes, in +all the riot of Renaissance fancy.</p> + +<p>This profusion of sculptured <i>rilievo</i> is nearly all that remains to +show how rich the palace was in things of beauty. Castiglione, writing +in the reign of Guidobaldo, says that 'in the opinion of many it is +the fairest to be found in Italy; and the Duke filled it so well with +all things fitting its magnificence, that it seemed less like a palace +than a city. Not only did he collect articles of common use, vessels +of silver, and trappings for chambers of rare cloths of gold and silk, +and suchlike furniture, but he added multitudes of bronze and marble +statues, exquisite pictures, and instruments of music of all sorts. +There was nothing but was of the finest and most excellent quality to +be seen there. Moreover, he gathered together at a vast cost a large +number of the best and rarest books in Greek, Latin, and Hebrew, all +of which he adorned with gold and silver, esteeming them the chiefest +treasure of his spacious palace.' When Cesare Borgia entered Urbino as +conqueror in 1502, he is said to have carried off loot to the value of +150,000 ducats, or perhaps about a quarter of a million sterling. +Vespasiano, the Florentine bookseller, has left us a minute account of +the formation of the famous library of manuscripts, which he valued at +considerably over 30,000 ducats. Yet wandering now through these +deserted halls, we seek in vain for furniture or tapestry or works of +art. The books have been removed to Rome. The pictures are gone, no +man knows whither. The plate has long been melted down. The +instruments of music are broken. If frescoes adorned the corridors, +they have been whitewashed; the ladies' chambers have been stripped of +their rich arras. Only here and there we find a raftered ceiling, +painted in fading colours, which, taken with the stonework of the +chimney, and some fragments of inlaid panel-work on door or window, +enables us to reconstruct the former richness of these princely rooms.</p> + +<p>Exception must be made in favour of two apartments between the towers +upon the southern facade. These were apparently the private rooms of +the Duke and Duchess, and they are still approached by a great winding +staircase in one of the <i>torricini</i>. Adorned in indestructible or +irremovable materials, they retain some traces of their ancient +splendour. On the first floor, opening on the vaulted loggia, we find +a little chapel encrusted with lovely work in stucco and marble; +friezes of bulls, sphinxes, sea-horses, and foliage; with a low relief +of Madonna and Child in the manner of Mino da Fiesole. Close by is a +small study with inscriptions to the Muses and Apollo. The cabinet +connecting these two cells has a Latin legend, to say that Religion +here dwells near the temple of the liberal arts:</p> + +<p> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Bina vides parvo discrimine juncta sacella,</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">Altera pars Musis altera sacra Deo est.</span><br /> +</p> + +<p>On the floor above, corresponding in position to this apartment, is a +second, of even greater interest, since it was arranged by the Duke +Frederick for his own retreat. The study is panelled in tarsia of +beautiful design and execution. Three of the larger compartments show +Faith, Hope, and Charity; figures not unworthy of a Botticelli or a +Filippino Lippi. The occupations of the Duke are represented on a +smaller scale by armour, <i>bâtons</i> of command, scientific instruments, +lutes, viols, and books, some open and some shut. The Bible, Homer, +Virgil, Seneca, Tacitus, and Cicero, are lettered; apparently to +indicate his favourite authors. The Duke himself, arrayed in his state +robes, occupies a fourth great panel; and the whole of this elaborate +composition is harmonised by emblems, badges, and occasional devices +of birds, articles of furniture, and so forth. The tarsia, or inlaid +wood of different kinds and colours, is among the best in this kind of +art to be found in Italy, though perhaps it hardly deserves to rank +with the celebrated choir-stalls of Bergamo and Monte Oliveto. Hard by +is a chapel, adorned, like the lower one, with excellent reliefs. The +loggia to which these rooms have access looks across the Apennines, +and down on what was once a private garden. It is now enclosed and +paved for the exercise of prisoners who are confined in one part of +the desecrated palace!</p> + +<p>A portion of the pile is devoted to more worthy purposes; for the +Academy of Raphael here holds its sittings, and preserves a collection +of curiosities and books illustrative of the great painter's life and +works. They have recently placed in a tiny oratory, scooped by +Guidobaldo II. from the thickness of the wall, a cast of Raphael's +skull, which will be studied with interest and veneration. It has the +fineness of modelling combined with shapeliness of form and smallness +of scale which is said to have characterised Mozart and Shelley.</p> + +<p>The impression left upon the mind after traversing this palace in its +length and breadth is one of weariness and disappointment. How shall +we reconstruct the long-past life which filled its rooms with sound, +the splendour of its pageants, the thrill of tragedies enacted here? +It is not difficult to crowd its doors and vacant spaces with liveried +servants, slim pages in tight hose, whose well-combed hair escapes +from tiny caps upon their silken shoulders. We may even replace the +tapestries of Troy which hung one hall, and build again the sideboards +with their embossed gilded plate. But are these chambers really those +where Emilia Pia held debate on love with Bembo and Castiglione; where +Bibbiena's witticisms and Fra Serafino's pranks raised smiles on +courtly lips; where Bernardo Accolti, 'the Unique,' declaimed his +verses to applauding crowds? Is it possible that into yonder hall, +where now the lion of S. Mark looks down alone on staring desolation, +strode the Borgia in all his panoply of war, a gilded glittering +dragon, and from the dais tore the Montefeltri's throne, and from the +arras stripped their ensigns, replacing these with his own Bull and +Valentinus Dux? Here Tasso tuned his lyre for Francesco Maria's +wedding-feast, and read 'Aminta' to Lucrezia d'Este. Here Guidobaldo +listened to the jests and whispered scandals of the Aretine. Here +Titian set his easel up to paint; here the boy Raphael, cap in hand, +took signed and sealed credentials from his Duchess to the Gonfalonier +of Florence. Somewhere in these huge chambers, the courtiers sat +before a torch-lit stage, when Bibbiena's 'Calandria' and +Caetiglione's 'Tirsi,' with their miracles of masques and mummers, +whiled the night away. Somewhere, we know not where, Giuliano de' +Medici made love in these bare rooms to that mysterious mother of +ill-fated Cardinal Ippolito; somewhere, in some darker nook, the +bastard Alessandro sprang to his strange-fortuned life of tyranny and +license, which Brutus-Lorenzino cut short with a traitor's +poignard-thrust in Via Larga. How many men, illustrious for arts and +letters, memorable by their virtues or their crimes, have trod these +silent corridors, from the great Pope Julius down to James III., +self-titled King of England, who tarried here with Clementina Sobieski +through some twelve months of his ex-royal exile! The memories of all +this folk, flown guests and masters of the still-abiding +palace-chambers, haunt us as we hurry through. They are but filmy +shadows. We cannot grasp them, localise them, people surrounding +emptiness with more than withering cobweb forms.</p> + +<p>Death takes a stronger hold on us than bygone life. Therefore, +returning to the vast Throne-room, we animate it with one scene it +witnessed on an April night in 1508. Duke Guidobaldo had died at +Fossombrone, repeating to his friends around his bed these lines of +Virgil:</p> + +<div class="blockquot"><p>Me circum limus niger et deformis arundo Cocyti tardaque + palus inamabilis unda Alligat, et novies Styx interfusa + coercet.</p></div> + +<p>His body had been carried on the shoulders of servants through those +mountain ways at night, amid the lamentations of gathering multitudes +and the baying of dogs from hill-set farms alarmed by flaring +flambeaux. Now it is laid in state in the great hall. The dais and the +throne are draped in black. The arms and <i>bâtons</i> of his father hang +about the doorways. His own ensigns are displayed in groups and +trophies, with the banners of S. Mark, the Montefeltrian eagle, and +the cross keys of S. Peter. The hall itself is vacant, save for the +high-reared catafalque of sable velvet and gold damask, surrounded +with wax candles burning steadily. Round it passes a ceaseless stream +of people, coming and going, gazing at their Duke. He is attired in +crimson hose and doublet of black damask. Black velvet slippers are on +his feet, and his ducal cap is of black velvet. The mantle of the +Garter, made of dark-blue Alexandrine velvet, hooded with crimson, +lined with white silk damask, and embroidered with the badge, drapes +the stiff sleeping form.</p> + +<p>It is easier to conjure up the past of this great palace, strolling +round it in free air and twilight; perhaps because the landscape and +the life still moving on the city streets bring its exterior into +harmony with real existence. The southern façade, with its vaulted +balconies and flanking towers, takes the fancy, fascinates the eye, +and lends itself as a fit stage for puppets of the musing mind. Once +more imagination plants trim orange-trees in giant jars of Gubbio ware +upon the pavement where the garden of the Duchess lay—the pavement +paced in these bad days by convicts in grey canvas jackets—that +pavement where Monsignor Bombo courted 'dear dead women' with +Platonic phrase, smothering the Menta of his natural man in lettuce +culled from Academe and thyme of Mount Hymettus. In yonder loggia, +lifted above the garden and the court, two lovers are in earnest +converse. They lean beneath the coffered arch, against the marble of +the balustrade, he fingering his dagger under the dark velvet doublet, +she playing with a clove carnation, deep as her own shame. The man is +Giannandrea, broad-shouldered bravo of Verona, Duke Guidobaldo's +favourite and carpet-count. The lady is Madonna Maria, daughter of +Rome's Prefect, widow of Venanzio Varano, whom the Borgia strangled. +On their discourse a tale will hang of woman's frailty and man's +boldness—Camerino's Duchess yielding to a low-born suitor's stalwart +charms. And more will follow, when that lady's brother, furious +Francesco Maria della Rovere, shall stab the bravo in torch-litten +palace rooms with twenty poignard strokes 'twixt waist and throat, and +their Pandarus shall be sent down to his account by a varlet's +<i>coltellata</i> through the midriff. Imagination shifts the scene, and +shows in that same loggia Rome's warlike Pope, attended by his +cardinals and all Urbino's chivalry. The snowy beard of Julius flows +down upon his breast, where jewels clasp the crimson mantle, as in +Raphael's picture. His eyes are bright with wine; for he has come to +gaze on sunset from the banquet-chamber, and to watch the line of +lamps which soon will leap along that palace cornice in his honour. +Behind him lies Bologna humbled. The Pope returns, a conqueror, to +Rome. Yet once again imagination is at work. A gaunt, bald man, +close-habited in Spanish black, his spare, fine features carved in +purest ivory, leans from that balcony. Gazing with hollow eyes, he +tracks the swallows in their flight, and notes that winter is at hand. +This is the last Duke of Urbino, Francesco Maria II., he whose young +wife deserted him, who made for himself alone a hermit-pedant's round +of petty cares and niggard avarice and mean-brained superstition. He +drew a second consort from the convent, and raised up seed unto his +line by forethought, but beheld his princeling fade untimely in the +bloom of boyhood. Nothing is left but solitude. To the mortmain of the +Church reverts Urbino's lordship, and even now he meditates the terms +of devolution. Jesuits cluster in the rooms behind, with comfort for +the ducal soul and calculations for the interests of Holy See.</p> + +<p>A farewell to these memories of Urbino's dukedom should be taken in +the crypt of the cathedral, where Francesco Maria II., the last Duke, +buried his only son and all his temporal hopes. The place is scarcely +solemn. Its dreary <i>barocco</i> emblems mar the dignity of death. A bulky +<i>Pietà</i> by Gian Bologna, with Madonna's face unfinished, towers up and +crowds the narrow cell. Religion has evanished from this late +Renaissance art, nor has the afterglow of Guido Reni's hectic piety +yet overflushed it. Chilled by the stifling humid sense of an extinct +race here entombed in its last representative, we gladly emerge from +the sepulchral vault into the air of day.</p> + +<p>Filippo Visconti, with a smile on his handsome face, is waiting for us +at the inn. His horses, sleek, well fed, and rested, toss their heads +impatiently. We take our seats in the carriage, open wide beneath a +sparkling sky, whirl past the palace and its ghost-like recollections, +and are halfway on the road to Fossombrone in a cloud of dust and +whirr of wheels before we think of looking back to greet Urbino. There +is just time. The last decisive turning lies in front. We stand +bareheaded to salute the grey mass of buildings ridged along the sky. +Then the open road invites us with its varied scenery and movement. +From the shadowy past we drive into the world of human things, for +ever changefully unchanged, unrestfully the same. This interchange +between dead memories and present life is the delight of travel.</p> +<h5><a href="#CONTENTS">CONTENTS</a></h5> +<br /><br /> +<hr style="width: 100%;" /> +<h2><a name="VITTORIA_ACCORAMBONI" id="VITTORIA_ACCORAMBONI" /><i>VITTORIA ACCORAMBONI</i></a></h2> +<hr style="width: 100%;" /> +<br /> +<h3>AND THE TRAGEDY OF WEBSTER</h3> + +<br /> +<p>I</p> +<br /> +<p>During the pontificate of Gregory XIII. (1572-85), Papal authority in +Rome reached its lowest point of weakness, and the ancient splendour +of the Papal court was well-nigh eclipsed. Art and learning had died +out. The traditions of the days of Leo, Julius, and Paul III. were +forgotten. It seemed as though the genius of the Renaissance had +migrated across the Alps. All the powers of the Papacy were directed +to the suppression of heresies and to the re-establishment of +spiritual supremacy over the intellect of Europe. Meanwhile society in +Rome returned to mediæval barbarism. The veneer of classical +refinement and humanistic urbanity, which for a time had hidden the +natural savagery of the Roman nobles, wore away. The Holy City became +a den of bandits; the territory of the Church supplied a battle-ground +for senseless party strife, which the weak old man who wore the triple +crown was quite unable to control. It is related how a robber +chieftain, Marianazzo, refused the offer of a general pardon from the +Pope, alleging that the profession of brigand was far more lucrative, +and offered greater security of life, than any trade within the walls +of Rome. The Campagna, the ruined citadels about the basements of the +Sabine and Ciminian hills, the quarters of the aristocracy within the +city, swarmed with bravos, who were protected by great nobles and fed +by decent citizens for the advantages to be derived from the +assistance of abandoned and courageous ruffians. Life, indeed, had +become impossible without fixed compact with the powers of +lawlessness. There was hardly a family in Rome which did not number +some notorious criminal among the outlaws. Murder, sacrilege, the love +of adventure, thirst for plunder, poverty, hostility to the ascendant +faction of the moment, were common causes of voluntary or involuntary +outlawry; nor did public opinion regard a bandit's calling as other +than honourable.</p> + +<p>It may readily be imagined that in such a state of society the +grisliest tragedies were common enough in Rome. The history of some of +these has been preserved to us in documents digested from public +trials and personal observation by contemporary writers. That of the +Cenci, in which a notorious act of parricide furnished the plot of a +popular novella, is well known. And such a tragedy, even more rife in +characteristic incidents, and more distinguished by the quality of its +<i>dramatis personæ</i>, is that of Vittoria Accoramboni.</p> + +<p>Vittoria was born in 1557, of a noble but impoverished family, at +Gubbio, among the hills of Umbria. Her biographers are rapturous in +their praises of her beauty, grace, and exceeding charm of manner. Not +only was her person most lovely, but her mind shone at first with all +the amiable lustre of a modest, innocent, and winning youth. Her +father, Claudio Accoramboni, removed to Rome, where his numerous +children were brought up under the care of their mother, Tarquinia, an +ambitious and unscrupulous woman, bent on rehabilitating the decayed +honours of their house. Here Vittoria in early girlhood soon became +the fashion. She exercised an irresistible influence over all who saw +her, and many were the offers of marriage she refused. At length a +suitor appeared whose condition and connection with the Roman +ecclesiastical nobility rendered him acceptable in the eyes of the +Accoramboni. Francesco Peretti was welcomed as the successful +candidate for Vittoria's hand. His mother, Camilla, was sister to +Felice, Cardinal of Montalto; and her son, Francesco Mignucci, had +changed his surname in compliment to this illustrious relative. The +Peretti were of humble origin. The cardinal himself had tended swine +in his native village; but, supported by an invincible belief in his +own destinies, and gifted with a powerful intellect and determined +character, he passed through all grades of the Franciscan Order to its +generalship, received the bishoprics of Fermo and S. Agata, and +lastly, in the year 1570, assumed the scarlet with the title of +Cardinal Montalto. He was now upon the high way to the Papacy, +amassing money by incessant care, studying the humours of surrounding +factions, effacing his own personality, and by mixing but little in +the intrigues of the court, winning the reputation of a prudent, +inoffensive old man. These were his tactics for securing the Papal +throne; nor were his expectations frustrated; for in 1585 he was +chosen Pope, the parties of the Medici and the Farnesi agreeing to +accept him as a compromise. When Sixtus V. was once firmly seated on +S. Peter's chair, he showed himself in his true colours. An implacable +administrator of severest justice, a rigorous economist, an +iconoclastic foe to paganism, the first act of his reign was to +declare a war of extirpation against the bandits who had reduced Rome +in his predecessor's rule to anarchy.</p> + +<p>It was the nephew, then, of this man, whom historians have judged the +greatest personage of his own times, that Vittoria Accoramboni married +on the 28th of June 1573. For a short while the young couple lived +happily together. According to some accounts of their married life, +the bride secured the favour of her powerful uncle-in-law, who +indulged her costly fancies to the full. It is, however, more probable +that the Cardinal Montalto treated her follies with a grudging +parsimony; for we soon find the Peretti household hopelessly involved +in debt. Discord, too, arose between Vittoria and her husband on the +score of a certain levity in her behaviour; and it was rumoured that +even during the brief space of their union she had proved a faithless +wife. Yet she contrived to keep Francesco's confidence, and it is +certain that her family profited by their connection with the Peretti. +Of her six brothers, Mario, the eldest, was a favourite courtier of +the great Cardinal d'Este. Ottavio was in orders, and through +Montalto's influence obtained the See of Fossombrone. The same +eminent protector placed Scipione in the service of the Cardinal +Sforza. Camillo, famous for his beauty and his courage, followed the +fortunes of Filibert of Savoy, and died in France. Flaminio was still +a boy, dependent, as the sequel of this story shows, upon his sister's +destiny. Of Marcello, the second in age and most important in the +action of this tragedy, it is needful to speak with more +particularity. He was young, and, like the rest of his breed, +singularly handsome—so handsome, indeed, that he is said to have +gained an infamous ascendency over the great Duke of Bracciano, whose +privy chamberlain he had become. Marcello was an outlaw for the murder +of Matteo Pallavicino, the brother of the Cardinal of that name. This +did not, however, prevent the chief of the Orsini house from making +him his favourite and confidential friend. Marcello, who seems to have +realised in actual life the worst vices of those Roman courtiers +described for us by Aretino, very soon conceived the plan of exalting +his own fortunes by trading on his sister's beauty. He worked upon the +Duke of Bracciano's mind so cleverly, that he brought this haughty +prince to the point of an insane passion for Peretti's young wife; and +meanwhile so contrived to inflame the ambition of Vittoria and her +mother, Tarquinia, that both were prepared to dare the worst of crimes +in expectation of a dukedom. The game was a difficult one to play. Not +only had Francesco Peretti first to be murdered, but the inequality of +birth and wealth and station between Vittoria and the Duke of +Bracciano rendered a marriage almost impossible. It was also an affair +of delicacy to stimulate without satisfying the Duke's passion. Yet +Marcello did not despair. The stakes were high enough to justify great +risks; and all he put in peril was his sister's honour, the fame of +the Accoramboni, and the favour of Montalto. Vittoria, for her part, +trusted in her power to ensnare and secure the noble prey both had in +view.</p> + +<p>Paolo Giordano Orsini, born about the year 1537, was reigning Duke of +Bracciano. Among Italian princes he ranked at least upon a par with +the Dukes of Urbino, and his family, by its alliances, was more +illustrious than any of that time in Italy. He was a man of gigantic +stature, prodigious corpulence, and marked personal daring; agreeable +in manners, but subject to uncontrollable fits of passion, and +incapable of self-restraint when crossed in any whim or fancy. Upon +the habit of his body it is needful to insist, in order that the part +he played in this tragedy of intrigue, crime, and passion may be well +defined. He found it difficult to procure a charger equal to his +weight, and he was so fat that a special dispensation relieved him +from the duty of genuflexion in the Papal presence. Though lord of a +large territory, yielding princely revenues, he laboured under heavy +debts; for no great noble of the period lived more splendidly, with +less regard for his finances. In the politics of that age and country, +Paolo Giordano leaned toward France. Yet he was a grandee of Spain, +and had played a distinguished part in the battle of Lepanto. Now the +Duke of Bracciano was a widower. He had been married in 1553 to +Isabella de' Medici, daughter of the Grand Duke Cosimo, sister of +Francesco, Bianca Capello's lover, and of the Cardinal Ferdinando. +Suspicion of adultery with Troilo Orsini had fallen on Isabella, and +her husband, with the full concurrence of her brothers, removed her in +1576 from this world.<a name="FNanchor_7_7" id="FNanchor_7_7" /></a><a href="#Footnote_7_7" class="fnanchor">[7]</a> No one thought the worse of Bracciano for +this murder of his wife. In those days of abandoned vice and intricate +villany, certain points of honour were maintained with scrupulous +fidelity. A wife's adultery was enough to justify the most savage and +licentious husband in an act of semi-judicial vengeance; and the shame +she brought upon his head was shared by the members of her own house, +so that they stood by, consenting to her death. Isabella, it may be +said, left one son, Virginio, who became in due time Duke of +Bracciano.</p> + +<p>It appears that in the year 1581, four years after Vittoria's +marriage, the Duke of Bracciano had satisfied Marcello of his +intention to make her his wife, and of his willingness to countenance +Francesco Peretti's murder. Marcello, feeling sure of his game, +introduced the Duke in private to his sister, and induced her to +overcome any natural repugnance she may have felt for the unwieldy and +gross lover. Having reached this point, it was imperative to push +matters quickly on toward matrimony.</p> + +<p>But how should the unfortunate Francesco be entrapped? They caught him +in a snare of peculiar atrocity, by working on the kindly feelings +which his love for Vittoria had caused him to extend to all the +Acooramboni. Marcello, the outlaw, was her favourite brother, and +Marcello at that time lay in hiding, under the suspicion of more than +ordinary crime, beyond the walls of Rome. Late in the evening of the +18th of April, while the Peretti family were retiring to bed, a +messenger from Marcello arrived, entreating Francesco to repair at +once to Monte Cavallo. Marcello had affairs of the utmost importance +to communicate, and begged his brother-in-law not to fail him at a +grievous pinch. The letter containing this request was borne by one +Dominico d'Aquaviva, <i>alias</i> Il Mancino, a confederate of Vittoria's +waiting-maid. This fellow, like Marcello, was an outlaw; but when he +ventured into Rome he frequented Peretti's house, and had made himself +familiar with its master as a trusty bravo. Neither in the message, +therefore, nor in the messenger was there much to rouse suspicion. The +time, indeed, was oddly chosen, and Marcello had never made a similar +appeal on any previous occasion. Yet his necessities might surely have +obliged him to demand some more than ordinary favour from a brother. +Francesco immediately made himself ready to set out, armed only with +his sword and attended by a single servant. It was in vain that his +wife and his mother reminded him of the dangers of the night, the +loneliness of Monte Cavallo, its ruinous palaces and robber-haunted +caves. He was resolved to undertake the adventure, and went forth, +never to return. As he ascended the hill, he fell to earth, shot with +three harquebuses. His body was afterwards found on Monte Cavallo, +stabbed through and through, without a trace that could identify the +murderers. Only, in the course of subsequent investigations, Il +Mancino (on the 24th of February 1582) made the following +statements:—That Vittoria's mother, assisted by the waiting woman, +had planned the trap; that Marchionne of Gubbio and Paolo Barca of +Bracciano, two of the Duke's men, had despatched the victim. Marcello +himself, it seems, had come from Bracciano to conduct the whole +affair. Suspicion fell immediately upon Vittoria and her kindred, +together with the Duke of Bracciano; nor was this diminished when the +Accoramboni, fearing the pursuit of justice, took refuge in a villa of +the Duke's at Magnanapoli a few days after the murder.</p> + +<p>A cardinal's nephew, even in those troublous times, was not killed +without some noise being made about the matter. Accordingly Pope +Gregory XIII. began to take measures for discovering the authors of +the crime. Strange to say, however, the Cardinal Montalto, +notwithstanding the great love he was known to bear his nephew, begged +that the investigation might be dropped. The coolness with which he +first received the news of Francesco Peretti's death, the +dissimulation with which he met the Pope's expression of sympathy in a +full consistory, his reserve in greeting friends on ceremonial visits +of condolence, and, more than all, the self-restraint he showed in the +presence of the Duke of Bracciano, impressed the society of Rome with +the belief that he was of a singularly moderate and patient temper. It +was thought that the man who could so tamely submit to his nephew's +murder, and suspend the arm of justice when already raised for +vengeance, must prove a mild and indulgent ruler. When, therefore, in +the fifth year after this event, Montalto was elected Pope, men +ascribed his elevation in no small measure to his conduct at the +present crisis. Some, indeed, attributed his extraordinary moderation +and self-control to the right cause. <i>'Veramente costui è un gran +frate!</i>' was Gregory's remark at the close of the consistory when +Montalto begged him to let the matter of Peretti's murder rest. '<i>Of a +truth, that fellow is a consummate hypocrite!</i>' How accurate this +judgment was, appeared when Sixtus V. assumed the reins of power. The +same man who, as monk and cardinal, had smiled on Bracciano, though he +knew him to be his nephew's assassin, now, as Pontiff and sovereign, +bade the chief of the Orsini purge his palace and dominions of the +scoundrels he was wont to harbour, adding significantly, that if +Felice Peretti forgave what had been done against him in a private +station, he would exact uttermost vengeance for disobedience to the +will of Sixtus. The Duke of Bracciano judged it best, after that +warning, to withdraw from Rome.</p> + +<p>Francesco Peretti had been murdered on the 16th of April 1581. Sixtus +V. was proclaimed on the 24th of April 1585. In this interval Vittoria +underwent a series of extraordinary perils and adventures. First of +all, she had been secretly married to the Duke in his gardens of +Magnanapoli at the end of April 1581. That is to say, Marcello and she +secured their prize, as well as they were able, the moment after +Francesco had been removed by murder. But no sooner had the marriage +become known, than the Pope, moved by the scandal it created, no less +than by the urgent instance of the Orsini and Medici, declared it +void. After some while spent in vain resistance, Bracciano submitted, +and sent Vittoria back to her father's house. By an order issued under +Gregory's own hand, she was next removed to the prison of Corte +Savella, thence to the monastery of S. Cecilia in Trastevere, and +finally to the Castle of S. Angelo. Here, at the end of December 1581, +she was put on trial for the murder of her first husband. In prison +she seems to have borne herself bravely, arraying her beautiful person +in delicate attire, entertaining visitors, exacting from her friends +the honours due to a duchess, and sustaining the frequent examinations +to which she was submitted with a bold, proud front. In the middle of +the month of July her constancy was sorely tried by the receipt of a +letter in the Duke's own handwriting, formally renouncing his +marriage. It was only by a lucky accident that she was prevented on +this occasion from committing suicide. The Papal court meanwhile kept +urging her either to retire to a monastery or to accept another +husband. She firmly refused to embrace the religious life, and +declared that she was already lawfully united to a living husband, the +Duke of Bracciano. It seemed impossible to deal with her; and at last, +on the 8th of November, she was released from prison under the +condition of retirement to Gubbio. The Duke had lulled his enemies to +rest by the pretence of yielding to their wishes. But Marcello was +continually beside him at Bracciano, where we read of a mysterious +Greek enchantress whom he hired to brew love-philters for the +furtherance of his ambitious plots. Whether Bracciano was stimulated +by the brother's arguments or by the witch's potions need not be too +curiously questioned. But it seems in any case certain that absence +inflamed his passion instead of cooling it.</p> + +<p>Accordingly, in September 1583, under the excuse of a pilgrimage to +Loreto, he contrived to meet Vittoria at Trevi, whence he carried her +in triumph to Bracciano. Here he openly acknowledged her as his wife, +installing her with all the splendour due to a sovereign duchess. On +the 10th of October following, he once more performed the marriage +ceremony in the principal church of his fief; and in the January of +1584 he brought her openly to Rome. This act of contumacy to the Pope, +both as feudal superior and as supreme Pontiff, roused all the former +opposition to his marriage. Once more it was declared invalid. Once +more the Duke pretended to give way. But at this juncture Gregory +died; and while the conclave was sitting for the election of the new +Pope, he resolved to take the law into his own hands, and to ratify +his union with Vittoria by a third and public marriage in Rome. On the +morning of the 24th of April 1585, their nuptials were accordingly +once more solemnised in the Orsini palace. Just one hour after the +ceremony, as appears from the marriage register, the news arrived of +Cardinal Montalto's election to the Papacy, Vittoria lost no time in +paying her respects to Camilla, sister of the new Pope, her former +mother-in-law. The Duke visited Sixtus V. in state to compliment him +on his elevation. But the reception which both received proved that +Rome was no safe place for them to live in. They consequently made up +their minds for flight.</p> + +<p>A chronic illness from which Bracciano had lately suffered furnished a +sufficient pretext. This seems to have been something of the nature of +a cancerous ulcer, which had to be treated by the application of raw +meat to open sores. Such details are only excusable in the present +narrative on the ground that Bracciano's disease considerably affects +our moral judgment of the woman who could marry a man thus physically +tainted, and with her husband's blood upon his hands. At any rate, +the Duke's <i>lupa</i> justified his trying what change of air, together +with the sulphur waters of Abano, would do for him.</p> + +<p>The Duke and Duchess arrived in safety at Venice, where they had +engaged the Dandolo palace on the Zuecca. There they only stayed a few +days, removing to Padua, where they had hired palaces of the Foscari +in the Arena and a house called De' Cavalli. At Salò, also, on the +Lake of Garda, they provided themselves with fit dwellings for their +princely state and their large retinues, intending to divide their +time between the pleasures which the capital of luxury afforded and +the simpler enjoyments of the most beautiful of the Italian lakes. But +<i>la gioia dei profani è un fumo passaggier</i>. Paolo Giordano Orsini, +Duke of Bracciano, died suddenly at Salò on the 10th of November 1585, +leaving the young and beautiful Vittoria helpless among enemies. What +was the cause of his death? It is not possible to give a clear and +certain answer. We have seen that he suffered from a horrible and +voracious disease, which after his removal from Rome seems to have +made progress. Yet though this malady may well have cut his life +short, suspicion of poison was not, in the circumstances, quite +unreasonable. The Grand Duke of Tuscany, the Pope, and the Orsini +family were all interested in his death. Anyhow, he had time to make a +will in Vittoria's favour, leaving her large sums of money, jewels, +goods, and houses—enough, in fact, to support her ducal dignity with +splendour. His hereditary fiefs and honours passed by right to his +only son, Virginio.</p> + +<p>Vittoria, accompanied by her brother, Marcello, and the whole court of +Bracciano, repaired at once to Padua, where she was soon after joined +by Flaminio, and by the Prince Lodovico Orsini. Lodovico Orsini +assumed the duty of settling Vittoria's affairs under her dead +husband's will. In life he had been the Duke's ally as well as +relative. His family pride was deeply wounded by what seemed to him an +ignoble, as it was certainly an unequal, marriage. He now showed +himself the relentless enemy of the Duchess. Disputes arose between +them as to certain details, which seem to have been legally decided in +the widow's favour. On the night of the 22nd of December, however, +forty men disguised in black and fantastically tricked out to elude +detection, surrounded her palace. Through the long galleries and +chambers hung with arras, eight of them went, bearing torches, in +search of Vittoria and her brothers. Marcello escaped, having fled the +house under suspicion of the murder of one of his own followers. +Flaminio, the innocent and young, was playing on his lute and singing +<i>Miserere</i> in the great hall of the palace. The murderers surprised +him with a shot from one of their harquebuses. He ran, wounded in the +shoulder, to his sister's room. She, it is said, was telling her beads +before retiring for the night. When three of the assassins entered, +she knelt before the crucifix, and there they stabbed her in the left +breast, turning the poignard in the wound, and asking her with savage +insults if her heart was pierced. Her last words were, 'Jesus, I +pardon you.' Then they turned to Flaminio, and left him pierced with +seventy-four stiletto wounds.</p> + +<p>The authorities of Padua identified the bodies of Vittoria and +Flaminio, and sent at once for further instructions to Venice. +Meanwhile it appears that both corpses were laid out in one open +coffin for the people to contemplate. The palace and the church of the +Eremitani, to which they had been removed, were crowded all through +the following day with a vast concourse of the Paduans. Vittoria's +wonderful dead body, pale yet sweet to look upon, the golden hair +flowing around her marble shoulders, the red wound in her breast +uncovered, the stately limbs arrayed in satin as she died, maddened +the populace with its surpassing loveliness. '<i>Dentibus fremebant</i>,' +says the chronicler, when they beheld that gracious lady stiff in +death. And of a truth, if her corpse was actually exposed in the +chapel of the Eremitani, as we have some right to assume, the +spectacle must have been impressive. Those grim gaunt frescoes of +Mantegna looked down on her as she lay stretched upon her bier, solemn +and calm, and, but for pallor, beautiful as though in life. No wonder +that the folk forgot her first husband's murder, her less than comely +marriage to the second. It was enough for them that this flower of +surpassing loveliness had been cropped by villains in its bloom. +Gathering in knots around the torches placed beside the corpse, they +vowed vengeance against the Orsini; for suspicion, not unnaturally, +fell on Prince Lodovico.</p> + +<p>The Prince was arrested and interrogated before the court of Padua. He +entered their hall attended by forty armed men, responded haughtily to +their questions, and demanded free passage for his courier to Virginio +Orsini, then at Florence. To this demand the court acceded; but the +precaution of waylaying the courier and searching his person was very +wisely taken. Besides some formal dispatches which announced +Vittoria's assassination, they found in this man's boot a compromising +letter, declaring Virginio a party to the crime, and asserting that +Lodovico had with his own poignard killed their victim. Padua placed +itself in a state of defence, and prepared to besiege the palace of +Prince Lodovico, who also got himself in readiness for battle. +Engines, culverins, and firebrands were directed against the +barricades which he had raised. The militia was called out and the +Brenta was strongly guarded. Meanwhile the Senate of S. Mark had +dispatched the Avogadore, Aloisio Bragadin, with full power to the +scene of action. Lodovico Orsini, it may be mentioned, was in their +service; and had not this affair intervened, he would in a few weeks +have entered on his duties as Governor for Venice of Corfu.</p> + +<p>The bombardment of Orsini's palace began on Christmas Day. Three of +the Prince's men were killed in the first assault; and since the +artillery brought to bear upon him threatened speedy ruin to the house +and its inhabitants, he made up his mind to surrender. 'The Prince +Luigi,' writes one-chronicler of these events, 'walked attired in +brown, his poignard at his side, and his cloak slung elegantly under +his arm. The weapon being taken from him, he leaned upon a balustrade, +and began to trim his nails with a little pair of scissors he happened +to find there.' On the 27th he was strangled in prison by order of the +Venetian Republic. His body was carried to be buried, according to his +own will, in the church of S. Maria dell' Orto at Venice. Two of his +followers were hung next day. Fifteen were executed on the following +Monday; two of these were quartered alive; one of them, the Conte +Paganello, who confessed to having slain Vittoria, had his left side +probed with his own cruel dagger. Eight were condemned to the galleys, +six to prison, and eleven were acquitted. Thus ended this terrible +affair, which brought, it is said, good credit and renown to the lords +of Venice through all nations of the civilised world. It only remains +to be added that Marcello Accoramboni was surrendered to the Pope's +vengeance and beheaded at Ancona, where also his mysterious +accomplice, the Greek sorceress, perished.</p> + + +<p>II</p> + +<p>This story of Vittoria Accoramboni's life and tragic ending is drawn, +in its main details, from a narrative published by Henri Beyle in his +'Chroniques et Novelles.'<a name="FNanchor_8_8" id="FNanchor_8_8" /></a><a href="#Footnote_8_8" class="fnanchor">[8]</a> He professes to have translated it +literally from a manuscript communicated to him by a nobleman of +Mantua; and there are strong internal evidences of the truth of this +assertion. Such compositions are frequent in Italian libraries, nor is +it rare for one of them to pass into the common market—as Mr. +Browning's famous purchase of the tale on which he based his 'Ring +and the Book' sufficiently proves. These pamphlets were produced, in +the first instance, to gratify the curiosity of the educated public in +an age which had no newspapers, and also to preserve the memory of +famous trials. How far the strict truth was represented, or whether, +as in the case of Beatrice Cenci, the pathetic aspect of the tragedy +was unduly dwelt on, depended, of course, upon the mental bias of the +scribe, upon his opportunities of obtaining exact information, and +upon the taste of the audience for whom he wrote. Therefore, in +treating such documents as historical data, we must be upon our guard. +Professor Gnoli, who has recently investigated the whole of Vittoria's +eventful story by the light of contemporary documents, informs us that +several narratives exist in manuscript, all dealing more or less +accurately with the details of the tragedy. One of these was published +in Italian at Brescia in 1586. A Frenchman, De Rosset, printed the +same story in its main outlines at Lyons in 1621. Our own dramatist, +John Webster, made it the subject of a tragedy, which he gave to the +press in 1612. What were his sources of information we do not know for +certain. But it is clear that he was well acquainted with the history. +He has changed some of the names and redistributed some of the chief +parts. Vittoria's first husband, for example, becomes Camillo; her +mother, named Cornelia instead of Tarquinia, is so far from abetting +Peretti's murder and countenancing her daughter's shame, that she acts +the <i>rôle</i> of a domestic Cassandra. Flaminio and not Marcello is made +the main instrument of Vittoria's crime and elevation. The Cardinal +Montalto is called Monticelso, and his papal title is Paul IV. instead +of Sixtus V. These are details of comparative indifference, in which +a playwright may fairly use his liberty of art. On the other hand, +Webster shows a curious knowledge of the picturesque circumstances of +the tale. The garden in which Vittoria meets Bracciano is the villa of +Magnanapoli; Zanche, the Moorish slave, combines Vittoria's +waiting-woman, Caterina, and the Greek sorceress who so mysteriously +dogged Marcello's footsteps to the death. The suspicion of Bracciano's +murder is used to introduce a quaint episode of Italian poisoning.</p> + +<p>Webster exercised the dramatist's privilege of connecting various +threads of action in one plot, disregarding chronology, and hazarding +an ethical solution of motives which mere fidelity to fact hardly +warrants. He shows us Vittoria married to Camillo, a low-born and +witless fool, whose only merit consists in being nephew to the +Cardinal Monticelso, afterwards Pope Paul IV.<a name="FNanchor_9_9" id="FNanchor_9_9" /></a><a href="#Footnote_9_9" class="fnanchor">[9]</a> Paulo Giordano +Ursini, Duke of Brachiano, loves Vittoria, and she suggests to him +that, for the furtherance of their amours, his wife, the Duchess +Isabella, sister to Francesco de' Medici, Grand Duke of Florence, +should be murdered at the same time as her own husband, Camillo. +Brachiano is struck by this plan, and with the help of Vittoria's +brother, Flamineo, he puts it at once into execution. Flamineo hires a +doctor who poisons Brachiano's portrait, so that Isabella dies after +kissing it. He also with his own hands twists Camillo's neck during a +vaulting-match, making it appear that he came by his death +accidentally. Suspicion of the murder attaches, however, to Vittoria. +She is tried for her life before Monticelso and De' Medici; acquitted, +and relegated to a house of Convertites or female reformatory. +Brachiano, on the accession of Monticelso to the Papal throne, +resolves to leave Rome with Vittoria. They escape, together with her +mother Cornelia, and her brothers Flamineo and Marcello, to Padua; and +it is here that the last scenes of the tragedy are laid.</p> + +<p>The use Webster made of Lodovico Orsini deserves particular attention. +He introduces this personage in the very first scene as a spendthrift, +who, having run through his fortune, has been outlawed. Count +Lodovico, as he is always called, has no relationship with the Orsini, +but is attached to the service of Francesco de' Medici, and is an old +lover of the Duchess Isabella. When, therefore, the Grand Duke +meditates vengeance on Brachiano, he finds a fitting instrument in the +desperate Lodovico. Together, in disguise, they repair to Padua. +Lodovico poisons the Duke of Brachiano's helmet, and has the +satisfaction of ending his last struggles by the halter. Afterwards, +with companions, habited as a masquer, he enters Vittoria's palace and +puts her to death together with her brother Flamineo. Just when the +deed of vengeance has been completed, young Giovanni Orsini, heir of +Brachiano, enters and orders the summary execution of Lodovico for +this deed of violence. Webster's invention in this plot is confined to +the fantastic incidents attending on the deaths of Isabella, Camillo, +and Brachiano, and to the murder of Marcello by his brother Flamineo, +with the further consequence of Cornelia's madness and death. He has +heightened our interest in Isabella, at the expense of Brachiano's +character, by making her an innocent and loving wife instead of an +adulteress. He has ascribed different motives from the real ones to +Lodovico in order to bring this personage into rank with the chief +actors, though this has been achieved with only moderate success. +Vittoria is abandoned to the darkest interpretation. She is a woman +who rises to eminence by crime, as an unfaithful wife, the murderess +of her husband, and an impudent defier of justice. Her brother, +Flamineo, becomes under Webster's treatment one of those worst human +infamies—a court dependent; ruffian, buffoon, pimp, murderer by +turns. Furthermore, and without any adequate object beyond that of +completing this study of a type he loved, Webster makes him murder his +own brother Marcello by treason. The part assigned to Marcello, it +should be said, is a genial and happy one; and Cornelia, the mother of +the Accoramboni, is a dignified character, pathetic in her suffering. +Webster, it may be added, treats the Cardinal Monticelso as allied in +some special way to the Medici. Yet certain traits in his character, +especially his avoidance of bloodshed and the tameness of his temper +after Camillo has been murdered, seem to have been studied from the +historical Sixtus.</p> + + +<p>III</p> + +<p>The character of the 'White Devil, or Vittoria Corombona,' is perhaps +the most masterly creation of Webster's genius. Though her history is +a true one in its leading incidents, the poet, while portraying a real +personage, has conceived an original individuality. It is impossible +to know for certain how far the actual Vittoria was guilty of her +first husband's murder. Her personality fails to detach itself from +the romance of her biography by any salient qualities. But Webster, +with true playwright's instinct, casts aside historical doubts, and +delineates in his heroine a woman of a very marked and terrible +nature. Hard as adamant, uncompromising, ruthless, Vittoria follows +ambition as the loadstar of her life. It is the ambition to reign as +Duchess, far more than any passion for a paramour, which makes her +plot Camillo's and Isabella's murders, and throws her before marriage +into Brachiano's arms. Added to this ambition, she is possessed with +the cold demon of her own imperial and victorious beauty. She has the +courage of her criminality in the fullest sense; and much of the +fascination with which Webster has invested her, depends upon her +dreadful daring. Her portrait is drawn with full and firm touches. +Although she appears but five times on the scene, she fills it from +the first line of the drama to the last. Each appearance adds +effectively to the total impression. We see her first during a +criminal interview with Brachiano, contrived by her brother Flamineo. +The plot of the tragedy is developed in this scene; Vittoria +suggesting, under the metaphor of a dream, that her lover should +compass the deaths of his duchess and her husband. The dream is told +with deadly energy and ghastly picturesqueness. The cruel sneer at its +conclusion, murmured by a voluptuous woman in the ears of an +impassioned paramour, chills us with the sense of concentrated vice. +Her next appearance is before the court, on trial for her husband's +murder. The scene is celebrated, and has been much disputed by +critics. Relying on her own dauntlessness, on her beauty, and on the +protection of Brachiano, Vittoria hardly takes the trouble to plead +innocence or to rebut charges. She stands defiant, arrogant, vigilant, +on guard; flinging the lie in the teeth of her arraigners; quick to +seize the slightest sign of feebleness in their attack; protesting her +guiltlessness so loudly that she shouts truth down by brazen strength +of lung; retiring at the close with taunts; blazing throughout with +the intolerable lustre of some baleful planet. When she enters for the +third time, it is to quarrel with her paramour. He has been stung to +jealousy by a feigned love-letter. She knows that she has given him no +cause; it is her game to lure him by fidelity to marriage. Therefore +she resolves to make his mistake the instrument of her exaltation. +Beginning with torrents of abuse, hurling reproaches at him for her +own dishonour and the murder of his wife, working herself by studied +degrees into a tempest of ungovernable rage, she flings herself upon +the bed, refuses his caresses, spurns and tramples on him, till she +has brought Brachiano, terrified, humbled, fascinated, to her feet. +Then she gradually relents beneath his passionate protestations and +repeated promises of marriage. At this point she speaks but little. +We only feel her melting humour in the air, and long to see the scene +played by such an actress as Madame Bernhardt. When Vittoria next +appears, it is as Duchess by the deathbed of the Duke, her husband. +Her attendance here is necessary, but it contributes little to the +development of her character. We have learned to know her, and expect +neither womanish tears nor signs of affection at a crisis which +touches her heart less than her self-love. Webster, among his other +excellent qualities, knew how to support character by reticence. +Vittoria's silence in this act is significant; and when she retires +exclaiming, 'O me! this place is hell!' we know that it is the outcry, +not of a woman who has lost what made life dear, but of one who sees +the fruits of crime imperilled by a fatal accident. The last scene of +the play is devoted to Vittoria. It begins with a notable altercation +between her and Flamineo. She calls him 'ruffian' and 'villain,' +refusing him the reward of his vile service. This quarrel emerges in +one of Webster's grotesque contrivances to prolong a poignant +situation. Flamineo quits the stage and reappears with pistols. He +affects a kind of madness; and after threatening Vittoria, who never +flinches, he proposes they should end their lives by suicide. She +humours him, but manages to get the first shot. Flamineo falls, +wounded apparently to death. Then Vittoria turns and tramples on him +with her feet and tongue, taunting him in his death agony with the +enumeration of his crimes. Her malice and her energy are equally +infernal. Soon, however, it appears that the whole device was but a +trick of Flamineo's to test his sister. The pistol was not loaded. He +now produces a pair which are properly charged, and proceeds in good +earnest to the assassination of Vittoria. But at this critical moment +Lodovico and his masquers appear; brother and sister both die +unrepentant, defiant to the end. Vittoria's customary pride and her +familiar sneers impress her speech in these last moments with a +trenchant truth to nature:</p> + +<span style="margin-left: 8em;"><i>You</i> my death's-man!</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Methinks thou dost not look horrid enough,</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Thou hast too good a face to be a hangman:</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">If thou be, do thy office in right form;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Fall down upon thy knees, and ask forgiveness!</span><br /> +<br /> + +<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">I will be waited on in death; my servant</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Shall never go before me.</span><br /> +<br /> + +<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 8em;">Yes, I shall welcome death</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">As princes do some great ambassadors:</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">I'll meet thy weapon half-way.</span><br /> +<br /> + +<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 8.5em;">'Twas a manly blow!</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">The next thou giv'st, murder some sucking infant;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">And then thou wilt be famous.</span><br /> + + +<p>So firmly has Webster wrought the character of this white devil, that +we seem to see her before us as in a picture. 'Beautiful as the +leprosy, dazzling as the lightning,' to use a phrase of her +enthusiastic admirer Hazlitt, she takes her station like a lady in +some portrait by Paris Bordone, with gleaming golden hair twisted into +snakelike braids about her temples, with skin white as cream, bright +cheeks, dark dauntless eyes, and on her bosom, where it has been +chafed by jewelled chains, a flush of rose. She is luxurious, but not +so abandoned to the pleasures of the sense as to forget the purpose of +her will and brain. Crime and peril add zest to her enjoyment. When +arraigned in open court before the judgment-seat of deadly and +unscrupulous foes, she conceals the consciousness of guilt, and stands +erect, with fierce front, unabashed, relying on the splendour of her +irresistible beauty and the subtlety of her piercing wit. Chafing with +rage, the blood mounts and adds a lustre to her cheek. It is no flush +of modesty, but of rebellious indignation. The Cardinal, who hates +her, brands her emotion with the name of shame. She rebukes him, +hurling a jibe at his own mother. And when they point with spiteful +eagerness to the jewels blazing on her breast, to the silks and satins +that she rustles in, her husband lying murdered, she retorts:</p> + +<div class="blockquot"><p>Had I foreknown his death, as you suggest, I would have + bespoke my mourning.</p></div> + +<p>She is condemned, but not vanquished, and leaves the court with a +stinging sarcasm. They send her to a house of Convertites:</p> + +<div class="blockquot"><p><i>V.C</i>. A house of Convertites! what's that?</p> + +<p> <i>M</i>. A house of penitent whores.</p> + +<p> <i>V.C</i>. Do the noblemen of Rome Erect it for their wives, + that I am sent To lodge there?</p></div> + +<p>Charles Lamb was certainly in error? when he described Vittoria's +attitude as one of 'innocence-resembling boldness.' In the trial +scene, no less than in the scenes of altercation with Brachiano and +Flamineo, Webster clearly intended her to pass for a magnificent +vixen, a beautiful and queenly termagant. Her boldness is the audacity +of impudence, which does not condescend to entertain the thought of +guilt. Her egotism is so hard and so profound that the very victims +whom she sacrifices to ambition seem in her sight justly punished. Of +Camillo and Isabella, her husband and his wife, she says to Brachiano:</p> + +<div class="blockquot"><p>And both were struck dead by that sacred yew, In that base + shallow grave that was their due.</p></div> + + +<p>IV</p> + + +<p>It is tempting to pass from this analysis of Vittoria's life to a +consideration of Webster's drama as a whole, especially in a book +dedicated to Italian byways. For that mysterious man of genius had +explored the dark and devious paths of Renaissance vice, and had +penetrated the secrets of Italian wickedness with truly appalling +lucidity. His tragedies, though worthless as historical documents, +have singular value as commentaries upon history, as revelations to us +of the spirit of the sixteenth century in its deepest gloom.</p> + +<p>Webster's plays, owing to the condensation of their thought and the +compression of their style, are not easy to read for the first time. +He crowds so many fantastic incidents into one action, and burdens his +discourse with so much profoundly studied matter, that we rise from +the perusal of his works with a blurred impression of the fables, a +deep sense of the poet's power and personality, and an ineffaceable +recollection of one or two resplendent scenes. His Roman history-play +of 'Appius and Virginia' proves that he understood the value of a +simple plot, and that he was able, when he chose, to work one out with +conscientious calmness. But the two Italian dramas upon which his fame +is justly founded, by right of which he stands alone among the +playwrights of all literatures, are marked by a peculiar and wayward +mannerism. Each part is etched with equal effort after luminous effect +upon a background of lurid darkness; and the whole play is made up of +these parts, without due concentration on a master-motive. The +characters are definite in outline, but, taken together in the conduct +of a single plot, they seem to stand apart, like figures in a <i>tableau +vivant</i>; nor do they act and react each upon the other in the play of +interpenetrative passions. That this mannerism was deliberately +chosen, we have a right to believe. 'Willingly, and not ignorantly, in +this kind have I faulted,' is the answer Webster gives to such as may +object that he has not constructed his plays upon the classic model. +He seems to have had a certain sombre richness of tone and intricacy +of design in view, combining sensational effect and sententious +pregnancy of diction in works of laboured art, which, when adequately +represented to the ear and eye upon the stage, might at a touch obtain +the animation they now lack for chamber-students.</p> + +<p>When familiarity has brought us acquainted with his style, when we +have disentangled the main characters and circumstances from their +adjuncts, we perceive that he treats poignant and tremendous +situations with a concentrated vigour special to his genius; that he +has studied each word and trait of character, and that he has prepared +by gradual approaches and degrees of horror for the culmination of his +tragedies. The sentences which seem at first sight copied from a +commonplace book, are found to be appropriate. Brief lightning flashes +of acute perception illuminate the midnight darkness of his all but +unimaginably depraved characters. Sharp unexpected touches evoke +humanity in the <i>fantoccini</i> of his wayward art. No dramatist has +shown more consummate ability in heightening terrific effects, in +laying bare the innermost mysteries of crime, remorse, and pain, +combined to make men miserable. It has been said of Webster that, +feeling himself deficient in the first poetic qualities, he +concentrated his powers upon one point, and achieved success by sheer +force of self-cultivation. There is perhaps some truth in this. At any +rate, his genius was of a narrow and peculiar order, and he knew well +how to make the most of its limitations. Yet we must not forget that +he felt a natural bias toward the dreadful stuff with which he deals. +The mystery of iniquity had an irresistible attraction for his mind. +He was drawn to comprehend and reproduce abnormal elements of +spiritual anguish. The materials with which he builds his tragedies +are sought for in the ruined places of lost souls, in the agonies of +madness and despair, in the sarcasms of criminal and reckless atheism, +in slow tortures, griefs beyond endurance, the tempests of remorseful +death, the spasms of fratricidal bloodshed. He is often melodramatic +in the means employed to bring these psychological conditions home to +us. He makes too free use of poisoned engines, daggers, pistols, +disguised murderers, and so forth. Yet his firm grasp upon the +essential qualities of diseased and guilty human nature saves him, +even at his wildest, from the unrealities and extravagances into which +less potent artists of the <i>drame sanglant</i>—Marston, for +example—blundered.</p> + +<p>With Webster, the tendency to brood on horrors was no result of +calculation. It belonged to his idiosyncrasy. He seems to have been +suckled from birth at the breast of that <i>Mater Tenebrarum</i>, our Lady +of Darkness, whom De Quincey in one of his 'Suspiria de Profundis' +describes among the Semnai Theai, the august goddesses, the mysterious +foster-nurses of suffering humanity. He cannot say the simplest thing +without giving it a ghastly or sinister turn. If one of his characters +draws a metaphor from pie-crust, he must needs use language of the +churchyard:</p> + +<p> +<span style="margin-left: 12.5em;">You speak as if a man</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Should know what fowl is coffined in a baked meat</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Afore you cut it open.</span><br /> +</p> + +<p>Hideous similes are heaped together in illustration of the commonest +circumstances:</p> + +<div class="blockquot"><p>Places at court are but like beds in the hospital, where + this man's head lies at that man's foot, and so lower and + lower.</p> + +<p> When knaves come to preferment, they rise as gallowses are + raised in the Low Countries, one upon another's shoulders.</p> + +<p> I would sooner eat a dead pigeon taken from the soles of the + feet of one sick of the plague than kiss one of you fasting.</p></div> + +<p>A soldier is twitted with serving his master:</p> + +<p> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">As witches do their serviceable spirits,</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Even with thy prodigal blood.</span><br /> +</p> + +<p>An adulterous couple get this curse:</p> + +<p> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Like mistletoe on sear elms spent by weather,</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Let him cleave to her, and both rot together.</span><br /> +</p> + +<p>A bravo is asked:</p> + +<p> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Dost thou imagine thou canst slide on blood,</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">And not be tainted with a shameful fall?</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Or, like the black and melancholic yew-tree,</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Dost think to root thyself in dead men's graves,</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">And yet to prosper?</span><br /> +</p> + +<p>It is dangerous to extract philosophy of life from any dramatist. Yet +Webster so often returns to dark and doleful meditations, that we may +fairly class him among constitutional pessimists. Men, according to +the grimness of his melancholy, are:</p> + + +<span style="margin-left: 5.5em;">Only like dead walls or vaulted graves,</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">That, ruined, yield no echo.</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 8em;">O this gloomy world!</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">In what a shadow or deep pit of darkness</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Doth womanish and fearful mankind live!</span><br /> +<br /> + +<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">We are merely the stars' tennis-balls, struck and banded</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Which way please them.</span><br /> +<br /> + +<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Pleasure of life! what is't? only the good hours of an ague.</span><br /> + + +<p>A Duchess is 'brought to mortification,' before her strangling by the +executioner, in this high fantastical oration:</p> + +<div class="blockquot"><p>Thou art a box of worm-seed, at best but a salvatory of + green mummy. What's this flesh? A little crudded milk, + fantastical puff-paste, &c. &c.</p></div> +<p>Man's life in its totality is summed up with monastic cynicism in +these lyric verses:</p> + +<p> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Of what is't fools make such vain keeping?</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Sin their conception, their birth weeping,</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Their life a general mist of error,</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Their death a hideous storm of terror.</span><br /> +</p> + + + +<p>The greatness of the world passes by with all its glory:</p> + +<p> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Vain the ambition of kings,</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Who seek by trophies and dead things</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">To leave a living name behind,</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">And weave but nets to catch the wind.</span><br /> +</p> + +<p>It would be easy to surfeit criticism with similar examples; where +Webster is writing in sarcastic, meditative, or deliberately +terror-stirring moods. The same dark dye of his imagination shows +itself even more significantly in circumstances where, in the work of +any other artist, it would inevitably mar the harmony of the picture. +A lady, to select one instance, encourages her lover to embrace her at +the moment of his happiness. She cries:</p> + +<p> +<span style="margin-left: 12.5em;">Sir, be confident!</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">What is't distracts you? This is flesh and blood, sir;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">'Tis not the figure cut in alabaster,</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Kneels at my husband's tomb.</span><br /> +</p> + +<p>Yet so sustained is Webster's symphony of sombre tints, that we do not +feel this sepulchral language, this 'talk fit for a charnel' (to use +one of his own phrases), to be out of keeping. It sounds like a +presentiment of coming woes, which, as the drama grows to its +conclusion, gather and darken on the wretched victims of his bloody +plot.</p> + +<p>It was with profound sagacity, or led by some deep-rooted instinct, +that Webster sought the fables of his two great tragedies, 'The White +Devil' and 'The Duchess of Malfi,' in Italian annals. Whether he had +visited Italy in his youth, we cannot say; for next to nothing is +known about Webster's life. But that he had gazed long and earnestly +into the mirror held up by that enchantress of the nations in his age, +is certain. Aghast and fascinated by the sins he saw there flaunting +in the light of day—sins on whose pernicious glamour Ascham, Greene, +and Howell have insisted with impressive vehemence—Webster discerned +in them the stuff he needed for philosophy and art. Withdrawing from +that contemplation, he was like a spirit 'loosed out of hell to speak +of horrors.' Deeper than any poet of the time, deeper than any even of +the Italians, he read the riddle of the sphinx of crime. He found +there something akin to his own imaginative mood, something which he +alone could fully comprehend and interpret. From the superficial +narratives of writers like Bandello he extracted a spiritual essence +which was, if not the literal, at least the ideal, truth involved in +them.</p> + + + + + + + + +<P>The enormous and unnatural vices, the domestic crimes of cruelty, +adultery, and bloodshed, the political scheming and the subtle arts of +<p>vengeance, the ecclesiastical tyranny and craft, the cynical +scepticism and lustre of luxurious godlessness, which made Italy in +the midst of her refinement blaze like 'a bright and ominous star' +before the nations; these were the very elements in which the genius +of Webster—salamander-like in flame—could live and flourish. Only +the incidents of Italian history, or of French history in its +Italianated epoch, were capable of supplying him with the proper type +of plot. It was in Italy alone, or in an Italianated country, such as +England for a brief space in the reign of the first Stuart threatened +to become, that the well-nigh diabolical wickedness of his characters +might have been realised. An audience familiar with Italian novels +through Belleforest and Painter, inflamed by the long struggle of the +Reformation against the scarlet abominations of the Papal See, +outraged in their moral sense by the political paradoxes of +Machiavelli, horror-stricken at the still recent misdoings of Borgias +and Medici and Farnesi, alarmed by that Italian policy which had +conceived the massacre of S. Bartholomew in France, and infuriated by +that ecclesiastical hypocrisy which triumphed in the same; such an +audience were at the right point of sympathy with a poet who undertook +to lay the springs of Southern villany before them bare in a dramatic +action. But, as the old proverb puts it, 'Inglese Italianato è un +diavolo incarnato.' 'An Englishman assuming the Italian habit is a +devil in the flesh.' The Italians were depraved, but spiritually +feeble. The English playwright, when he brought them on the stage, +arrayed with intellectual power and gleaming with the lurid splendour +of a Northern fancy, made them tenfold darker and more terrible. To +the subtlety and vices of the South he added the melancholy, +meditation, and sinister insanity of his own climate. He deepened the +complexion of crime and intensified lawlessness by robbing the Italian +character of levity. Sin, in his conception of that character, was +complicated with the sense of sin, as it never had been in a +Florentine or a Neapolitan. He had not grasped the meaning of the +Machiavellian conscience, in its cold serenity and disengagement from +the dread of moral consequence. Not only are his villains stealthy, +frigid, quick to evil, merciless, and void of honour; but they brood +upon their crimes and analyse their motives. In the midst of their +audacity they are dogged by dread of coming retribution. At the crisis +of their destiny they look back upon their better days with +intellectual remorse. In the execution of their bloodiest schemes they +groan beneath the chains of guilt they wear, and quake before the +phantoms of their haunted brains.</p> + +<p>Thus passion and reflection, superstition and profanity, deliberate +atrocity and fear of judgment, are united in the same nature; and to +make the complex still more strange, the play-wright has gifted these +tremendous personalities with his own wild humour and imaginative +irony. The result is almost monstrous, such an ideal of character as +makes earth hell. And yet it is not without justification. To the +Italian text has been added the Teutonic commentary, and both are +fused by a dramatic genius into one living whole.</p> + +<p>One of these men is Flamineo, the brother of Vittoria Corombona, upon +whose part the action of the 'White Devil' depends. He has been bred +in arts and letters at the university of Padua; but being poor and of +luxurious appetites, he chooses the path of crime in courts for his +advancement. A duke adopts him for his minion, and Flamineo acts the +pander to this great man's lust. He contrives the death of his +brother-in-law, suborns a doctor to poison the Duke's wife, and +arranges secret meetings between his sister and the paramour who is to +make her fortune and his own. His mother appears like a warning Até to +prevent her daughter's crime. In his rage he cries:</p> + +<p> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">What fury raised <i>thee</i> up? Away, away!</span><br /> +</p> + +<p>And when she pleads the honour of their house he answers:</p> + +<p> +<span style="margin-left: 12em;">Shall I,</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Having a path so open and so free</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">To my preferment, still retain your milk</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">In my pale forehead?</span><br /> +</p> + +<p>Later on, when it is necessary to remove another victim, he runs his +own brother through the body and drives his mother to madness. Yet, in +the midst of these crimes, we are unable to regard him as a simple +cut-throat. His irony and reckless courting of damnation open-eyed to +get his gust of life in this world, make him no common villain. He can +be brave as well as fierce. When the Duke insults him he bandies taunt +for taunt:</p> + +<div class="blockquot"><p><i>Brach</i>. No, you pander? + +<p> <i>Flam</i>. What, me, my lord? + Am I your dog?</p> + +<p> <i>B</i>. A bloodhound; do you brave, do you stand me?</p> + +<p> <i>F</i>. Stand you! let those that have diseases run; + I need no plasters.</p> + +<p> <i>B</i>. Would you be kicked?</p> + +<p> <i>F</i>. Would you have your neck broke? + I tell you, duke, I am not in Russia; + My shins must be kept whole.</p> + +<p> <i>B</i>. Do you know me?</p> + +<p> <i>F</i>. Oh, my lord, methodically: + As in this world there are degrees of evils, + So in this world there are degrees of devils. + You're a great duke, I your poor secretary.</p></div> + +<p>When the Duke dies and his prey escapes him, the rage of +disappointment breaks into this fierce apostrophe:</p> + +<div class="blockquot"><p>I cannot conjure; but if prayers or oaths. Will get the + speech of him, though forty devils Wait on him in his livery + of flames, I'll speak to him and shake him by the hand, + Though I be blasted.</p></div> + +<p>As crimes thicken round him, and he still despairs of the reward for +which he sold himself, conscience awakes:</p> + +<p> +<span style="margin-left: 15em;">I have lived</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2.5em;">Riotously ill, like some that live in court,</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2.5em;">And sometimes when my face was full of smiles Have felt the</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2.5em;">maze of conscience in my breast.</span><br /> +</p> + +<p>The scholar's scepticism, which lies at the root of his perversity, +finds utterance in this meditation upon death:</p> + +<div class="blockquot"><p>Whither shall I go now? O Lucian, thy ridiculous purgatory! + to find Alexander the Great cobbling shoes, Pompey tagging + points, and Julius Cæsar making hair-buttons!</p> + +<p> Whether I resolve to fire, earth, water, air, or all the + elements by scruples, I know not, nor greatly care.</p></div> + +<p>At the last moment he yet can say:</p> + +<div class="blockquot"><p>We cease to grieve, cease to be Fortune's slaves, Nay, cease + to die, by dying.</p></div> + +<p>And again, with the very yielding of his spirit:</p> + +<div class="blockquot"><p>My life was a black charnel.</p></div> + +<p>It will be seen that in no sense does Flamineo resemble Iago. He is +not a traitor working by craft and calculating ability to +well-considered ends. He is the desperado frantically clutching at an +uncertain and impossible satisfaction. Webster conceives him as a +self-abandoned atheist, who, maddened by poverty and tainted by +vicious living, takes a fury to his heart, and, because the goodness +of the world has been for ever lost to him, recklessly seeks the bad.</p> + +<p>Bosola, in the 'Duchess of Malfi,' is of the same stamp. He too has +been a scholar. He is sent to the galleys 'for a notorious murder,' +and on his release he enters the service of two brothers, the Duke of +Calabria and the Cardinal of Aragon, who place him as their +intelligencer at the court of their sister.</p> + +<div class="blockquot"><p> +<p> <i>Bos</i>. It seems you would create me<br /> + One of your familiars.</p> + +<p> <i>Ferd</i>. Familiar! what's that?</p> + +<p> <i>Bos</i>. Why, a very quaint invisible devil in flesh,<br /> + An intelligencer.</p> + +<p> <i>Ferd</i>. Such a kind of thriving thing<br /> + I would wish thee; and ere long thou may'st arrive<br /> + At a higher place by it.</p></div> + +<p>Lured by hope of preferment, Bosola undertakes the office of spy, +tormentor, and at last of executioner. For:</p> + +<p> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">Discontent and want</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Is the best clay to mould a villain of.</span><br /> +</p> + +<p>But his true self, though subdued to be what he quaintly styles 'the +devil's quilted anvil,' on which 'all sins are fashioned and the blows +never heard,' continually rebels against this destiny. Compared with +Flamineo, he is less unnaturally criminal. His melancholy is more +fantastic, his despair more noble. Throughout the course of craft and +cruelty on which he is goaded by a relentless taskmaster, his nature, +hardened as it is, revolts.</p> + +<p>At the end, when Bosola presents the body of the murdered Duchess to +her brother, Webster has wrought a scene of tragic savagery that +surpasses almost any other that the English stage can show. The +sight, of his dead sister maddens Ferdinand, who, feeling the eclipse +of reason gradually absorb his faculties, turns round with frenzied +hatred on the accomplice of his fratricide. Bosola demands the price +of guilt. Ferdinand spurns him with the concentrated eloquence of +despair and the extravagance of approaching insanity. The murderer +taunts his master coldly and laconically, like a man whose life is +wrecked, who has waded through blood to his reward, and who at the +last moment discovers the sacrifice of his conscience and masculine +freedom to be fruitless. Remorse, frustrated hopes, and thirst for +vengeance convert Bosola from this hour forward into an instrument of +retribution. The Duke and his brother the Cardinal are both brought to +bloody deaths by the hand which they had used to assassinate their +sister.</p> + +<p>It is fitting that something should be said about Webster's conception +of the Italian despot. Brachiano and Ferdinand, the employers of +Flamineo and Bosola, are tyrants such as Savonarola described, and as +we read of in the chronicles of petty Southern cities. Nothing is +suffered to stand between their lust and its accomplishment. They +override the law by violence, or pervert its action to their own +advantage:</p> + +<p> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">The law to him</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Is like a foul black cobweb to a spider;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">He makes it his dwelling and a prison</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">To entangle those shall feed him.</span><br /> +</p> + +<p>They are eaten up with parasites, accomplices, and all the creatures +of their crimes:</p> + +<div class="blockquot"><p>He and his brother are like plum-trees that grow crooked + over standing pools; they are rich and over-laden with + fruit, but none but crows, pies, and caterpillars feed on + them.</p></div> + +<p>In their lives they are without a friend; for society in guilt brings +nought of comfort, and honours are but emptiness:</p> + +<p> +<span style="margin-left: 2.5em;">Glories, like glow-worms, afar off shine bright;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2.5em;">But looked to near, have neither heat nor light.</span><br /> +</p> + +<p>Their plots and counterplots drive repose far from them:</p> + +<p> +<span style="margin-left: 2.5em;">There's but three furies found in spacious hell;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2.5em;">But in a great man's breast three thousand dwell.</span><br /> +</p> + +<p>Fearful shapes afflict their fancy; shadows of ancestral crime or +ghosts of their own raising:</p> + +<p> +<span style="margin-left: 11em;">For these many years</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">None of our family dies, but there is seen</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">The shape of an old woman; which is given</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">By tradition to us to have been murdered</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">By her nephews for her riches.</span><br /> +</p> + +<p>Apparitions haunt them:</p> + +<p> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">How tedious is a guilty conscience!</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">When I look into the fish-ponds in my garden,</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Methinks I see a thing armed with a rake</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">That seems to strike at me.</span><br /> +</p> + +<p>Continually scheming against the objects of their avarice and hatred, +preparing poisons or suborning bravoes, they know that these same arts +will be employed against them. The wine-cup hides arsenic; the +headpiece is smeared with antimony; there is a dagger behind every +arras, and each shadow is a murderer's. When death comes, they meet it +trembling. What irony Webster has condensed in Brachiano's outcry:</p> + +<p> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">On pain of death, let no man name death to me;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">It is a word infinitely horrible.</span><br /> +</p> + +<p>And how solemn are the following reflections on the death of princes:</p> + +<p> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">O thou soft natural death, that art joint-twin</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">To sweetest slumber! no rough-bearded comet</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Stares on thy mild departure; the dull owl</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Beats not against thy casement, the hoarse wolf</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Scents not thy carrion: pity winds thy corse,</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Whilst horror waits on princes.</span><br /> +</p> + +<p>After their death, this is their epitaph:</p> + +<p> +<span style="margin-left: 7.5em;">These wretched eminent things</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Leave no more fame behind'em than should one</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Fall in a frost and leave his print in snow.</span><br /> +</p> + +<p>Of Webster's despots, the finest in conception and the firmest in +execution is Ferdinand of Aragon. Jealousy of his sister and avarice +take possession of him and torment him like furies. The flash of +repentance over her strangled body is also the first flash of +insanity. He survives to present the spectacle of a crazed lunatic, +and to be run through the body by his paid assassin. In the Cardinal +of Aragon, Webster paints a profligate Churchman, no less voluptuous, +blood-guilty, and the rest of it, than his brother the Duke of +Calabria. It seems to have been the poet's purpose in each of his +Italian tragedies to unmask Rome as the Papal city really was. In the +lawless desperado, the intemperate tyrant, and the godless +ecclesiastic, he portrayed the three curses from which Italian society +was actually suffering.</p> + +<p>It has been needful to dwell upon the gloomy and fantastic side of +Webster's genius. But it must not be thought that he could touch no +finer chord. Indeed, it might be said that in the domain of pathos he +is even more powerful than in that of horror. His mastery in this +region is displayed in the creation of that dignified and beautiful +woman, the Duchess of Malfi, who, with nothing in her nature, had she +but lived prosperously, to divide her from the sisterhood of gentle +ladies, walks, shrined in love and purity and conscious rectitude, +amid the snares and pitfalls of her persecutors, to die at last the +victim of a brother's fevered avarice and a desperado's egotistical +ambition. The apparatus of infernal cruelty, the dead man's hand, the +semblances of murdered sons and husband, the masque of madmen, the +dirge and doleful emblems of the tomb with which she is environed in +her prison by the torturers who seek to goad her into lunacy, are +insufficient to disturb the tranquillity and tenderness of her nature. +When the rope is being fastened to her throat, she does not spend her +breath in recriminations, but turns to the waiting-woman and says:</p> + +<p> +<span style="margin-left: 12em;">Farewell, Cariola!</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">I pray thee look thou givest my little boy</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Some syrup for his cold, and let the girl</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Say her prayers ere she sleep.</span><br /> +</p> + +<p>In the preceding scenes we have had enough, nay, over-much, of +madness, despair, and wrestling with doom. This is the calm that comes +when death is present, when the tortured soul lays down its burden of +the flesh with gladness. But Webster has not spared another touch of +thrilling pathos.</p> + +<p>The death-struggle is over; the fratricide has rushed away, a maddened +man; the murderer is gazing with remorse upon the beautiful dead body +of his lady, wishing he had the world wherewith to buy her back to +life again; when suddenly she murmurs 'Mercy!' Our interest, already +overstrained, revives with momentary hope. But the guardians of the +grave will not be exorcised; and 'Mercy!' is the last groan of the +injured Duchess.</p> + +<p>Webster showed great skill in his delineation of the Duchess. He had +to paint a woman in a hazardous situation: a sovereign stooping in her +widowhood to wed a servant; a lady living with the mystery of this +unequal marriage round her like a veil. He dowered her with no salient +qualities of intellect or heart or will; but he sustained our sympathy +with her, and made us comprehend her. To the last she is a Duchess; +and when she has divested state and bowed her head to enter the low +gate of heaven—too low for coronets—her poet shows us, in the lines +already quoted, that the woman still survives.</p> + +<p>The same pathos surrounds the melancholy portrait of Isabella in +'Vittoria Corombona.' But Isabella, in that play, serves chiefly to +enhance the tyranny of her triumphant rival. The main difficulty under +which these scenes of rarest pathos would labour, were they brought +upon the stage, is their simplicity in contrast with the ghastly and +contorted horrors that envelop them. A dialogue abounding in the +passages I have already quoted—a dialogue which bandies 'O you +screech-owl!' and 'Thou foul black cloud!'—in which a sister's +admonition to her brother to think twice of suicide assumes a form so +weird as this:</p> + +<p> +<span style="margin-left: 8.5em;">I prithee, yet remember,</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Millions are now in graves, which at last day</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Like mandrakes shall rise shrieking.—</span><br /> +</p> + +<p>such a dialogue could not be rendered save by actors strung up to a +pitch of almost frenzied tension. To do full justice to what in +Webster's style would be spasmodic were it not so weighty, and at the +same time to maintain the purity of outline and melodious rhythm of +such characters as Isabella, demands no common histrionic power.</p> + +<p>In attempting to define Webster's touch upon Italian tragic story, I +have been led perforce to concentrate attention on what is painful and +shocking to our sense of harmony in art. He was a vigorous and +profoundly imaginative playwright. But his most enthusiastic admirers +will hardly contend that good taste or moderation determined the +movement of his genius. Nor, though his insight into the essential +dreadfulness of Italian tragedy was so deep, is it possible to +maintain that his portraiture of Italian life was true to its more +superficial aspects. What place would there be for a Correggio or a +Raphael in such a world as Webster's? Yet we know that the art of +Raphael and Correggio is in exact harmony with the Italian temperament +of the same epoch which gave birth to Cesare Borgia and Bianca +Gapello. The comparatively slighter sketch of Iachimo in 'Cymbeline' +represents the Italian as he felt and lived, better than the laboured +portrait of Flamineo. Webster's Italian tragedies are consequently +true, not so much to the actual conditions of Italy, as to the moral +impression made by those conditions on a Northern imagination.</p> + +<h5><a href="#CONTENTS">CONTENTS</a></h5> + +<br /><br /> +<hr style="width: 100%;" /> + +<h2><a name="AUTUMN_WANDERINGS" id="AUTUMN_WANDERINGS" /><i>AUTUMN WANDERINGS</i></a></h2> +<hr style="width: 100%;" /> +<br /> +<p>I.—ITALIAM PETIMUS</p> + + +<p><i>Italiam Petimus!</i> We left our upland home before daybreak on a clear +October morning. There had been a hard frost, spangling the meadows +with rime-crystals, which twinkled where the sun's rays touched them. +Men and women were mowing the frozen grass with thin short Alpine +scythes; and as the swathes fell, they gave a crisp, an almost +tinkling sound. Down into the gorge, surnamed of Avalanche, our horses +plunged; and there we lost the sunshine till we reached the Bear's +Walk, opening upon the vales of Albula, and Julier, and Schyn. But up +above, shone morning light upon fresh snow, and steep torrent-cloven +slopes reddening with a hundred fading plants; now and then it caught +the grey-green icicles that hung from cliffs where summer streams had +dripped. There is no colour lovelier than the blue of an autumn sky in +the high Alps, defining ridges powdered with light snow, and melting +imperceptibly downward into the warm yellow of the larches and the +crimson of the bilberry. Wiesen was radiantly beautiful: those aërial +ranges of the hills that separate Albula from Julier soared +crystal-clear above their forests; and for a foreground, on the green +fields starred with lilac crocuses, careered a group of children on +their sledges. Then came the row of giant peaks—Pitz d'Aela, +Tinzenhorn, and Michelhorn, above the deep ravine of Albula—all seen +across wide undulating golden swards, close-shaven and awaiting +winter. Carnations hung from cottage windows in full bloom, casting +sharp angular black shadows on white walls.</p> + +<p><i>Italiam petimus!</i> We have climbed the valley of the Julier, following +its green, transparent torrent. A night has come and gone at Mühlen. +The stream still leads us up, diminishing in volume as we rise, up +through the fleecy mists that roll asunder for the sun, disclosing +far-off snowy ridges and blocks of granite mountains. The lifeless, +soundless waste of rock, where only thin winds whistle out of silence +and fade suddenly into still air, is passed. Then comes the descent, +with its forests of larch and cembra, golden and dark green upon a +ground of grey, and in front the serried shafts of the Bernina, and +here and there a glimpse of emerald lake at turnings of the road. +Autumn is the season for this landscape. Through the fading of +innumerable leaflets, the yellowing of larches, and something +vaporous in the low sun, it gains a colour not unlike that of the +lands we seek. By the side of the lake at Silvaplana the light was +strong and warm, but mellow. Pearly clouds hung over the Maloja, and +floating overhead cast shadows on the opaque water, which may +literally be compared to chrysoprase. The breadth of golden, brown, +and russet tints upon the valley at this moment adds softness to its +lines of level strength. Devotees of the Engadine contend that it +possesses an austere charm beyond the common beauty of Swiss +landscape; but this charm is only perfected in autumn. The fresh snow +on the heights that guard it helps. And then there are the forests of +dark pines upon those many knolls and undulating mountain-flanks +beside the lakes. Sitting and dreaming there in noonday sun, I kept +repeating to myself <i>Italiam petimus!</i></p> + +<p>A hurricane blew upward from the pass as we left Silvaplana, ruffling +the lake with gusts of the Italian wind. By Silz Maria we came in +sight of a dozen Italian workmen, arm linked in arm in two rows, +tramping in rhythmic stride, and singing as they went. Two of them +were such nobly built young men, that for a moment the beauty of the +landscape faded from my sight, and I was saddened. They moved to their +singing, like some of Mason's or Frederick Walker's figures, with the +free grace of living statues, and laughed as we drove by. And yet, +with all their beauty, industry, sobriety, intelligence, these +Italians of the northern valleys serve the sterner people of the +Grisons like negroes, doing their roughest work at scanty wages.</p> + +<p>So we came to the vast Alpine wall, and stood on a bare granite slab, +and looked over into Italy, as men might lean from the battlements of +a fortress. Behind lies the Alpine valley, grim, declining slowly +northward, with wind-lashed lakes and glaciers sprawling from +storm-broken pyramids of gneiss. Below spread the unfathomable depths +that lead to Lombardy, flooded with sunlight, filled with swirling +vapour, but never wholly hidden from our sight. For the blast kept +shifting the cloud-masses, and the sun streamed through in spears and +bands of sheeny rays. Over the parapet our horses dropped, down +through sable spruce and amber larch, down between tangles of rowan +and autumnal underwood. Ever as we sank, the mountains rose—those +sharp embattled precipices, toppling spires, impendent chasms blurred +with mist, that make the entrance into Italy sublime. Nowhere do the +Alps exhibit their full stature, their commanding puissance, with such +majesty as in the gates of Italy; and of all those gates I think there +is none to compare with Maloja, none certainly to rival it in +abruptness of initiation into the Italian secret. Below Vico Soprano +we pass already into the violets and blues of Titian's landscape. Then +come the purple boulders among chestnut trees; then the double +dolomite-like peak of Pitz Badin and Promontogno.</p> + +<p>It is sad that words can do even less than painting could to bring +this window-scene at Promontogno before another eye. The casement just +frames it. In the foreground are meadow slopes, thinly, capriciously +planted with chestnut trees and walnuts, each standing with its shadow +cast upon the sward. A little farther falls the torrent, foaming down +between black jaws of rain-stained granite, with the wooden buildings +of a rustic mill set on a ledge of rock. Suddenly above this landscape +soars the valley, clothing its steep sides on either hand with pines; +and there are emerald isles of pasture on the wooded flanks; and then +cliffs, where the red-stemmed larches glow; and at the summit, +shooting into ether with a swathe of mist around their basement, soar +the double peaks, the one a pyramid, the other a bold broken crystal +not unlike the Finsteraarhorn seen from Furka. These are connected by +a snowy saddle, and snow is lying on their inaccessible crags in +powdery drifts. Sunlight pours between them into the ravine. The green +and golden forests now join from either side, and now recede, +according as the sinuous valley brings their lines together or +disparts them. There is a sound of cow-bells on the meadows; and the +roar of the stream is dulled or quickened as the gusts of this October +wind sweep by or slacken. <i>Italiam petimus!</i></p> + +<p><i>Tangimus Italiam!</i> Chiavenna is a worthy key to this great gate +Italian. We walked at night in the open galleries of the cathedral +cloister—white, smoothly curving, well-proportioned loggie, enclosing +a green space, whence soars the campanile to the stars. The moon had +sunk, but her light still silvered the mountains that stand at watch +round Chiavenna; and the castle rock was flat and black against that +dreamy background. Jupiter, who walked so lately for us on the long +ridge of the Jacobshorn above our pines, had now an ample space of sky +over Lombardy to light his lamp in. Why is it, we asked each other, as +we smoked our pipes and strolled, my friend and I;—why is it that +Italian beauty does not leave the spirit so untroubled as an Alpine +scene? Why do we here desire the flower of some emergent feeling to +grow from the air, or from the soil, or from humanity to greet us? +This sense of want evoked by Southern beauty is perhaps the antique +mythopœic yearning. But in our perplexed life it takes another form, +and seems the longing for emotion, ever fleeting, ever new, +unrealised, unreal, insatiable.</p> + + +<p>II.—OVER THE APENNINES</p> + + +<p>At Parma we slept in the Albergo della Croce Bianca, which is more a +bric-à-brac shop than an inn; and slept but badly, for the good folk +<p>of Parma twanged guitars and exercised their hoarse male voices all +night in the street below. We were glad when Christian called us, at 5 +A.M., for an early start across the Apennines. This was the day of a +right Roman journey. In thirteen and a half hours, leaving Parma at 6, +and arriving in Sarzana at 7.30, we flung ourselves across the spine +of Italy, from the plains of Eridanus to the seashore of Etruscan +Luna. I had secured a carriage and extra post-horses the night before; +therefore we found no obstacles upon the road, but eager drivers, +quick relays, obsequious postmasters, change, speed, perpetual +movement. The road itself is a noble one, and nobly entertained in all +things but accommodation for travellers. At Berceto, near the summit +of the pass, we stopped just half an hour, to lunch off a mouldy hen +and six eggs; but that was all the halt we made.</p> + +<p>As we drove out of Parma, striking across the plain to the <i>ghiara</i> of +the Taro, the sun rose over the austere autumnal landscape, with its +withered vines and crimson haws. Christian, the mountaineer, who at +home had never seen the sun rise from a flat horizon, stooped from the +box to call attention to this daily recurring miracle, which on the +plain of Lombardy is no less wonderful than on a rolling sea. From the +village of Fornovo, where the Italian League was camped awaiting +Charles VIII. upon that memorable July morn in 1495, the road strikes +suddenly aside, gains a spur of the descending Apennines, and keeps +this vantage till the pass of La Cisa is reached. Many windings are +occasioned by thus adhering to arêtes, but the total result is a +gradual ascent with free prospect over plain and mountain. The +Apennines, built up upon a smaller scale than the Alps, perplexed in +detail and entangled with cross sections and convergent systems, lend +themselves to this plan of carrying highroads along their ridges +instead of following the valley.</p> + +<p>What is beautiful in the landscape of that northern watershed is the +subtlety, delicacy, variety, and intricacy of the mountain outlines. +There is drawing wherever the eye falls. Each section of the vast +expanse is a picture of tossed crests and complicated undulations. And +over the whole sea of stationary billows, light is shed like an +ethereal raiment, with spare colour—blue and grey, and parsimonious +green—in the near foreground. The detail is somewhat dry and +monotonous; for these so finely moulded hills are made up of washed +earth, the immemorial wrecks of earlier mountain ranges. Brown +villages, not unlike those of Midland England, low houses built of +stone and tiled with stone, and square-towered churches, occur at rare +intervals in cultivated hollows, where there are fields and fruit +trees. Water is nowhere visible except in the wasteful river-beds. As +we rise, we break into a wilder country, forested with oak, where oxen +and goats are browsing. The turf is starred with lilac gentian and +crocus bells, but sparely. Then comes the highest village, Berceto, +with keen Alpine air. After that, broad rolling downs of yellowing +grass and russet beech-scrub lead onward to the pass La Cisa. The +sense of breadth in composition is continually satisfied through this +ascent by the fine-drawn lines, faint tints, and immense air-spaces of +Italian landscape. Each little piece reminds one of England; but the +geographical scale is enormously more grandiose, and the effect of +majesty proportionately greater.</p> + +<p>From La Cisa the road descends suddenly; for the southern escarpment +of the Apennine, as of the Alpine, barrier is pitched at a far steeper +angle than the northern. Yet there is no view of the sea. That is +excluded by the lower hills which hem the Magra. The upper valley is +beautiful, with verdant lawns and purple hillsides breaking down into +thick chestnut woods, through which we wound at a rapid pace for +nearly an hour. The leaves were still green, mellowing to golden; but +the fruit was ripe and heavy, ready at all points to fall. In the +still October air the husks above our heads would loosen, and the +brown nuts rustle through the foliage, and with a dull short thud, +like drops of thunder-rain, break down upon the sod. At the foot of +this rich forest, wedged in between huge buttresses, we found +Pontremoli, and changed our horses here for the last time. It was +Sunday, and the little town was alive with country-folk; tall stalwart +fellows wearing peacock's feathers in their black slouched hats, and +nut-brown maids.</p> + +<p>From this point the valley of the Magra is exceeding rich with fruit +trees, vines, and olives. The tendrils of the vine are yellow now, and +in some places hued like generous wine; through their thick leaves the +sun shot crimson. In one cool garden, as the day grew dusk, I noticed +quince trees laden with pale fruit entangled with pomegranates—green +spheres and ruddy amid burnished leaves. By the roadside too were many +berries of bright hues; the glowing red of haws and hips, the amber of +the pyracanthus, the rose tints of the spindle-wood. These make autumn +even lovelier than spring. And then there was a wood of chestnuts +carpeted with pale pinkling, a place to dream of in the twilight. But +the main motive of this landscape was the indescribable Carrara range, +an island of pure form and shooting peaks, solid marble, crystalline +in shape and texture, faintly blue against the blue sky, from which +they were but scarce divided. These mountains close the valley to +south-east, and seem as though they belonged to another and more +celestial region.</p> + +<p>Soon the sunlight was gone, and moonrise came to close the day, as we +rolled onward to Sarzana, through arundo donax and vine-girdled olive +trees and villages, where contadini lounged upon the bridges. There +was a stream of sound in our ears, and in my brain a rhythmic dance of +beauties caught through the long-drawn glorious golden autumn-day.</p> + + +<p>III.—FOSDINOVO</p> + + +<p>The hamlet and the castle of Fosdinovo stand upon a mountain-spur +above Sarzana, commanding the valley of the Magra and the plains of +Luni. This is an ancient fief of the Malaspina House, and is still in +the possession of the Marquis of that name.</p> + +<p>The road to Fosdinovo strikes across the level through an avenue of +plane trees, shedding their discoloured leaves. It then takes to the +open fields, bordered with tall reeds waving from the foss on either +hand, where grapes are hanging to the vines. The country-folk allow +their vines to climb into the olives, and these golden festoons are a +great ornament to the grey branches. The berries on the trees are +still quite green, and it is a good olive season. Leaving the main +road, we pass a villa of the Malaspini, shrouded in immense thickets +of sweet bay and ilex, forming a grove for the Nymphs or Pan. Here may +you see just such clean stems and lucid foliage as Gian Bellini +painted, inch by inch, in his Peter Martyr picture. The place is +neglected now; the semicircular seats of white Carrara marble are +stained with green mosses, the altars chipped, the fountains choked +with bay leaves; and the rose trees, escaped from what were once trim +garden alleys, have gone wandering a-riot into country hedges. There +is no demarcation between the great man's villa and the neighbouring +farms. From this point the path rises, and the barren hillside is +a-bloom with late-flowering myrtles. Why did the Greeks consecrate +these myrtle-rods to Death as well as Love? Electra complained that +her father's tomb had not received the honour of the myrtle branch; +and the Athenians wreathed their swords with myrtle in memory of +Harmodius. Thinking of these matters, I cannot but remember lines of +Greek, which have themselves the rectitude and elasticity of myrtle +wands:</p> + +<p> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">καί προσπεσών +εκλυσ΄ ε΄ρημίας +τυχών</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">σπονδάς τε +λύσας ασκόν ον +Φέρω ξένοις +</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">εσπεισα +τύμβω δ΄άμφεθηκα μυρσίνας</span><br /> +</p> + +<p>As we approach Fosdinovo, the hills above us gain sublimity; the +prospect over plain and sea—the fields where Luna was, the widening +bay of Spezzia—grows ever grander. The castle is a ruin, still +capable of partial habitation, and now undergoing repair—the state in +which a ruin looks most sordid and forlorn. How strange it is, too, +that, to enforce this sense of desolation, sad dishevelled weeds cling +ever to such antique masonry! Here are the henbane, the sow-thistle, +the wild cucumber. At Avignon, at Orvieto, at Dolce Acqua, at Les +Baux, we never missed them. And they have the dusty courtyards, the +massive portals, where portcullises still threaten, of Fosdinovo to +themselves. Over the gate, and here and there on corbels, are carved +the arms of Malaspina—a barren thorn-tree, gnarled with the +geometrical precision of heraldic irony.</p> + +<p>Leaning from the narrow windows of this castle, with the spacious view +to westward, I thought of Dante. For Dante in this castle was the +guest of Moroello Malaspina, what time he was yet finishing the +'Inferno.' There is a little old neglected garden, full to south, +enclosed upon a rampart which commands the Borgo, where we found frail +canker-roses and yellow amaryllis. Here, perhaps, he may have sat +with ladies—for this was the Marchesa's pleasaunce; or may have +watched through a short summer's night, until he saw that <i>tremolar +della marina</i>, portending dawn, which afterwards he painted in the +'Purgatory.'</p> + +<p>From Fosdinovo one can trace the Magra work its way out seaward, not +into the plain where once the <i>candentia moenia Lunae</i> flashed sunrise +from their battlements, but close beside the little hills which back +the southern arm of the Spezzian gulf. At the extreme end of that +promontory, called Del Corvo, stood the Benedictine convent of S. +Croce; and it was here in 1309, if we may trust to tradition, that +Dante, before his projected journey into France, appeared and left the +first part of his poem with the Prior. Fra Ilario, such was the good +father's name, received commission to transmit the 'Inferno' to +Uguccione della Faggiuola; and he subsequently recorded the fact of +Dante's visit in a letter which, though its genuineness has been +called in question, is far too interesting to be left without +allusion. The writer says that on occasion of a journey into lands +beyond the Riviera, Dante visited this convent, appearing silent and +unknown among the monks. To the Prior's question what he wanted, he +gazed upon the brotherhood, and only answered, 'Peace!' Afterwards, in +private conversation, he communicated his name and spoke about his +poem. A portion of the 'Divine Comedy' composed in the Italian tongue +aroused Ilario's wonder, and led him to inquire why his guest had not +followed the usual course of learned poets by committing his thoughts +to Latin. Dante replied that he had first intended to write in that +language, and that he had gone so far as to begin the poem in +Virgilian hexameters. Reflection upon the altered conditions of +society in that age led him, however, to reconsider the matter; and he +was resolved to tune another lyre, 'suited to the sense of modern +men.' 'For,' said he, 'it is idle to set solid food before the lips +of sucklings.'</p> + +<p>If we can trust Fra Ilario's letter as a genuine record, which is +unhappily a matter of some doubt, we have in this narration not only a +picturesque, almost a melodramatically picturesque glimpse of the +poet's apparition to those quiet monks in their seagirt house of +peace, but also an interesting record of the destiny which presided +over the first great work of literary art in a distinctly modern +language.</p> + + +<p>IV.—LA SPEZZIA</p> + + +<p>While we were at Fosdinovo the sky filmed over, and there came a halo +round the sun. This portended change; and by evening, after we had +reached La Spezzia, earth, sea, and air were conscious of a coming +tempest. At night I went down to the shore, and paced the sea-wall +they have lately built along the Rada. The moon was up, but overdriven +with dry smoky clouds, now thickening to blackness over the whole bay, +now leaving intervals through which the light poured fitfully and +fretfully upon the wrinkled waves; and ever and anon they shuddered +with electric gleams which were not actual lightning. Heaven seemed to +be descending on the sea; one might have fancied that some powerful +charms were drawing down the moon with influence malign upon those +still resisting billows. For not as yet the gulf was troubled to its +depth, and not as yet the breakers dashed in foam against the +moonlight-smitten promontories. There was but an uneasy murmuring of +wave to wave; a whispering of wind, that stooped its wing and hissed +along the surface, and withdrew into the mystery of clouds again; a +momentary chafing of churned water round the harbour piers, subsiding +into silence petulant and sullen. I leaned against an iron stanchion +and longed for the sea's message. But nothing came to me, and the +drowned secret of Shelley's death those waves which were his grave +revealed not.</p> + +<p> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Howler and scooper of storms! capricious and dainty sea!</span><br /> +</p> + +<p>Meanwhile the incantation swelled in shrillness, the electric shudders +deepened. Alone in this elemental overture to tempest I took no note +of time, but felt, through self-abandonment to the symphonic +influence, how sea and air, and clouds akin to both, were dealing with +each other complainingly, and in compliance to some maker of unrest +within them. A touch upon my shoulder broke this trance; I turned and +saw a boy beside me in a coastguard's uniform. Francesco was on patrol +that night; but my English accent soon assured him that I was no +<i>contrabbandiere</i>, and he too leaned against the stanchion and told me +his short story. He was in his nineteenth year, and came from +Florence, where his people live in the Borgo Ognissanti. He had all +the brightness of the Tuscan folk, a sort of innocent malice mixed +with <i>espieglerie</i>. It was diverting to see the airs he gave himself +on the strength of his new military dignity, his gun, and uniform, and +night duty on the shore. I could not help humming to myself <i>Non più +andrai</i>; for Francesco was a sort of Tuscan Cherubino. We talked about +picture galleries and libraries in Florence, and I had to hear his +favourite passages from the Italian poets. And then there came the +plots of Jules Verne's stories and marvellous narrations about <i>l' +uomo cavallo, l' uomo volante, l' uomo pesce</i>. The last of these +personages turned out to be Paolo Boÿnton (so pronounced), who had +swam the Arno in his diving dress, passing the several bridges, and +when he came to the great weir 'allora tutti stare con bocca aperta.' +Meanwhile the storm grew serious, and our conversation changed. +Francesco told me about the terrible sun-stricken sand shores of the +Riviera, burning in summer noon, over which the coast-guard has to +tramp, their perils from falling stones in storm, and the trains that +come rushing from those narrow tunnels on the midnight line of march. +It is a hard life; and the thirst for adventure which drove this +boy—'il più matto di tutta la famiglia'—to adopt it, seems well-nigh +quenched. And still, with a return to Giulio Verne, he talked +enthusiastically of deserting, of getting on board a merchant ship, +and working his way to southern islands where wonders are.</p> + +<p>A furious blast swept the whole sky for a moment almost clear. The +moonlight fell, with racing cloud-shadows, upon sea and hills, the +lights of Lerici, the great <i>fanali</i> at the entrance of the gulf, and +Francesco's upturned handsome face. Then all again was whirled in mist +and foam; one breaker smote the sea wall in a surge of froth, another +plunged upon its heels; with inconceivable swiftness came rain; +lightning deluged the expanse of surf, and showed the windy trees bent +landward by the squall. It was long past midnight now, and the storm +was on us for the space of three days.</p> + + +<p>V.—PORTO VENERE</p> + + +<p>For the next three days the wind went worrying on, and a line of surf +leapt on the sea-wall always to the same height. The hills all around +were inky black and weary.</p> + +<p>At night the wild libeccio still rose, with floods of rain and +lightning poured upon the waste. I thought of the Florentine patrol. +Is he out in it, and where?</p> + +<p>At last there came a lull. When we rose on the fourth morning, the +sky was sulky, spent and sleepy after storm—the air as soft and tepid +as boiled milk or steaming flannel. We drove along the shore to Porto +Venere, passing the arsenals and dockyards, which have changed the +face of Spezzia since Shelley knew it. This side of the gulf is not so +rich in vegetation as the other, probably because it lies open to the +winds from the Carrara mountains. The chestnuts come down to the shore +in many places, bringing with them the wild mountain-side. To make up +for this lack of luxuriance, the coast is furrowed with a succession +of tiny harbours, where the fishing-boats rest at anchor. There are +many villages upon the spurs of hills, and on the headlands naval +stations, hospitals, lazzaretti, and prisons. A prickly bindweed (the +<i>Smilax Sarsaparilla</i>) forms a feature in the near landscape, with its +creamy odoriferous blossoms, coral berries, and glossy thorned leaves.</p> + +<p>A turn of the road brought Porto Venere in sight, and on its grey +walls flashed a gleam of watery sunlight. The village consists of one +long narrow street, the houses on the left side hanging sheer above +the sea. Their doors at the back open on to cliffs which drop about +fifty feet upon the water. A line of ancient walls, with mediaeval +battlements and shells of chambers suspended midway between earth and +sky, runs up the rock behind the town; and this wall is pierced with a +deep gateway above which the inn is piled. We had our lunch in a room +opening upon the town-gate, adorned with a deep-cut Pisan arch +enclosing images and frescoes—a curious episode in a place devoted to +the jollity of smugglers and seafaring folk. The whole house was such +as Tintoretto loved to paint—huge wooden rafters; open chimneys with +pent-house canopies of stone, where the cauldrons hung above logs of +chestnut; rude low tables spread with coarse linen embroidered at the +edges, and laden with plates of fishes, fruit, quaint glass, +big-bellied jugs of earthenware, and flasks of yellow wine. The people +of the place were lounging round in lazy attitudes. There were odd +nooks and corners everywhere; unexpected staircases with windows +slanting through the thickness of the town-wall; pictures of saints; +high-zoned serving women, on whose broad shoulders lay big coral +beads; smoke-blackened roofs, and balconies that opened on the sea. +The house was inexhaustible in motives for pictures.</p> + +<p>We walked up the street, attended by a rabble rout of boys—<i>diavoli +scatenati</i>—clean, grinning, white-teethed, who kept incessantly +shouting, 'Soldo, soldo!' I do not know why these sea-urchins are so +far more irrepressible than their land brethren. But it is always thus +in Italy. They take an imperturbable delight in noise and mere +annoyance. I shall never forget the sea-roar of Porto Venere, with +that shrill obligate, 'Soldo, soldo, soldo!' rattling like a dropping +fire from lungs of brass.</p> + +<p>At the end of Porto Venere is a withered and abandoned city, climbing +the cliffs of S. Pietro; and on the headland stands the ruined church, +built by Pisans with alternate rows of white and black marble, upon +the site of an old temple of Venus. This is a modest and pure piece of +Gothic architecture, fair in desolation, refined and dignified, and +not unworthy in its grace of the dead Cyprian goddess. Through its +broken lancets the sea-wind whistles and the vast reaches of the +Tyrrhene gulf are seen. Samphire sprouts between the blocks of marble, +and in sheltered nooks the caper hangs her beautiful purpureal snowy +bloom.</p> + +<p>The headland is a bold block of white limestone stained with red. It +has the pitch of Exmoor stooping to the sea near Lynton. To north, as +one looks along the coast, the line is broken by Porto Fino's +amethystine promontory; and in the vaporous distance we could trace +the Riviera mountains, shadowy and blue. The sea came roaring, rolling +in with tawny breakers; but, far out, it sparkled in pure azure, and +the cloud-shadows over it were violet. Where Corsica should have been +seen, soared banks of fleecy, broad-domed alabaster clouds.</p> + +<p>This point, once dedicated to Venus, now to Peter—both, be it +remembered, fishers of men—is one of the most singular in Europe. The +island of Palmaria, rich in veined marbles, shelters the port; so that +outside the sea rages, while underneath the town, reached by a narrow +strait, there is a windless calm. It was not without reason that our +Lady of Beauty took this fair gulf to herself; and now that she has +long been dispossessed, her memory lingers yet in names. For Porto +Venere remembers her, and Lerici is only Eryx. There is a grotto here, +where an inscription tells us that Byron once 'tempted the Ligurian +waves.' It is just such a natural sea-cave as might have inspired +Euripides when he described the refuge of Orestes in 'Iphigenia.'</p> + + +<p>VI.—LERICI</p> + + +<p>Libeccio at last had swept the sky clear. The gulf was ridged with +foam-fleeced breakers, and the water churned into green, tawny wastes. +But overhead there flew the softest clouds, all silvery, dispersed in +flocks. It is the day for pilgrimage to what was Shelley's home.</p> + +<p>After following the shore a little way, the road to Lerici breaks into +the low hills which part La Spezzia from Sarzana. The soil is red, and +overgrown with arbutus and pinaster, like the country around Cannes. +Through the scattered trees it winds gently upwards, with frequent +views across the gulf, and then descends into a land rich with +olives—a genuine Riviera landscape, where the mountain-slopes are +hoary, and spikelets of innumerable light-flashing leaves twinkle +against a blue sea, misty-deep. The walls here are not unfrequently +adorned with basreliefs of Carrara marble—saints and madonnas very +delicately wrought, as though they were love-labours of sculptors who +had passed a summer on this shore. San Terenzio is soon discovered low +upon the sands to the right, nestling under little cliffs; and then +the high-built castle of Lerici comes in sight, looking across, the bay +to Porto Venere—one Aphrodite calling to the other, with the foam +between. The village is piled around its cove with tall and +picturesquely coloured houses; the molo and the fishing-boats lie just +beneath the castle. There is one point of the descending carriage road +where all this gracefulness is seen, framed by the boughs of olive +branches, swaying, wind-ruffled, laughing the many-twinkling smiles of +ocean back from their grey leaves. Here <i>Erycina ridens</i> is at home. +And, as we stayed to dwell upon the beauty of the scene, came women +from the bay below—barefooted, straight as willow wands, with +burnished copper bowls upon their heads. These women have the port of +goddesses, deep-bosomed, with the length of thigh and springing ankles +that betoken strength no less than elasticity and grace. The hair of +some of them was golden, rippling in little curls around brown brows +and glowing eyes. Pale lilac blent with orange on their dress, and +coral beads hung from their ears.</p> + +<p>At Lerici we took a boat and pushed into the rolling breakers. +Christian now felt the movement of the sea for the first time. This +was rather a rude trial, for the grey-maned monsters played, as it +seemed, at will with our cockle-shell, tumbling in dolphin curves to +reach the shore. Our boatmen knew all about Shelley and the Casa +Magni. It is not at Lerici, but close to San Terenzio, upon the south +side of the village. Looking across the bay from the molo, one could +clearly see its square white mass, tiled roof, and terrace built on +rude arcades with a broad orange awning. Trelawny's description hardly +prepares one for so considerable a place. I think the English exiles +of that period must have been exacting if the Casa Magni seemed to +them no better than a bathing-house.</p> + +<p>We left our boat at the jetty, and walked through some gardens to the +villa. There we were kindly entertained by the present occupiers, +who, when I asked them whether such visits as ours were not a great +annoyance, gently but feelingly replied: 'It is not so bad now as it +used to be.' The English gentleman who rents the Casa Magni has known +it uninterruptedly since Shelley's death, and has used it for +<i>villeggiatura</i> during the last thirty years. We found him in the +central sitting-room, which readers of Trelawny's 'Recollections' have +so often pictured to themselves. The large oval table, the settees +round the walls, and some of the pictures are still unchanged. As we +sat talking, I laughed to think of that luncheon party, when Shelley +lost his clothes, and came naked, dripping with sea-water, into the +room, protected by the skirts of the sympathising waiting-maid. And +then I wondered where they found him on the night when he stood +screaming in his sleep, after the vision of his veiled self, with its +question, '<i>Siete soddisfatto</i>?'</p> + +<p>There were great ilexes behind the house in Shelley's time, which have +been cut down, and near these he is said to have sat and written the +'Triumph of Life.' Some new houses, too, have been built between the +villa and the town; otherwise the place is unaltered. Only an awning +has been added to protect the terrace from the sun. I walked out on +this terrace, where Shelley used to listen to Jane's singing. The sea +was fretting at its base, just as Mrs. Shelley says it did when the +Don Juan disappeared.</p> + +<p>From San Terenzio we walked back to Lerici through olive woods, +attended by a memory which toned the almost overpowering beauty of the +place to sadness.</p> + + +<p>VII.—VIAREGGIO</p> + + +<p>The same memory drew us, a few days later, to the spot where +Shelley's body was burned. Viareggio is fast becoming a fashionable +watering-place for the people of Florence and Lucca, who seek fresher +air and simpler living than Livorno offers. It has the usual new inns +and improvised lodging-houses of such places, built on the outskirts +of a little fishing village, with a boundless stretch of noble sands. +There is a wooden pier on which we walked, watching the long roll of +waves, foam-flaked, and quivering with moonlight. The Apennines faded +into the grey sky beyond, and the sea-wind was good to breathe. There +is a feeling of 'immensity, liberty, action' here, which is not common +in Italy. It reminds us of England; and to-night the Mediterranean had +the rough force of a tidal sea.</p> + +<p>Morning revealed beauty enough in Viareggio to surprise even one who +expects from Italy all forms of loveliness. The sand-dunes stretch for +miles between the sea and a low wood of stone pines, with the Carrara +hills descending from their glittering pinnacles by long lines to the +headlands of the Spezzian Gulf. The immeasurable distance was all +painted in sky-blue and amethyst; then came the golden green of the +dwarf firs; and then dry yellow in the grasses of the dunes; and then +the many-tinted sea, with surf tossed up against the furthest cliffs. +It is a wonderful and tragic view, to which no painter but the Roman +Costa has done justice; and he, it may be said, has made this +landscape of the Carrarese his own. The space between sand and +pine-wood was covered with faint, yellow, evening primroses. They +flickered like little harmless flames in sun and shadow, and the +spires of the Carrara range were giant flames transformed to marble. +The memory of that day described by Trelawny in a passage of immortal +English prose, when he and Byron and Leigh Hunt stood beside the +funeral pyre, and libations were poured, and the 'Cor Cordium' was +found inviolate among the ashes, turned all my thoughts to flame +beneath the gentle autumn sky.</p> + +<p>Still haunted by these memories, we took the carriage road to Pisa, +over which Shelley's friends had hurried to and fro through those last +days. It passes an immense forest of stone-pines—aisles and avenues; +undergrowth of ilex, laurustinus, gorse, and myrtle; the crowded +cyclamens, the solemn silence of the trees; the winds hushed in their +velvet roof and stationary domes of verdure.</p> +<h5><a href="#CONTENTS">CONTENTS</a></h5> +<br /><br /> +<hr style="width: 100%;" /> +<h2><a name="PARMA" id="PARMA" /><i>PARMA</i></a></h2> +<hr style="width: 100%;" /> +<br /> +<p>Parma is perhaps the brightest <i>Residenzstadt</i> of the second class in +Italy. Built on a sunny and fertile tract of the Lombard plain, within +view of the Alps, and close beneath the shelter of the Apennines, it +shines like a well-set gem with stately towers and cheerful squares in +the midst of verdure. The cities of Lombardy are all like large +country houses: walking out of their gates, you seem to be stepping +from a door or window that opens on a trim and beautiful garden, where +mulberry-tree is married to mulberry by festoons of vines, and where +the maize and sunflower stand together in rows between patches of flax +and hemp. But it is not in order to survey the union of well-ordered +husbandry with the civilities of ancient city-life that we break the +journey at Parma between Milan and Bologna. We are attracted rather by +the fame of one great painter, whose work, though it may be studied +piecemeal in many galleries of Europe, in Parma has a fulness, +largeness, and mastery that can nowhere else be found. In Parma alone +Correggio challenges comparison with Raphael, with Tintoret, with all +the supreme decorative painters who have deigned to make their art the +handmaid of architecture. Yet even in the cathedral and the church of +S. Giovanni, where Correggio's frescoes cover cupola and chapel wall, +we could scarcely comprehend his greatness now—so cruelly have time +and neglect dealt with those delicate dream-shadows of celestial +fairyland—were it not for an interpreter, who consecrated a lifetime +to the task of translating his master's poetry of fresco into the +prose of engraving. That man was Paolo Toschi—a name to be ever +venerated by all lovers of the arts; since without his guidance we +should hardly know what to seek for in the ruined splendours of the +domes of Parma, or even seeking, how to find the object of our search. +Toschi's labour was more effectual than that of a restorer however +skilful, more loving than that of a follower however faithful. He +respected Correggio's handiwork with religious scrupulousness, adding +not a line or tone or touch of colour to the fading frescoes; but he +lived among them, aloft on scaffoldings, and face to face with the +originals which he designed to reproduce. By long and close +familiarity, by obstinate and patient interrogation, he divined +Correggio's secret, and was able at last to see clearly through the +mist of cobweb and mildew and altar smoke, and through the still more +cruel travesty of so-called restoration. What he discovered, he +faithfully committed first to paper in water colours, and then to +copperplate with the burin, so that we enjoy the privilege of seeing +Correggio's masterpieces as Toschi saw them, with the eyes of genius +and of love and of long scientific study. It is not too much to say +that some of Correggio's most charming compositions—for example, the +dispute of S. Augustine and S. John—have been resuscitated from the +grave by Toschi's skill. The original offers nothing but a mouldering +surface from which the painter's work has dropped in scales. The +engraving presents a design which we doubt not was Correggio's, for it +corresponds in all particulars to the style and spirit of the master. +To be critical in dealing with so successful an achievement of +restoration and translation is difficult. Yet it may be admitted once +and for all that Toschi has not unfrequently enfeebled his original. +Under his touch Correggio loses somewhat of his sensuous audacity, his +dithyrambic ecstasy, and approaches the ordinary standard of +prettiness and graceful beauty. The Diana of the Camera di S. Paolo, +for instance, has the strong calm splendour of a goddess: the same +Diana in Toschi's engraving seems about to smile with girlish joy. In +a word, the engraver was a man of a more common stamp—more timid and +more conventional than the painter. But this is after all a trifling +deduction from the value of his work.</p> + +<p>Our debt to Paolo Toschi is such that it would be ungrateful not to +seek some details of his life. The few that can be gathered even at +Parma are brief and bald enough. The newspaper articles and funeral +panegyrics which refer to him are as barren as all such occasional +notices in Italy have always been; the panegyrist seeming more anxious +about his own style than eager to communicate information. Yet a bare +outline of Toschi's biography may be supplied. He was born at Parma in +1788. His father was cashier of the post-office, and his mother's name +was Anna Maria Brest. Early in his youth he studied painting at Parma +under Biagio Martini; and in 1809 he went to Paris, where he learned +the art of engraving from Bervic and of etching from Oortman. In Paris +he contracted an intimate friendship with the painter Gérard. But +after ten years he returned to Parma, where he established a company +and school of engravers in concert with his friend Antonio Isac. Maria +Louisa, the then Duchess, under whose patronage the arts flourished at +Parma (witness Bodoni's exquisite typography), soon recognised his +merit, and appointed him Director of the Ducal Academy. He then formed +the project of engraving a series of the whole of Correggio's +frescoes. The undertaking was a vast one. Both the cupolas of S. John +and the cathedral, together with the vault of the apse of S. +Giovanni<a name="FNanchor_10_10" id="FNanchor_10_10" /></a><a href="#Footnote_10_10" class="fnanchor">[10]</a> and various portions of the side aisles, and the +so-called Camera di S. Paolo, are covered by frescoes of Correggio and +his pupil Parmegiano. These frescoes have suffered so much from +neglect and time, and from unintelligent restoration, that it is +difficult in many cases to determine their true character. Yet Toschi +did not content himself with selections, or shrink from the task of +deciphering and engraving the whole. He formed a school of disciples, +among whom were Carlo Raimondi of Milan, Antonio Costa of Venice, +Edward Eichens of Berlin, Aloisio Juvara of Naples, Antonio Dalcò, +Giuseppe Magnani, and Lodovico Bisola of Parma, and employed them as +assistants in his work. Death overtook him in 1854, before it was +finished, and now the water-colour drawings which are exhibited in the +Gallery of Parma prove to what extent the achievement fell short of +his design. Enough, however, was accomplished to place the chief +masterpieces of Correggio beyond the possibility of utter oblivion.</p> + +<p>To the piety of his pupil Carlo Raimondi, the bearer of a name +illustrious in the annals of engraving, we owe a striking portrait of +Toschi. The master is represented on his seat upon the scaffold in the +dizzy half-light of the dome. The shadowy forms of saints and angels +are around him. He has raised his eyes from his cartoon to study one +of these. In his right hand is the opera-glass with which he +scrutinises the details of distant groups. The upturned face, with its +expression of contemplative intelligence, is like that of an +astronomer accustomed to commerce with things above the sphere of +common life, and ready to give account of all that he has gathered +from his observation of a world not ours. In truth the world created +by Correggio and interpreted by Toschi is very far removed from that +of actual existence. No painter has infused a more distinct +individuality into his work, realising by imaginative force and +powerful projection an order of beauty peculiar to himself, before +which it is impossible to remain quite indifferent. We must either +admire the manner of Correggio, or else shrink from it with the +distaste which sensual art is apt to stir in natures of a severe or +simple type.</p> + +<p>What, then, is the Correggiosity of Correggio? In other words, what is +the characteristic which, proceeding from the personality of the +artist, is impressed on all his work? The answer to this question, +though by no means simple, may perhaps be won by a process of gradual +analysis. The first thing that strikes us in the art of Correggio is, +that he has aimed at the realistic representation of pure unrealities. +His saints and angels are beings the like of whom we have hardly seen +upon the earth. Yet they are displayed before us with all the movement +and the vivid truth of nature. Next we feel that what constitutes the +superhuman, visionary quality of these creatures, is their uniform +beauty of a merely sensuous type. They are all created for pleasure, +not for thought or passion or activity or heroism. The uses of their +brains, their limbs, their every feature, end in enjoyment; innocent +and radiant wantonness is the condition of their whole existence. +Correggio conceived the universe under the one mood of sensuous joy: +his world was bathed in luxurious light; its inhabitants were capable +of little beyond a soft voluptuousness. Over the domain of tragedy he +had no sway, and very rarely did he attempt to enter on it: nothing, +for example, can be feebler than his endeavour to express anguish in +the distorted features of Madonna, S. John, and the Magdalen, who are +bending over the dead body of a Christ extended in the attitude of +languid repose. In like manner he could not deal with subjects which +demand a pregnancy of intellectual meaning. He paints the three Fates +like young and joyous Bacchantes, <ins class="correction" + Title="Transcriber's note: original reads 'Place'"> +places</ins> rose-garlands and +thyrsi in their hands instead of the distaff and the thread of human +destinies, and they might figure appropriately upon the panels of a +banquet-chamber in Pompeii. In this respect Correggio might be termed +the Rossini of painting. The melodies of the 'Stabat Mater'—<i>Fac ut +portem</i> or <i>Quis est homo</i>—are the exact analogues in music of +Correggio's voluptuous renderings of grave or mysterious motives. Nor, +again, did he possess that severe and lofty art of composition which +subordinates the fancy to the reason, and which seeks for the highest +intellectual beauty in a kind of architectural harmony supreme above +the melodies of gracefulness in detail. The Florentines and those who +shared their spirit—Michelangelo and Lionardo and Raphael—deriving +this principle of design from the geometrical art of the Middle Ages, +converted it to the noblest uses in their vast well-ordered +compositions. But Correggio ignored the laws of scientific +construction. It was enough for him to produce a splendid and +brilliant effect by the life and movement of his figures, and by the +intoxicating beauty of his forms. His type of beauty, too, is by no +means elevated. Lionardo painted souls whereof the features and the +limbs are but an index. The charm of Michelangelo's ideal is like a +flower upon a tree of rugged strength. Raphael aims at the loveliness +which cannot be disjoined from goodness. But Correggio is contented +with bodies 'delicate and desirable.' His angels are genii +disimprisoned from the perfumed chalices of flowers, houris of an +erotic paradise, elemental spirits of nature wantoning in Eden in her +prime. To accuse the painter of conscious immorality or of what is +stigmatised as sensuality, would be as ridiculous as to class his +seraphic beings among the products of the Christian imagination. They +belong to the generation of the fauns; like fauns, they combine a +certain savage wildness, a dithyrambic ecstasy of inspiration, a +delight in rapid movement as they revel amid clouds or flowers, with +the permanent and all-pervading sweetness of the master's style. When +infantine or childlike, these celestial sylphs are scarcely to be +distinguished for any noble quality of beauty from Murillo's cherubs, +and are far less divine than the choir of children who attend Madonna +in Titian's 'Assumption.' But in their boyhood and their prime of +youth, they acquire a fulness of sensuous vitality and a radiance that +are peculiar to Correggio. The lily-bearer who helps to support S. +Thomas beneath the dome of the cathedral at Parma, the groups of +seraphs who crowd behind the Incoronata of S. Giovanni, and the two +wild-eyed open-mouthed S. Johns stationed at each side of the +celestial throne, are among the most splendid instances of the +adolescent loveliness conceived by Correggio. Where the painter found +their models may be questioned but not answered; for he has made them +of a different fashion from the race of mortals: no court of Roman +emperor or Turkish sultan, though stocked with the flowers of +Bithynian and Circassian youth, have seen their like. Mozart's +Cherubino seems to have sat for all of them. At any rate they +incarnate the very spirit of the songs he sings.</p> + +<p>As a consequence of this predilection for sensuous and voluptuous +forms, Correggio had no power of imagining grandly or severely. +Satisfied with material realism in his treatment even of sublime +mysteries, he converts the hosts of heaven into a 'fricassee of +frogs,' according to the old epigram. His apostles, gazing after the +Virgin who has left the earth, are thrown into attitudes so violent +and so dramatically foreshortened, that seen from below upon the +pavement of the cathedral, little of their form is distinguishable +except legs and arms in vehement commotion. Very different is Titian's +conception of this scene. To express the spiritual meaning, the +emotion of Madonna's transit, with all the pomp which colour and +splendid composition can convey, is Titian's sole care; whereas +Correggio appears to have been satisfied with realising the tumult of +heaven rushing to meet earth, and earth straining upwards to ascend to +heaven in violent commotion—a very orgasm of frenetic rapture. The +essence of the event is forgotten: its external manifestation alone is +presented to the eye; and only the accessories of beardless angels and +cloud-encumbered cherubs are really beautiful amid a surge of limbs in +restless movement. More dignified, because designed with more repose, +is the Apocalypse of S. John painted upon the cupola of S. Giovanni. +The apostles throned on clouds, with which the dome is filled, gaze +upward to one point. Their attitudes are noble; their form is heroic; +in their eyes there is the strange ecstatic look by which Correggio +interpreted his sense of supernatural vision: it is a gaze not of +contemplation or deep thought, but of wild half-savage joy, as if +these saints also had become the elemental genii of cloud and air, +spirits emergent from ether, the salamanders of an empyrean +intolerable to mortal sense. The point on which their eyes converge, +the culmination of their vision, is the figure of Christ. Here all the +weakness of Correggio's method is revealed. He had undertaken to +realise by no ideal allegorical suggestion, by no symbolism of +architectural grouping, but by actual prosaic measurement, by +corporeal form in subjection to the laws of perspective and +foreshortening, things which in their very essence admit of only a +figurative revelation. Therefore his Christ, the centre of all those +earnest eyes, is contracted to a shape in which humanity itself is +mean, a sprawling figure which irresistibly reminds one of a frog. The +clouds on which the saints repose are opaque and solid; cherubs in +countless multitudes, a swarm of merry children, crawl about upon +these feather-beds of vapour, creep between the legs of the apostles, +and play at bopeep behind their shoulders. There is no propriety in +their appearance there. They take no interest in the beatific vision. +They play no part in the celestial symphony; nor are they capable of +more than merely infantine enjoyment. Correggio has sprinkled them +lavishly like living flowers about his cloudland, because he could not +sustain a grave and solemn strain of music, but was forced by his +temperament to overlay the melody with roulades. Gazing at these +frescoes, the thought came to me that Correggio was like a man +listening to sweetest flute-playing, and translating phrase after +phrase as they passed through his fancy into laughing faces, breezy +tresses, and rolling mists. Sometimes a grander cadence reached his +ear; and then S. Peter with the keys, or S. Augustine of the mighty +brow, or the inspired eyes of S. John, took form beneath his pencil. +But the light airs returned, and rose and lily faces bloomed again for +him among the clouds. It is not therefore in dignity or sublimity that +Correggio excels, but in artless grace and melodious tenderness. The +Madonna della Scala clasping her baby with a caress which the little +child returns, S. Catherine leaning in a rapture of ecstatic love to +wed the infant Christ, S. Sebastian in the bloom of almost boyish +beauty, are the so-called sacred subjects to which the painter was +adequate, and which he has treated with the voluptuous tenderness we +find in his pictures of Leda and Danae and Io. Could these saints and +martyrs descend from Correggio's canvas, and take flesh, and breathe, +and begin to live; of what high action, of what grave passion, of what +exemplary conduct in any walk of life would they be capable? That is +the question which they irresistibly suggest; and we are forced to +answer, None! The moral and religious world did not exist for +Correggio. His art was but a way of seeing carnal beauty in a dream +that had no true relation to reality.</p> + + +<p>Correggio's sensibility to light and colour was exactly on a par with +his feeling for form. He belongs to the poets of chiaroscuro and the +poets of colouring; but in both regions he maintains the individuality +so strongly expressed in his choice of purely sensuous beauty. +Tintoretto makes use of light and shade for investing his great +compositions with dramatic intensity. Rembrandt interprets sombre and +fantastic moods of the mind by golden gloom and silvery irradiation, +translating thought into the language of penumbral mystery. Lionardo +studies the laws of light scientifically, so that the proper roundness +and effect of distance should be accurately rendered, and all the +subtleties of nature's smiles be mimicked. Correggio is content with +fixing on his canvas the ανη΄ριθμον +γέλασμα, the +many-twinkling laughter of light in motion, rained down through fleecy +clouds or trembling foliage, melting into half-shadows, bathing and +illuminating every object with a soft caress. There are no tragic +contrasts of splendour sharply defined on blackness, no mysteries of +half-felt and pervasive twilight, no studied accuracies of noonday +clearness in his work. Light and shadow are woven together on his +figures like an impalpable Coan gauze, aërial and transparent, +enhancing the palpitations of voluptuous movement which he loved. His +colouring, in like manner, has none of the superb and mundane pomp +which the Venetians affected; it does not glow or burn or beat the +fire of gems into our brain; joyous and wanton, it seems to be exactly +such a beauty-bloom as sense requires for its satiety. There is +nothing in his hues to provoke deep passion or to stimulate the +yearnings of the soul: the pure blushes of the dawn and the crimson +pyres of sunset are nowhere in the world that he has painted. But that +chord of jocund colour which may fitly be married to the smiles of +light, the blues which are found in laughing eyes, the pinks that +tinge the cheeks of early youth, and the warm yet silvery tones of +healthy flesh, mingle as in a marvellous pearl-shell on his pictures. +Both chiaroscuro and colouring have this supreme purpose in art, to +effect the sense like music, and like music to create a mood in the +soul of the spectator. Now the mood which Correggio stimulates is one +of natural and thoughtless pleasure. To feel his influence, and at the +same moment to be the subject of strong passion, or fierce lust, or +heroic resolve, or profound contemplation, or pensive melancholy, is +impossible. Wantonness, innocent because unconscious of sin, immoral +because incapable of any serious purpose, is the quality which +prevails in all that he has painted. The pantomimes of a Mohammedan +paradise might be put upon the stage after patterns supplied by this +least spiritual of painters.</p> + +<p>It follows from this analysis that the Correggiosity of Correggio, +that which sharply distinguished him from all previous artists, was +the faculty of painting a purely voluptuous dream of beautiful beings +in perpetual movement, beneath the laughter of morning light, in a +world of never-failing April hues. When he attempts to depart from the +fairyland of which he was the Prospero, and to match himself with the +masters of sublime thought or earnest passion, he proves his weakness. +But within his own magic circle he reigns supreme, no other artist +having blended the witcheries of colouring, chiaroscuro, and faunlike +loveliness of form into a harmony so perfect in its sensuous charm. +Bewitched by the strains of the siren, we pardon affectations of +expression, emptiness of meaning, feebleness of composition, +exaggerated and melodramatic attitudes. There is what Goethe called a +demonic influence in the art of Correggio: 'In poetry,' said Goethe to +Eckermann, 'especially in that which is unconscious, before which +reason and understanding fall short, and which therefore produces +effects so far surpassing all conception, there is always something +demonic.' It is not to be wondered that Correggio, possessed of this +demonic power in the highest degree, and working to a purely sensuous +end, should have exercised a fatal influence over art. His successors, +attracted by an intoxicating loveliness which they could not analyse, +which had nothing in common with the reason or the understanding, but +was like a glamour cast upon the soul in its most secret +sensibilities, threw themselves blindly into the imitation of +Correggio's faults. His affectation, his want of earnest thought, his +neglect of composition, his sensuous realism, his all-pervading +sweetness, his infantine prettiness, his substitution of +thaumaturgical effects for conscientious labour, admitted only too +easy imitation, and were but too congenial with the spirit of the late +Renaissance. Cupolas through the length and breadth of Italy began to +be covered with clouds and simpering cherubs in the convulsions of +artificial ecstasy. The attenuated elegance of Parmigiano, the +attitudinising of Anselmi's saints and angels, and a general sacrifice +of what is solid and enduring to sentimental gewgaws on the part of +all painters who had submitted to the magic of Correggio, proved how +easy it was to go astray with the great master. Meanwhile no one could +approach him in that which was truly his own—the delineation of a +transient moment in the life of sensuous beauty, the painting of a +smile on Nature's face, when light and colour tremble in harmony with +the movement of joyous living creatures. Another demonic nature of a +far more powerful type contributed his share to the ruin of art in +Italy. Michelangelo's constrained attitudes and muscular anatomy were +imitated by painters and sculptors, who thought that the grand style +lay in the presentation of theatrical athletes, but who could not +seize the secret whereby the great master made even the bodies of men +and women—colossal trunks and writhen limbs—interpret the meanings +of his deep and melancholy soul.</p> + +<p>It is a sad law of progress in art, that when the æsthetic impulse is +on the wane, artists should perforce select to follow the weakness +rather than the vigour, of their predecessors. While painting was in +the ascendant, Raphael could take the best of Perugino and discard the +worst; in its decadence Parmigiano reproduces the affectations of +Correggio, and Bernini carries the exaggerations of Michelangelo to +absurdity. All arts describe a parabola. The force which produces +them causes them to rise throughout their growth up to a certain +point, and then to descend more gradually in a long and slanting line +of regular declension. There is no real break of continuity. The end +is the result of simple exhaustion. Thus the last of our Elizabethan +dramatists, Shirley and Crowne and Killigrew, pushed to its ultimate +conclusion the principle inherent in Marlowe, not attempting to break +new ground, nor imitating the excellences so much as the defects of +their forerunners. Thus too the Pointed style of architecture in +England gave birth first to what is called the Decorated, next to the +Perpendicular, and finally expired in the Tudor. Each step was a step +of progress—at first for the better—at last for the worse—but +logical, continuous, necessitated.<a name="FNanchor_11_11" id="FNanchor_11_11" /></a><a href="#Footnote_11_11" class="fnanchor">[11]</a></p> + +<p>It is difficult to leave Correggio without at least posing the +question of the difference between moralised and merely sensual art. +Is all art excellent in itself and good in its effect that is +beautiful and earnest? There is no doubt that Correggio's work is in a +way most beautiful; and it bears unmistakable signs of the master +having given himself with single-hearted devotion to the expression of +that phase of loveliness which he could apprehend. In so far we must +admit that his art is both excellent and solid. Yet we are unable to +conceive that any human being could be made better—stronger for +endurance, more fitted for the uses of the world, more sensitive to +what is noble in nature—by its contemplation. At the best Correggio +does but please us in our lighter moments, and we are apt to feel that +the pleasure he has given is of an enervating kind. To expect obvious +morality of any artist is confessedly absurd. It is not the artist's +province to preach, or even to teach, except by remote suggestion. Yet +the mind of the artist may be highly moralised, and then he takes rank +not merely with the ministers to refined pleasure, but also with the +educators of the world. He may, for example, be penetrated with a just +sense of humanity like Shakspere, or with a sublime temperance like +Sophocles, instinct with prophetic intuition like Michelangelo, or +with passionate experience like Beethoven. The mere sight of the work +of Pheidias is like breathing pure health-giving air. Milton and Dante +were steeped in religious patriotism; Goethe was pervaded with +philosophy, and Balzac with scientific curiosity. Ariosto, Cervantes, +and even Boccaccio are masters in the mysteries of common life. In all +these cases the tone of the artist's mind is felt throughout his work: +what he paints, or sings, or writes, conveys a lesson while it +pleases. On the other hand, depravity in an artist or a poet +percolates through work which has in it nothing positive of evil, and +a very miasma of poisonous influence may rise from the apparently +innocuous creations of a tainted soul. Now Correggio is moralised in +neither way—neither as a good nor as a bad man, neither as an acute +thinker nor as a deliberate voluptuary. He is simply sensuous. On his +own ground he is even very fresh and healthy: his delineation of +youthful maternity, for example, is as true as it is beautiful; and +his sympathy with the gleefulness of children is devoid of +affectation. We have then only to ask ourselves whether the defect in +him of all thought and feeling which is not at once capable of +graceful fleshly incarnation, be sufficient to lower him in the scale +of artists. This question must of course be answered according to our +definition of the purposes of art. There is no doubt that the most +highly organised art—that which absorbs the most numerous human +qualities and effects a harmony between the most complex elements—is +the noblest. Therefore the artist who combines moral elevation and +power of thought with a due appreciation of sensual beauty, is more +elevated and more beneficial than one whose domain is simply that of +carnal loveliness. Correggio, if this be so, must take a comparatively +low rank. Just as we welcome the beautiful athlete for the radiant +life that is in him, but bow before the personality of Sophocles, +whose perfect form enshrined a noble and highly educated soul, so we +gratefully accept Correggio for his grace, while we approach the +consummate art of Michelangelo with reverent awe. It is necessary in +æsthetics as elsewhere to recognise a hierarchy of excellence, the +grades of which are determined by the greater or less +comprehensiveness of the artist's nature expressed in his work. At the +same time, the calibre of the artist's genius must be estimated; for +eminent greatness even of a narrow kind will always command our +admiration: and the amount of his originality has also to be taken +into account. What is unique has, for that reason alone, a claim on +our consideration. Judged in this way, Correggio deserves a place, +say, in the sweet planet Venus, above the moon and above Mercury, +among the artists who have not advanced beyond the contemplations +which find their proper outcome in love. Yet, even thus, he aids the +culture of humanity. 'We should take care,' said Goethe, apropos of +Byron, to Eckermann, 'not to be always looking for culture in the +decidedly pure and moral. Everything that is great promotes +cultivation as soon as we are aware of it.'</p> +<h5><a href="#CONTENTS">CONTENTS</a></h5> +<br /><br /> +<hr style="width: 100%;" /> +<h2><a name="CANOSSA" id="CANOSSA" /><i>CANOSSA</i></a></h2> +<hr style="width: 100%;" /> +<br /> +<p>Italy is less the land of what is venerable in antiquity, than of +beauty, by divine right young eternally in spite of age. This is due +partly to her history and art and literature, partly to the temper of +the races who have made her what she is, and partly to her natural +advantages. Her oldest architectural remains, the temples of Paestum +and Girgenti, or the gates of Perugia and Volterra, are so adapted to +Italian landscape and so graceful in their massive strength, that we +forget the centuries which have passed over them. We leap as by a +single bound from the times of Roman greatness to the new birth of +humanity in the fourteenth century, forgetting the many years during +which Italy, like the rest of Europe, was buried in what our ancestors +called Gothic barbarism. The illumination cast upon the classic period +by the literature of Rome and by the memory of her great men is so +vivid, that we feel the days of the Republic and the Empire to be near +us; while the Italian Renaissance is so truly a revival of that former +splendour, a resumption of the music interrupted for a season, that it +is extremely difficult to form any conception of the five long +centuries which elapsed between the Lombard invasion in 568 and the +accession of Hildebrand to the Pontificate in 1073. So true is it that +nothing lives and has reality for us but what is spiritual, +intellectual, self-possessed in personality and consciousness. When +the Egyptian priest said to Solon, 'You Greeks are always children,' +he intended a gentle sarcasm, but he implied a compliment; for the +quality of imperishable youth belonged to the Hellenic spirit, and has +become the heritage of every race which partook of it. And this spirit +in no common degree has been shared by the Italians of the earlier and +the later classic epoch. The land is full of monuments pertaining to +those two brilliant periods; and whenever the voice of poet has spoken +or the hand of artist has been at work, that spirit, as distinguished +from the spirit of mediaevalism, has found expression.</p> + +<p>Yet it must be remembered that during the five centuries above +mentioned Italy was given over to Lombards, Franks, and Germans. +Feudal institutions, alien to the social and political ideals of the +classic world, took a tolerably firm hold on the country. The Latin +element remained silent, passive, in abeyance, undergoing an important +transformation. It was in the course of those five hundred years that +the Italians as a modern people, separable from their Roman ancestors, +were formed. At the close of this obscure passage in Italian history, +their communes, the foundation of Italy's future independence, and the +source of her peculiar national development, appeared in all the +vigour and audacity of youth. At its close the Italian genius +presented Europe with its greatest triumph of constructive ability, +the Papacy. At its close again the series of supreme artistic +achievements, starting with the architecture of churches and public +palaces, passing on to sculpture and painting, and culminating in +music, which only ended with the temporary extinction of national +vitality in the seventeenth century, was simultaneously begun in all +the provinces of the peninsula.</p> + +<p>So important were these five centuries of incubation for Italy, and so +little is there left of them to arrest the attention of the student, +dazzled as he is by the ever-living glories of Greece, Rome, and the +Renaissance, that a visit to the ruins of Canossa is almost a duty. +There, in spite of himself, by the very isolation and forlorn +abandonment of what was once so formidable a seat of feudal despotism +and ecclesiastical tyranny, he is forced to confront the obscure but +mighty spirit of the middle ages. There, if anywhere, the men of those +iron-hearted times anterior to the Crusades will acquire distinctness +for his imagination, when he recalls the three main actors in the +drama enacted on the summit of Canossa's rock in the bitter winter of +1077.</p> + +<p>Canossa lies almost due south of Reggio d'Emilia, upon the slopes of +the Apennines. Starting from Reggio, the carriage-road keeps to the +plain for some while in a westerly direction, and then bends away +towards the mountains. As we approach their spurs, the ground begins +to rise. The rich Lombard tilth of maize and vine gives place to +English-looking hedgerows, lined with oaks, and studded with handsome +dark tufts of green hellebore. The hills descend in melancholy +earth-heaps on the plain, crowned here and there with ruined castles. +Four of these mediaeval strongholds, called Bianello, Montevetro, +Monteluzzo, and Montezano, give the name of Quattro Castelli to the +commune. The most important of them, Bianello, which, next to Canossa, +was the strongest fortress possessed by the Countess Matilda and her +ancestors, still presents a considerable mass of masonry, roofed and +habitable. The group formed a kind of advance-guard for Canossa +against attack from Lombardy. After passing Quattro Castelli we enter +the hills, climbing gently upwards between barren slopes of ashy grey +earth—the <i>débris</i> of most ancient Apennines—crested at favourable +points with lonely towers. In truth the whole country bristles with +ruined forts, making it clear that during the middle ages Canossa was +but the centre of a great military system, the core and kernel of a +fortified position which covered an area to be measured by scores of +square miles, reaching far into the mountains, and buttressed on the +plain. As yet, however, after nearly two hours' driving, Canossa has +not come in sight. At last a turn in the road discloses an opening in +the valley of the Enza to the left: up this lateral gorge we see first +the Castle of Rossena on its knoll of solid red rock, flaming in the +sunlight; and then, further withdrawn, detached from all surrounding +objects, and reared aloft as though to sweep the sea of waved and +broken hills around it, a sharp horn of hard white stone. That is +Canossa—the <i>alba Canossa</i>, the <i>candida petra</i> of its rhyming +chronicler. There is no mistaking the commanding value of its +situation. At the same time the brilliant whiteness of Canossa's +rocky hill, contrasted with the red gleam of Rossena, and outlined +against the prevailing dulness of these earthy Apennines, secures a +picturesque individuality concordant with its unique history and +unrivalled strength.</p> + +<p>There is still a journey of two hours before the castle can be +reached: and this may be performed on foot or horseback. The path +winds upward over broken ground; following the <i>arête</i> of curiously +jumbled and thwarted hill-slopes; passing beneath the battlements of +Rossena, whence the unfortunate Everelina threw herself in order to +escape the savage love of her lord and jailor; and then skirting those +horrid earthen <i>balze</i> which are so common and so unattractive a +feature of Apennine scenery. The most hideous <i>balze</i> to be found in +the length and breadth of Italy are probably those of Volterra, from +which the citizens themselves recoil with a kind of terror, and which +lure melancholy men by intolerable fascination on to suicide. For ever +crumbling, altering with frost and rain, discharging gloomy glaciers +of slow-crawling mud, and scarring the hillside with tracts of +barrenness, these earth-precipices are among the most ruinous and +discomfortable failures of nature. They have not even so much of +wildness or grandeur as forms, the saving merit of nearly all wasteful +things in the world, and can only be classed with the desolate +<i>ghiare</i> of Italian river-beds.</p> + +<p>Such as they are, these <i>balze</i> form an appropriate preface to the +gloomy and repellent isolation of Canossa. The rock towers from a +narrow platform to the height of rather more than 160 feet from its +base. The top is fairly level, forming an irregular triangle, of which +the greatest length is about 260 feet, and the width about 100 feet. +Scarcely a vestige of any building can be traced either upon the +platform or the summit, with the exception of a broken wall and +windows supposed to belong to the end of the sixteenth century. The +ancient castle, with its triple circuit of walls, enclosing barracks +for the garrison, lodgings for the lord and his retainers, a stately +church, a sumptuous monastery, storehouses, stables, workshops, and +all the various buildings of a fortified stronghold, have utterly +disappeared. The very passage of approach cannot be ascertained; for +it is doubtful whether the present irregular path that scales the +western face of the rock be really the remains of some old staircase, +corresponding to that by which Mont S. Michel in Normandy is ascended. +One thing is tolerably certain—that the three walls of which we hear +so much from the chroniclers, and which played so picturesque a part +in the drama of Henry IV.'s penance, surrounded the cliff at its base, +and embraced a large acreage of ground. The citadel itself must have +been but the acropolis or keep of an extensive fortress.</p> + +<p>There has been plenty of time since the year 1255, when the people of +Reggio sacked and destroyed Canossa, for Nature to resume her +undisputed sway by obliterating the handiwork of men; and at present +Nature forms the chief charm of Canossa. Lying one afternoon of May on +the crisp short grass at the edge of a precipice purple with iris in +full blossom, I surveyed, from what were once the battlements of +Matilda's castle, a prospect than which there is none more +spirit-stirring by reason of its beauty and its manifold associations +in Europe. The lower castle-crowded hills have sunk. Reggio lies at +our feet, shut in between the crests of Monte Carboniano and Monte +delle Celle. Beyond Reggio stretches Lombardy—the fairest and most +memorable battlefield of nations, the richest and most highly +cultivated garden of civilised industry. Nearly all the Lombard cities +may be seen, some of them faint like bluish films of vapour, some +clear with dome and spire. There is Modena and her Ghirlandina. Carpi, +Parma, Mirandola, Verona, Mantua, lie well defined and russet on the +flat green map; and there flashes a bend of lordly Po; and there the +Euganeans rise like islands, telling us where Padua and Ferrara nestle +in the amethystine haze Beyond and above all to the northward sweep +the Alps, tossing their silvery crests up into the cloudless sky from +the violet mist that girds their flanks and drowns their basements. +Monte Adamello and the Ortler, the cleft of the Brenner, and the sharp +peaks of the Venetian Alps are all distinctly visible. An eagle flying +straight from our eyrie might traverse Lombardy and light among the +snow-fields of the Valtelline between sunrise and sundown. Nor is the +prospect tame to southward. Here the Apennines roll, billow above +billow, in majestic desolation, soaring to snow summits in the +Pellegrino region. As our eye attempts to thread that labyrinth of +hill and vale, we tell ourselves that those roads wind to Tuscany, and +yonder stretches Garfagnana, where Ariosto lived and mused in +honourable exile from the world he loved.</p> + +<p>It was by one of the mountain passes that lead from Lucca northward +that the first founder of Canossa is said to have travelled early in +the tenth century. Sigifredo, if the tradition may be trusted, was +very wealthy; and with his money he bought lands and signorial rights +at Reggio, bequeathing to his children, when he died about 945, a +patrimony which they developed into a petty kingdom. Azzo, his second +son, fortified Canossa, and made it his principal place of residence. +When Lothair, King of Italy, died in 950, leaving his beautiful widow +to the ill-treatment of his successor, Berenger, Adelaide found a +protector in this Azzo. She had been imprisoned on the Lake of Garda; +but managing to escape in man's clothes to Mantua, she thence sent +news of her misfortunes to Canossa. Azzo lost no time in riding with +his knights to her relief, and brought her back in safety to his +mountain fastness. It is related that Azzo was afterwards instrumental +in calling Otho into Italy and procuring his marriage with Adelaide, +in consequence of which events Italy became a fief of the Empire. +Owing to the part he played at this time, the Lord of Canossa was +recognised as one of the most powerful vassals of the German Emperor +in Lombardy. Honours were heaped upon him; and he grew so rich and +formidable that Berenger, the titular King of Italy, laid siege to his +fortress of Canossa. The memory of this siege, which lasted for three +years and a half, is said still to linger in the popular traditions of +the place. When Azzo died at the end of the tenth century, he left to +his son Tedaldo the title of Count of Reggio and Modena; and this +title was soon after raised to that of Marquis. The Marches governed +as Vicar of the Empire by Tedaldo included Reggio, Modena, Ferrara, +Brescia, and probably Mantua. They stretched, in fact, across the +north of Italy, forming a quadrilateral between the Alps and +Apennines. Like his father, Tedaldo adhered consistently to the +Imperial party; and when he died and was buried at Canossa, he in his +turn bequeathed to his son Bonifazio a power and jurisdiction +increased by his own abilities. Bonifazio held the state of a +sovereign at Canossa, adding the duchy of Tuscany to his father's +fiefs, and meeting the allied forces of the Lombard barons in the +field of Coviolo like an independent potentate. His power and +splendour were great enough to rouse the jealousy of the Emperor; but +Henry III. seems to have thought it more prudent to propitiate this +proud vassal, and to secure his kindness, than to attempt his +humiliation. Bonifazio married Beatrice, daughter of Frederick, Duke +of Lorraine—her whose marble sarcophagus in the Campo Santo at Pisa +is said to have inspired Niccola Pisano with his new style of +sculpture. Their only child, Matilda, was born, probably at Lucca, in +1046; and six years after her birth, Bonifazio, who had swayed his +subjects like an iron-handed tyrant, was murdered. To the great House +of Canossa, the rulers of one-third of Italy, there now remained only +two women, Bonifazio's widow Beatrice, and his daughter Matilda. +Beatrice married Godfrey, Duke of Lorraine, who was recognised by +Henry IV. as her husband and as feudatory of the Empire in the full +place of Boniface. He died about 1070; and in this year Matilda was +married by proxy to his son, Godfrey the Hunchback, whom, however, +she did not see till the year 1072. The marriage was not a happy one; +and the question has even been disputed among Matilda's biographers +whether it was ever consummated. At any rate it did not last long; for +Godfrey was killed at Antwerp in 1076. In this year Matilda also lost +her mother, Beatrice, who died at Pisa, and was buried in the +cathedral.</p> + +<p>By this rapid enumeration of events it will be seen how the power and +honours of the House of Canossa, including Tuscany, Spoleto, and the +fairest portions of Lombardy, had devolved upon a single woman of the +age of thirty at the moment when the fierce quarrel between Pope and +Emperor began in the year 1076. Matilda was destined to play a great, +a striking, and a tragic part in the opening drama of Italian history. +Her decided character and uncompromising course of action have won for +her the name of 'la gran donna d'Italia,' and have caused her memory +to be blessed or execrated, according as the temporal pretensions and +spiritual tyranny of the Papacy may have found supporters or opponents +in posterity. She was reared from childhood in habits of austerity and +unquestioning piety. Submission to the Church became for her not +merely a rule of conduct, but a passionate enthusiasm. She identified +herself with the cause of four successive Popes, protected her idol, +the terrible and iron-hearted Hildebrand, in the time of his +adversity; remained faithful to his principles after his death; and +having served the Holy See with all her force and all that she +possessed through all her lifetime, she bequeathed her vast dominions +to it on her deathbed. Like some of the greatest mediaeval +characters—like Hildebrand himself—Matilda was so thoroughly of one +piece, that she towers above the mists of ages with the massive +grandeur of an incarnated idea. She is for us the living statue of a +single thought, an undivided impulse, the more than woman born to +represent her age. Nor was it without reason that Dante symbolised in +her the love of Holy Church; though students of the 'Purgatory' will +hardly recognise the lovely maiden, singing and plucking flowers +beside the stream of Lethe, in the stern and warlike chatelaine of +Canossa. Unfortunately we know but little of Matilda's personal +appearance. Her health was not strong; and it is said to have been +weakened, especially in her last illness, by ascetic observances. Yet +she headed her own troops, armed with sword and cuirass, avoiding +neither peril nor fatigue in the quarrels of her master Gregory. Up to +the year 1622 two strong suits of mail were preserved at Quattro +Castelli, which were said to have been worn by her in battle, and +which were afterwards sold on the market-place at Reggio. This habit +of donning armour does not, however, prove that Matilda was +exceptionally vigorous; for in those savage times she could hardly +have played the part of heroine without participating personally in +the dangers of warfare.</p> + +<p>No less monumental in the plastic unity of his character was the monk +Hildebrand, who for twenty years before his elevation to the Papacy +had been the maker of Popes and the creator of the policy of Rome. +When he was himself elected in the year 1073, and had assumed the name +of Gregory VII., he immediately began to put in practice the plans for +Church aggrandisement he had slowly matured during the previous +quarter of a century. To free the Church from its subservience to the +Empire, to assert the Pope's right to ratify the election of the +Emperor and to exercise the right of jurisdiction over him, to place +ecclesiastical appointments in the sole power of the Roman See, and to +render the celibacy of the clergy obligatory, were the points he had +resolved to carry. Taken singly and together, these chief aims of +Hildebrand's policy had but one object—the magnification of the +Church at the expense both of the people and of secular authorities, +and the further separation of the Church from the ties and sympathies +of common life that bound it to humanity. To accuse Hildebrand of +personal ambition would be but shallow criticism, though it is clear +that his inflexible and puissant nature found a savage selfish +pleasure in trampling upon power and humbling pride at warfare with +his own. Yet his was in no sense an egotistic purpose like that which +moved the Popes of the Renaissance to dismember Italy for their +bastards. Hildebrand, like Matilda, was himself the creature of a +great idea. These two potent personalities completely understood each +other, and worked towards a single end. Tho mythopoeic fancy might +conceive of them as the male and female manifestations of one dominant +faculty, the spirit of ecclesiastical dominion incarnate in a man and +woman of almost super-human mould.</p> + +<p>Opposed to them, as the third actor in the drama of Canossa, was a man +of feebler mould. Henry IV., King of Italy, but not yet crowned +Emperor, had none of his opponents' unity of purpose or monumental +dignity of character. At war with his German feudatories, browbeaten +by rebellious sons, unfaithful and cruel to his wife, vacillating in +the measures he adopted to meet his divers difficulties, at one time +tormented by his conscience into cowardly submission, and at another +treasonably neglectful of the most solemn obligations, Henry was no +match for the stern wills against which he was destined to break in +unavailing passion. Early disagreements with Gregory had culminated in +his excommunication. The German nobles abandoned his cause; and Henry +found it expedient to summon a council in Augsburg for the settlement +of matters in dispute between the Empire and the Papacy. Gregory +expressed his willingness to attend this council, and set forth from +Rome accompanied by the Countess Matilda in December 1076. He did not, +however, travel further than Vercelli, for news here reached him that +Henry was about to enter Italy at the head of a powerful army. Matilda +hereupon persuaded the Holy Father to place himself in safety among +her strongholds of Canossa. Thither accordingly Gregory retired before +the ending of that year; and bitter were the sarcasms uttered by the +imperial partisans in Italy upon this protection offered by a fair +countess to the monk who had been made a Pope. The foul calumnies of +that bygone age would be unworthy of even so much as this notice, if +we did not trace in them the ineradicable Italian tendency to cynical +insinuation—a tendency which has involved the history of the +Renaissance Popes in an almost impenetrable mist of lies and +exaggerations. Henry was in truth upon his road to Italy, but with a +very different attendance from that which Gregory expected. +Accompanied by Bertha, his wife, and his boy son Conrad, the Emperor +elect left Spires in the condition of a fugitive, crossed Burgundy, +spent Christmas at Besançon, and journeyed to the foot of Mont Cenis. +It is said that he was followed by a single male servant of mean +birth; and if the tale of his adventures during the passage of the +Alps can be credited, history presents fewer spectacles more +picturesque than the straits to which this representative of the +Cæsars, this supreme chief of feudal civility, this ruler destined +still to be the leader of mighty armies and the father of a line of +monarchs, was exposed. Concealing his real name and state, he induced +some shepherds to lead him and his escort through the thick snows to +the summit of Mont Cenis; and by the help of these men the imperial +party were afterwards let down the snow-slopes on the further side by +means of ropes. Bertha and her women were sewn up in hides and dragged +across the frozen surface of the winter drifts. It was a year +memorable for its severity. Heavy snow had fallen in October, which +continued ice-bound and unyielding till the following April.</p> + +<p>No sooner had Henry reached Turin, than he set forward again in the +direction of Canossa. The fame of his arrival had preceded him, and +he found that his party was far stronger in Italy than he had ventured +to expect. Proximity to the Church of Rome divests its fulminations of +half their terrors. The Italian bishops and barons, less superstitious +than the Germans, and with greater reason to resent the domineering +graspingness of Gregory, were ready to espouse the Emperor's cause. +Henry gathered a formidable force as he marched onward across +Lombardy; and some of the most illustrious prelates and nobles of the +South were in his suite. A more determined leader than Henry proved +himself to be, might possibly have forced Gregory to some +accommodation, in spite of the strength of Canossa and the Pope's +invincible obstinacy, by proper use of these supporters. Meanwhile the +adherents of the Church were mustered in Matilda's fortress; among +whom may be mentioned Azzo, the progenitor of Este and Brunswick; +Hugh, Abbot of Clugny; and the princely family of Piedmont. 'I am +become a second Rome,' exclaims Canossa, in the language of Matilda's +rhyming chronicler; 'all honours are mine; I hold at once both Pope +and King, the princes of Italy and those of Gaul, those of Rome, and +those from far beyond the Alps.' The stage was ready; the audience had +assembled; and now the three great actors were about to meet. +Immediately upon his arrival at Canossa, Henry sent for his cousin, +the Countess Matilda, and besought her to intercede for him with +Gregory. He was prepared to make any concessions or to undergo any +humiliations, if only the ban of excommunication might be removed; +nor, cowed as he was by his own superstitious conscience, and by the +memory of the opposition he had met with from his German vassals, does +he seem to have once thought of meeting force with force, and of +returning to his northern kingdom triumphant in the overthrow of +Gregory's pride. Matilda undertook to plead his cause before the +Pontiff. But Gregory was not to be moved so soon to mercy. 'If Henry +has in truth repented,' he replied, 'let him lay down crown and +sceptre, and declare himself unworthy of the name of king.' The only +point conceded to the suppliant was that he should be admitted in the +garb of a penitent within the precincts of the castle. Leaving his +retinue outside the walls, Henry entered the first series of outworks, +and was thence conducted to the second, so that between him and the +citadel itself there still remained the third of the surrounding +bastions. Here he was bidden to wait the Pope's pleasure; and here, in +the midst of that bitter winter weather, while the fierce winds of the +Apennines were sweeping sleet upon him in their passage from Monte +Pellegrino to the plain, he knelt barefoot, clothed in sackcloth, +fasting from dawn till eve, for three whole days. On the morning of +the fourth day, judging that Gregory was inexorable, and that his suit +would not be granted, Henry retired to the Chapel of S. Nicholas, +which stood within this second precinct. There he called to his aid +the Abbot of Clugny and the Countess, both of whom were his relations, +and who, much as they might sympathise with Gregory, could hardly be +supposed to look with satisfaction on their royal kinsman's outrage. +The Abbot told Henry that nothing in the world could move the Pope; +but Matilda, when in turn he fell before her knees and wept, engaged +to do for him the utmost. She probably knew that the moment for +unbending had arrived, and that her imperious guest could not with +either decency or prudence prolong the outrage offered to the civil +chief of Christendom. It was the 25th of January when the Emperor +elect was brought, half dead with cold and misery, into the Pope's +presence. There he prostrated himself in the dust, crying aloud for +pardon. It is said that Gregory first placed his foot upon Henry's +neck, uttering these words of Scripture: 'Super aspidem et basiliscum +ambulabis, et conculcabis leonem et draconem,' and that then he raised +him from the earth and formally pronounced his pardon. The prelates +and nobles who took part in this scene were compelled to guarantee +with their own oaths the vows of obedience pronounced by Henry; so +that in the very act of reconciliation a new insult was offered to +him. After this Gregory said mass, and permitted Henry to communicate; +and at the close of the day a banquet was served, at which the King +sat down to meat with the Pope and the Countess.</p> + +<p>It is probable that, while Henry's penance was performed in the castle +courts beneath the rock, his reception by the Pope, and all that +subsequently happened, took place in the citadel itself. But of this +we have no positive information. Indeed the silence of the chronicles +as to the topography of Canossa is peculiarly unfortunate for lovers +of the picturesque in historic detail, now that there is no +possibility of tracing the outlines of the ancient building. Had the +author of the 'Vita Mathildis' (Muratori, vol. v.) foreseen that his +beloved Canossa would one day be nothing but a mass of native rock, he +would undoubtedly have been more explicit on these points; and much +that is vague about an event only paralleled by our Henry II.'s +penance before Becket's shrine at Canterbury, might now be clear.</p> + +<p>Very little remains to be told about Canossa. During the same year, +1077, Matilda made the celebrated donation of her fiefs to Holy +Church. This was accepted by Gregory in the name of S. Peter, and it +was confirmed by a second deed during the pontificate of Urban IV. in +1102. Though Matilda subsequently married Guelfo d'Este, son of the +Duke of Bavaria, she was speedily divorced from him; nor was there any +heir to a marriage ridiculous by reason of disparity of age, the +bridegroom being but eighteen, while the bride was forty-three in the +year of her second nuptials. During one of Henry's descents into +Italy, he made an unsuccessful attack upon Canossa, assailing it at +the head of a considerable force one October morning in 1092. +Matilda's biographer informs us that the mists of autumn veiled his +beloved fortress from the eyes of the beleaguerers. They had not even +the satisfaction of beholding the unvanquished citadel; and, what was +more, the banner of the Emperor was seized and dedicated as a trophy +in the Church of S. Apollonio. In the following year the Countess +opened her gates of Canossa to an illustrious fugitive, Adelaide, the +wife of her old foeman, Henry, who had escaped with difficulty from +the insults and the cruelty of her husband. After Henry's death, his +son, the Emperor Henry V., paid Matilda a visit in her castle of +Bianello, addressed her by the name of mother, and conferred upon her +the vice-regency of Liguria. At the age of sixty-nine she died, in +1115, at Bondeno de' Roncori, and was buried, not among her kinsmen at +Canossa, but in an abbey of S. Benedict near Mantua. With her expired +the main line of the noble house she represented; though Canossa, now +made a fief of the Empire in spite of Matilda's donation, was given to +a family which claimed descent from Bonifazio's brother Conrad—a +young man killed in the battle of Coviolo. This family, in its turn, +was extinguished in the year 1570; but a junior branch still exists at +Verona. It will be remembered that Michelangelo Buonarroti claimed +kinship with the Count of Canossa; and a letter from the Count is +extant acknowledging the validity of his pretension.</p> + +<p>As far back as 1255 the people of Reggio destroyed the castle; nor did +the nobles of Canossa distinguish themselves in subsequent history +among those families who based their despotisms on the <i>débris</i> of the +Imperial power in Lombardy. It seemed destined that Canossa and all +belonging to it should remain as a mere name and memory of the +outgrown middle ages. Estensi, Carraresi, Visconti, Bentivogli, and +Gonzaghi belong to a later period of Lombard history, and mark the +dawn of the Renaissance.</p> + +<p>As I lay and mused that afternoon of May upon the short grass, cropped +by two grey goats, whom a little boy was tending, it occurred to me to +ask the woman who had served me as guide, whether any legend remained +in the country concerning the Countess Matilda. She had often, +probably, been asked this question by other travellers. Therefore she +was more than usually ready with an answer, which, as far as I could +understand her dialect, was this. Matilda was a great and potent +witch, whose summons the devil was bound to obey. One day she aspired, +alone of all her sex, to say mass; but when the moment came for +sacring the elements, a thunderbolt fell from the clear sky, and +reduced her to ashes.<a name="FNanchor_12_12" id="FNanchor_12_12" /></a><a href="#Footnote_12_12" class="fnanchor">[12]</a> That the most single-hearted handmaid of the +Holy Church, whose life was one long devotion to its ordinances, +should survive in this grotesque myth, might serve to point a satire +upon the vanity of earthly fame. The legend in its very extravagance +is a fanciful distortion of the truth.</p> +<h5><a href="#CONTENTS">CONTENTS</a></h5> + +<br /><br /> +<hr style="width: 100%;" /> +<h2><a name="FORNOVO" id="FORNOVO" /><i>FORNOVO</i></a></h2> + +<hr style="width: 100%;" /> +<br /> +<p>In the town of Parma there is one surpassingly strange relic of the +past. The palace of the Farnesi, like many a haunt of upstart tyranny +and beggared pride on these Italian plains, rises misshapen and +disconsolate above the stream that bears the city's name. The squalor +of this grey-brown edifice of formless brick, left naked like the +palace of the same Farnesi at Piacenza, has something even horrid in +it now that only vague memory survives of its former uses. The +princely <i>sprezzatura</i> of its ancient occupants, careless of these +unfinished courts and unroofed galleries amid the splendour of their +purfled silks and the glitter of their torchlight pageantry, has +yielded to sullen cynicism—the cynicism of arrested ruin and +unreverend age. All that was satisfying to the senses and distracting +to the eyesight in their transitory pomp has passed away, leaving a +sinister and naked shell. Remembrance can but summon up the crimes, +the madness, the trivialities of those dead palace-builders. An +atmosphere of evil clings to the dilapidated walls, as though the +tainted spirit of the infamous Pier Luigi still possessed the spot, on +which his toadstool brood of princelings sprouted in the mud of their +misdeeds. Enclosed in this huge labyrinth of brickwork is the relic of +which I spoke. It is the once world-famous Teatro Farnese, raised in +the year 1618 by Ranunzio Farnese for the marriage of Odoardo Farnese +with Margaret of Austria. Giambattista Aleotti, a native of +pageant-loving Ferrara, traced the stately curves and noble orders of +the galleries, designed the columns that support the raftered roof, +marked out the orchestra, arranged the stage, and breathed into the +whole the spirit of Palladio's most heroic neo-Latin style. Vast, +built of wood, dishevelled, with broken statues and blurred coats of +arms, with its empty scene, its uncurling frescoes, its hangings all +in rags, its cobwebs of two centuries, its dust and mildew and +discoloured gold—this theatre, a sham in its best days, and now that +ugliest of things, a sham unmasked and naked to the light of day, is +yet sublime, because of its proportioned harmony, because of its grand +Roman manner. The sight and feeling of it fasten upon the mind and +abide in the memory like a nightmare,—like one of Piranesi's weirdest +and most passion-haunted etchings for the <i>Carceri</i>. Idling there at +noon in the twilight of the dust-bedarkened windows, we fill the tiers +of those high galleries with ladies, the space below with grooms and +pages; the stage is ablaze with torches, and an Italian Masque, such +as our Marlowe dreamed of, fills the scene. But it is impossible to +dower these fancies with even such life as in healthier, happier +ruins phantasy may lend to imagination's figments. This theatre is +like a maniac's skull, empty of all but unrealities and mockeries of +things that are. The ghosts we raise here could never have been living +men and women: <i>questi sciaurati non fur mai vivi.</i> So clinging is the +sense of instability that appertains to every fragment of that dry-rot +tyranny which seized by evil fortune in the sunset of her golden day +on Italy.</p> + +<p>In this theatre I mused one morning after visiting Fornovo; and the +thoughts suggested by the battlefield found their proper atmosphere in +the dilapidated place. What, indeed, is the Teatro Farnese but a +symbol of those hollow principalities which the despot and the +stranger built in Italy after the fatal date of 1494, when national +enthusiasm and political energy were expiring in a blaze of art, and +when the Italians as a people had ceased to be; but when the phantom +of their former life, surviving in high works of beauty, was still +superb by reason of imperishable style! How much in Italy of the +Renaissance was, like this plank-built plastered theatre, a glorious +sham! The sham was seen through then; and now it stands unmasked: and +yet, strange to say, so perfect is its form that we respect the sham +and yield our spirits to the incantation of its music.</p> + +<p>The battle of Fornovo, as modern battles go, was a paltry affair; and +even at the time it seemed sufficiently without result. Yet the +trumpets which rang on July 6, 1495, for the onset, sounded the +<i>réveil</i> of the modern world; and in the inconclusive termination of +the struggle of that day, the Italians were already judged and +sentenced as a nation. The armies who met that morning represented +Italy and France,—Italy, the Sibyl of Renaissance; France, the Sibyl +of Revolution. At the fall of evening Europe was already looking +northward; and the last years of the fifteenth century were opening +an act which closed in blood at Paris on the ending of the eighteenth.</p> + +<p>If it were not for thoughts like these, no one, I suppose, would take +the trouble to drive for two hours out of Parma to the little village +of Fornovo—a score of bare grey hovels on the margin of a pebbly +river-bed beneath the Apennines. The fields on either side, as far as +eye can see, are beautiful indeed in May sunlight, painted here with +flax, like shallow sheets of water reflecting a pale sky, and there +with clover red as blood. Scarce unfolded leaves sparkle like +flamelets of bright green upon the knotted vines, and the young corn +is bending all one way beneath a western breeze. But not less +beautiful than this is the whole broad plain of Lombardy; nor are the +nightingales louder here than in the acacia trees around Pavia. As we +drive, the fields become less fertile, and the hills encroach upon the +level, sending down their spurs upon that waveless plain like blunt +rocks jutting out into a tranquil sea. When we reach the bed of the +Taro, these hills begin to narrow on either hand, and the road rises. +Soon they open out again with gradual curving lines, forming a kind of +amphitheatre filled up from flank to flank with the <i>ghiara</i> or pebbly +bottom of the Taro. The Taro is not less wasteful than any other of +the brotherhood of streams that pour from Alp or Apennine to swell the +Po. It wanders, an impatient rivulet, through a wilderness of +boulders, uncertain of its aim, shifting its course with the season of +the year, unless the jaws of some deep-cloven gully hold it tight and +show how insignificant it is. As we advance, the hills approach again; +between their skirts there is nothing but the river-bed; and now on +rising ground above the stream, at the point of juncture between the +Ceno and the Taro, we find Fornovo. Beyond the village the valley +broadens out once more, disclosing Apennines capped with winter snow. +To the right descends the Ceno. To the left foams the Taro, following +whose rocky channel we should come at last to Pontremoli and the +Tyrrhenian sea beside Sarzana. On a May-day of sunshine like the +present, the Taro is a gentle stream. A waggon drawn by two white oxen +has just entered its channel, guided by a contadino with goat-skin +leggings, wielding a long goad. The patient creatures stem the water, +which rises to the peasant's thighs and ripples round the creaking +wheels. Swaying to and fro, as the shingles shift upon the river-bed, +they make their way across; and now they have emerged upon the stones; +and now we lose them in a flood of sunlight.</p> + +<p>It was by this pass that Charles VIII. in 1495 returned from Tuscany, +when the army of the League was drawn up waiting to intercept and +crush him in the mousetrap of Fornovo. No road remained for Charles +and his troops but the rocky bed of the Taro, running, as I have +described it, between the spurs of steep hills. It is true that the +valley of the Baganza leads, from a little higher up among the +mountains, into Lombardy. But this pass runs straight to Parma; and to +follow it would have brought the French upon the walls of a strong +city. Charles could not do otherwise than descend upon the village of +Fornovo, and cut his way thence in the teeth of the Italian army over +stream and boulder between the gorges of throttling mountain. The +failure of the Italians to achieve what here upon the ground appears +so simple, delivered Italy hand-bound to strangers. Had they but +succeeded in arresting Charles and destroying his forces at Fornovo, +it is just possible that then—even then, at the eleventh hour—Italy +might have gained the sense of national coherence, or at least have +proved herself capable of holding by her leagues the foreigner at bay. +As it was, the battle of Fornovo, in spite of Venetian bonfires and +Mantuan Madonnas of Victory, made her conscious of incompetence and +convicted her of cowardice. After Fornovo, her sons scarcely dared to +hold their heads up in the field against invaders; and the battles +fought upon her soil were duels among aliens for the prize of Italy.</p> + +<p>In order to comprehend the battle of Fornovo in its bearings on +Italian history, we must go back to the year 1492, and understand the +conditions of the various States of Italy at that date. On April 8 in +that year, Lorenzo de' Medici, who had succeeded in maintaining a +political equilibrium in the peninsula, expired, and was succeeded by +his son Piero, a vain and foolhardy young man, from whom no guidance +could be expected. On July 25, Innocent VIII. died, and was succeeded +by the very worst Pope who has ever occupied S. Peter's chair, +Roderigo Borgia, Alexander VI. It was felt at once that the old order +of things had somehow ended, and that a new era, the destinies of +which as yet remained incalculable, was opening for Italy. The chief +Italian powers, hitherto kept in equipoise by the diplomacy of Lorenzo +de' Medici, were these—the Duchy of Milan, the Republic of Venice, +the Republic of Florence, the Papacy, and the kingdom of Naples. +Minor States, such as the Republics of Genoa and Siena, the Duchies of +Urbino and Ferrara, the Marquisate of Mantua, the petty tyrannies of +Romagna, and the wealthy city of Bologna, were sufficiently important +to affect the balance of power, and to produce new combinations. For +the present purpose it is, however, enough to consider the five great +Powers.</p> + +<p>After the peace of Constance, which freed the Lombard Communes from +Imperial interference in the year 1183, Milan, by her geographical +position, rose rapidly to be the first city of North Italy. Without +narrating the changes by which she lost her freedom as a Commune, it +is enough to state that, earliest of all Italian cities, Milan passed +into the hands of a single family. The Visconti managed to convert +this flourishing commonwealth, with all its dependencies, into their +private property, ruling it exclusively for their own profit, using +its municipal institutions as the machinery of administration, and +employing the taxes which they raised upon its wealth for purely +selfish ends. When the line of the Visconti ended in the year 1447, +their tyranny was continued by Francesco Sforza, the son of a poor +soldier of adventure, who had raised himself by his military genius, +and had married Bianca, the illegitimate daughter of the last +Visconti. On the death of Francesco Sforza in 1466, he left two sons, +Galeazzo Maria and Lodovico, surnamed Il Moro, both of whom were +destined to play a prominent part in history. Galeazzo Maria, +dissolute, vicious, and cruel to the core, was murdered by his injured +subjects in the year 1476. His son, Giovanni Galeazzo, aged eight, +would in course of time have succeeded to the Duchy, had it not been +for the ambition of his uncle Lodovico. Lodovico contrived to name +himself as Regent for his nephew, whom he kept, long after he had come +of age, in a kind of honourable prison. Virtual master in Milan, but +without a legal title to the throne, unrecognised in his authority by +the Italian powers, and holding it from day to day by craft and fraud, +Lodovico at last found his situation untenable; and it was this +difficulty of an usurper to maintain himself in his despotism which, +as we shall see, brought the French into Italy.</p> + +<p>Venice, the neighbour and constant foe of Milan, had become a close +oligarchy by a process of gradual constitutional development, which +threw her government into the hands of a few nobles. She was +practically ruled by the hereditary members of the Grand Council. Ever +since the year 1453, when Constantinople fell beneath the Turk, the +Venetians had been more and more straitened in their Oriental +commerce, and were thrown back upon the policy of territorial +aggrandisement in Italy, from which they had hitherto refrained as +alien to the temperament of the Republic. At the end of the fifteenth +century Venice therefore became an object of envy and terror to the +Italian States. They envied her because she alone was tranquil, +wealthy, powerful, and free. They feared her because they had good +reason to suspect her of encroachment; and it was foreseen that if she +got the upper hand in Italy, all Italy would be the property of the +families inscribed upon the Golden Book. It was thus alone that the +Italians comprehended government. The principle of representation +being utterly unknown, and the privileged burghers in each city being +regarded as absolute and lawful owners of the city and of everything +belonging to it, the conquest of a town by a republic implied the +political extinction of that town and the disfranchisement of its +inhabitants in favour of the conquerors.</p> + +<p>Florence at this epoch still called itself a Republic; and of all +Italian commonwealths it was by far the most democratic. Its history, +unlike that of Venice, had been the history of continual and brusque +changes, resulting in the destruction of the old nobility, in the +equalisation of the burghers, and in the formation of a new +aristocracy of wealth. Prom this class of <i>bourgeois</i> nobles sprang +the Medici, who, by careful manipulation of the State machinery, by +the creation of a powerful party devoted to their interests, by +flattery of the people, by corruption, by taxation, and by constant +scheming, raised themselves to the first place in the commonwealth, +and became its virtual masters. In the year 1492 Lorenzo de' Medici, +the most remarkable chief of this despotic family, died, bequeathing +his supremacy in the Republic to a son of marked incompetence.</p> + +<p>Since the Pontificate of Nicholas V. the See of Rome had entered upon +a new period of existence. The Popes no longer dreaded to reside in +Rome, but were bent upon making the metropolis of Christendom both +splendid as a seat of art and learning, and also potent as the capital +of a secular kingdom. Though their fiefs in Romagna and the March were +still held but loosely, though their provinces swarmed with petty +despots who defied the Papal authority, and though the princely Roman +houses of Colonna and Orsini were still strong enough to terrorise the +Holy Father in the Vatican, it was now clear that the Papal See must +in the end get the better of its adversaries, and consolidate itself +into a first-rate Power. The internal spirit of the Papacy at this +time corresponded to its external policy. It was thoroughly +secularised by a series of worldly and vicious pontiffs, who had clean +forgotten what their title, Vicar of Christ, implied. They +consistently used their religious prestige to enforce their secular +authority, while by their temporal power they caused their religious +claims to be respected. Corrupt and shameless, they indulged +themselves in every vice, openly acknowledged their children, and +turned Italy upside down in order to establish favourites and bastards +in the principalities they seized as spoils of war.</p> + +<p>The kingdom of Naples differed from any other state of Italy. Subject +continually to foreign rulers since the decay of the Greek Empire, +governed in succession by the Normans, the Hohenstauffens, and the +House of Anjou, it had never enjoyed the real independence, or the +free institutions, of the northern provinces; nor had it been +Italianised in the same sense as the rest of the peninsula. Despotism, +which assumed so many forms in Italy, was here neither the tyranny of +a noble house, nor the masked autocracy of a burgher, nor yet the +forceful sway of a condottiere. It had a dynastic character, +resembling the monarchy of one of the great European nations, but +modified by the peculiar conditions of Italian statecraft. Owing to +this dynastic and monarchical complexion of the Neapolitan kingdom, +semi-feudal customs flourished in the south far more than in the north +of Italy. The barons were more powerful; and the destinies of the +Regno often turned upon their feuds and quarrels with the Crown. At +the same time the Neapolitan despots shared the uneasy circumstances +of all Italian potentates, owing to the uncertainty of their tenure, +both as conquerors and aliens, and also as the nominal vassals of the +Holy See. The rights of suzerainty which the Normans had yielded to +the Papacy over their southern conquests, and which the Popes had +arbitrarily exercised in favour of the Angevine princes, proved a +constant source of peril to the rest of Italy by rendering the +succession to the crown of Naples doubtful. On the extinction of the +Angevine line, however, the throne was occupied by a prince who had no +valid title but that of the sword to its possession. Alfonso of Aragon +conquered Naples in 1442, and neglecting his hereditary dominion, +settled in his Italian capital. Possessed with the enthusiasm for +literature which was then the ruling passion of the Italians, and very +liberal to men of learning, Alfonso won for himself the surname of +Magnanimous. On his death, in 1458, he bequeathed his Spanish +kingdom, together with Sicily and Sardinia, to his brother, and left +the fruits of his Italian conquest to his bastard, Ferdinand. This +Ferdinand, whose birth was buried in profound obscurity, was the +reigning sovereign in the year 1492. Of a cruel and sombre +temperament, traitorous and tyrannical, Ferdinand was hated by his +subjects as much as Alfonso had been loved. He possessed, however, to +a remarkable degree, the qualities which at that epoch constituted a +consummate statesman; and though the history of his reign is the +history of plots and conspiracies, of judicial murders and forcible +assassinations, of famines produced by iniquitous taxation, and of +every kind of diabolical tyranny, Ferdinand contrived to hold his own, +in the teeth of a rebellious baronage or a maddened population. His +political sagacity amounted almost to a prophetic instinct in the last +years of his life, when he became aware that the old order was +breaking up in Italy, and had cause to dread that Charles VIII. of +France would prove his title to the kingdom of Naples by force of +arms.<a name="FNanchor_13_13" id="FNanchor_13_13" /></a><a href="#Footnote_13_13" class="fnanchor">[13]</a></p> + +<p>Such were the component parts of the Italian body politic, with the +addition of numerous petty principalities and powers, adhering more or +less consistently to one or other of the greater States. The whole +complex machine was bound together by no sense of common interest, +animated by no common purpose, amenable to no central authority. Even +such community of feeling as one spoken language gives, was lacking. +And yet Italy distinguished herself clearly from the rest of Europe, +not merely as a geographical fact, but also as a people intellectually +and spiritually one. The rapid rise of humanism had aided in producing +this national self-consciousness. Every State and every city was +absorbed in the recovery of culture and in the development of art and +literature. Far in advance of the other European nations, the Italians +regarded the rest of the world as barbarous, priding themselves the +while, in spite of mutual jealousies and hatreds, on their Italic +civilisation. They were enormously wealthy. The resources of the Papal +treasury, the private fortunes of the Florentine bankers, the riches +of the Venetian merchants might have purchased all that France or +Germany possessed of value. The single Duchy of Milan yielded to its +masters 700,000 golden florins of revenue, according to the +computation of De Comines. In default of a confederative system, the +several States were held in equilibrium by diplomacy. By far the most +important people, next to the despots and the captains of adventure, +were ambassadors and orators. War itself had become a matter of +arrangement, bargain, and diplomacy. The game of stratagem was played +by generals who had been friends yesterday and might be friends again +to-morrow, with troops who felt no loyalty whatever for the standards +under which they listed. To avoid slaughter and to achieve the ends of +warfare by parade and demonstration was the interest of every one +concerned. Looking back upon Italy of the fifteenth century, taking +account of her religious deadness and moral corruption, estimating the +absence of political vigour in the republics and the noxious tyranny +of the despots, analysing her lack of national spirit, and comparing +her splendid life of cultivated ease with the want of martial energy, +we can see but too plainly that contact with a simpler and stronger +people could not but produce a terrible catastrophe. The Italians +themselves, however, were far from comprehending this. Centuries of +undisturbed internal intrigue had accustomed them to play the game of +forfeits with each other, and nothing warned them that the time was +come at which diplomacy, finesse, and craft would stand them in ill +stead against rapacious conquerors.</p> + +<p>The storm which began to gather over Italy in the year 1492 had its +first beginning in the North. Lodovico Sforza's position in the Duchy +of Milan was becoming every day more difficult, when a slight and to +all appearances insignificant incident converted his apprehension of +danger into panic. It was customary for the States of Italy to +congratulate a new Pope on his election by their ambassadors; and this +ceremony had now to be performed for Roderigo Borgia. Lodovico +proposed that his envoys should go to Rome together with those of +Venice, Naples, and Florence; but Piero de' Medici, whose vanity made +him wish to send an embassy in his own name, contrived that Lodovico's +proposal should be rejected both by Florence and the King of Naples. +So strained was the situation of Italian affairs that Lodovico saw in +this repulse a menace to his own usurped authority. Feeling himself +isolated among the princes of his country, rebuffed by the Medici, and +coldly treated by the King of Naples, he turned in his anxiety to +France, and advised the young king, Charles VIII., to make good his +claim upon the Regno. It was a bold move to bring the foreigner thus +into Italy; and even Lodovico, who prided himself upon his sagacity, +could not see how things would end. He thought his situation so +hazardous, however, that any change must be for the better. Moreover, +a French invasion of Naples would tie the hands of his natural foe, +King Ferdinand, whose granddaughter, Isabella of Aragon, had married +Giovanni Galeazzo Sforza, and was now the rightful Duchess of Milan. +When the Florentine ambassador at Milan asked him how he had the +courage to expose Italy to such peril, his reply betrayed the egotism +of his policy: 'You talk to me of Italy; but when have I looked Italy +in the face? No one ever gave a thought to my affairs. I have, +therefore, had to give them such security as I could.'</p> + +<p>Charles VIII. was young, light-brained, romantic, and ruled by +<i>parvenus</i>, who had an interest in disturbing the old order of the +monarchy. He lent a willing ear to Lodovico's invitation, backed as +this was by the eloquence and passion of numerous Italian refugees and +exiles. Against the advice of his more prudent counsellors, he taxed +all the resources of his kingdom, and concluded treaties on +disadvantageous terms with England, Germany, and Spain, in order that +he might be able to concentrate all his attention upon the Italian +expedition. At the end of the year 1493, it was known that the +invasion was resolved upon. Gentile Becchi, the Florentine envoy at +the Court of France, wrote to Piero de' Medici: 'If the King succeeds, +it is all over with Italy—<i>tutta a bordello.</i>' The extraordinary +selfishness of the several Italian States at this critical moment +deserves to be noticed. The Venetians, as Paolo Antonio Soderini +described them to Piero de' Medici, 'are of opinion that to keep +quiet, and to see other potentates of Italy spending and suffering, +cannot but be to their advantage. They trust no one, and feel sure +they have enough money to be able at any moment to raise sufficient +troops, and so to guide events according to their inclinations.' As +the invasion was directed against Naples, Ferdinand of Aragon +displayed the acutest sense of the situation. 'Frenchmen,' he +exclaimed, in what appears like a prophetic passion when contrasted +with the cold indifference of others no less really menaced, 'have +never come into Italy without inflicting ruin; and this invasion, if +rightly considered, cannot but bring universal ruin, although it seems +to menace us alone.' In his agony Ferdinand applied to Alexander VI. +But the Pope looked coldly upon him, because the King of Naples, with +rare perspicacity, had predicted that his elevation to the Papacy +would prove disastrous to Christendom. Alexander preferred to ally +himself with Venice and Milan. Upon this Ferdinand wrote as follows: +'It seems fated that the Popes should leave no peace in Italy. We are +compelled to fight; but the Duke of Bari (<i>i.e.</i> Lodovico Sforza) +should think what may ensue from the tumult he is stirring up. He who +raises this wind will not be able to lay the tempest when he likes. +Let him look to the past, and he will see how every time that our +internal quarrels have brought Powers from beyond the Alps into Italy, +these have oppressed and lorded over her.'</p> + +<p>Terribly verified as these words were destined to be,—and they were +no less prophetic in their political sagacity than Savonarola's +prediction of the Sword and bloody Scourge,—it was now too late to +avert the coming ruin. On March 1, 1494, Charles was with his army at +Lyons. Early in September he had crossed the pass of Mont Genêvre and +taken up his quarters in the town of Asti. There is no need to +describe in detail the holiday march of the French troops through +Lombardy, Tuscany, and Rome, until, without having struck a blow of +consequence, the gates of Naples opened to receive the conqueror upon +February 22, 1495. Philippe de Comines, who parted from the King at +Asti and passed the winter as his envoy at Venice, has more than once +recorded his belief that nothing but the direct interposition of +Providence could have brought so mad an expedition to so successful a +conclusion. 'Dieu monstroit conduire l'entreprise,' No sooner, +however, was Charles installed in Naples than the States of Italy +began to combine against him. Lodovico Sforza had availed himself of +the general confusion consequent upon the first appearance of the +French, to poison his nephew. He was, therefore, now the titular, as +well as virtual, Lord of Milan. So far, he had achieved what he +desired, and had no further need of Charles. The overtures he now made +to the Venetians and the Pope terminated in a League between these +Powers for the expulsion of the French from Italy. Germany and Spain +entered into the same alliance; and De Comines, finding himself +treated with marked coldness by the Signory of Venice, despatched a +courier to warn Charles in Naples of the coming danger. After a stay +of only fifty days in his new capital, the French King hurried +northward. Moving quickly through the Papal States and Tuscany, he +engaged his troops in the passes of the Apennines near Pontremoli, and +on July 5, 1495, took up his quarters in the village of Fornovo. De +Comines reckons that his whole fighting force at this time did not +exceed 9,000 men, with fourteen pieces of artillery. Against him at +the opening of the valley was the army of the League, numbering some +35,000 men, of whom three-fourths were supplied by Venice, the rest by +Lodovico Sforza and the German Emperor. Francesco Gonzaga, Marquis of +Mantua, was the general of the Venetian forces; and on him, therefore, +fell the real responsibility of the battle.</p> + +<p>De Comines remarks on the imprudence of the allies, who allowed +Charles to advance as far as Fornovo, when it was their obvious policy +to have established themselves in the village and so have caught the +French troops in a trap. It was a Sunday when the French marched down +upon Fornovo. Before them spread the plain of Lombardy, and beyond it +the white crests of the Alps. 'We were,' says De Comines, 'in a valley +between two little mountain flanks, and in that valley ran a river +which could easily be forded on foot, except when it is swelled with +sudden rains. The whole valley was a bed of gravel and big stones, +very difficult for horses, about a quarter of a league in breadth, and +on the right bank lodged our enemies.' Any one who has visited Fornovo +can understand the situation of the two armies. Charles occupied the +village on the right bank of the Taro. On the same bank, extending +downward toward the plain, lay the host of the allies; and in order +that Charles should escape them, it was necessary that he should cross +the Taro, just below its junction with the Ceno, and reach Lombardy by +marching in a parallel line with his foes.</p> + +<p>All through the night of Sunday it thundered and rained incessantly; +so that on the Monday morning the Taro was considerably swollen. At +seven o'clock the King sent for De Comines, who found him already +armed and mounted on the finest horse he had ever seen. The name of +this charger was <i>Savoy</i>. He was black, one-eyed, and of middling +height; and to his great courage, as we shall see, Charles owed life +upon that day. The French army, ready for the march, now took to the +gravelly bed of the Taro, passing the river at a distance of about a +quarter of a league from the allies. As the French left Fornovo, the +light cavalry of their enemies entered the village and began to attack +the baggage. At the same time the Marquis of Mantua, with the flower +of his men-at-arms, crossed the Taro and harassed the rear of the +French host; while raids from the right bank to the left were +constantly being made by sharpshooters and flying squadrons. 'At this +moment,' says De Comines, 'not a single man of us could have escaped +if our ranks had once been broken.' The French army was divided into +three main bodies. The vanguard consisted of some 350 men-at-arms, +3000 Switzers, 300 archers of the Guard, a few mounted crossbow-men, +and the artillery. Next came the Battle, and after this the rearguard. +At the time when the Marquis of Mantua made his attack, the French +rearguard had not yet crossed the river. Charles quitted the van, put +himself at the head of his chivalry, and charged the Italian horsemen, +driving them back, some to the village and others to their camp. De +Comines observes, that had the Italian knights been supported in this +passage of arms by the light cavalry of the Venetian force, called +Stradiots, the French must have been outnumbered, thrown into +confusion, and defeated. As it was, these Stradiots were engaged in +plundering the baggage of the French; and the Italians, accustomed to +bloodless encounters, did not venture, in spite of their immense +superiority of numbers, to renew the charge. In the pursuit of +Gonzaga's horsemen Charles outstripped his staff, and was left almost +alone to grapple with a little band of mounted foemen. It was here +that his noble horse, Savoy, saved his person by plunging and charging +till assistance came up from the French, and enabled the King to +regain his van.</p> + +<p>It is incredible, considering the nature of the ground and the number +of the troops engaged, that the allies should not have returned to the +attack and have made the passage of the French into the plain +impossible. De Comines, however, assures us that the actual engagement +only lasted a quarter of an hour, and the pursuit of the Italians +three quarters of an hour. After they had once resolved to fly, they +threw away their lances and betook themselves to Reggio and Parma. So +complete was their discomfiture, that De Comines gravely blames the +want of military genius and adventure in the French host. If, instead +of advancing along the left bank of the Taro and there taking up his +quarters for the night, Charles had recrossed the stream and pursued +the army of the allies, he would have had the whole of Lombardy at his +discretion. As it was, the French army encamped not far from the scene +of the action in great discomfort and anxiety. De Comines had to +bivouac in a vineyard, without even a mantle to wrap round him, having +lent his cloak to the King in the morning; and as it had been pouring +all day, the ground could not have afforded very luxurious quarters. +The same extraordinary luck which had attended the French in their +whole expedition, now favoured their retreat; and the same +pusillanimity which the allies had shown at Fornovo, prevented them +from re-forming and engaging with the army of Charles upon the plain. +One hour before daybreak on Tuesday morning, the French broke up their +camp and succeeded in clearing the valley. That night they lodged at +Fiorenzuola, the next at Piacenza, and so on; till on the eighth day +they arrived at Asti without having been so much as incommoded by the +army of the allies in their rear.</p> + +<p>Although the field of Fornovo was in reality so disgraceful to the +Italians, they reckoned it a victory upon the technical pretence that +the camp and baggage of the French had been seized. Illuminations and +rejoicings made the piazza of S. Mark in Venice gay, and Francesco da +Gonzaga had the glorious Madonna della Vittoria painted for him by +Mantegna, in commemoration of what ought only to have been remembered +with shame.</p> + +<p>A fitting conclusion to this sketch, connecting its close with the +commencement, may be found in some remarks upon the manner of warfare +to which the Italians of the Renaissance had become accustomed, and +which proved so futile on the field of Fornovo. During the middle +ages, and in the days of the Communes, the whole male population of +Italy had fought light-armed on foot. Merchant and artisan left the +counting-house and the workshop, took shield and pike, and sallied +forth to attack the barons in their castles, or to meet the Emperor's +troops upon the field. It was with this national militia that the +citizens of Florence freed their <i>Contado</i> of the nobles, and the +burghers of Lombardy gained the battle of Legnano. In course of time, +by a process of change which it is not very easy to trace, heavily +armed cavalry began to take the place of infantry in mediæval warfare. +Men-at-arms, as they were called, encased from head to foot in iron, +and mounted upon chargers no less solidly caparisoned, drove the +foot-soldiers before them at the points of their long lances. Nowhere +in Italy do they seem to have met with the fierce resistance which the +bears of the Swiss Oberland and the bulls of Uri offered to the +knights of Burgundy. No Tuscan Arnold von Winkelried clasped a dozen +lances to his bosom that the foeman's ranks might thus be broken at +the cost of his own life; nor did it occur to the Italian burghers to +meet the charge of the horsemen with squares protected by bristling +spears. They seem, on the contrary, to have abandoned military service +with the readiness of men whose energies were already absorbed in the +affairs of peace. To become a practised and efficient man-at-arms +required long training and a life's devotion. So much time the +burghers of the free towns could not spare to military service, while +the petty nobles were only too glad to devote themselves to so +honourable a calling. Thus it came to pass that a class of +professional fighting-men was gradually formed in Italy, whose +services the burghers and the princes bought, and by whom the wars of +the peninsula were regularly farmed by contract. Wealth and luxury in +the great cities continued to increase; and as the burghers grew more +comfortable, they were less inclined to take the field in their own +persons, and more disposed to vote large sums of money for the +purchase of necessary aid. At the same time this system suited the +despots, since it spared them the peril of arming their own subjects, +while they taxed them to pay the services of foreign captains. War +thus became a commerce. Romagna, the Marches of Ancona, and other +parts of the Papal dominions, supplied a number of petty nobles whose +whole business in life it was to form companies of trained horsemen, +and with these bands to hire themselves out to the republics and the +despots. Gain was the sole purpose of these captains. They sold their +service to the highest bidder, fighting irrespectively of principle or +patriotism, and passing with the coldest equanimity from the camp of +one master to that of his worst foe. It was impossible that true +military spirit should survive this prostitution of the art of war. A +species of mock warfare prevailed in Italy. Battles were fought with a +view to booty more than victory; prisoners were taken for the sake of +ransom; bloodshed was carefully avoided, for the men who fought on +either side in any pitched field had been comrades with their present +foemen in the last encounter, and who could tell how soon the general +of the one host might not need his rival's troops to recruit his own +ranks? Like every genuine institution of the Italian Renaissance, +warfare was thus a work of fine art, a masterpiece of intellectual +subtlety; and like the Renaissance itself, this peculiar form of +warfare was essentially transitional. The cannon and the musket were +already in use; and it only required one blast of gunpowder to turn +the sham-fight of courtly, traitorous, finessing captains of adventure +into something terribly more real. To men like the Marquis of Mantua +war had been a highly profitable game of skill; to men like the +Maréchal de Gié it was a murderous horseplay; and this difference the +Italians were not slow to perceive. When they cast away their lances +at Fornovo, and fled—in spite of their superior numbers—never to +return, one fair-seeming sham of the fifteenth century became a vision +of the past.</p> +<h5><a href="#CONTENTS">CONTENTS</a></h5> +<br /><br /> +<hr style="width: 100%;" /> + + + +<h2><a name="FLORENCE_AND_THE_MEDICI" id="FLORENCE_AND_THE_MEDICI" /><i>FLORENCE AND THE MEDICI</i></a></h2> +<hr style="width: 100%;" /><br /> +<div class="blockquot"><p>Di Firenze in prima si divisono intra loro i nobili, dipoi i + nobili e il popolo, e in ultimo il popolo e la plebe; e + molte volte occorse che una di queste parti rimasa + superiore, si divise in due.—MACHIAVELLI.</p></div> +<br /> + +<p>I</p> + +<p>Florence, like all Italian cities, owed her independence to the duel +of the Papacy and Empire. The transference of the imperial authority +beyond the Alps had enabled the burghs of Lombardy and Tuscany to +establish a form of self-government. This government was based upon +the old municipal organisation of duumvirs and decemvirs. It was, in +fact, nothing more or less than a survival from the ancient Roman +system. The proof of this was, that while vindicating their rights as +towns, the free cities never questioned the validity of the imperial +title. Even after the peace of Constance in 1183, when Frederick +Barbarossa acknowledged their autonomy, they received within their +walls a supreme magistrate, with power of life and death and ultimate +appeal in all decisive questions, whose title of Potestà indicated +that he represented the imperial power—Potestas. It was not by the +assertion of any right, so much as by the growth of custom, and by the +weakness of the Emperors, that in course of time each city became a +sovereign State. The theoretical supremacy of the Empire prevented any +other authority from taking the first place in Italy. On the other +hand, the practical inefficiency of the Emperors to play their part +encouraged the establishment of numerous minor powers amenable to no +controlling discipline.</p> + +<p>The free cities derived their strength from industry, and had nothing +in common with the nobles of the surrounding country. Broadly +speaking, the population of the towns included what remained in Italy +of the old Roman people. This Roman stock was nowhere stronger than in +Florence and Venice—Florence defended from barbarian incursions by +her mountains and marshes, Venice by the isolation of her lagoons. The +nobles, on the contrary, were mostly of foreign origin—Germans, +Franks, and Lombards, who had established themselves as feudal lords +in castles apart from the cities. The force which the burghs acquired +as industrial communities was soon turned against these nobles. The +larger cities, like Milan and Florence, began to make war upon the +lords of castles, and to absorb into their own territory the small +towns and villages around them. Thus in the social economy of the +Italians there were two antagonistic elements ready to range +themselves beneath any banners that should give the form of legitimate +warfare to their mutual hostility. It was the policy of the Church in +the twelfth century to support the cause of the cities, using them as +a weapon against the Empire, and stimulating the growing ambition of +the burghers. In this way Italy came to be divided into the two +world-famous factions known as Guelf and Ghibelline. The struggle +between Guelf and Ghibelline was the struggle of the Papacy for the +depression of the Empire, the struggle of the great burghs face to +face with feudalism, the struggle of the old Italie stock enclosed in +cities with the foreign nobles established in fortresses. When the +Church had finally triumphed by the extirpation of the House of +Hohenstaufen, this conflict of Guelf and Ghibelline was really ended. +Until the reign of Charles V. no Emperor interfered to any purpose in +Italian affairs. At the same time the Popes ceased to wield a +formidable power. Having won the battle by calling in the French, they +suffered the consequences of this policy by losing their hold on Italy +during the long period of their exile at Avignon. The Italians, left +without either Pope or Emperor, were free to pursue their course of +internal development, and to prosecute their quarrels among +themselves. But though the names of Guelf and Ghibelline lost their +old significance after the year 1266 (the date of King Manfred's +death), these two factions had so divided Italy that they continued to +play a prominent part in her annals. Guelf still meant constitutional +autonomy, meant the burgher as against the noble, meant industry as +opposed to feudal lordship. Ghibelline meant the rule of the few over +the many, meant tyranny, meant the interest of the noble as against +the merchant and the citizen. These broad distinctions must be borne +in mind, if we seek to understand how it was that a city like Florence +continued to be governed by parties, the European force of which had +passed away.</p> + + +<p>II</p> + + +<p>Florence first rose into importance during the papacy of Innocent III. +Up to this date she had been a town of second-rate distinction even in +Tuscany. Pisa was more powerful by arms and commerce. Lucca was the +old seat of the dukes and marquises of Tuscany. But between the years +1200 and 1250 Florence assumed the place she was to hold +thenceforward, by heading the league of Tuscan cities formed to +support the Guelf party against the Ghibellines. Formally adopting the +Guelf cause, the Florentines made themselves the champions of +municipal liberty in Central Italy; and while they declared war +against the Ghibelline cities, they endeavoured to stamp out the very +name of noble in their State. It is not needful to describe the +varying fortunes of the Guelfs and Ghibellines, the burghers and the +nobles, during the thirteenth and the first half of the fourteenth +centuries. Suffice it to say that through all the vicissitudes of that +stormy period the name Guelf became more and more associated with +republican freedom in Florence. At last, after the final triumph of +that party in 1253, the Guelfs remained victors in the city. +Associating the glory of their independence with Guelf principles, the +citizens of Florence perpetuated within their State a faction that, in +its turn, was destined to prove perilous to liberty.</p> + +<p>When it became clear that the republic was to rule itself henceforth +untrammelled by imperial interference, the people divided themselves +into six districts, and chose for each district two Ancients, who +administered the government in concert with the Potestà and the +Captain of the People. The Ancients were a relic of the old Roman +municipal organisation. The Potestà who was invariably a noble +foreigner selected by the people, represented the extinct imperial +right, and exercised the power of life and death within the city. The +Captain of the People, who was also a foreigner, headed the burghers +in their military capacity, for at that period the troops were levied +from the citizens themselves in twenty companies. The body of the +citizens, or the <i>popolo</i>, were ultimately sovereigns in the State. +Assembled under the banners of their several companies, they formed a +<i>parlamento</i> for delegating their own power to each successive +government. Their representatives, again, arranged in two councils, +called the Council of the People and the Council of the Commune, under +the presidency of the Captain of the People and the Potestà, ratified +the measures which had previously been proposed and carried by the +executive authority or Signoria. Under this simple State system the +Florentines placed themselves at the head of the Tuscan League, fought +the battles of the Church, asserted their sovereignty by issuing the +golden florin of the republic, and flourished until 1266.</p> + + +<p>III</p> + + +<p>In that year an important change was effected in the Constitution. +The whole population of Florence consisted, on the one hand, of nobles +or Grandi, as they were called in Tuscany, and on the other hand of +working people. The latter, divided into traders and handicraftsmen, +were distributed in guilds called Arti; and at that time there were +seven Greater and five Lesser Arti, the most influential of all being +the Guild of the Wool Merchants. These guilds had their halls for +meeting, their colleges of chief officers, their heads, called Consoli +or Priors, and their flags. In 1266 it was decided that the +administration of the commonwealth should be placed simply and wholly +in the hands of the Arti, and the Priors of these industrial companies +became the lords or Signory of Florence. No inhabitant of the city who +had not enrolled himself as a craftsman in one of the guilds could +exercise any function of burghership. To be <i>scioperato</i>, or without +industry, was to be without power, without rank or place of honour in +the State. The revolution which placed the Arts at the head of the +republic had the practical effect of excluding the Grandi altogether +from the government. Violent efforts were made by these noble +families, potent through their territorial possessions and foreign +connections, and trained from boyhood in the use of arms, to recover +the place from which the new laws thrust them: but their menacing +attitude, instead of intimidating the burghers, roused their anger and +drove them to the passing of still more stringent laws. In 1293, after +the Ghibellines had been defeated in the great battle of Campaldino, a +series of severe enactments, called the Ordinances of Justice, were +decreed against the unruly Grandi. All civic rights were taken from +them; the severest penalties were attached to their slightest +infringement of municipal law; their titles to land were limited; the +privilege of living within the city walls was allowed them only under +galling restrictions; and, last not least, a supreme magistrate, named +the Gonfalonier of Justice, was created for the special purpose of +watching them and carrying out the penal code against them. +Henceforward Florence was governed exclusively by merchants and +artisans. The Grandi hastened to enrol themselves in the guilds, +exchanging their former titles and dignities for the solid privilege +of burghership. The exact parallel to this industrial constitution for +a commonwealth, carrying on wars with emperors and princes, holding +haughty captains in its pay, and dictating laws to subject cities, +cannot, I think, be elsewhere found in history. It is as unique as the +Florence of Dante and Giotto is unique. While the people was guarding +itself thus stringently against the Grandi, a separate body was +created for the special purpose of extirpating the Ghibellines. A +permanent committee of vigilance, called the College or the Captains +of the Guelf Party, was established. It was their function to +administer the forfeited possessions of Ghibelline rebels, to hunt out +suspected citizens, to prosecute them for Ghibellinism, to judge them, +and to punish them as traitors to the commonwealth. This body, like a +little State within the State, proved formidable to the republic +itself through the unlimited and undefined sway it exercised over +burghers whom it chose to tax with treason. In course of time it +became the oligarchical element within the Florentine democracy, and +threatened to change the free constitution of the city into a +government conducted by a few powerful families.</p> + +<p>There is no need to dwell in detail on the internal difficulties of +Florence during the first half of the fourteenth century. Two main +circumstances, however, require to be briefly noticed. These are (i) +the contest of the Blacks and Whites, so famous through the part +played in it by Dante; and (ii) the tyranny of the Duke<a name="FNanchor_1_1" id="FNanchor_1_1" /></a><a href="#Footnote_1_1" class="fnanchor">[1]</a> of Athens, +Walter de Brienne. The feuds of the Blacks and Whites broke up the +city into factions, and produced such anarchy that at last it was +found necessary to place the republic under the protection of foreign +potentates. Charles of Valois was first chosen, and after him the Duke +of Athens, who took up his residence in the city. Entrusted with +dictatorial authority, he used his power to form a military despotism. +Though his reign of violence lasted rather less than a year, it bore +important fruits; for the tyrant, seeking to support himself upon the +favour of the common people, gave political power to the Lesser Arts +at the expense of the Greater, and confused the old State-system by +enlarging the democracy. The net result of these events for Florence +was, first, that the city became habituated to rancorous party-strife, +involving exiles and proscriptions; and, secondly, that it lost its +primitive social hierarchy of classes.</p> + + +<p>IV</p> + + +<p>After the Guelfs had conquered the Ghibellines, and the people had +absorbed the Grandi in their guilds, the next chapter in the troubled +history of Florence was the division of the Popolo against itself. +Civil strife now declared itself as a conflict between labour and +capital. The members of the Lesser Arts, craftsmen who plied trades +subordinate to those of the Greater Arts, rose up against their social +and political superiors, demanding a larger share in the government, a +more equal distribution of profits, higher wages, and privileges that +should place them on an absolute equality with the wealthy merchants. +It was in the year 1378 that the proletariate broke out into +rebellion. Previous events had prepared the way for this revolt. First +of all, the republic had been democratised through the destruction of +the Grandi and through the popular policy pursued to gain his own ends +by the Duke of Athens. Secondly, society had been shaken to its very +foundation by the great plague of 1348. Both Boccaccio and Matteo +Villani draw lively pictures of the relaxed morality and loss of order +consequent upon this terrible disaster; nor had thirty years sufficed +to restore their relative position to grades and ranks confounded by +an overwhelming calamity. We may therefore reckon the great plague of +1348 among the causes which produced the anarchy of 1378. Rising in a +mass to claim their privileges, the artisans ejected the Signory from +the Public Palace, and for awhile Florence was at the mercy of the +mob. It is worthy of notice that the Medici, whose name is scarcely +known before this epoch, now came for one moment to the front. +Salvestro de' Medici was Gonfalonier of Justice at the time when the +tumult first broke out. He followed the faction of the handicraftsmen, +and became the hero of the day. I cannot discover that he did more +than extend a sort of passive protection to their cause. Yet there is +no doubt that the attachment of the working classes to the House of +Medici dates from this period. The rebellion of 1378 is known in +Florentine history as the Tumult of the Ciompi. The name Ciompi +strictly means the Wool-Carders. One set of operatives in the city, +and that the largest, gave its title to the whole body of the +labourers. For some months these craftsmen governed the republic, +appointing their own Signory and passing laws in their own interest; +but, as is usual, the proletariate found itself incapable of sustained +government. The ambition and discontent of the Ciompi foamed +themselves away, and industrious working men began to see that trade +was languishing and credit on the wane. By their own act at last they +restored the government to the Priors of the Greater Arti. Still the +movement had not been without grave consequences. It completed the +levelling of classes, which had been steadily advancing from the first +in Florence. After the Ciompi riot there was no longer not only any +distinction between noble and burgher, but the distinction between +greater and lesser guilds was practically swept away. The classes, +parties, and degrees in the republic were so broken up, ground down, +and mingled, that thenceforth the true source of power in the State +was wealth combined with personal ability. In other words, the proper +political conditions had been formed for unscrupulous adventurers. +Florence had become a democracy without social organisation, which +might fall a prey to oligarchs or despots. What remained of deeply +rooted feuds or factions—animosities against the Grandi, hatred for +the Ghibellines, jealousy of labour and capital—offered so many +points of leverage for stirring the passions of the people and for +covering personal ambition with a cloak of public zeal. The time was +come for the Albizzi to attempt an oligarchy, and for the Medici to +begin the enslavement of the State.</p> + + +<p>V</p> + + +<p>The Constitution of Florence offered many points of weakness to the +attacks of such intriguers. In the first place it was in its origin +not a political but an industrial organisation—a simple group of +guilds invested with the sovereign authority. Its two most powerful +engines, the Gonfalonier of Justice and the Guelf College, had been +formed, not with a view to the preservation of the government, but +with the purpose of quelling the nobles and excluding a detested +faction. It had no permanent head, like the Doge of Venice; no fixed +senate like the Venetian Grand Council; its chief magistrates, the +Signory, were elected for short periods of two months, and their mode +of election was open to the gravest criticism. Supposed to be chosen +by lot, they were really selected from lists drawn up by the factions +in power from time to time. These factions contrived to exclude the +names of all but their adherents from the bags, or <i>borse</i>, in which +the burghers eligible for election had to be inscribed. Furthermore, +it was not possible for this shifting Signory to conduct affairs +requiring sustained effort and secret deliberation; therefore recourse +was being continually had to dictatorial Commissions. The people, +summoned in parliament upon the Great Square, were asked to confer +plenipotentiary authority upon a committee called <i>Balia</i>, who +proceeded to do what they chose in the State, and who retained power +after the emergency for which they were created passed away. The same +instability in the supreme magistracy led to the appointment of +special commissioners for war, and special councils, or <i>Pratiche</i>, +for the management of each department. Such supplementary commissions +not only proved the weakness of the central authority, but they were +always liable to be made the instruments of party warfare. The Guelf +College was another and a different source of danger to the State. Not +acting under the control of the Signory, but using its own initiative, +this powerful body could proscribe and punish burghers on the mere +suspicion of Ghibellinism. Though the Ghibelline faction had become an +empty name, the Guelf College excluded from the franchise all and +every whom they chose on any pretext to admonish. Under this mild +phrase, <i>to admonish</i>, was concealed a cruel exercise of tyranny—it +meant to warn a man that he was suspected of treason, and that he had +better relinquish the exercise of his burghership. By free use of this +engine of Admonition, the Guelf College rendered their enemies +voiceless in the State, and were able to pack the Signory and the +councils with their own creatures. Another important defect in the +Florentine Constitution was the method of imposing taxes. This was +done by no regular system. The party in power made what estimate it +chose of a man's capacity to bear taxation, and called upon him for +extraordinary loans. In this way citizens were frequently driven into +bankruptcy and exile; and since to be a debtor to the State deprived a +burgher of his civic rights, severe taxation was one of the best ways +of silencing and neutralising a dissentient.</p> + +<p>I have enumerated these several causes of weakness in the Florentine +State-system, partly because they show how irregularly the +Constitution had been formed by the patching and extension of a simple +industrial machine to suit the needs of a great commonwealth; partly +because it was through these defects that the democracy merged +gradually into a despotism. The art of the Medici consisted in a +scientific comprehension of these very imperfections, a methodic use +of them for their own purposes, and a steady opposition to any +attempts made to substitute a stricter system. The Florentines had +determined to be an industrial community, governing themselves on the +co-operative principle, dividing profits, sharing losses, and exposing +their magistrates to rigid scrutiny. All this in theory was excellent. +Had they remained an unambitious and peaceful commonwealth, engaged in +the wool and silk trade, it might have answered. Modern Europe might +have admired the model of a communistic and commercial democracy. But +when they engaged in aggressive wars, and sought to enslave +sister-cities like Pisa and Lucca, it was soon found that their simple +trading constitution would not serve. They had to piece it out with +subordinate machinery, cumbrous, difficult to manage, ill-adapted to +the original structure. Each limb of this subordinate machinery, +moreover, was a <i>point d'appui</i> for insidious and self-seeking party +leaders.</p> + +<p>Florence, in the middle of the fourteenth century, was a vast beehive +of industry. Distinctions of rank among burghers, qualified to vote +and hold office, were theoretically unknown. Highly educated men, of +more than princely wealth, spent their time in shops and +counting-houses, and trained their sons to follow trades. Military +service at this period was abandoned by the citizens; they preferred +to pay mercenary troops for the conduct of their wars. Nor was there, +as in Venice, any outlet for their energies upon the seas. Florence +had no navy, no great port—she only kept a small fleet for the +protection of her commerce. Thus the vigour of the commonwealth was +concentrated on itself; while the influence of the citizens, through +their affiliated trading-houses, correspondents, and agents, extended +like a network over Europe. In a community of this kind it was natural +that wealth—rank and titles being absent—should alone confer +distinction. Accordingly we find that out of the very bosom of the +people a new plutocratic aristocracy begins to rise. The Grandi are +no more; but certain families achieve distinction by their riches, +their numbers, their high spirit, and their ancient place of honour in +the State. These nobles of the purse obtained the name of <i>Popolani +Nobili</i>; and it was they who now began to play at high stakes for the +supreme power. In all the subsequent vicissitudes of Florence every +change takes place by intrigue and by clever manipulation of the +political machine. Recourse is rarely had to violence of any kind, and +the leaders of revolutions are men of the yard-measure, never of the +sword. The despotism to which the republic eventually succumbed was no +less commercial than the democracy had been. Florence in the days of +her slavery remained a <i>Popolo</i>.</p> + + +<p>VI</p> + + +<p>The opening of the second half of the fourteenth century had been +signalised by the feuds of two great houses, both risen from the +people. These were the Albizzi and the Ricci. At this epoch there had +been a formal closing of the lists of burghers;—henceforth no new +families who might settle in the city could claim the franchise, vote +in the assemblies, or hold magistracies. The Guelf College used their +old engine of admonition to persecute <i>novi homines</i>, whom they +dreaded as opponents. At the head of this formidable organisation the +Albizzi placed themselves, and worked it with such skill that they +succeeded in driving the Ricci out of all participation in the +government. The tumult of the Ciompi formed but an episode in their +career toward oligarchy; indeed, that revolution only rendered the +political material of the Florentine republic more plastic in the +hands of intriguers, by removing the last vestiges of class +distinctions and by confusing the old parties of the State.</p> + +<p>When the Florentines in 1387 engaged in their long duel with Gian +Galeazzo Visconti, the difficulty of conducting this war without some +permanent central authority still further confirmed the power of the +rising oligarchs. The Albizzi became daily more autocratic, until in +1393 their chief, Maso degli Albizzi, a man of strong will and prudent +policy, was chosen Gonfalonier of Justice. Assuming the sway of a +dictator he revised the list of burghers capable of holding office, +struck out the private opponents of his house, and excluded all names +but those of powerful families who were well affected towards an +aristocratic government. The great house of the Alberti were exiled in +a body, declared rebels, and deprived of their possessions, for no +reason except that they seemed dangerous to the Albizzi. It was in +vain that the people murmured against these arbitrary acts. The new +rulers were omnipotent in the Signory, which they packed with their +own men, in the great guilds, and in the Guelf College. All the +machinery invented by the industrial community for its self-management +and self-defence was controlled and manipulated by a close body of +aristocrats, with the Albizzi at their head. It seemed as though +Florence, without any visible alteration in her forms of government, +was rapidly becoming an oligarchy even less open than the Venetian +republic. Meanwhile the affairs of the State were most flourishing. +The strong-handed masters of the city not only held the Duke of Milan +in check, and prevented him from turning Italy into a kingdom; they +furthermore acquired the cities of Pisa, Livorno, Arezzo, +Montepulciano, and Cortona, for Florence, making her the mistress of +all Tuscany, with the exception of Siena, Lucca, and Volterra. Maso +degli Albizzi was the ruling spirit of the commonwealth, spending the +enormous sum of 11,500,000 golden florins on war, raising sumptuous +edifices, protecting the arts, and acting in general like a powerful +and irresponsible prince.</p> + +<p>In spite of public prosperity there were signs, however, that this +rule of a few families could not last. Their government was only +maintained by continual revision of the lists of burghers, by +elimination of the disaffected, and by unremitting personal industry. +They introduced no new machinery into the Constitution whereby the +people might be deprived of its titular sovereignty, or their own +dictatorship might be continued with a semblance of legality. Again, +they neglected to win over the new nobles (<i>nobili popolani</i>) in a +body to their cause; and thus they were surrounded by rivals ready to +spring upon them when a false step should be made. The Albizzi +oligarchy was a masterpiece of art, without any force to sustain it +but the craft and energy of its constructors. It had not grown up, +like the Venetian oligarchy, by the gradual assimilation to itself of +all the vigour in the State. It was bound, sooner or later, to yield +to the renascent impulse of democracy inherent in Florentine +institutions.</p> + + +<p>VII</p> + + +<p>Maso degli Albizzi died in 1417. He was succeeded in the government by +his old friend, Niccolo da Uzzano, a man of great eloquence and +wisdom, whose single word swayed the councils of the people as he +listed. Together with him acted Maso's son, Rinaldo, a youth of even +more brilliant talents than his father, frank, noble, and +high-spirited, but far less cautious.</p> + +<p>The oligarchy, which these two men undertook to manage, had +accumulated against itself the discontent of overtaxed, disfranchised, +jealous burghers. The times, too, were bad. Pursuing the policy of +Maso, the Albizzi engaged the city in a tedious and unsuccessful war +with Filippo Maria Visconti, which cost 350,000 golden florins, and +brought no credit. In order to meet extraordinary expenses they raised +new public loans, thereby depreciating the value of the old Florentine +funds. What was worse, they imposed forced subsidies with grievous +inequality upon the burghers, passing over their friends and +adherents, and burdening their opponents with more than could be +borne. This imprudent financial policy began the ruin of the Albizzi. +It caused a clamour in the city for a new system of more just +taxation, which was too powerful to be resisted. The voice of the +people made itself loudly heard; and with the people on this occasion +sided Giovanni de' Medici. This was in 1427.</p> + +<p>It is here that the Medici appear upon that memorable scene where in +the future they are to play the first part. Giovanni de' Medici did +not belong to the same branch of his family as the Salvestro who +favoured the people at the time of the Ciompi Tumult. But he adopted +the same popular policy. To his sons Cosimo and Lorenzo he bequeathed +on his deathbed the rule that they should invariably adhere to the +cause of the multitude, found their influence on that, and avoid the +arts of factious and ambitious leaders. In his own life he had pursued +this course of conduct, acquiring a reputation for civic moderation +and impartiality that endeared him to the people and stood his +children in good stead. Early in his youth Giovanni found himself +almost destitute by reason of the imposts charged upon him by the +oligarchs. He possessed, however, the genius for money-making to a +rare degree, and passed his manhood as a banker, amassing the largest +fortune of any private citizen in Italy. In his old age he devoted +himself to the organisation of his colossal trading business, and +abstained, as far as possible, from political intrigues. Men observed +that they rarely met him in the Public Palace or on the Great Square.</p> + +<p>Cosimo de' Medici was thirty years old when his father Giovanni died, +in 1429. During his youth he had devoted all his time and energy to +business, mastering the complicated affairs of Giovanni's +banking-house, and travelling far and wide through Europe to extend +its connections. This education made him a consummate financier; and +those who knew him best were convinced that his ambition was set on +great things. However quietly he might begin, it was clear that he +intended to match himself, as a leader of the plebeians, against the +Albizzi. The foundations he prepared for future action were equally +characteristic of the man, of Florence, and of the age. Commanding the +enormous capital of the Medicean bank he contrived, at any sacrifice +of temporary convenience, to lend money to the State for war expenses, +engrossing in his own hands a large portion of the public debt of +Florence. At the same time his agencies in various European capitals +enabled him to keep his own wealth floating far beyond the reach of +foes within the city. A few years of this system ended in so complete +a confusion between Cosimo's trade and the finances of Florence that +the bankruptcy of the Medici, however caused, would have compromised +the credit of the State and the fortunes of the fund-holders. Cosimo, +in a word, made himself necessary to Florence by the wise use of his +riches. Furthermore, he kept his eye upon the list of burghers, +lending money to needy citizens, putting good things in the way of +struggling traders, building up the fortunes of men who were disposed +to favour his party in the State, ruining his opponents by the +legitimate process of commercial competition, and, when occasion +offered, introducing new voters into the Florentine Council by paying +off the debts of those who were disqualified by poverty from using the +franchise. While his capital was continually increasing he lived +frugally, and employed his wealth solely for the consolidation of his +political influence. By these arts Cosimo became formidable to the +oligarchs and beloved by the people. His supporters were numerous, and +held together by the bonds of immediate necessity or personal +cupidity. The plebeians and the merchants were all on his side. The +Grandi and the Ammoniti, excluded from the State by the practices of +the Albizzi, had more to hope from the Medicean party than from the +few families who still contrived to hold the reins of government. It +was clear that a conflict to the death must soon commence between the +oligarchy and this new faction.</p> + + +<p>VIII</p> + + +<p>At last, in 1433, war was declared. The first blow was struck by +Rinaldo degli Albizzi, who put himself in the wrong by attacking a +citizen indispensable to the people at large, and guilty of no +unconstitutional act. On September 7th of that year, a year decisive +for the future destinies of Florence, he summoned Cosimo to the Public +Palace, which he had previously occupied with troops at his command. +There he declared him a rebel to the State, and had him imprisoned in +a little square room in the central tower. The tocsin was sounded; the +people were assembled in parliament upon the piazza. The Albizzi held +the main streets with armed men, and forced the Florentines to place +plenipotentiary power for the administration of the commonwealth at +this crisis in the hands of a Balia, or committee selected by +themselves. It was always thus that acts of high tyranny were effected +in Florence. A show of legality was secured by gaining the compulsory +sanction of the people, driven by soldiery into the public square, and +hastily ordered to recognise the authority of their oppressors.</p> + +<p>The bill of indictment against the Medici accused them of sedition in +the year 1378—that is, in the year of the Ciompi Tumult—and of +treasonable practice during the whole course of the Albizzi +administration. It also strove to fix upon them the odium of the +unsuccessful war against the town of Lucca. As soon as the Albizzi had +unmasked their batteries, Lorenzo de' Medici managed to escape from +the city, and took with him his brother Cosimo's children to Venice. +Cosimo remained shut up within the little room called Barberia in +Arnolfo's tower. From that high eagle's nest the sight can range +Valdarno far and wide. Florence with her towers and domes lies below; +and the blue peaks of Carrara close a prospect westward than which, +with its villa-jewelled slopes and fertile gardens, there is nought +more beautiful upon the face of earth. The prisoner can have paid but +little heed to this fair landscape. He heard the frequent ringing of +the great bell that called the Florentines to council, the tramp of +armed men on the piazza, the coming and going of the burghers in the +palace halls beneath. On all sides lurked anxiety and fear of death. +Each mouthful he tasted might be poisoned. For many days he partook of +only bread and water, till his gaoler restored his confidence by +sharing all his meals. In this peril he abode twenty-four days. The +Albizzi, in concert with the Balia they had formed, were consulting +what they might venture to do with him. Some voted for his execution. +Others feared the popular favour, and thought that if they killed +Cosimo this act would ruin their own power. The nobler natures among +them determined to proceed by constitutional measures. At last, upon +September 29th, it was settled that Cosimo should be exiled to Padua +for ten years. The Medici were declared Grandi, by way of excluding +them from political rights. But their property remained untouched; and +on October 3rd, Cosimo was released.</p> + +<p>On the same day Cosimo took his departure. His journey northward +resembled a triumphant progress. He left Florence a simple burgher; he +entered Venice a powerful prince. Though the Albizzi seemed to have +gained the day, they had really cut away the ground beneath their +feet. They committed the fatal mistake of doing both too much and too +little—too much because they declared war against an innocent man, +and roused the sympathies of the whole people in his behalf; too +little, because they had not the nerve to complete their act by +killing him outright and extirpating his party. Machiavelli, in one of +his profoundest and most cynical critiques, remarks that few men know +how to be thoroughly bad with honour to themselves. Their will is +evil; but the grain of good in them—some fear of public opinion, +some repugnance to committing a signal crime—paralyses their arm at +the moment when it ought to have been raised to strike. He instances +Gian Paolo Baglioni's omission to murder Julius II., when that Pope +placed himself within his clutches at Perugia. He might also have +instanced Rinaldo degli Albizzi's refusal to push things to +extremities by murdering Cosimo. It was the combination of despotic +violence in the exile of Cosimo with constitutional moderation in the +preservation of his life, that betrayed the weakness of the oligarchs +and restored confidence to the Medicean party.</p> + + +<p>IX</p> + + +<p>In the course of the year 1434 this party began to hold up its head. +Powerful as the Albizzi were, they only retained the government by +artifice; and now they had done a deed which put at nought their +former arts and intrigues. A Signory favourable to the Medici came +into office, and on September 26th, 1434, Rinaldo in his turn was +summoned to the palace and declared a rebel. He strove to raise the +forces of his party, and entered the piazza at the head of eight +hundred men. The menacing attitude of the people, however, made +resistance perilous. Rinaldo disbanded his troops, and placed himself +under the protection of Pope Eugenius IV., who was then resident in +Florence. This act of submission proved that Rinaldo had not the +courage or the cruelty to try the chance of civil war. Whatever his +motives may have been, he lost his hold upon the State beyond +recovery. On September 29th, a new parliament was summoned; on October +2nd, Cosimo was recalled from exile and the Albizzi were banished. The +intercession of the Pope procured for them nothing but the liberty to +leave Florence unmolested. Einaldo turned his back upon the city he +had governed, never to set foot in it again. On October 6th, Cosimo, +having passed through Padua, Ferrara, and Modena like a conqueror, +reentered the town amid the plaudits of the people, and took up his +dwelling as an honoured guest in the Palace of the Republic. The +subsequent history of Florence is the history of his family. In after +years the Medici loved to remember this return of Cosimo. His +triumphal reception was painted in fresco on the walls of their villa +at Cajano under the transparent allegory of Cicero's entrance into +Rome.</p> + + +<p>X</p> + + +<p>By their brief exile the Medici had gained the credit of injured +innocence, the fame of martyrdom in the popular cause. Their foes had +struck the first blow, and in striking at them had seemed to aim +against the liberties of the republic. The mere failure of their +adversaries to hold the power they had acquired, handed over this +power to the Medici; and the reprisals which the Medici began to take +had the show of justice, not of personal hatred, or petty vengeance. +Cosimo was a true Florentine. He disliked violence, because he knew +that blood spilt cries for blood. His passions, too, were cool and +temperate. No gust of anger, no intoxication of success, destroyed his +balance. His one object, the consolidation of power for his family on +the basis of popular favour, was kept steadily in view; and he would +do nothing that might compromise that end. Yet he was neither generous +nor merciful. We therefore find that from the first moment of his +return to Florence he instituted a system of pitiless and unforgiving +persecution against his old opponents. The Albizzi were banished, root +and branch, with all their followers, consigned to lonely and often to +unwholesome stations through the length and breadth of Italy. If they +broke the bonds assigned them, they were forthwith declared traitors +and their property was confiscated. After a long series of years, by +merely keeping in force the first sentence pronounced upon them, +Cosimo had the cruel satisfaction of seeing the whole of that proud +oligarchy die out by slow degrees in the insufferable tedium of +solitude and exile. Even the high-souled Palla degli Strozzi, who had +striven to remain neutral, and whose wealth and talents were devoted +to the revival of classical studies, was proscribed because to Cosimo +he seemed too powerful. Separated from his children, he died in +banishment at Padua. In this way the return of the Medici involved the +loss to Florence of some noble citizens, who might perchance have +checked the Medicean tyranny if they had stayed to guide the State. +The plebeians, raised to wealth and influence by Cosimo before his +exile, now took the lead in the republic. He used these men as +catspaws, rarely putting himself forward or allowing his own name to +appear, but pulling the wires of government in privacy by means of +intermediate agents. The Medicean party was called at first <i>Puccini</i> +from a certain Puccio, whose name was better known in caucus or +committee than that of his real master.</p> + +<p>To rule through these creatures of his own making taxed all the +ingenuity of Cosimo; but his profound and subtle intellect was suited +to the task, and he found unlimited pleasure in the exercise of his +consummate craft. We have already seen to what extent he used his +riches for the acquisition of political influence. Now that he had +come to power, he continued the same method, packing the Signory and +the Councils with men whom he could hold by debt between his thumb and +finger. His command of the public moneys enabled him to wink at +peculation in State offices; it was part of his system to bind +magistrates and secretaries to his interest by their consciousness of +guilt condoned but not forgotten. Not a few, moreover, owed their +living to the appointments he procured for them. While he thus +controlled the wheel-work of the commonwealth by means of organised +corruption, he borrowed the arts of his old enemies to oppress +dissentient citizens. If a man took an independent line in voting, +and refused allegiance to the Medicean party, he was marked out for +persecution. No violence was used; but he found himself hampered in +his commerce—money, plentiful for others, became scarce for him; his +competitors in trade were subsidised to undersell him. And while the +avenues of industry were closed, his fortune was taxed above its +value, until he had to sell at a loss in order to discharge his public +obligations. In the first twenty years of the Medicean rule, seventy +families had to pay 4,875,000 golden florins of extraordinary imposts, +fixed by arbitrary assessment.</p> + +<p>The more patriotic members of his party looked with dread and loathing +on this system of corruption and exclusion. To their remonstrances +Cosimo replied in four memorable sayings: 'Better the State spoiled +than the State not ours.' 'Governments cannot be carried on with +paternosters.' 'An ell of scarlet makes a burgher.' 'I aim at finite +ends.' These maxims represent the whole man,—first, in his egotism, +eager to gain Florence for his family, at any risk of her ruin; +secondly, in his cynical acceptance of base means to selfish ends; +thirdly, in his bourgeois belief that money makes a man, and fine +clothes suffice for a citizen; fourthly, in his worldly ambition bent +on positive success. It was, in fact, his policy to reduce Florence to +the condition of a rotten borough: nor did this policy fail. One +notable sign of the influence he exercised was the change which now +came over the foreign relations of the republic. Up to the date of his +dictatorship Florence had uniformly fought the battle of freedom in +Italy. It was the chief merit of the Albizzi oligarchy that they +continued the traditions of the mediæval State, and by their vigorous +action checked the growth of the Visconti. Though they engrossed the +government they never forgot that they were first of all things +Florentines, and only in the second place men who owed their power and +influence to office. In a word, they acted like patriotic Tories, like +republican patricians. Therefore they would not ally themselves with +tyrants or countenance the enslavement of free cities by armed +despots. Their subjugation of the Tuscan burghs to Florence was itself +part of a grand republican policy. Cosimo changed all this. When the +Visconti dynasty ended by the death of Filippo Maria in 1447, there +was a chance of restoring the independence of Lombardy. Milan in +effect declared herself a republic, and by the aid of Florence she +might at this moment have maintained her liberty. Cosimo, however, +entered into treaty with Francesco Sforza, supplied him with money, +guaranteed him against Florentine interference, and saw with +satisfaction how he reduced the duchy to his military tyranny. The +Medici were conscious that they, selfishly, had most to gain by +supporting despots who in time of need might help them to confirm +their own authority. With the same end in view, when the legitimate +line of the Bentivogli was extinguished, Cosimo hunted out a bastard +pretender of that family, presented him to the chiefs of the +Bentivogli faction, and had him placed upon the seat of his supposed +ancestors at Bologna. This young man, a certain Santi da Cascese, +presumed to be the son of Ercole de' Bentivogli, was an artisan in a +wool factory when Cosimo set eyes upon him. At first Santi refused the +dangerous honour of governing a proud republic; but the intrigues of +Cosimo prevailed, and the obscure craftsman ended his days a powerful +prince.</p> + +<p>By the arts I have attempted to describe, Cosimo in the course of his +long life absorbed the forces of the republic into himself. While he +shunned the external signs of despotic power he made himself the +master of the State. His complexion was of a pale olive; his stature +short; abstemious and simple in his habits, affable in conversation, +sparing of speech, he knew how to combine that burgher-like civility +for which the Romans praised Augustus, with the reality of a despotism +all the more difficult to combat because it seemed nowhere and was +everywhere. When he died, at the age of seventy-five, in 1464, the +people whom he had enslaved, but whom he had neither injured nor +insulted, honoured him with the title of <i>Pater Patriæ</i>. This was +inscribed upon his tomb in S. Lorenzo. He left to posterity the fame +of a great and generous patron,<a name="FNanchor_14_14" id="FNanchor_14_14" /></a><a href="#Footnote_14_14" class="fnanchor">[14]</a> the infamy of a cynical, +self-seeking, bourgeois tyrant. Such combinations of contradictory +qualities were common enough at the time of the Renaissance. Did not +Machiavelli spend his days in tavern-brawls and low amours, his nights +among the mighty spirits of the dead, with whom, when he had changed +his country suit of homespun for the habit of the Court, he found +himself an honoured equal?</p> + + +<p>XI</p> + + +<p>Cosimo had shown consummate skill by governing Florence through a +party created and raised to influence by himself. The jealousy of +these adherents formed the chief difficulty with which his son Piero +had to contend. Unless the Medici could manage to kick down the ladder +whereby they had risen, they ran the risk of losing all. As on a +former occasion, so now they profited by the mistakes of their +antagonists. Three chief men of their own party, Diotisalvi Neroni, +Agnolo Acciaiuoli, and Luca Pitti, determined to shake off the yoke of +their masters, and to repay the Medici for what they owed by leading +them to ruin. Niccolo Soderini, a patriot, indignant at the slow +enslavement of his country, joined them. At first they strove to +undermine the credit of the Medici with the Florentines by inducing +Piero to call in the moneys placed at interest by his father in the +hands of private citizens. This act was unpopular; but it did not +suffice to move a revolution. To proceed by constitutional measures +against the Medici was judged impolitic. Therefore the conspirators +decided to take, if possible, Piero's life. The plot failed, chiefly +owing to the coolness and the cunning of the young Lorenzo, Piero's +eldest son. Public sympathy was strongly excited against the +aggressors. Neroni, Acciaiuoli, and Soderini were exiled. Pitti was +allowed to stay, dishonoured, powerless, and penniless, in Florence. +Meanwhile, the failure of their foes had only served to strengthen the +position of the Medici. The ladder had saved them the trouble of +kicking it down.</p> + +<p>The congratulations addressed on this occasion to Piero and Lorenzo by +the ruling powers of Italy show that the Medici were already regarded +as princes outside Florence. Lorenzo and Giuliano, the two sons of +Piero, travelled abroad to the Courts of Milan and Ferrara with the +style and state of more than simple citizens. At home they occupied +the first place on all occasions of public ceremony, receiving royal +visitors on terms of equality, and performing the hospitalities of the +republic like men who had been born to represent its dignities. +Lorenzo's marriage to Clarice Orsini, of the noble Roman house, was +another sign that the Medici were advancing on the way toward +despotism. Cosimo had avoided foreign alliances for his children. His +descendants now judged themselves firmly planted enough to risk the +odium of a princely match for the sake of the support outside the city +they might win.</p> + + +<p>XII</p> + + +<p>Piero de' Medici died in December 1469. His son Lorenzo was then +barely twenty-two years of age. The chiefs of the Medicean party, +<p>all-powerful in the State, held a council, in which they resolved to +place him in the same position as his father and grandfather. This +resolve seems to have been formed after mature deliberation, on the +ground that the existing conditions of Italian politics rendered it +impossible to conduct the government without a presidential head. +Florence, though still a democracy, required a permanent chief to +treat on an equality with the princes of the leading cities. Here we +may note the prudence of Cosimo's foreign policy. When he helped to +establish despots in Milan and Bologna he was rendering the presidency +of his own family in Florence necessary.</p> + +<p>Lorenzo, having received this invitation, called attention to his +youth and inexperience. Yet he did not refuse it; and, after a +graceful display of diffidence, he accepted the charge, entering thus +upon that famous political career, in the course of which he not only +established and maintained a balance of power in Italy, with Florence +for the central city, but also contrived to remodel the government of +the republic in the interest of his own family and to strengthen the +Medici by relations with the Papal See.</p> + +<p>The extraordinary versatility of this man's intellectual and social +gifts, his participation in all the literary and philosophical +interests of his century, his large and liberal patronage of art, and +the gaiety with which he joined the people of Florence in their +pastimes—Mayday games and Carnival festivities—strengthened his hold +upon the city in an age devoted to culture and refined pleasure. +Whatever was most brilliant in the spirit of the Italian Benaissance +seemed to be incarnate in Lorenzo. Not merely as a patron and a +dilettante, but as a poet and a critic, a philosopher and scholar, he +proved himself adequate to the varied intellectual ambitions of his +country. Penetrated with the passion for erudition which distinguished +Florence in the fifteenth century, familiar with her painters and her +sculptors, deeply read in the works of her great poets, he conceived +the ideal of infusing the spirit of antique civility into modern life, +and of effecting for society what the artists were performing in their +own sphere. To preserve the native character of the Florentine genius, +while he added the grace of classic form, was the aim to which his +tastes and instincts led him. At the same time, while he made himself +the master of Florentine revels and the Augustus of Renaissance +literature, he took care that beneath his carnival masks and +ball-dress should be concealed the chains which he was forging for the +republic.</p> + +<p>What he lacked, with so much mental brilliancy, was moral greatness. +The age he lived in was an age of selfish despots, treacherous +generals, godless priests. It was an age of intellectual vigour and +artistic creativeness; but it was also an age of mean ambition, sordid +policy, and vitiated principles. Lorenzo remained true in all respects +to the genius of this age: true to its enthusiasm for antique culture, +true to its passion for art, true to its refined love of pleasure; but +true also to its petty political intrigues, to its cynical +selfishness, to its lack of heroism. For Florence he looked no higher +and saw no further than Cosimo had done. If culture was his pastime, +the enslavement of the city by bribery and corruption was the hard +work of his manhood. As is the case with much Renaissance art, his +life was worth more for its decorative detail than for its +constructive design. In richness, versatility, variety, and +exquisiteness of execution, it left little to be desired; yet, viewed +at a distance, and as a whole, it does not inspire us with a sense of +architectonic majesty.</p> + + +<p>XIII</p> + + +<p>Lorenzo's chief difficulties arose from the necessity under which, +like Cosimo, he laboured of governing the city through its old +institutions by means of a party. To keep the members of this party in +good temper, and to gain their approval for the alterations he +effected in the State machinery of Florence, was the problem of his +life. The successful solution of this problem was easier now, after +two generations of the Medicean ascendency, than it had been at first. +Meanwhile the people were maintained in good humour by public shows, +ease, plenty, and a general laxity of discipline. The splendour of +Lorenzo's foreign alliances and the consideration he received from all +the Courts of Italy contributed in no small measure to his popularity +and security at home. By using his authority over Florence to inspire +respect abroad, and by using his foreign credit to impose upon the +burghers, Lorenzo displayed the tact of a true Italian diplomatist. +His genius for statecraft, as then understood, was indeed of a rare +order, equally adapted to the conduct of a complicated foreign policy +and to the control of a suspicious and variable Commonwealth. In one +point alone he was inferior to his grandfather. He neglected commerce, +and allowed his banking business to fall into disorder so hopeless +that in course of time he ceased to be solvent. Meanwhile his personal +expenses, both as a prince in his own palace, and as the +representative of majesty in Florence, continually increased. The +bankruptcy of the Medici, it had long been foreseen, would involve the +public finances in serious confusion. And now, in order to retrieve +his fortunes, Lorenzo was not only obliged to repudiate his debts to +the exchequer, but had also to gain complete disposal of the State +purse. It was this necessity that drove him to effect the +constitutional revolution of 1480, by which he substituted a Privy +Council of seventy members for the old Councils of the State, +absorbing the chief functions of the commonwealth into this single +body, whom he practically nominated at pleasure. The same want of +money led to the great scandal of his reign—the plundering of the +Monte delle Doti, or State Insurance Office Fund for securing dowers +to the children of its creditors.</p> + + +<p>XIV</p> + + +<p>While tracing the salient points of Lorenzo de' Medici's +administration I have omitted to mention the important events which +followed shortly after his accession to power in 1469. What happened +between that date and 1480 was not only decisive for the future +fortunes of the Casa Medici, but it was also eminently characteristic +of the perils and the difficulties which beset Italian despots. The +year 1471 was signalised by a visit by the Duke Galeazzo Maria Sforza +of Milan, and his wife Bona of Savoy, to the Medici in Florence. They +came attended by their whole Court—body guards on horse and foot, +ushers, pages, falconers, grooms, kennel-varlets, and huntsmen. +Omitting the mere baggage service, their train counted two thousand +horses. To mention this incident would be superfluous, had not so +acute an observer as Machiavelli marked it out as a turning-point in +Florentine history. Now, for the first time, the democratic +commonwealth saw its streets filled with a mob of courtiers. Masques, +balls, and tournaments succeeded each other with magnificent variety; +and all the arts of Florence were pressed into the service of these +festivals. Machiavelli says that the burghers lost the last remnant of +their old austerity of manners, and became, like the degenerate +Romans, ready to obey the masters who provided them with brilliant +spectacles. They gazed with admiration on the pomp of Italian +princes, their dissolute and godless living, their luxury and prodigal +expenditure; and when the Medici affected similar habits in the next +generation, the people had no courage to resist the invasion of their +pleasant vices.</p> + +<p>In the same year, 1471, Volterra was reconquered for the Florentines +by Frederick of Urbino. The honours of this victory, disgraced by a +brutal sack of the conquered city, in violation of its articles of +capitulation, were reserved for Lorenzo, who returned in triumph to +Florence. More than ever he assumed the prince, and in his person +undertook to represent the State.</p> + +<p>In the same year, 1471, Francesco della Rovere was raised to the +Papacy with the memorable name of Sixtus IV. Sixtus was a man of +violent temper and fierce passions, restless and impatiently +ambitious, bent on the aggrandisement of the beautiful and wanton +youths, his nephews. Of these the most aspiring was Girolamo Riario, +for whom Sixtus bought the town of Imola from Taddeo Manfredi, in +order that he might possess the title of count and the nucleus of a +tyranny in the Romagna. This purchase thwarted the plans of Lorenzo, +who wished to secure the same advantages for Florence. Smarting with +the sense of disappointment, he forbade the Roman banker, Francesco +Pazzi, to guarantee the purchase-money. By this act Lorenzo made two +mortal foes—the Pope and Francesco Pazzi. Francesco was a thin, pale, +atrabilious fanatic, all nerve and passion, with a monomaniac +intensity of purpose, and a will inflamed and guided by imagination—a +man formed by nature for conspiracy, such a man, in fact, as Shakspere +drew in Cassius. Maddened by Lorenzo's prohibition, he conceived the +notion of overthrowing the Medici in Florence by a violent blow. +Girolamo Riario entered into his views. So did Francesco Salviati, +Archbishop of Pisa, who had private reasons for hostility. These men +found no difficulty in winning over Sixtus to their plot; nor is it +possible to purge the Pope of participation in what followed. I need +not describe by what means Francesco drew the other members of his +family into the scheme, and how he secured the assistance of armed +cut-throats. Suffice it to say that the chief conspirators, with the +exception of the Count Girolamo, betook themselves to Florence, and +there, after the failure of other attempts, decided to murder Lorenzo +and his brother Giuliano in the cathedral on Sunday, April 26th, 1478. +The moment when the priest at the high altar finished the mass, was +fixed for the assassination. Everything was ready. The conspirators, +by Judas kisses and embracements, had discovered that the young men +wore no protective armour under their silken doublets. Pacing the +aisle behind the choir, they feared no treason. And now the lives of +both might easily have been secured, if at the last moment the courage +of the hired assassins had not failed them. Murder, they said, was +well enough; but they could not bring themselves to stab men before +the newly consecrated body of Christ. In this extremity a priest was +found who, 'being accustomed to churches,' had no scruples. He and +another reprobate were told off to Lorenzo. Francesco de' Pazzi +himself undertook Giuliano. The moment for attack arrived. Francesco +plunged his dagger into the heart of Giuliano. Then, not satisfied +with this death-blow, he struck again, and in his heat of passion +wounded his own thigh. Lorenzo escaped with a flesh-wound from the +poniard of the priest, and rushed into the sacristy, where his friend +Poliziano shut and held the brazen door. The plot had failed; for +Giuliano, of the two brothers, was the one whom the conspirators would +the more willingly have spared. The whole church was in an uproar. The +city rose in tumult. Rage and horror took possession of the people. +They flew to the Palazzo Pubblico and to the houses of the Pazzi, +hunted the conspirators from place to place, hung the archbishop by +the neck from the palace windows, and, as they found fresh victims +for their fury, strung them one by one in a ghastly row at his side +above the Square. About one hundred in all were killed. None who had +joined in the plot escaped; for Lorenzo had long arms, and one man, +who fled to Constantinople, was delivered over to his agents by the +Sultan. Out of the whole Pazzi family only Guglielmo, the husband of +Bianca de' Medici, was spared. When the tumult was over, Andrea del +Castagno painted the portraits of the traitors head-downwards upon the +walls of the Bargello Palace, in order that all men might know what +fate awaited the foes of the Medici and of the State of Florence.<a name="FNanchor_15_15" id="FNanchor_15_15" /></a><a href="#Footnote_15_15" class="fnanchor">[15]</a> +Meanwhile a bastard son of Giuliano's was received into the Medicean +household, to perpetuate his lineage. This child, named Giulio, was +destined to be famous in the annals of Italy and Florence under the +title of Pope Clement VII.</p> + + +<p>XV</p> + + +<p>As is usual when such plots miss their mark, the passions excited +redounded to the profit of the injured party. The commonwealth felt +that the blow struck at Lorenzo had been aimed at their majesty. +Sixtus, on the other hand, could not contain his rage at the failure +of so ably planned a <i>coup de main</i>. Ignoring that he had sanctioned +the treason, that a priest had put his hand to the dagger, that the +impious deed had been attempted in a church before the very Sacrament +of Christ, whose vicar on earth he was, the Pope now excommunicated +the republic. The reason he alleged was, that the Florentines had +dared to hang an archbishop.</p> + +<p>Thus began a war to the death between Sixtus and Florence. The Pope +inflamed the whole of Italy, and carried on a ruinous campaign in +Tuscany. It seemed as though the republic might lose her subject +cities, always ready to revolt when danger threatened the sovereign +State. Lorenzo's position became critical. Sixtus made no secret of +the hatred he bore him personally, declaring that he fought less with +Florence than with the Medici. To support the odium of this long war +and this heavy interdict alone, was more than he could do. His allies +forsook him. Naples was enlisted on the Pope's side. Milan and the +other States of Lombardy were occupied with their own affairs, and +held aloof. In this extremity he saw that nothing but a bold step +could save him. The league formed by Sixtus must be broken up at any +risk, and, if possible, by his own ability. On December 6th, 1479, +Lorenzo left Florence, unarmed and unattended, took ship at Leghorn, +and proceeded to the court of the enemy, King Ferdinand, at Naples. +Ferdinand was a cruel and treacherous sovereign, who had murdered his +guest, Jacopo Piccinino, at a banquet given in his honour. But +Ferdinand was the son of Alfonso, who, by address and eloquence, had +gained a kingdom from his foe and jailor, Filippo Maria Visconti. +Lorenzo calculated that he too, following Alfonso's policy, might +prove to Ferdinand how little there was to gain from an alliance with +Rome, how much Naples and Florence, firmly united together for offence +and defence, might effect in Italy.</p> + +<p>Only a student of those perilous times can appreciate the courage and +the genius, the audacity combined with diplomatic penetration, +displayed by Lorenzo at this crisis. He calmly walked into the lion's +den, trusting he could tame the lion and teach it, and all in a few +days. Nor did his expectation fail. Though Lorenzo was rather ugly +than handsome, with a dark skin, heavy brows, powerful jaws, and nose +sharp in the bridge and broad at the nostrils, without grace of +carriage or melody of voice, he possessed what makes up for personal +defects—the winning charm of eloquence in conversation, a subtle wit, +profound knowledge of men, and tact allied to sympathy, which placed +him always at the centre of the situation. Ferdinand received him +kindly. The Neapolitan nobles admired his courage and were fascinated +by his social talents. On March 1st, 1480, he left Naples again, +having won over the King by his arguments. When he reached Florence he +was able to declare that he brought home a treaty of peace and +alliance signed by the most powerful foe of the republic. The success +of this bold enterprise endeared Lorenzo more than ever to his +countrymen. In the same year they concluded a treaty with Sixtus, who +was forced against his will to lay down arms by the capture of Otranto +and the extreme peril of Turkish invasion. After the year 1480 Lorenzo +remained sole master in Florence, the arbiter and peacemaker of the +rest of Italy.</p> + + +<p>XVI</p> + + +<p>The conjuration of the Pazzi was only one in a long series of similar +conspiracies. Italian despots gained their power by violence and +wielded it with craft. Violence and craft were therefore used against +them. When the study of the classics had penetrated the nation with +antique ideas of heroism, tyrannicide became a virtue. Princes were +murdered with frightful frequency. Thus Gian Maria Visconti was put to +death at Milan in 1412; Galeazzo Maria Sforza in 1484; the Chiarelli +of Fabriano were massacred in 1435; the Baglioni of Perugia in 1500; +Girolamo Gentile planned the assassination of Galeazzo Sforza at Genoa +in 1476; Niccolo d'Este conspired against his uncle Ercole in 1476; +Stefano Porcari attempted the life of Nicholas V. at Rome in 1453; +Lodovico Sforza narrowly escaped a violent death in 1453. I might +multiply these instances beyond satiety. As it is, I have selected +but a few examples falling, all but one, within the second half of the +fifteenth century. Nearly all these attempts upon the lives of princes +were made in church during the celebration of sacred offices. There +was no superfluity of naughtiness, no wilful sacrilege, in this choice +of an occasion. It only testified to the continual suspicion and +guarded watchfulness maintained by tyrants. To strike at them except +in church was almost impossible. Meanwhile the fate of the +tyrannicides was uniform. Successful or not, they perished. Yet so +grievous was the pressure of Italian despotism, so glorious was the +ideal of Greek and Roman heroism, so passionate the temper of the +people, that to kill a prince at any cost to self appeared the crown +of manliness. This bloodshed exercised a delirious fascination: pure +and base, personal and patriotic motives combined to add intensity of +fixed and fiery purpose to the murderous impulse. Those then who, like +the Medici, aspired to tyranny and sought to found a dynasty of +princes, entered the arena against a host of unknown and unseen +gladiators.</p> + + +<p>XVII</p> + + +<p>On his deathbed, in 1492, Lorenzo lay between two men—Angelo +Poliziano and Girolamo Savonarola. Poliziano incarnated the genial, +radiant, godless spirit of fifteenth-century humanism. Savonarola +represented the conscience of Italy, self-convicted, amid all her +greatness, of crimes that called for punishment. It is said that when +Lorenzo asked the monk for absolution, Savonarola bade him first +restore freedom to Florence. Lorenzo, turned his face to the wall and +was silent. How indeed could he make this city in a moment free, after +sixty years of slow and systematic corruption? Savonarola left him, +and he died unshriven. This legend is doubtful, though it rests on +excellent if somewhat partial authority. It has, at any rate, the +value of a mythus, since it epitomises the attitude assumed by the +great preacher to the prince. Florence enslaved, the soul of Lorenzo +cannot lay its burden down, but must go with all its sins upon it to +the throne of God.</p> + +<p>The year 1492 was a memorable year for Italy. In this year Lorenzo's +death removed the keystone of the arch that had sustained the fabric +of Italian federation. In this year Roderigo Borgia was elected Pope. +In this year Columbus discovered America; Vasco de Gama soon after +opened a new way to the Indies, and thus the commerce of the world +passed from Italy to other nations. In this year the conquest of +Granada gave unity to the Spanish nation. In this year France, through +the lifelong craft of Louis XI., was for the first time united under a +young hot-headed sovereign. On every side of the political horizon +storms threatened. It was clear that a new chapter of European history +had been opened. Then Savonarola raised his voice, and cried that the +crimes of Italy, the abominations of the Church, would speedily be +punished. Events led rapidly to the fulfilment of this prophecy. +Lorenzo's successor, Piero de' Medici, was a vain, irresolute, and +hasty princeling, fond of display, proud of his skill in fencing and +football-playing, with too much of the Orsini blood in his hot veins, +with too little of the Medicean craft in his weak head. The Italian +despots felt they could not trust Piero, and this want of confidence +was probably the first motive that impelled Lodovico Sforza to call +Charles VIII. into Italy in 1494.</p> + +<p>It will not be necessary to dwell upon this invasion of the French, +except in so far as it affected Florence. Charles passed rapidly +through Lombardy, engaged his army in the passes of the Apennines, and +debouched upon the coast where the Magra divided Tuscany from Liguria. +Here the fortresses of Sarzana and Pietra Santa, between the marble +bulwark of Carrara and the Tuscan sea, stopped his further progress. +The keys were held by the Florentines. To force these strong positions +and to pass beyond them seemed impossible. It might have been +impossible if Piero de' Medici had possessed a firmer will. As it was, +he rode off to the French camp, delivered up the forts to Charles, +bound the King by no engagements, and returned not otherwise than +proud of his folly to Florence. A terrible reception awaited him. The +Florentines, in their fury, had risen and sacked the Medicean palace. +It was as much as Piero, with his brothers, could do to escape beyond +the hills to Venice. The despotism of the Medici, so carefully built +up, so artfully sustained and strengthened, was overthrown in a single +day.</p> + + +<p>XVIII</p> + + +<p>Before considering what happened in Florence after the expulsion of +the Medici, it will be well to pause a moment and review the state in +which Lorenzo had left his family. Piero, his eldest son, recognised +as chief of the republic after his father's death, was married to +Alfonsina Orsini, and was in his twenty-second year. Giovanni, his +second son, a youth of seventeen, had just been made cardinal. This +honour, of vast importance for the Casa Medici in the future, he owed +to his sister Maddalena's marriage to Franceschetto Cybo, son of +Innocent VIII. The third of Lorenzo's sons, named Giuliano, was a boy +of thirteen. Giulio, the bastard son of the elder Giuliano, was +fourteen. These four princes formed the efficient strength of the +Medici, the hope of the house; and for each of them, with the +exception of Piero, who died in exile, and of whom no more notice need +be taken, a brilliant destiny was still in store. In the year 1495, +however, they now wandered, homeless and helpless, through the cities +of Italy, each of which was shaken to its foundations by the French +invasion.</p> + + +<p>XIX</p> + + +<p>Florence, left without the Medici, deprived of Pisa and other subject +cities by the passage of the French army, with no leader but the monk +Savonarola, now sought to reconstitute her liberties. During the +domination of the Albizzi and the Medici the old order of the +commonwealth had been completely broken up. The Arti had lost their +primitive importance. The distinctions between the Grandi and the +Popolani had practically passed away. In a democracy that has +submitted to a lengthened course of tyranny, such extinction of its +old life is inevitable. Yet the passion for liberty was still +powerful; and the busy brains of the Florentines were stored with +experience gained from their previous vicissitudes, from \ the study +of antique history, and from the observation of existing constitutions +in the towns of Italy. They now determined to reorganise the State +upon the model of the Venetian republic. The Signory was to remain, +with its old institution of Priors, Gonfalonier, and College, elected +for brief periods. These magistrates were to take the initiative in +debate, to propose measures, and to consider plans of action. The real +power of the State, for voting supplies and ratifying the measures of +the Signory, was vested in a senate of one thousand members, called +the Grand Council, from whom a smaller body of forty, acting as +intermediates between the Council and the Signory, were elected. It is +said that the plan of this constitution originated with Savonarola; +nor is there any doubt that he used all his influence in the pulpit of +the Duomo to render it acceptable to the people. Whoever may have been +responsible for its formation, the new government was carried in +1495, and a large hall for the assembly of the Grand Council was +opened in the Public Palace.</p> + +<p>Savonarola, meanwhile, had become the ruling spirit of Florence. He +gained his great power as a preacher: he used it like a monk. The +motive principle of his action was the passion for reform. To bring +the Church back to its pristine state of purity, without altering its +doctrine or suggesting any new form of creed; to purge Italy of +ungodly customs; to overthrow the tyrants who encouraged evil living, +and to place the power of the State in the hands of sober citizens: +these were his objects. Though he set himself in bold opposition to +the reigning Pope, he had no desire to destroy the spiritual supremacy +of S. Peter's see. Though he burned with an enthusiastic zeal for +liberty, and displayed rare genius for administration, he had no +ambition to rule Florence like a dictator. Savonarola was neither a +reformer in the northern sense of the word, nor yet a political +demagogue. His sole wish was to see purity of manners and freedom of +self-government re-established. With this end in view he bade the +Florentines elect Christ as their supreme chief; and they did so. For +the same end he abstained from appearing in the State Councils, and +left the Constitution to work by its own laws. His personal influence +he reserved for the pulpit; and here he was omnipotent. The people +believed in him as a prophet. They turned to him as the man who knew +what he wanted—as the voice of liberty, the soul of the new régime, +the genius who could breathe into the commonwealth a breath of fresh +vitality. When, therefore, Savonarola preached a reform of manners, he +was at once obeyed. Strict laws were passed enforcing sobriety, +condemning trades of pleasure, reducing the gay customs of Florence to +puritanical austerity.</p> + +<p>Great stress has been laid upon this reaction of the monk-led populace +against the vices of the past. Yet the historian is bound to pronounce +that the reform effected by Savonarola was rather picturesque than +vital. Like all violent revivals of pietism, it produced a no less +violent reaction. The parties within the city who resented the +interference of a preaching friar, joined with the Pope in Rome, who +hated a contumacious schismatic in Savonarola. Assailed by these two +forces at the same moment, and driven upon perilous ground by his own +febrile enthusiasm, Savonarola succumbed. He was imprisoned, tortured, +and burned upon the public square in 1498.</p> + +<p>What Savonarola really achieved for Florence was not a permanent +reform of morality, but a resuscitation of the spirit of freedom. His +followers, called in contempt <i>I Piagnoni</i>, or the Weepers, formed the +path of the commonwealth in future; and the memory of their martyr +served as a common bond of sympathy to unite them in times of trial. +It was a necessary consequence of the peculiar part he played that the +city was henceforth divided into factions representing mutually +antagonistic principles. These factions were not created by +Savonarola; but his extraordinary influence accentuated, as it were, +the humours that lay dormant in the State. Families favourable to the +Medici took the name of <i>Palleschi</i>. Men who chafed against +puritanical reform, and who were eager for any government that should +secure them their old licence, were known as <i>Compagnacci</i>. Meanwhile +the oligarchs, who disliked a democratic Constitution, and thought it +possible to found an aristocracy without the intervention of the +Medici, came to be known as <i>Gli Ottimati</i>. Florence held within +itself, from this epoch forward to the final extinction of liberty, +four great parties: the <i>Piagnoni</i>, passionate for political freedom +and austerity of life; the <i>Palleschi</i>, favourable to the Medicean +cause, and regretful of Lorenzo's pleasant rule; the <i>Compagnacci</i>, +intolerant of the reformed republic, neither hostile nor loyal to the +Medici, but desirous of personal licence; the <i>Ottimati</i>, astute and +selfish, watching their own advantage, ever-mindful to form a narrow +government of privileged families, disinclined to the Medici, except +when they thought the Medici might be employed as instruments in their +intrigues.</p> + + +<p>XX</p> + + +<p>During the short period of Savonarola's ascendency, Florence was in +form at least a Theocracy, without any titular head but Christ; and as +long as the enthusiasm inspired by the monk lasted, as long as his +personal influence endured, the Constitution of the Grand Council +worked well. After his death it was found that the machinery was too +cumbrous. While adopting the Venetian form of government, the +Florentines had omitted one essential element—the Doge. By referring +measures of immediate necessity to the Grand Council, the republic +lost precious time. Dangerous publicity, moreover, was incurred; and +so large a body often came to no firm resolution. There was no +permanent authority in the State; no security that what had been +deliberated would be carried out with energy; no titular chief, who +could transact affairs with foreign potentates and their ambassadors. +Accordingly, in 1502, it was decreed that the Gonfalonier should hold +office for life—should be in fact a Doge. To this important post of +permanent president Piero Soderini was appointed; and in his hands +were placed the chief affairs of the republic.</p> + +<p>At this point Florence, after all her vicissitudes, had won her way to +something really similar to the Venetian Constitution. Yet the +similarity existed more in form than in fact. The government of +burghers in a Grand Council, with a Senate of forty, and a Gonfalonier +for life, had not grown up gradually and absorbed into itself the +vital forces of the commonwealth. It was a creation of inventive +intelligence, not of national development, in Florence. It had against +it the jealousy of the Ottimati, who felt themselves overshadowed by +the Gonfalonier; the hatred of the Palleschi, who yearned for the +Medici; the discontent of the working classes, who thought the +presence of a Court in Florence would improve trade; last, but not +least, the disaffection of the Compagnacci, who felt they could not +flourish to their heart's content in a free commonwealth. Moreover, +though the name of liberty was on every lip, though the Florentines +talked, wrote, and speculated more about constitutional independence +than they had ever done, the true energy of free institutions had +passed from the city. The corrupt government of Cosimo and Lorenzo +bore its natural fruit now. Egotistic ambition and avarice supplanted +patriotism and industry. It is necessary to comprehend these +circumstances, in order that the next revolution may be clearly +understood.</p> + + +<p>XXI</p> + + +<p>During the ten years which elapsed between 1502 and 1512, Piero +Soderini administered Florence with an outward show of great +prosperity. He regained Pisa, and maintained an honourable foreign +policy in the midst of the wars stirred up by the League of Cambray. +Meanwhile the young princes of the House of Medici had grown to +manhood in exile. The Cardinal Giovanni was thirty-seven in 1512. His +brother Giuliano was thirty-three. Both of these men were better +fitted than their brother Piero to fight the battles of the family. +Giovanni, in particular, had inherited no small portion of the +Medicean craft. During the troubled reign of Julius II. he kept very +quiet, cementing his connections with powerful men in Rome, but making +no effort to regain his hold on Florence. Now the moment for striking +a decisive blow had come. After the battle of Ravenna in 1512, the +French were driven out of Italy, and the Sforzas returned to Milan; +the Spanish troops, under the Viceroy Cardona, remained masters of the +country. Following the camp of these Spaniards, Giovanni de' Medici +entered Tuscany in August, and caused the restoration of the Medici +to be announced in Florence. The people, assembled by Soderini, +resolved to resist to the uttermost. No foreign army should force them +to receive the masters whom they had expelled. Yet their courage +failed on August 29th, when news reached them of the capture and the +sack of Prato. Prato is a sunny little city a few miles distant from +the walls of Florence, famous for the beauty of its women, the +richness of its gardens, and the grace of its buildings. Into this gem +of cities the savage soldiery of Spain marched in the bright autumnal +weather, and turned the paradise into a hell. It is even now +impossible to read of what they did in Prato without shuddering.<a name="FNanchor_16_16" id="FNanchor_16_16" /></a><a href="#Footnote_16_16" class="fnanchor">[16]</a> +Cruelty and lust, sordid greed for gold, and cold delight in +bloodshed, could go no further. Giovanni de' Medici, by nature mild +and voluptuous, averse to violence of all kinds, had to smile +approval, while the Spanish Viceroy knocked thus with mailed hand for +him at the door of Florence. The Florentines were paralysed with +terror. They deposed Soderini and received the Medici. Giovanni and +Giuliano entered their devastated palace in the Via Larga, abolished +the Grand Council, and dealt with the republic as they listed.</p> + + +<p>XXII</p> + + +<p>There was no longer any medium in Florence possible between either +tyranny or some such government as the Medici had now destroyed. The +State was too rotten to recover even the modified despotism of +Lorenzo's days. Each transformation had impaired some portion of its +framework, broken down some of its traditions, and sowed new seeds of +egotism in citizens who saw all things round them change but +self-advantage. Therefore Giovanni and Giuliano felt themselves secure +in flattering the popular vanity by an empty parade of the old +institutions. They restored the Signory and the Gonfalonier, elected +for intervals of two months by officers appointed for this purpose by +the Medici. Florence had the show of a free government. But the Medici +managed all things; and soldiers, commanded by their creature, Paolo +Vettori, held the Palace and the Public Square. The tyranny thus +established was less secure, inasmuch as it openly rested upon +violence, than Lorenzo's power had been; nor were there signs wanting +that the burghers could ill brook their servitude. The conspiracy of +Pietro Paolo Boscoli and Agostino Capponi proved that the Medicean +brothers ran daily risk of life. Indeed, it is not likely that they +would have succeeded in maintaining their authority—for they were +poor and ill-supported by friends outside the city—except for one +most lucky circumstance: that was the election of Giovanni de' Medici +to the Papacy in 1513.</p> + +<p>The creation of Leo X. spread satisfaction throughout Italy. +Politicians trusted that he would display some portion of his father's +ability, and restore peace to the nation. Men of arts and letters +expected everything from a Medicean Pope, who had already acquired the +reputation of polite culture and open-handed generosity. They at any +rate were not deceived. Leo's first words on taking his place in the +Vatican were addressed to his brother Giuliano: 'Let us enjoy the +Papacy, now that God has given it to us;' and his notion of enjoyment +was to surround himself with court-poets, jesters, and musicians, to +adorn his Roman palaces with frescoes, to collect statues and +inscriptions, to listen to Latin speeches, and to pass judgment upon +scholarly compositions. Any one and every one who gave him sensual or +intellectual pleasure, found his purse always open. He lived in the +utmost magnificence, and made Rome the Paris of the Renaissance for +brilliance, immorality, and self-indulgent ease. The politicians had +less reason to be satisfied. Instead of uniting the Italians and +keeping the great Powers of Europe in check, Leo carried on a series +of disastrous petty wars, chiefly with the purpose of establishing the +Medici as princes. He squandered the revenues of the Church, and left +enormous debts behind him—an exchequer ruined and a foreign policy so +confused that peace for Italy could only be obtained by servitude.</p> + +<p>Florence shared in the general rejoicing which greeted Leo's accession +to the Papacy. He was the first Florentine citizen who had received +the tiara, and the popular vanity was flattered by this honour to the +republic. Political theorists, meanwhile, began to speculate what +greatness Florence, in combination with Rome, might rise to. The Pope +was young; he ruled a large territory, reduced to order by his warlike +predecessors. It seemed as though the republic, swayed by him, might +make herself the first city in Italy, and restore the glories of her +Guelf ascendency upon the platform of Renaissance statecraft. There +was now no overt opposition to the Medici in Florence. How to govern +the city from Rome, and how to advance the fortunes of his brother +Giuliano and his nephew Lorenzo (Piero's son, a young man of +twenty-one), occupied the Pope's most serious attention. For Lorenzo +Leo obtained the Duchy of Urbino and the hand of a French princess. +Giuliano was named Gonfalonier of the Church. He also received the +French title of Duke of Nemours and the hand of Filiberta, Princess of +Savoy. Leo entertained a further project of acquiring the crown of +Southern Italy for his brother, and thus of uniting Rome, Florence, +and Naples under the headship of his house. Nor were the Medicean +interests neglected in the Church. Giulio, the Pope's bastard cousin, +was made cardinal. He remained in Rome, acting as vice-chancellor and +doing the hard work of the Papal Government for the pleasure-loving +pontiff.</p> + +<p>To Lorenzo, Duke of Urbino, the titular head of the family, was +committed the government of Florence. During their exile, wandering +from court to court in Italy, the Medici had forgotten what it was to +be burghers, and had acquired the manners of princes. Leo alone +retained enough of caution to warn his nephew that the Florentines +must still be treated as free people. He confirmed the constitution of +the Signory and the Privy Council of seventy established by his +father, bidding Lorenzo, while he ruled this sham republic, to avoid +the outer signs of tyranny. The young duke at first behaved with +moderation, but he could not cast aside his habits of a great lord. +Florence now for the first time saw a regular court established in her +midst, with a prince, who, though he bore a foreign title, was in fact +her master. The joyous days of Lorenzo the Magnificent returned. +Masquerades and triumphs filled the public squares. Two clubs of +pleasure, called the Diamond and the Branch—badges adopted by the +Medici to signify their firmness in disaster and their power of +self-recovery—were formed to lead the revels. The best sculptors and +painters devoted their genius to the invention of costumes and cars. +The city affected to believe that the age of gold had come again.</p> + + +<p>XXIII</p> + + +<p>Fortune had been very favourable to the Medici. They had returned as +princes to Florence. Giovanni was Pope. Giuliano was Gonfalonier of +the Church. Giulio was Cardinal and Archbishop of Florence. Lorenzo +ruled the city like a sovereign. But this prosperity was no less brief +than it was brilliant. A few years sufficed to sweep off all the +chiefs of the great house. Giuliano died in 1516, leaving only a +bastard son Ippolito. Lorenzo died in 1519, leaving a bastard son +Alessandro, and a daughter, six days old, who lived to be the Queen of +France. Leo died in 1521. There remained now no legitimate male +descendants from the stock of Cosimo. The honours and pretensions of +the Medici devolved upon three bastards—on the Cardinal Giulio, and +the two boys, Alessandro and Ippolito. Of these, Alessandro was a +mulatto, his mother having been a Moorish slave in the Palace of +Urbino; and whether his father was Giulio, or Giuliano, or a base +groom, was not known for certain. To such extremities were the Medici +reduced. In order to keep their house alive, they were obliged to +adopt this foundling. It is true that the younger branch of the +family, descended from Lorenzo, the brother of Cosimo, still +flourished. At this epoch it was represented by Giovanni, the great +general known as the Invincible, whose bust so strikingly resembles +that of Napoleon. But between this line of the Medici and the elder +branch there had never been true cordiality. The Cardinal mistrusted +Giovanni. It may, moreover, be added, that Giovanni was himself doomed +to death in the year 1526.</p> + +<p>Giulio de' Medici was left in 1521 to administer the State of Florence +single-handed. He was archbishop, and he resided in the city, holding +it with the grasp of an absolute ruler. Yet he felt his position +insecure. The republic had no longer any forms of self-government; nor +was there a magistracy to whom the despot could delegate his power in +his absence. Giulio's ambition was fixed upon the Papal crown. The +bastards he was rearing were but children. Florence had therefore to +be furnished with some political machinery that should work of itself. +The Cardinal did not wish to give freedom to the city, but clockwork. +He was in the perilous situation of having to rule a commonwealth +without life, without elasticity, without capacity of self-movement, +yet full of such material as, left alone, might ferment, and breed a +revolution. In this perplexity, he had recourse to advisers. The most +experienced politicians, philosophical theorists, practical +diplomatists, and students of antique history were requested to +furnish him with plans for a new constitution, just as you ask an +architect to give you the plan of a new house. This was the field-day +of the doctrinaires. Now was seen how much political sagacity the +Florentines had gained while they were losing liberty. We possess +these several drafts of constitutions. Some recommend tyranny; some +incline to aristocracy, or what Italians called <i>Governo Stretto</i>; +some to democracy, or <i>Governo Largo</i>; some to an eclectic compound of +the other forms, or <i>Governo Misto</i>. More consummate masterpieces of +constructive ingenuity can hardly be imagined. What is omitted in all, +is just what no doctrinaire, no nostrum can communicate—the breath of +life, the principle of organic growth. Things had come, indeed, to a +melancholy pass for Florence when her tyrant, in order to confirm his +hold upon her, had to devise these springs and irons to support her +tottering limbs.</p> + + +<p>XXIV</p> + + +<p>While the archbishop and the doctors were debating, a plot was +hatching in the Rucellai Gardens. It was here that the Florentine +Academy now held their meetings. For this society Machiavelli wrote +his 'Treatise on the Art of War,' and his 'Discourses upon Livy.' The +former was an exposition of Machiavelli's scheme for creating a +national militia, as the only safeguard for Italy, exposed at this +period to the invasions of great foreign armies. The latter is one of +the three or four masterpieces produced by the Florentine school of +critical historians. Stimulated by the daring speculations of +Machiavelli, and fired to enthusiasm by their study of antiquity, the +younger academicians formed a conspiracy for murdering Giulio de' +Medici, and restoring the republic on a Roman model. An intercepted +letter betrayed their plans. Two of the conspirators were taken and +beheaded. Others escaped. But the discovery of this conjuration put a +stop to Giulio's scheme of reforming the State. Henceforth he ruled +Florence like a despot, mild in manners, cautious in the exercise of +arbitrary power, but firm in his autocracy. The Condottiere. +Alessandro Vitelli, with a company of soldiers, was taken into service +for the protection of his person and the intimidation of the citizens.</p> + +<p>In 1523, the Pope, Adrian VI., expired after a short papacy, from +which he gained no honour and Italy no profit. Giulio hurried to Rome, +and, by the clever use of his large influence, caused himself to be +elected with the title of Clement VII. In Florence he left Silvio +Passerini, Cardinal of Cortona, as his vicegerent and the guardian of +the two boys Alessandro and Ippolito. The discipline of many years had +accustomed the Florentines to a government of priests. Still the +burghers, mindful of their ancient liberties, were galled by the yoke +of a Cortonese, sprung up from one of their subject cities; nor could +they bear the bastards who were being reared to rule them. Foreigners +threw it in their teeth that Florence, the city glorious of art and +freedom, was become a stable for mules—<i>stalla da muli</i>, in the +expressive language of popular sarcasm. Bastardy, it may be said in +passing, carried with it small dishonour among the Italians. The +Estensi were all illegitimate; the Aragonese house in Naples sprang +from Alfonso's natural son; and children of Popes ranked among the +princes. Yet the uncertainty of Alessandro's birth and the base +condition of his mother made the prospect of this tyrant peculiarly +odious; while the primacy of a foreign cardinal in the midst of +citizens whose spirit was still unbroken, embittered the cup of +humiliation. The Casa Medici held its authority by a slender thread, +and depended more upon the disunion of the burghers than on any power +of its own. It could always reckon on the favour of the lower +populace, who gained profit and amusement from the presence of a +court. The Ottimati again hoped more from a weak despotism than from a +commonwealth, where their privileges would have been merged in the +mass of the Grand Council. Thus the sympathies of the plebeians and +the selfishness of the rich patricians prevented the republic from +asserting itself. On this meagre basis of personal cupidity the Medici +sustained themselves. What made the situation still more delicate, and +at the same time protracted the feeble rule of Clement, was that +neither the Florentines nor the Medici had any army. Face to face with +a potentate so considerable as the Pope, a free State could not be +established without military force. On the other hand, the Medici, +supported by a mere handful of mercenaries, had no power to resist a +popular rising if any external event should inspire the middle classes +with a hope of liberty.</p> + + +<p>XXV</p> + + +<p>Clement assumed the tiara at a moment of great difficulty. Leo had +ruined the finance of Rome. France and Spain were still contending for +the possession of Italy. While acting as Vice-Chancellor, Giulio de' +Medici had seemed to hold the reins with a firm grasp, and men +expected that he would prove a powerful Pope; but in those days he had +Leo to help him; and Leo, though indolent, was an abler man than his +cousin. He planned, and Giulio executed. Obliged to act now for +himself, Clement revealed the weakness of his nature. That weakness +was irresolution, craft without wisdom, diplomacy without knowledge of +men. He raised the storm, and showed himself incapable of guiding it. +This is not the place to tell by what a series of crooked schemes and +cross purposes he brought upon himself the ruin of the Church and +Rome, to relate his disagreement with the Emperor, or to describe +again the sack of the Eternal City by the rabble of the Constable de +Bourbon's army. That wreck of Rome in 1527 was the closing scene of +the Italian Renaissance—the last of the Apocalyptic tragedies +foretold by Savonarola—the death of the old age.</p> + +<p>When the Florentines knew what was happening in Rome, they rose and +forced the Cardinal Passerini to depart with the Medicean bastards +from the city. The youth demanded arms for the defence of the town, +and they received them. The whole male population was enrolled in a +militia. The Grand Council was reformed, and the republic was restored +upon the basis of 1495. Niccolo Capponi was elected Gonfalonier. The +name of Christ was again registered as chief of the commonwealth—to +such an extent did the memory of Savonarola still sway the popular +imagination. The new State hastened to form an alliance with France, +and Malatesta Baglioni was chosen as military Commander-in-Chief. +Meanwhile the city armed itself for siege—Michel Angelo Buonarroti +and Francesco da San Gallo undertaking the construction of new forts +and ramparts. These measures were adopted with sudden decision, +because it was soon known that Clement had made peace with the +Emperor, and that the army which had sacked Rome was going to be +marched on Florence.</p> + + +<p>XXVI</p> + + +<p>In the month of August 1529 the Prince of Orange assembled his forces +at Terni, and thence advanced by easy stages into Tuscany. As he +approached, the Florentines laid waste their suburbs, and threw down +their wreath of towers, in order that the enemy might have no +harbourage or points of vantage for attack. Their troops were +concentrated within the city, where a new Gonfalonier, Francesco +Carducci, furiously opposed to the Medici, and attached to the +Piagnoni party, now ruled. On September 4th the Prince of Orange +appeared before the walls, and opened the memorable siege. It lasted +eight months, at the end of which time, betrayed by their generals, +divided among themselves, and worn out with delays, the Florentines +capitulated. Florence was paid as compensation for the insult offered +to the pontiff in the sack of Rome.</p> + +<p>The long yoke of the Medici had undermined the character of the +Florentines. This, their last glorious struggle for liberty, was but a +flash in the pan—a final flare-up of the dying lamp. The city was not +satisfied with slavery; but it had no capacity for united action. The +Ottimati were egotistic and jealous of the people. The Palleschi +desired to restore the Medici at any price—some of them frankly +wishing for a principality, others trusting that the old +quasi-republican government might still be reinstated. The Red +Republicans, styled Libertini and Arrabbiati, clung together in blind +hatred of the Medicean party; but they had no further policy to guide +them. The Piagnoni, or Frateschi, stuck to the memory of Savonarola, +and believed that angels would descend to guard the battlements when +human help had failed. These enthusiasts still formed the true nerve +of the nation—the class that might have saved the State, if salvation +had been possible. Even as it was, the energy of their fanaticism +prolonged the siege until resistance seemed no longer physically +possible. The hero developed by the crisis was Francesco Ferrucci, a +plebeian who had passed his youth in manual labour, and who now +displayed rare military genius. He fell fighting outside the walls of +Florence. Had he commanded the troops from the beginning, and remained +inside the city, it is just possible that the fate of the war might +have been less disastrous. As it was, Malatesta Baglioni, the +Commander-in-Chief, turned out an arrant scoundrel. He held secret +correspondence with Clement and the Prince of Orange. It was he who +finally sold Florence to her foes, 'putting on his head,' as the Doge +of Venice said before the Senate, 'the cap of the biggest traitor upon +record.'</p> + + +<p>XXVII</p> + + +<p>What remains of Florentine history may be briefly told. Clement, now +the undisputed arbiter of power and honour in the city, chose +Alessandro de' Medici to be prince. Alessandro was created Duke of +Cività di Penna, and married to a natural daughter of Charles V. +Ippolito was made a cardinal. Ippolito would have preferred a secular +to a priestly kingdom; nor did he conceal his jealousy for his cousin. +Therefore Alessandro had him poisoned. Alessandro in his turn was +murdered by his kinsman, Lorenzino de' Medici. Lorenzino paid the +usual penalty of tyrannicide some years later. When Alessandro was +killed in 1539, Clement had himself been dead five years. Thus the +whole posterity of Cosimo de' Medici, with the exception of Catherine, +Queen of France, was utterly extinguished. But the Medici had struck +root so firmly in the State, and had so remodelled it upon the type of +tyranny, that the Florentines were no longer able to do without them. +The chiefs of the Ottimati selected Cosimo, the representative of +Giovanni the Invincible, for their prince, and thus the line of the +elder Lorenzo came at last to power. This Cosimo was a boy of +eighteen, fond of field-sports, and unused to party intrigues. When +Francesco Guicciardini offered him a privy purse of one hundred and +twenty thousand ducats annually, together with the presidency of +Florence, this wily politician hoped that he would rule the State +through Cosimo, and realise at last that dream of the Ottimati, a +<i>Governo Stretto</i> or <i>di Pochi</i>. He was notably mistaken in his +calculations. The first days of Cosimo's administration showed that +he possessed the craft of his family and the vigour of his immediate +progenitors, and that he meant to be sole master in Florence. He it +was who obtained the title of Grand Duke of Tuscany from the Pope—a +title confirmed by the Emperor, fortified by Austrian alliances, and +transmitted through his heirs to the present century.</p> + + +<p>XXVIII</p> + + +<p>In this sketch of Florentine history, I have purposely omitted all +details that did not bear upon the constitutional history of the +republic, or on the growth of the Medici as despots; because I wanted +to present a picture of the process whereby that family contrived to +fasten itself upon the freest and most cultivated State in Italy. This +success the Medici owed mainly to their own obstinacy, and to the +weakness of republican institutions in Florence. Their power was +founded upon wealth in the first instance, and upon the ingenuity with +which they turned the favour of the proletariate to use. It was +confirmed by the mistakes and failures of their enemies, by Rinaldo +degli Albizzi's attack on Cosimo, by the conspiracy of Neroni and +Pitti against Piero, and by Francesco de' Pazzi's attempt to +assassinate Lorenzo. It was still further strengthened by the Medicean +sympathy for arts and letters—a sympathy which placed both Cosimo and +Lorenzo at the head of the Renaissance movement, and made them worthy +to represent Florence, the city of genius, in the fifteenth century. +While thus founding and cementing their dynastic influence upon the +basis of a widespread popularity, the Medici employed persistent +cunning in the enfeeblement of the Republic. It was their policy not +to plant themselves by force or acts of overt tyranny, but to corrupt +ambitious citizens, to secure the patronage of public officers, and to +render the spontaneous working of the State machinery impossible. By +pursuing this policy over a long series of years they made the revival +of liberty in 1494, and again in 1527, ineffectual. While exiled from +Florence, they never lost the hope of returning as masters, so long as +the passions they had excited, and they alone could gratify, remained +in full activity. These passions were avarice and egotism, the greed +of the grasping Ottimati, the jealousy of the nobles, the +self-indulgence of the proletariate. Yet it is probable they might +have failed to recover Florence, on one or other of these two +occasions, but for the accident which placed Giovanni de' Medici on +the Papal chair, and enabled him to put Giulio in the way of the same +dignity. From the accession of Leo in 1513 to the year 1527 the Medici +ruled Florence from Rome, and brought the power of the Church into the +service of their despotism. After that date they were still further +aided by the imperial policy of Charles V., who chose to govern Italy +through subject princes, bound to himself by domestic alliances and +powerful interests. One of these was Cosimo, the first Grand Duke of +Tuscany.</p> +<h5><a href="#CONTENTS">CONTENTS</a></h5> + +<br /><br /> +<hr style="width: 100%;" /> + + + + +<h2><a name="THE_DEBT_OF_ENGLISH_TO_ITALIAN_LITERATURE" id="THE_DEBT_OF_ENGLISH_TO_ITALIAN_LITERATURE" /><i>THE DEBT OF ENGLISH TO ITALIAN LITERATURE</i></a></h2> + +<hr style="width: 100%;" /> + +<br /> +<p>To an Englishman one of the chief interests of the study of Italian +literature is derived from the fact that, between England and Italy, +an almost uninterrupted current of intellectual intercourse has been +maintained throughout the last five centuries. The English have never, +indeed, at any time been slavish imitators of the Italians; but Italy +has formed the dreamland of the English fancy, inspiring poets with +their most delightful thoughts, supplying them with subjects, and +implanting in their minds that sentiment of Southern beauty which, +engrafted on our more passionately imaginative Northern nature, has +borne rich fruit in the works of Chaucer, Spenser, Marlowe, Shakspere, +Milton, and the poets of this century.</p> + +<p>It is not strange that Italy should thus in matters of culture have +been the guide and mistress of England. Italy, of all the European +nations, was the first to produce high art and literature in the dawn +of modern civilisation. Italy was the first to display refinement in +domestic life, polish of manners, civilities of intercourse. In Italy +the commerce of courts first developed a society of men and women, +educated by the same traditions of humanistic culture. In Italy the +principles of government were first discussed and reduced to theory. +In Italy the zeal for the classics took its origin; and scholarship, +to which we owe our mental training, was at first the possession of +none almost but Italians. It therefore followed that during the age of +the Renaissance any man of taste or genius, who desired to share the +newly discovered privileges of learning, had to seek Italy. Every one +who wished to be initiated into the secrets of science or philosophy, +had to converse with Italians in person or through books. Every one +who was eager to polish his native language, and to render it the +proper vehicle of poetic thought, had to consult the masterpieces of +Italian literature. To Italians the courtier, the diplomatist, the +artist, the student of statecraft and of military tactics, the +political theorist, the merchant, the man of laws, the man of arms, +and the churchman turned for precedents and precepts. The nations of +the North, still torpid and somnolent in their semi-barbarism, needed +the magnetic touch of Italy before they could awake to intellectual +life. Nor was this all. Long before the thirst for culture possessed +the English mind, Italy had appropriated and assimilated all that +Latin literature contained of strong or splendid to arouse the thought +and fancy of the modern world; Greek, too, was rapidly becoming the +possession of the scholars of Florence and Rome; so that English men +of letters found the spirit of the ancients infused into a modern +literature; models of correct and elegant composition existed for them +in a language easy, harmonious, and not dissimilar in usage to their +own.</p> + +<p>The importance of this service, rendered by Italians to the rest of +Europe, cannot be exaggerated. By exploring, digesting, and +reproducing the classics, Italy made the labour of scholarship +comparatively light for the Northern nations, and extended to us the +privilege of culture without the peril of losing originality in the +enthusiasm for erudition. Our great poets could handle lightly, and +yet profitably, those masterpieces of Greece and Rome, beneath the +weight of which, when first discovered, the genius of the Italians had +wavered. To the originality of Shakspere an accession of wealth +without weakness was brought by the perusal of Italian works, in which +the spirit of the antique was seen as in a modern mirror. Then, in +addition to this benefit of instruction, Italy gave to England a gift +of pure beauty, the influence of which, in refining our national +taste, harmonising the roughness of our manners and our language, and +stimulating our imagination, has been incalculable. It was a not +unfrequent custom for young men of ability to study at the Italian +universities, or at least to undertake a journey to the principal +Italian cities. From their sojourn in that land of loveliness and +intellectual life they returned with their Northern brains most +powerfully stimulated. To produce, by masterpieces of the imagination, +some work of style that should remain as a memento of that glorious +country, and should vie on English soil with the art of Italy, was +their generous ambition. Consequently the substance of the stories +versified by our poets, the forms of our metres, and the cadences of +our prose periods reveal a close attention to Italian originals.</p> + +<p>This debt of England to Italy in the matter of our literature began +with Chaucer. Truly original and national as was the framework of the +'Canterbury Tales,' we can hardly doubt but that Chaucer was +determined in the form adopted for his poem by the example of +Boccaccio. The subject-matter, also, of many of his tales was taken +from Boccaccio's prose or verse. For example, the story of Patient +Grizzel is founded upon one of the legends of the 'Decameron,' while +the Knight's Tale is almost translated from the 'Teseide' of +Boccaccio, and Troilus and Creseide is derived from the 'Filostrato' +of the same author. The Franklin's Tale and the Reeve's Tale are also +based either on stories of Boccaccio or else on French 'Fabliaux,' to +which Chaucer, as well as Boccaccio, had access. I do not wish to lay +too much stress upon Chaucer's direct obligations to Boccaccio, +because it is incontestable that the French 'Fabliaux,' which supplied +them both with subjects, were the common property of the mediæval +nations. But his indirect debt in all that concerns elegant handling +of material, and in the fusion of the romantic with the classic +spirit, which forms the chief charm of such tales as the Palamon and +Arcite, can hardly be exaggerated. Lastly, the seven-lined stanza, +called <i>rime royal</i>, which Chaucer used with so much effect in +narrative poetry, was probably borrowed from the earlier Florentine +'Ballata,' the last line rhyming with its predecessor being +substituted for the recurrent refrain. Indeed, the stanza itself, as +used by our earliest poets, may be found in Guido Cavalcanti's +'Ballatetta,' beginning, <i>Posso degli occhi miei</i>.</p> + +<p>Between Chaucer and Surrey the Muse of England fell asleep; but when +in the latter half of the reign of Henry VIII. she awoke again, it was +as a conscious pupil of the Italian that she attempted new strains and +essayed fresh metres. 'In the latter end of Henry VIII.'s reign,' says +Puttenham, 'sprang up a new company of courtly makers, of whom Sir T. +Wyatt the elder, and Henry Earl of Surrey, were the two chieftains, +who, having travelled into Italy, and there tasted the sweet and +stately measures and style of the Italian poesy, as novices newly +crept out of the schools of Dante, Ariosto, and Petrarch, they greatly +polished our rude and homely manner of vulgar poesy, from that it had +been before, and for that cause may justly be said the first reformers +of our English metre and style.' The chief point in which Surrey +imitated his 'master, Francis Petrarcha,' was in the use of the +sonnet. He introduced this elaborate form of poetry into our +literature; and how it has thriven with us, the masterpieces of +Spenser, Shakspere, Milton, Wordsworth, Keats, Rossetti attest. As +practised by Dante and Petrarch, the sonnet is a poem of fourteen +lines, divided into two quatrains and two triplets, so arranged that +the two quatrains repeat one pair of rhymes, while the two triplets +repeat another pair. Thus an Italian sonnet of the strictest form is +composed upon four rhymes, interlaced with great art. But much +divergence from this rigid scheme of rhyming was admitted even by +Petrarch, who not unfrequently divided the six final lines of the +sonnet into three couplets, interwoven in such a way that the two last +lines never rhymed.<a name="FNanchor_17_17" id="FNanchor_17_17" /></a><a href="#Footnote_17_17" class="fnanchor">[17]</a></p> + +<p>It has been necessary to say thus much about the structure of the +Italian sonnet, in order to make clear the task which lay before +Surrey and Wyatt, when they sought to transplant it into English. +Surrey did not adhere to the strict fashion of Petrarch: his sonnets +consist either of three regular quatrains concluded with a couplet, +or else of twelve lines rhyming alternately and concluded with a +couplet. Wyatt attempted to follow the order and interlacement of the +Italian rhymes more closely, but he too concluded his sonnet with a +couplet. This introduction of the final couplet was a violation of the +Italian rule, which may be fairly considered as prejudicial to the +harmony of the whole structure, and which has insensibly caused the +English sonnet to terminate in an epigram. The famous sonnet of Surrey +on his love, Geraldine, is an excellent example of the metrical +structure as adapted to the supposed necessities of English rhyming, +and as afterwards adhered to by Shakspere in his long series of +love-poems. Surrey, while adopting the form of the sonnet, kept quite +clear of the Petrarchist's mannerism. His language is simple and +direct: there is no subtilising upon far-fetched conceits, no +wire-drawing of exquisite sentimentalism, although he celebrates in +this, as in his other sonnets, a lady for whom he appears to have +entertained no more than a Platonic or imaginary passion. Surrey was a +great experimentalist in metre. Besides the sonnet, he introduced into +England blank verse, which he borrowed from the Italian <i>versi +sciolti</i>, fixing that decasyllable iambic rhythm for English +versification in which our greatest poetical triumphs have been +achieved.</p> + +<p>Before quitting the subject of the sonnet it would, however, be well +to mention the changes which were wrought in its structure by early +poets desirous of emulating the Italians. Shakspere, as already +hinted, adhered to the simple form introduced by Surrey: his stanzas +invariably consist of three separate quatrains followed by a couplet. +But Sir Philip Sidney, whose familiarity with Italian literature was +intimate, and who had resided long in Italy, perceived that without a +greater complexity and interweaving of rhymes the beauty of the poem +was considerably impaired. He therefore combined the rhymes of the two +quatrains, as the Italians had done, leaving himself free to follow +the Italian fashion in the conclusion, or else to wind up after +English usage with a couplet. Spenser and Drummond follow the rule of +Sidney; Drayton and Daniel, that of Surrey and Shakspere. It was not +until Milton that an English poet preserved the form of the Italian +sonnet in its strictness; but, after Milton, the greatest +sonnet-writers—Wordsworth, Keats, and Rossetti—have aimed at +producing stanzas as regular as those of Petrarch.</p> + +<p>The great age of our literature—the age of Elizabeth—was essentially +one of Italian influence. In Italy the Renaissance had reached its +height: England, feeling the new life which had been infused into arts +and letters, turned instinctively to Italy, and adopted her canons of +taste. 'Euphues' has a distinct connection with the Italian discourses +of polite culture. Sidney's 'Arcadia' is a copy of what Boccaccio had +attempted in his classical romances, and Sanazzaro in his +pastorals.<a name="FNanchor_18_18" id="FNanchor_18_18" /></a><a href="#Footnote_18_18" class="fnanchor">[18]</a> Spenser approached the subject of the 'Faery Queen' +with his head full of Ariosto and the romantic poets of Italy. His +sonnets are Italian; his odes embody the Platonic philosophy of the +Italians.<a name="FNanchor_19_19" id="FNanchor_19_19" /></a><a href="#Footnote_19_19" class="fnanchor">[19]</a> The extent of Spenser's deference to the Italians in +matters of poetic art may be gathered from this passage in the +dedication to Sir Walter Raleigh of the 'Faery Queen:'</p> + +<div class="blockquot"><p>I have followed all the antique poets historical: first + Homer, who in the persons of Agamemnon and Ulysses hath + ensampled a good governor and a virtuous man, the one in his + Ilias, the other in his Odysseis; then Virgil, whose like + intention was to do in the person of Æneas; after him + Ariosto comprised them both in his Orlando; and lately Tasso + dissevered them again, and formed both parts in two persons, + namely, that part which they in Philosophy call Ethice, or + virtues of a private man, coloured in his Rinaldo, the other + named Politico in his Goffredo.</p></div> + +<p>From this it is clear that, to the mind of Spenser, both Ariosto and +Tasso were authorities of hardly less gravity than Homer and Virgil. +Raleigh, in the splendid sonnet with which he responds to this +dedication, enhances the fame of Spenser by affecting to believe that +the great Italian, Petrarch, will be jealous of him in the grave. To +such an extent were the thoughts of the English poets occupied with +their Italian masters in the art of song.</p> + +<p>It was at this time, again, that English literature was enriched by +translations of Ariosto and Tasso—the one from the pen of Sir John +Harrington, the other from that of Fairfax. Both were produced in the +metre of the original—the octave stanza, which, however, did not at +that period take root in England. At the same period the works of many +of the Italian novelists, especially Bandello and Cinthio and +Boccaccio, were translated into English; Painter's 'Palace of +Pleasure' being a treasure-house of Italian works of fiction. Thomas +Hoby translated Castiglione's 'Courtier' in 1561. As a proof of the +extent to which Italian books were read in England at the end of the +sixteenth century, we may take a stray sentence from a letter of +Harvey, in which he disparages the works of Robert Greene:—'Even +Guicciardine's silver histories and Ariosto's golden cantos grow out +of request: and the Countess of Pembroke's "Arcadia" is not green +enough for queasy stomachs; but they must have seen Greene's +"Arcadia," and I believe most eagerly longed for Greene's "Faery +Queen."'</p> + +<p>Still more may be gathered on the same topic from the indignant +protest uttered by Roger Ascham in his 'Schoolmaster' (pp. 78-91, date +1570) against the prevalence of Italian customs, the habit of Italian +travel, and the reading of Italian books translated into English. +Selections of Italian stories rendered into English were extremely +popular; and Greene's tales, which had such vogue that Nash says of +them, 'glad was that printer that might be so blest to pay him dear +for the very dregs of his wit,' were all modelled on the Italian. The +education of a young man of good family was not thought complete +unless he had spent some time in Italy, studied its literature, +admired its arts, and caught at least some tincture of its manners. +Our rude ancestors brought back with them from these journeys many +Southern vices, together with the culture they had gone to seek. The +contrast between the plain dealing of the North and the refined +Machiavellism of the South, between Protestant earnestness in religion +and Popish scepticism, between the homely virtues of England and the +courtly libertinism of Venice or Florence, blunted the moral sense, +while it stimulated the intellectual activity of the English +travellers, and too often communicated a fatal shock to their +principles. <i>Inglese Italianato è un diavolo incarnato</i> passed into a +proverb: we find it on the lips of Parker, of Howell, of Sidney, of +Greene, and of Ascham; while Italy itself was styled by severe +moralists the court of Circe. In James Howell's 'Instructions for +forreine travell' we find this pregnant sentence: 'And being now in +Italy, that great limbique of working braines, he must be very +circumspect in his carriage, for she is able to turne a Saint into a +devill, and deprave the best natures, if one will abandon himselfe, +and become a prey to dissolut courses and wantonesse.' Italy, in +truth, had already become corrupt, and the fruit of her contact with +the nations of the North was seen in the lives of such scholars as +Robert Greene, who confessed that he returned from his travels +instructed 'in all the villanies under the sun.' Many of the scandals +of the Court of James might be ascribed to this aping of Southern +manners.</p> + +<p>Yet, together with the evil of depraved morality, the advantage of +improved culture was imported from Italy into England; and the +constitution of the English genius was young and healthy enough to +purge off the mischief, while it assimilated what was beneficial. This +is very manifest in the history of our drama, which, taking it +altogether, is at the same time the purest and the most varied that +exists in literature; while it may be affirmed without exaggeration +that one of the main impulses to free dramatic composition in England +was communicated by the attraction everything Italian possessed for +the English fancy. It was in the drama that the English displayed the +richness and the splendour of the Renaissance, which had blazed so +gorgeously and at times so balefully below the Alps. The Italy of the +Renaissance fascinated our dramatists with a strange wild glamour—the +contrast of external pageant and internal tragedy, the alternations of +radiance and gloom, the terrible examples of bloodshed, treason, and +heroism emergent from ghastly crimes. Our drama began with a +translation of Ariosto's 'Suppositi' and ended with Davenant's 'Just +Italian.' In the very dawn of tragic composition Greene versified a +portion of the 'Orlando Furioso,' and Marlowe devoted one of his most +brilliant studies to the villanies of a Maltese Jew. Of Shakspere's +plays five are incontestably Italian: several of the rest are +furnished with Italian names to suit the popular taste. Ben Jonson +laid the scene of his most subtle comedy of manners, 'Volpone,' in +Venice, and sketched the first cast of 'Every Man in his Humour' for +Italian characters. Tourneur, Ford, and Webster were so dazzled by the +tragic lustre of the wickedness of Italy that their finest dramas, +without exception, are minute and carefully studied psychological +analyses of great Italian tales of crime. The same, in a less degree, +is true of Middleton and Dekker. Massinger makes a story of the Sforza +family the subject of one of his best plays. Beaumont and Fletcher +draw the subjects of comedies and tragedies alike from the Italian +novelists. Fletcher in his 'Faithful Shepherdess' transfers the +pastoral style of Tasso and Guarini to the North. So close is the +connection between our tragedy and Italian novels that Marston and +Ford think fit to introduce passages of Italian dialogue into the +plays of 'Giovanni and Annabella' and 'Antonio and Mellida.' But the +best proof of the extent to which Italian life and literature had +influenced our dramatists, may be easily obtained by taking down +Halliwell's 'Dictionary of Old Plays,' and noticing that about every +third drama has an Italian title. Meanwhile the poems composed by the +chief dramatists—Shakspere's 'Venus and Adonis,' Marlowe's 'Hero and +Leander,' Marston's 'Pygmalion,' and Beaumont's 'Hermaphrodite'—are +all of them conceived in the Italian style, by men who had either +studied Southern literature, or had submitted to its powerful æsthetic +influences. The Masques, moreover, of Jonson, of Lyly, of Fletcher, +and of Chapman are exact reproductions upon the English court theatres +of such festival pageants as were presented to the Medici at Florence +or to the Este family at Ferrara.<a name="FNanchor_20_20" id="FNanchor_20_20" /></a><a href="#Footnote_20_20" class="fnanchor">[20]</a> Throughout our drama the +influence of Italy, direct or indirect, either as supplying our +playwrights with subjects or as stimulating their imagination, may +thus be traced. Yet the Elizabethan drama is in the highest sense +original. As a work of art pregnant with deepest wisdom, and +splendidly illustrative of the age which gave it birth, it far +transcends anything that Italy produced in the same department. Our +poets have a more masculine judgment, more fiery fancy, nobler +sentiment, than the Italians of any age but that of Dante. What Italy +gave, was the impulse toward creation, not patterns to be +imitated—the excitement of the imagination by a spectacle of so much +grandeur, not rules and precepts for production—the keen sense of +tragic beauty, not any tradition of accomplished art.</p> + +<p>The Elizabethan period of our literature was, in fact, the period +during which we derived most from the Italian nation.</p> + +<p>The study of the Italian language went hand in hand with the study of +Greek and Latin, so that the three together contributed to form the +English taste. Between us and the ancient world stood the genius of +Italy as an interpreter. Nor was this connection broken until far on +into the reign of Charles II. What Milton owed to Italy is clear not +only from his Italian sonnets, but also from the frequent mention of +Dante and Petrarch in his prose works, from his allusions to Boiardo +and Ariosto in the 'Paradise Lost,' and from the hints which he +probably derived from Pulci, Tasso and Andreini. It would, indeed, be +easy throughout his works to trace a continuous vein of Italian +influence in detail. But, more than this, Milton's poetical taste in +general seems to have been formed and ripened by familiarity with the +harmonies of the Italian language. In his Tractate on Education +addressed to Mr. Hartlib, he recommends that boys should be instructed +in the Italian pronunciation of vowel sounds, in order to give +sonorousness and dignity to elocution. This slight indication supplies +us with a key to the method of melodious structure employed by Milton +in his blank verse. Those who have carefully studied the harmonies of +the 'Paradise Lost,' know how all-important are the assonances of the +vowel sounds of <i>o</i> and <i>a</i> in its most musical passages. It is just +this attention to the liquid and sonorous recurrences of open vowels +that we should expect from a poet who proposed to assimilate his +diction to that of the Italians.</p> + +<p>After the age of Milton the connection between Italy and England is +interrupted. In the seventeenth century Italy herself had sunk into +comparative stupor, and her literature was trivial. France not only +swayed the political destinies of Europe, but also took the lead in +intellectual culture. Consequently, our poets turned from Italy to +France, and the French spirit pervaded English literature throughout +the period of the Restoration and the reigns of William and Queen +Anne. Yet during this prolonged reaction against the earlier movement +of English literature, as manifested in Elizabethanism, the influence +of Italy was not wholly extinct. Dryden's 'Tales from Boccaccio' are +no insignificant contribution to our poetry, and his 'Palamon and +Arcite,' through Chaucer, returns to the same source. But when, at the +beginning of this century, the Elizabethan tradition was revived, then +the Italian influence reappeared more vigorous than ever. The metre of +'Don Juan,' first practised by Frere and then adopted by Lord Byron, +is Pulci's octave stanza; the manner is that of Berni, Folengo, and +the Abbé Casti, fused and heightened by the brilliance of Byron's +genius into a new form. The subject of Shelley's strongest work of art +is Beatrice Cenci. Rogers's poem is styled 'Italy.' Byron's dramas are +chiefly Italian. Leigh Hunt repeats the tale of Francesca da Rimini. +Keats versifies Boccaccio's 'Isabella.' Passing to contemporary poets, +Rossetti has acclimatised in English the metres and the manner of the +earliest Italian lyrists. Swinburne dedicates his noblest song to the +spirit of liberty in Italy. Even George Eliot and Tennyson have each +of them turned stories of Boccaccio into verse. The best of Mrs. +Browning's poems, 'Casa Guidi Windows' and 'Aurora Leigh,' are steeped +in Italian thought and Italian imagery. Browning's longest poem is a +tale of Italian crime; his finest studies in the 'Men and Women' are +portraits of Italian character of the Renaissance period. But there is +more than any mere enumeration of poets and their work can set forth, +in the connection between Italy and England. That connection, so far +as the poetical imagination is concerned, is vital. As poets in the +truest sense of the word, we English live and breathe through sympathy +with the Italians. The magnetic touch which is required to inflame the +imagination of the North, is derived from Italy. The nightingales of +English song who make our oak and beech copses resonant in spring with +purest melody, are migratory birds, who have charged their souls in +the South with the spirit of beauty, and who return to warble native +wood-notes in a tongue which is their own.</p> + +<p>What has hitherto been said about the debt of the English poets to +Italy, may seem to imply that our literature can be regarded as to +some extent a parasite on that of the Italians. Against such a +conclusion no protest too energetic could be uttered. What we have +derived directly from the Italian poets are, first, some +metres—especially the sonnet and the octave stanza, though the latter +has never taken firm root in England. 'Terza rima,' attempted by +Shelley, Byron, Morris, and Mrs. Browning, has not yet become +acclimatised. Blank verse, although originally remodelled by Surrey +upon the <i>versi sciolti</i> of the Italians, has departed widely from +Italian precedent, first by its decasyllabic structure, whereas +Italian verse consists of hendecasyllables; and, secondly, by its +greater force, plasticity, and freedom. The Spenserian stanza, again, +is a new and original metre peculiar to our literature; though it is +possible that but for the complex structures of Italian lyric verse, +it might not have been fashioned for the 'Faery Queen.' Lastly, the +so-called heroic couplet is native to England; at any rate, it is in +no way related to Italian metre. Therefore the only true Italian +exotic adopted without modification into our literature is the sonnet.</p> + +<p>In the next place, we owe to the Italians the subject-matter of many +of our most famous dramas and our most delightful tales in verse. But +the English treatment of these histories and fables has been uniformly +independent and original. Comparing Shakspere's 'Romeo and Juliet' +with Bandello's tale, Webster's 'Duchess of Malfy' with the version +given from the Italian in Painter's 'Palace of Pleasure,' and +Chaucer's Knight's Tale with the 'Teseide' of Boccaccio, we perceive +at once that the English poets have used their Italian models merely +as outlines to be filled in with freedom, as the canvas to be +embroidered with a tapestry of vivid groups. Nothing is more manifest +than the superiority of the English genius over the Italian in all +dramatic qualities of intense passion, profound analysis, and living +portrayal of character in action. The mere rough detail of Shakspere's +'Othello' is to be found in Cinthio's Collection of Novelle; but let +an unprejudiced reader peruse the original, and he will be no more +deeply affected by it than by any touching story of treachery, +jealousy, and hapless innocence. The wily subtleties of Iago, the +soldierly frankness of Cassio, the turbulent and volcanic passions of +Othello, the charm of Desdemona, and the whole tissue of vivid +incidents which make 'Othello' one of the most tremendous extant +tragedies of characters in combat, are Shakspere's, and only +Shakspere's. This instance, indeed, enables us exactly to indicate +what the English owed to Italy and what was essentially their own. +From that Southern land of Circe about which they dreamed, and which +now and then they visited, came to their imaginations a +spirit-stirring breath of inspiration. It was to them the country of +marvels, of mysterious crimes, of luxurious gardens and splendid +skies, where love was more passionate and life more picturesque, and +hate more bloody and treachery more black, than in our Northern +climes. Italy was a spacious grove of wizardry, which mighty poets, on +the quest of fanciful adventure, trod with fascinated senses and +quickened pulses. But the strong brain which converted what they heard +and read and saw of that charmed land into the stuff of golden romance +or sable tragedy, was their own.</p> + +<p>English literature has been defined a literature of genius.</p> + +<p>Our greatest work in art has been achieved not so much by inspiration, +subordinate to sentiments of exquisite good taste or guided by +observance of classical models, as by audacious sallies of pure +inventive power. This is true as a judgment of that constellation +which we call our drama, of the meteor Byron, of Milton and Dryden, +who are the Jupiter and Mars of our poetic system, and of the stars +which stud our literary firmament under the names of Shelley, Keats, +Wordsworth, Chatterton, Scott, Coleridge, Clough, Blake, Browning, +Swinburne, Tennyson. There are only a very few of the English poets, +Pope and Gray, for example, in whom the free instincts of genius are +kept systematically in check by the laws of the reflective +understanding. Now Italian literature is in this respect all unlike +our own. It began, indeed, with Dante, as a literature pre-eminently +of genius; but the spirit of scholarship assumed the sway as early as +the days of Petrarch and Boccaccio, and after them Italian has been +consistently a literature of taste. By this I mean that even the +greatest Italian poets have sought to render their style correct, have +endeavoured to subordinate their inspiration to what they considered +the rules of sound criticism, and have paid serious attention to their +manner as independent of the matter they wished to express. The +passion for antiquity, so early developed in Italy, delivered the +later Italian poets bound hand and foot into the hands of Horace. +Poliziano was content to reproduce the classic authors in a mosaic +work of exquisite translations. Tasso was essentially a man of talent, +producing work of chastened beauty by diligent attention to the rule +and method of his art. Even Ariosto submitted the liberty of his swift +spirit to canons of prescribed elegance. While our English poets have +conceived and executed without regard for the opinion of the learned +and without obedience to the usages of language—Shakspere, for +example, producing tragedies which set Aristotle at defiance, and +Milton engrafting Latinisms on the native idiom—the Italian poets +thought and wrote with the fear of Academies before their eyes, and +studied before all things to maintain the purity of the Tuscan tongue. +The consequence is that the Italian and English literatures are +eminent for very different excellences. All that is forcible in the +dramatic presentation of life and character and action, all that is +audacious in imagination and capricious in fancy, whatever strength +style can gain from the sallies of original and untrammelled +eloquence, whatever beauty is derived from spontaneity and native +grace, belong in abundant richness to the English. On the other hand, +the Italian poets present us with masterpieces of correct and studied +diction, with carefully elaborated machinery, and with a style +maintained at a uniform level of dignified correctness. The weakness +of the English proceeds from inequality and extravagance; it is the +weakness of self-confident vigour, intolerant of rule, rejoicing in +its own exuberant resources. The weakness of the Italian is due to +timidity and moderation; it is the weakness that springs not so much +from a lack of native strength as from the over-anxious expenditure of +strength upon the attainment of finish, polish, and correctness. Hence +the two nations have everything to learn from one another. Modern +Italian poets may seek by contact with Shakspere and Milton to gain a +freedom from the trammels imposed upon them by the slavish followers +of Petrarch; while the attentive perusal of Tasso should be +recommended to all English people who have no ready access to the +masterpieces of Greek and Latin literature.</p> + +<p>Another point of view may be gained by noticing the pre-dominant tone +of the two literatures. Whenever English poetry is really great, it +approximates to the tragic and the stately; whereas the Italians are +peculiarly felicitous in the smooth and pleasant style, which combines +pathos with amusement, and which does not trespass beyond the region +of beauty into the domain of sublimity or terror. Italian poetry is +analogous to Italian painting and Italian music: it bathes the soul in +a plenitude of charms, investing even the most solemn subjects with +loveliness. Rembrandt and Albert Dürer depict the tragedies of the +Sacred History with a serious and awful reality: Italian painters, +with a few rare but illustrious exceptions, shrink from approaching +them from any point of view but that of harmonious melancholy. Even so +the English poets stir the soul to its very depths by their profound +and earnest delineations of the stern and bitter truths of the world: +Italian poets environ all things with the golden haze of an artistic +harmony; so that the soul is agitated by no pain at strife with the +persuasions of pure beauty.</p> +<h5><a href="#CONTENTS">CONTENTS</a></h5> + + +<br/><br /> +<hr style="width: 100%;" /> + +<h2><a name="POPULAR_SONGS_OF_TUSCANY" id="POPULAR_SONGS_OF_TUSCANY" /><i>POPULAR SONGS OF TUSCANY</i></a></h2> +<hr style="width: 100%;" /> +<br /> +<p>It is a noticeable fact about the popular songs of Tuscany that they +are almost exclusively devoted to love. The Italians in general have +no ballad literature resembling that of our Border or that of Spain. +The tragic histories of their noble families, the great deeds of their +national heroes, and the sufferings of their country during centuries +of warfare, have left but few traces in their rustic poetry. It is +true that some districts are less utterly barren than others in these +records of the past. The Sicilian people's poetry, for example, +preserves a memory of the famous Vespers; and one or two terrible +stories of domestic tragedy, like the tale of Rosmunda in 'La Donna +Lombarda,' the romance of the Baronessa di Carini, and the so-called +Caso di Sciacca, may still be heard upon the lips of the people. But +these exceptions are insignificant in comparison with the vast mass of +songs which deal with love; and I cannot find that Tuscany, where the +language of this minstrelsy is purest, and where the artistic +instincts of the race are strongest, has anything at all approaching +to our ballads.<a name="FNanchor_21_21" id="FNanchor_21_21" /></a><a href="#Footnote_21_21" class="fnanchor">[21]</a> Though the Tuscan contadini are always singing, it +rarely happens that</p> + +<p> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">The plaintive numbers flow</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">For old, unhappy, far-off things,</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">And battles long ago.</span><br /> +</p> + +<p>On the contrary, we may be sure, when we hear their voices ringing +through the olive-groves or macchi, that they are chanting</p> + +<p> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">Some more humble lay,</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Familiar matter of to-day,—</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Some natural sorrow, loss, or pain,</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">That has been, and may be again;</span><br /> +</p> + +<p>or else, since their melodies are by no means uniformly sad, some +ditty of the joyousness of springtime or the ecstasy of love.</p> + +<p>This defect of anything corresponding to our ballads of 'Chevy Chase,' +or 'Sir Patrick Spens,' or 'Gil Morrice,' in a poetry which is still +so vital with the life of past centuries, is all the more remarkable +because Italian history is distinguished above that of other nations +by tragic episodes peculiarly suited to poetic treatment. Many of +these received commemoration in the fourteenth century from Dante; +others were embodied in the <i>novelle</i> of Boccaccio and Cinthio and +Bandello, whence they passed into the dramas of Shakspere, Webster, +Ford, and their contemporaries. But scarcely an echo can be traced +through all the volumes of the recently collected popular songs. We +must seek for an explanation of this fact partly in the conditions of +Italian life, and partly in the nature of the Italian imagination. +Nowhere in Italy do we observe that intimate connection between the +people at large and the great nobles which generates the sympathy of +clanship. Politics in most parts of the peninsula fell at a very early +period into the hands either of irresponsible princes, who ruled like +despots, or else of burghers, who administered the state within the +walls of their Palazzo Pubblico. The people remained passive +spectators of contemporary history. The loyalty of subjects to their +sovereign which animates the Spanish ballads, the loyalty of retainers +to their chief which gives life to the tragic ballads of the Border, +did not exist in Italy. Country-folk felt no interest in the doings of +Visconti or Medici or Malatesti sufficient to arouse the enthusiasm of +local bards or to call forth the celebration of their princely +tragedies in verse. Amid the miseries of foreign wars and home +oppression, it seemed better to demand from verse and song some +mitigation of the woes of life, some expression of personal emotion, +than to record the disasters which to us at a distance appear poetic +in their grandeur.</p> + +<p>These conditions of popular life, although unfavourable to the +production of ballad poetry, would not, however, have been sufficient +by themselves to check its growth, if the Italians had been strongly +impelled to literature of this type by their nature. The real reason +why their <i>Volkslieder</i> are amorous and personal is to be found in the +quality of their imagination. The Italian genius is not creatively +imaginative in the highest sense. The Italians have never, either in +the ancient or the modern age, produced a great drama or a national +epic, the 'Æneid' and the 'Divine Comedy' being obviously of +different species from the 'Iliad' or the 'Nibelungen Lied.' Modern +Italians, again, are distinguished from the French, the Germans, and +the English in being the conscious inheritors of an older, august, and +strictly classical civilisation. The great memories of Rome weigh down +their faculties of invention. It would also seem as though they shrank +in their poetry from the representation of what is tragic and +spirit-stirring. They incline to what is cheerful, brilliant, or +pathetic. The dramatic element in human life, external to the +personality of the poet, which exercised so strong a fascination over +our ballad-bards and playwrights, has but little attraction for the +Italian. When he sings, he seeks to express his own individual +emotions—his love, his joy, his jealousy, his anger, his despair. The +language which he uses is at the same time direct in its intensity, +and hyperbolical in its display of fancy; but it lacks those +imaginative touches which exalt the poetry of personal passion into a +sublimer region. Again, the Italians are deficient in a sense of the +supernatural. The wraiths that cannot rest because their love is still +unsatisfied, the voices which cry by night over field and fell, the +water-spirits and forest fairies, the second-sight of coming woes, the +presentiment of death, the warnings and the charms and spells, which +fill the popular poetry of all Northern nations, are absent in Italian +songs. In the whole of Tigri's collection I only remember one mention +of a ghost. It is not that the Italians are deficient in superstitions +of all kinds. Every one has heard of their belief in the evil eye, for +instance. But they do not connect this kind of fetichism with their +poetry; and even their greatest poets, with the exception of Dante, +have shown no capacity or no inclination for enhancing the imaginative +effect of their creations by an appeal to the instinct of mysterious +awe.</p> + +<p>The truth is that the Italians as a race are distinguished as much by +a firm grasp upon the practical realities of existence as by powerful +emotions. They have but little of that dreamy <i>Schwärmerei</i> with which +the people of the North are largely gifted. The true sphere of their +genius is painting. What appeals to the imagination through the eyes, +they have expressed far better than any other modern nation. But their +poetry, like their music, is deficient in tragic sublimity and in the +higher qualities of imaginative creation.</p> + +<p>It may seem paradoxical to say this of the nation which produced +Dante. But we must remember not to judge races by single and +exceptional men of genius. Petrarch, the Troubadour of exquisite +emotions, Boccaccio, who touches all the keys of life so lightly, +Ariosto, with the smile of everlasting April on his lips, and Tasso, +excellent alone when he confines himself to pathos or the picturesque, +are no exceptions to what I have just said. Yet these poets pursued +their art with conscious purpose. The tragic splendour of Greece, the +majesty of Rome, were not unknown to them. Far more is it true that +popular poetry in Italy, proceeding from the hearts of uncultivated +peasants and expressing the national character in its simplicity, +displays none of the stuff from which the greatest works of art in +verse, epics and dramas, can be wrought. But within its own sphere of +personal emotion, this popular poetry is exquisitely melodious, +inexhaustibly rich, unique in modern literature for the direct +expression which it has given to every shade of passion.</p> + +<p>Signor Tigri's collection,<a name="FNanchor_22_22" id="FNanchor_22_22" /></a><a href="#Footnote_22_22" class="fnanchor">[22]</a> to which I shall confine my attention +in this paper, consists of eleven hundred and eighty-five <i>rispetti</i>, +with the addition of four hundred and sixty-one <i>stornelli</i>. Rispetto, +it may be said in passing, is the name commonly given throughout Italy +to short poems, varying from six to twelve lines, constructed on the +principle of the octave stanza. That is to say, the first part of the +rispetto consists of four or six lines with alternate rhymes, while +one or more couplets, called the <i>ripresa</i>, complete the poem.<a name="FNanchor_23_23" id="FNanchor_23_23" /></a><a href="#Footnote_23_23" class="fnanchor">[23]</a> The +stornello, or ritournelle, never exceeds three lines, and owes its +name to the return which it makes at the end of the last line to the +rhyme given by the emphatic word of the first. Browning, in his poem +of 'Fra Lippo Lippi,' has accustomed English ears to one common +species of the stornello,<a name="FNanchor_24_24" id="FNanchor_24_24" /></a><a href="#Footnote_24_24" class="fnanchor">[24]</a> which sets out with the name of a +flower, and rhymes with it, as thus:</p> + +<p> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">Fior di narciso.</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Prigionero d'amore mi son reso,</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Nel rimirare il tuo leggiadro viso.</span><br /> +</p> + +<p>The divisions of those two sorts of songs, to which Tigri gives names +like The Beauty of Women, The Beauty of Men, Falling in Love, +Serenades, Happy Love, Unhappy Love, Parting, Absence, Letters, Return +to Home, Anger and Jealousy, Promises, Entreaties and Reproaches, +Indifference, Treachery and Abandonment, prove with what fulness the +various phases of the tender passion are treated. Through the whole +fifteen hundred the one theme of Love is never relinquished. Only two +persons, 'I' and 'thou,' appear upon the scene; yet so fresh and so +various are the moods of feeling, that one can read them from first to +last without too much satiety.</p> + +<p>To seek for the authors of these ditties would be useless. Some of +them may be as old as the fourteenth century; others may have been +made yesterday. Some are the native product of the Tuscan mountain +villages, especially of the regions round Pistoja and Siena, where on +the spurs of the Apennines the purest Italian is vernacular. Some, +again, are importations from other provinces, especially from Sicily +and Naples, caught up by the peasants of Tuscany and adapted to their +taste and style; for nothing travels faster than a <i>Volkslied</i>. Born +some morning in a noisy street of Naples, or on the solitary slopes of +Radicofani, before the week is out, a hundred voices are repeating it. +Waggoners and pedlars carry it across the hills to distant towns. It +floats with the fishermen from bay to bay, and marches with the +conscript to his barrack in a far-off province. Who was the first to +give it shape and form? No one asks, and no one cares. A student well +acquainted with the habits of the people in these matters says, 'If +they knew the author of a ditty, they would not learn it, far less if +they discovered that it was a scholar's.' If the cadence takes their +ear, they consecrate the song at once by placing it upon the honoured +list of 'ancient lays.' Passing from lip to lip and from district to +district, it receives additions and alterations, and becomes the +property of a score of provinces. Meanwhile the poet from whose soul +it blossomed that first morning like a flower, remains contented with +obscurity. The wind has carried from his lips the thistledown of song, +and sown it on a hundred hills and meadows, far and wide. After such +wise is the birth of all truly popular compositions. Who knows, for +instance, the veritable author of many of those mighty German chorals +which sprang into being at the period of the Reformation? The first +inspiration was given, probably, to a single mind; but the melody, as +it has reached us, is the product of a thousand. This accounts for the +variations which in different dialects and districts the same song +presents. Meanwhile, it is sometimes possible to trace the authorship +of a ballad with marked local character to an improvisatore famous in +his village, or to one of those professional rhymesters whom the +country-folk employ in the composition of love-letters to their +sweethearts at a distance.<a name="FNanchor_25_25" id="FNanchor_25_25" /></a><a href="#Footnote_25_25" class="fnanchor">[25]</a> Tommaseo, in the preface to his 'Canti +Popolari,' mentions in particular a Beatrice di Pian degli Ontani, +whose poetry was famous through the mountains of Pistoja; and Tigri +records by name a little girl called Cherubina, who made rispetti by +the dozen as she watched her sheep upon the hills. One of the songs in +his collection (p. 181) contains a direct reference to the village +letter-writer:—</p> + +<p> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Salutatemi, bella, lo scrivano;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Non lo conosco e non so chi si sia.</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">A me mi pare un poeta sovrano,</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Tanto gli è sperto nella poesia.<a name="FNanchor_26_26" id="FNanchor_26_26" /></a><a href="#Footnote_26_26" class="fnanchor">[26]</a></span><br /> +</p> + +<p>While I am writing thus about the production and dissemination of +these love-songs, I cannot help remembering three days and nights +which I once spent at sea between Genoa and Palermo, in the company of +some conscripts who were going to join their regiment in Sicily. They +were lads from the Milanese and Liguria, and they spent a great +portion of their time in composing and singing poetry. One of them had +a fine baritone voice; and when the sun had set, his comrades gathered +round him and begged him to sing to them 'Con quella patetica tua +voce.' Then followed hours of singing, the low monotonous melodies of +his ditties harmonising wonderfully with the tranquillity of night, so +clear and calm that the sky and all its stars were mirrored on the +sea, through which we moved as if in a dream. Sometimes the songs +provoked conversation, which, as is usual in Italy, turned mostly upon +'le bellezze delle donne.' I remember that once an animated discussion +about the relative merits of blondes and brunettes nearly ended in a +quarrel, when the youngest of the whole band, a boy of about +seventeen, put a stop to the dispute by theatrically raising his eyes +and arms to heaven and crying, 'Tu sei innamorato d' una grande Diana +cacciatrice nera, ed io d' una bella Venere bionda.' Though they were +but village lads, they supported their several opinions with arguments +not unworthy of Firenzuola, and showed the greatest delicacy of +feeling in the treatment of a subject which could scarcely have failed +to reveal any latent coarseness.</p> + +<p>The purity of all the Italian love-songs collected by Tigri is very +remarkable.<a name="FNanchor_27_27" id="FNanchor_27_27" /></a><a href="#Footnote_27_27" class="fnanchor">[27]</a> Although the passion expressed in them is Oriental in +its vehemence, not a word falls which could offend a virgin's ear. The +one desire of lovers is lifelong union in marriage. The <i>damo</i>—for so +a sweetheart is termed in Tuscany—trembles until he has gained the +approval of his future mother-in-law, and forbids the girl he is +courting to leave her house to talk to him at night:—</p> + +<p> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Dice che tu tì affacci alia finestra;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Ma non tì dice che tu vada fuora,</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Perchè, la notte, è cosa disonesta.</span><br /> +</p> + +<p>All the language of his love is respectful. <i>Signore</i>, or master of my +soul, <i>madonna, anima mia, dolce mio ben, nobil persona,</i> are the +terms of adoration with which he approaches his mistress. The +elevation of feeling and perfect breeding which Manzoni has so well +delineated in the loves of Renzo and Lucia are traditional among +Italian country-folk. They are conscious that true gentleness is no +matter of birth or fortune:—</p> + +<p> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">E tu non mi lasciar per poverezza,</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Chè povertà non guasta gentilezza.<a name="FNanchor_28_28" id="FNanchor_28_28" /></a><a href="#Footnote_28_28" class="fnanchor">[28]</a></span><br /> +</p> + + +<p>This in itself constitutes an important element of culture, and +explains to some extent the high romantic qualities of their +impassioned poetry. The beauty of their land reveals still more. 'O +fortunatos nimium sua si bona norint!' Virgil's exclamation is as true +now as it was when he sang the labours of Italian country-folk some +nineteen centuries ago. To a traveller from the north there is a +pathos even in the contrast between the country in which these +children of a happier climate toil, and those bleak, winter-beaten +fields where our own peasants pass their lives. The cold nights and +warm days of Tuscan springtime are like a Swiss summer. They make rich +pasture and a hardy race of men. Tracts of corn and oats and rye +alternate with patches of flax in full flower, with meadows yellow +with buttercups or pink with ragged robin; the young vines, running +from bough to bough of elm and mulberry, are just coming into leaf. +The poplars are fresh with bright green foliage. On the verge of this +blooming plain stand ancient cities ringed with hills, some rising to +snowy Apennines, some covered with white convents and sparkling with +villas. Cypresses shoot, black and spirelike, amid grey clouds of +olive-boughs upon the slopes; and above, where vegetation borders on +the barren rock, are masses of ilex and arbutus interspersed with +chestnut-trees not yet in leaf. Men and women are everywhere at work, +ploughing with great white oxen, or tilling the soil with spades six +feet in length—Sabellian ligones. The songs of nightingales among +acacia-trees, and the sharp scream of swallows wheeling in air, mingle +with the monotonous chant that always rises from the country-people at +their toil. Here and there on points of vantage, where the hill-slopes +sink into the plain, cluster white villages with flower-like +campanili. It is there that the veglia, or evening rendezvous of +lovers, the serenades and balls and feste, of which one hears so much +in the popular minstrelsy, take place. Of course it would not be +difficult to paint the darker shades of this picture. Autumn comes, +when the contadini of Lucca and Siena and Pistoja go forth to work in +the unwholesome marshes of the Maremma, or of Corsica and Sardinia. +Dismal superstitions and hereditary hatreds cast their blight over a +life externally so fair. The bad government of centuries has perverted +in many ways the instincts of a people naturally mild and cheerful and +peace-loving. But as far as nature can make men happy, these +husbandmen are surely to be reckoned fortunate, and in their songs we +find little to remind us of what is otherwise than sunny in their lot.</p> + +<p>A translator of these <i>Volkslieder</i> has to contend with difficulties +of no ordinary kind. The freshness of their phrases, the spontaneity +of their sentiments, and the melody of their unstudied cadences, are +inimitable. So again is the peculiar effect of their frequent +transitions from the most fanciful imagery to the language of prose. +No mere student can hope to rival, far less to reproduce, in a foreign +tongue, the charm of verse which sprang untaught from the hearts of +simple folk, which lives unwritten on the lips of lovers, and which +should never be dissociated from singing.<a name="FNanchor_29_29" id="FNanchor_29_29" /></a><a href="#Footnote_29_29" class="fnanchor">[29]</a> There are, besides, +peculiarities in the very structure of the popular rispetto. The +constant repetition of the same phrase with slight variations, +especially in the closing lines of the <i>ripresa</i> of the Tuscan +rispetto, gives an antique force and flavour to these ditties, like +that which we appreciate in our own ballads, but which may easily, in +the translation, degenerate into weakness and insipidity. The Tuscan +rhymester, again, allows himself the utmost licence. It is usual to +find mere assonances like <i>bene</i> and <i>piacere, oro</i> and <i>volo, ala</i> +and <i>alata</i>, in the place of rhymes; while such remote resemblances of +sound as <i>colli</i> and <i>poggi</i>, <i>lascia</i> and <i>piazza</i>, are far from +uncommon. To match these rhymes by joining 'home' and 'alone,' 'time' +and 'shine,' &c, would of course be a matter of no difficulty; but it +has seemed to me on the whole best to preserve, with some exceptions, +such accuracy as the English ear requires. I fear, however, that, +after all, these wild-flowers of song, transplanted to another climate +and placed in a hothouse, will appear but pale and hectic by the side +of their robuster brethren of the Tuscan hills.</p> + +<p>In the following serenade many of the peculiarities which</p> + +<p>I have just noticed occur. I have also adhered to the irregularity of +rhyme which may be usually observed about the middle of the poem (p. +103):—</p> + +<p> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Sleeping or waking, thou sweet face,</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Lift up thy fair and tender brow:</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">List to thy love in this still place;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">He calls thee to thy window now:</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">But bids thee not the house to quit,</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Since in the night this were not meet.</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Come to thy window, stay within;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">I stand without, and sing and sing:</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Come to thy window, stay at home;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">I stand without, and make my moan.</span><br /> +</p> + +<p>Here is a serenade of a more impassioned character (p. 99):—</p> + +<p> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">I come to visit thee, my beauteous queen,</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Thee and the house where thou art harboured:</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">All the long way upon my knees, my queen,</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">I kiss the earth where'er thy footsteps tread.</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">I kiss the earth, and gaze upon the wall,</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Whereby thou goest, maid imperial!</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">I kiss the earth, and gaze upon the house,</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Whereby thou farest, queen most beauteous!</span><br /> +</p> + +<p>In the next the lover, who has passed the whole night beneath his +sweetheart's window, takes leave at the break of day. The feeling of +the half-hour before dawn, when the sound of bells rises to meet the +growing light, and both form a prelude to the glare and noise of day, +is expressed with much unconscious poetry (p. 105):—</p> + +<p> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">I see the dawn e'en now begin to peer:</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Therefore I take my leave, and cease to sing,</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">See how the windows open far and near,</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">And hear the bells of morning, how they ring!</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Through heaven and earth the sounds of ringing swell;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Therefore, bright jasmine flower, sweet maid, farewell!</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Through heaven and Rome the sound of ringing goes;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Farewell, bright jasmine flower, sweet maiden rose!</span><br /> +</p> + +<p>The next is more quaint (p. 99):—</p> + +<p> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">I come by night, I come, my soul aflame;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">I come in this fair hour of your sweet sleep;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">And should I wake you up, it were a shame.</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">I cannot sleep, and lo! I break your sleep.</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">To wake you were a shame from your deep rest;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Love never sleeps, nor they whom Love hath blest.</span><br /> +</p> + +<p>A very great many rispetti are simple panegyrics of the beloved, to +find similitude for whose beauty heaven and earth are ransacked. The +compliment of the first line in the following song is perfect (p. +23):—</p> + +<p> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Beauty was born with you, fair maid:</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">The sun and moon inclined to you;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">On you the snow her whiteness laid</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">The rose her rich and radiant hue:</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Saint Magdalen her hair unbound,</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">And Cupid taught you how to wound—</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">How to wound hearts Dan Cupid taught:</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Your beauty drives me love-distraught.</span><br /> +</p> + +<p>The lady in the next was December's child (p. 25):—</p> + +<p> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">O beauty, born in winter's night,</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Born in the month of spotless snow:</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Your face is like a rose so bright;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Your mother may be proud of you!</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">She may be proud, lady of love,</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Such sunlight shines her house above:</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">She may be proud, lady of heaven,</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Such sunlight to her home is given.</span><br /> +</p> + +<p>The sea wind is the source of beauty to another (p. 16):—</p> + +<p> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Nay, marvel not you are so fair;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">For you beside the sea were born:</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">The sea-waves keep you fresh and fair,</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Like roses on their leafy thorn.</span><br /> +<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">If roses grow on the rose-bush,</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Your roses through midwinter blush;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">If roses bloom on the rose-bed,</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Your face can show both white and red.</span><br /> +</p> + +<p>The eyes of a fourth are compared, after quite a new and original +fashion, to stars (p. 210):—</p> + +<p> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">The moon hath risen her plaint to lay</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Before the face of Love Divine.</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Saying in heaven she will not stay,</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Since you have stolen what made her shine:</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Aloud she wails with sorrow wan,—</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">She told her stars and two are gone:</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">They are not there; you have them now;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">They are the eyes in your bright brow.</span><br /> +</p> + +<p>Nor are girls less ready to praise their lovers, but that they do not +dwell so much on physical perfection. Here is a pleasant greeting (p. +124):—</p> + +<p> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">O welcome, welcome, lily white,</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Thou fairest youth of all the valley!</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">When I'm with you, my soul is light;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">I chase away dull melancholy.</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">I chase all sadness from my heart:</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Then welcome, dearest that thou art!</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">I chase all sadness from my side:</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Then welcome, O my love, my pride!</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">I chase all sadness far away:</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Then welcome, welcome, love, to-day!</span><br /> +</p> + +<p>The image of a lily is very prettily treated in the next (p 79):—</p> + +<p> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">I planted a lily yestreen at my window;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">I set it yestreen, and to-day it sprang up:</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">When I opened the latch and leaned out of my window,</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">It shadowed my face with its beautiful cup.</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">O lily, my lily, how tall you are grown!</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Remember how dearly I loved you, my own.</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">O lily, my lily, you'll grow to the sky!</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Remember I love you for ever and aye.</span><br /> +</p> + +<p>The same thought of love growing like a flower receives another turn +(p. 69):—</p> + +<p> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">On yonder hill I saw a flower;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">And, could it thence be hither borne,</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">I'd plant it here within my bower,</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">And water it both eve and morn.</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">Small water wants the stem so straight;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">'Tis a love-lily stout as fate.</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">Small water wants the root so strong:</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">'Tis a love-lily lasting long.</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">Small water wants the flower so sheen:</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">'Tis a love-lily ever green.</span><br /> +</p> + +<p>Envious tongues have told a girl that her complexion is not good. She +replies, with imagery like that of Virgil's 'Alba ligustra cadunt, +vaccinia nigra leguntur' (p. 31):—</p> + +<p> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Think it no grief that I am brown,</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">For all brunettes are born to reign:</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">White is the snow, yet trodden down;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Black pepper kings need not disdain:</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">White snow lies mounded on the vales</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Black pepper's weighed in brazen scales.</span><br /> +</p> + +<p>Another song runs on the same subject (p. 38):—</p> + +<p> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">The whole world tells me that I'm brown,</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">The brown earth gives us goodly corn:</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">The clove-pink too, however brown,</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Yet proudly in the hand 'tis borne.</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">They say my love is black, but he</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Shines like an angel-form to me:</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">They say my love is dark as night;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">To me he seems a shape of light.</span><br /> +</p> + +<p>The freshness of the following spring song recalls the ballads of the +Val de Vire in Normandy (p. 85):—</p> + +<p> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">It was the morning of the first of May,</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Into the close I went to pluck a flower;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">And there I found a bird of woodland gay,</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Who whiled with songs of love the silent hour.</span><br /> +<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">O bird, who fliest from fair Florence, how</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Dear love begins, I prithee teach me now!—</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Love it begins with music and with song,</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">And ends with sorrow and with sighs ere long.</span><br /> +</p> + +<p>Love at first sight is described (p. 79):—</p> + +<p> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">The very moment that we met,</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">That moment love began to beat:</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">One glance of love we gave, and swore</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Never to part for evermore;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">We swore together, sighing deep,</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Never to part till Death's long sleep.</span><br /> +</p> + +<p>Here too is a memory of the first days of love (p. 79):—</p> + +<p> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">If I remember, it was May</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">When love began between us two:</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">The roses in the close were gay,</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">The cherries blackened on the bough.</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">O cherries black and pears so green!</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Of maidens fair you are the queen.</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Fruit of black cherry and sweet pear!</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Of sweethearts you're the queen, I swear.</span><br /> +</p> + +<p>The troth is plighted with such promises as these (p. 230):—</p> + +<p> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Or ere I leave you, love divine,</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Dead tongues shall stir and utter speech,</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">And running rivers flow with wine,</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">And fishes swim upon the beach;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Or ere I leave or shun you, these</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Lemons shall grow on orange-trees.</span><br /> +</p> + + +<p>The girl confesses her love after this fashion (p. 86):—</p> + +<p> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Passing across the billowy sea,</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">I let, alas, my poor heart fall;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">I bade the sailors bring it me;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">They said they had not seen it fall.</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">I asked the sailors, one and two;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">They said that I had given it you.</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">I asked the sailors, two and three;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">They said that I had given it thee.</span><br /> +</p> + +<p>It is not uncommon to speak of love as a sea. Here is a curious play +upon this image (p. 227):—</p> + +<p> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Ho, Cupid! Sailor Cupid, ho!</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Lend me awhile that bark of thine;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">For on the billows I will go,</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">To find my love who once was mine:</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">And if I find her, she shall wear</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">A chain around her neck so fair,</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Around her neck a glittering bond,</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Four stars, a lily, a diamond.</span><br /> +</p> + +<p>It is also possible that the same thought may occur in the second line +of the next ditty (p. 120):—</p> + +<p> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Beneath the earth I'll make a way</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">To pass the sea and come to you.</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">People will think I'm gone away;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">But, dear, I shall be seeing you.</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">People will say that I am dead;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">But we'll pluck roses white and red:</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">People will think I'm lost for aye;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">But we'll pluck roses, you and I.</span><br /> +</p> + +<p>All the little daily incidents are beautified by love. Here is a lover +who thanks the mason for making his window so close upon the road that +he can see his sweetheart as she passes (p. 118):—</p> + +<p> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Blest be the mason's hand who built</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">This house of mine by the roadside,</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">And made my window low and wide</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">For me to watch my love go by.</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">And if I knew when she went by,</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">My window should be fairly gilt;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">And if I knew what time she went,</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">My window should be flower-besprent.</span><br /> +</p> + +<p>Here is a conceit which reminds one of the pretty epistle of +Philostratus, in which the footsteps of the beloved are called +<i>ερηρεισμένα Φιλήματα</i> (p. 117):—</p> + +<p> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">What time I see you passing by;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">I sit and count the steps you take:</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">You take the steps; I sit and sigh:</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">Step after step, my sighs awake.</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">Tell me, dear love, which more abound,</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">My sighs or your steps on the ground?</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">Tell me, dear love, which are the most,</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">Your light steps or the sighs they cost?</span><br /> +<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">A girl complains that she cannot see her lover's house (p. 117):—</span><br /> +<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">I lean upon the lattice, and look forth</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">To see the house where my lover dwells.</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">There grows an envious tree that spoils my mirth:</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">Cursed be the man who set it on these hills!</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">But when those jealous boughs are all unclad,</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">I then shall see the cottage of my lad:</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">When once that tree is rooted from the hills,</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">I'll see the house wherein my lover dwells.</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1.5em;">*/</span><br /> +<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">In the same mood a girl who has just parted from her sweetheart is</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">angry with the hill beyond which he is travelling (p. 167):—</span><br /> +<br /> +<p> +<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1.5em;">I see and see, yet see not what I would:</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">I see the leaves atremble on the tree:</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">I saw my love where on the hill he stood,</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">Yet see him not drop downward to the lea.</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 3.5em;">O traitor hill, what will you do?</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 3.5em;">I ask him, live or dead, from you.</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 3.5em;">O traitor hill, what shall it be?</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 3.5em;">I ask him, live or dead, from thee.</span><br /> +</p> + +<p>All the songs of love in absence are very quaint. Here is one which +calls our nursery rhymes to mind (p. 119):—</p> + +<p> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">I would I were a bird so free,</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">That I had wings to fly away:</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Unto that window I would flee,</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Where stands my love and grinds all day.</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Grind, miller, grind; the water's deep!</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">I cannot grind; love makes me weep.</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Grind, miller, grind; the waters flow!</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">I cannot grind; love wastes me so.</span><br /> +</p> + + +<p>The next begins after the same fashion, but breaks into a very shower +of benedictions (p. 118):—</p> + +<p> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Would God I were a swallow free,</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">That I had wings to fly away:</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Upon the miller's door I'd be,</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Where stands my love and grinds all day:</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Upon the door, upon the sill,</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Where stays my love;—God bless him still!</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">God bless my love, and blessed be</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">His house, and bless my house for me;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Yea, blest be both, and ever blest</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">My lover's house, and all the rest!</span><br /> +</p> + +<p>The girl alone at home in her garden sees a wood-dove flying by and +calls to it (p. 179):—</p> + +<p> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">O dove, who fliest far to yonder hill,</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Dear dove, who in the rock hast made thy nest,</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Let me a feather from thy pinion pull,</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">For I will write to him who loves me best.</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">And when I've written it and made it clear,</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">I'll give thee back thy feather, dove so dear:</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">And when I've written it and sealed it, then</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">I'll give thee back thy feather love-laden.</span><br /> +</p> + +<p>A swallow is asked to lend the same kind service (p. 179):—</p> + +<p> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">O swallow, swallow, flying through the air,</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Turn, turn, I prithee, from thy flight above!</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Give me one feather from thy wing so fair,</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">For I will write a letter to my love.</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">When I have written it and made it clear,</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">I'll give thee back thy feather, swallow dear;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">When I have written it on paper white,</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">I'll make, I swear, thy missing feather right;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">When once 'tis written on fair leaves of gold,</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">I'll give thee back thy wing and flight so bold.</span><br /> +</p> + + +<p>Long before Tennyson's song in the 'Princess,' it would seem that +swallows were favourite messengers of love. In the next song which I +translate, the repetition of one thought with delicate variation is +full of character (p. 178):—</p> + +<p> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">O swallow, flying over hill and plain,</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">If thou shouldst find my love, oh bid him come!</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">And tell him, on these mountains I remain</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Even as a lamb who cannot find her home:</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">And tell him, I am left all, all alone,</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Even as a tree whose flowers are overblown:</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">And tell him, I am left without a mate</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Even as a tree whose boughs are desolate:</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">And tell him, I am left uncomforted</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Even as the grass upon the meadows dead.</span><br /> +</p> + +<p>The following is spoken by a girl who has been watching the lads of +the village returning from their autumn service in the plain, and +whose damo comes the last of all (p. 240):—</p> + +<p> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">O dear my love, you come too late!</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">What found you by the way to do?</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">I saw your comrades pass the gate,</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">But yet not you, dear heart, not you!</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">If but a little more you'd stayed,</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">With sighs you would have found me dead;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">If but a while you'd keep me crying,</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">With sighs you would have found me dying.</span><br /> +</p> + +<p>The <i>amantium irae</i> find a place too in these rustic ditties. A girl +explains to her sweetheart (p. 240):—</p> + +<p> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">'Twas told me and vouchsafed for true,</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Your kin are wroth as wroth can be;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">For loving me they swear at you,</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">They swear at you because of me;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Your father, mother, all your folk,</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Because you love me, chafe and choke!</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Then set your kith and kin at ease;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Set them at ease and let me die:</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Set the whole clan of them at ease;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Set them at ease and see me die!</span><br /> +</p> + +<p>Another suspects that her damo has paid his suit to a rival (p. +200):—</p> + +<p> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">On Sunday morning well I knew</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Where gaily dressed you turned your feet;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">And there were many saw it too,</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">And came to tell me through the street:</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">And when they spoke, I smiled, ah me!</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">But in my room wept privately;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">And when they spoke, I sang for pride,</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">But in my room alone I sighed.</span><br /> +</p> + +<p>Then come reconciliations (p. 223):—</p> + +<p> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Let us make peace, my love, my bliss!</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">For cruel strife can last no more.</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">If you say nay, yet I say yes:</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">'Twixt me and you there is no war.</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Princes and mighty lords make peace;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">And so may lovers twain, I wis:</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Princes and soldiers sign a truce;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">And so may two sweethearts like us:</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Princes and potentates agree;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">And so may friends like you and me.</span><br /> +</p> + +<p>There is much character about the following, which is spoken by the +damo (p. 223):—</p> + +<p> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">As yonder mountain height I trod,</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">I chanced to think of your dear name;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">I knelt with clasped hands on the sod,</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">And thought of my neglect with shame:</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">I knelt upon the stone, and swore</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Our love should bloom as heretofore.</span><br /> +</p> + +<p>Sometimes the language of affection takes a more imaginative tone, as +in the following (p. 232):—</p> + +<p> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Dearest, what time you mount to heaven above,</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">I'll meet you holding in my hand my heart:</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">You to your breast shall clasp me full of love,</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">And I will lead you to our Lord apart.</span><br /> +<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Our Lord, when he our love so true hath known,</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Shall make of our two hearts one heart alone;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">One heart shall make of our two hearts, to rest</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">In heaven amid the splendours of the blest.</span><br /> +</p> + +<p>This was the woman's. Here is the man's (p. 113):—</p> + +<p> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">If I were master of all loveliness,</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">I'd make thee still more lovely than thou art:</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">If I were master of all wealthiness,</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Much gold and silver should be thine, sweetheart:</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">If I were master of the house of hell,</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">I'd bar the brazen gates in thy sweet face;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Or ruled the place where purging spirits dwell,</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">I'd free thee from that punishment apace.</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Were I in paradise and thou shouldst come,</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">I'd stand aside, my love, to make thee room;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Were I in paradise, well seated there,</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">I'd quit my place to give it thee, my fair!</span><br /> +</p> + +<p>Sometimes, but very rarely, weird images are sought to clothe passion, +as in the following (p. 136):—</p> + +<p> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Down into hell I went and thence returned:</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Ah me! alas! the people that were there!</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">I found a room where many candles burned,</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">And saw within my love that languished there.</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">When as she saw me, she was glad of cheer,</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">And at the last she said: Sweet soul of mine;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Dost thou recall the time long past, so dear,</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">When thou didst say to me, Sweet soul of mine?</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Now kiss me on the mouth, my dearest, here;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Kiss me that I for once may cease to pine!</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">So sweet, ah me, is thy dear mouth, so dear,</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">That of thy mercy prithee sweeten mine!</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Now, love, that thou hast kissed me, now, I say,</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Look not to leave this place again for aye.</span><br /> +</p> + +<p>Or again in this (p. 232):—</p> + +<p> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Methinks I hear, I hear a voice that cries:</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Beyond the hill it floats upon the air.</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">It is my lover come to bid me rise,</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">If I am fain forthwith toward heaven to fare.</span><br /> +<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">But I have answered him, and said him No!</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">I've given my paradise, my heaven, for you:</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Till we together go to paradise,</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">I'll stay on earth and love your beauteous eyes.</span><br /> +</p> + +<p>But it is not with such remote and eerie thoughts that the rustic muse +of Italy can deal successfully. Far better is the following +half-playful description of love-sadness (p. 71):—</p> + +<p> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Ah me, alas! who know not how to sigh!</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Of sighs I now full well have learned the art:</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Sighing at table when to eat I try,</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Sighing within my little room apart,</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Sighing when jests and laughter round me fly,</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Sighing with her and her who know my heart:</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">I sigh at first, and then I go on sighing;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">'Tis for your eyes that I am ever sighing:</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">I sigh at first, and sigh the whole year through;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">And 'tis your eyes that keep me sighing so.</span><br /> +</p> + +<p>The next two rispetti, delicious in their naïveté, might seem to have +been extracted from the libretto of an opera, but that they lack the +sympathising chorus, who should have stood at hand, ready to chime in +with 'he,' 'she,' and 'they,' to the 'I,' 'you,' and 'we' of the +lovers (p. 123):—</p> + +<p> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Ah, when will dawn that glorious day</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">When you will softly mount my stair?</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">My kin shall bring you on the way;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">I shall be first to greet you there.</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Ah, when will dawn that day of bliss</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">When we before the priest say Yes?</span><br /> +<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Ah, when will dawn that blissful day</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">When I shall softly mount your stair,</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Your brothers meet me on the way,</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">And one by one I greet them there?</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">When comes the day, my staff, my strength,</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">To call your mother mine at length?</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">When will the day come, love of mine,</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">I shall be yours and you be mine?</span><br /> +</p> + +<p>Hitherto the songs have told only of happy love, or of love returned. +Some of the best, however, are unhappy. Here is one, for instance, +steeped in gloom (p. 142):—</p> + +<p> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">They have this custom in fair Naples town;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">They never mourn a man when he is dead:</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">The mother weeps when she has reared a son</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">To be a serf and slave by love misled;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">The mother weeps when she a son hath born</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">To be the serf and slave of galley scorn;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">The mother weeps when she a son gives suck</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">To be the serf and slave of city luck.</span><br /> +</p> + +<p>The following contains a fine wild image, wrought out with strange +passion in detail (p. 300):—</p> + +<p> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">I'll spread a table brave for revelry,</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">And to the feast will bid sad lovers all.</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">For meat I'll give them my heart's misery;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">For drink I'll give these briny tears that fall.</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Sorrows and sighs shall be the varletry,</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">To serve the lovers at this festival:</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">The table shall be death, black death profound;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Weep, stones, and utter sighs, ye walls around!</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">The table shall be death, yea, sacred death;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Weep, stones, and sigh as one that sorroweth!</span><br /> +</p> + +<p>Nor is the next a whit less in the vein of mad Jeronimo (p. 304):—</p> + +<p> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">High up, high up, a house I'll rear,</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">High up, high up, on yonder height;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">At every window set a snare,</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">With treason, to betray the night;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">With treason, to betray the stars,</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Since I'm betrayed by my false feres;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">With treason, to betray the day,</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Since Love betrayed me, well away!</span><br /> +</p> + +<p>The vengeance of an Italian reveals itself in the energetic song which +I quote next (p. 303):—</p> + +<p> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">I have a sword; 'twould cut a brazen bell,</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">Tough steel 'twould cut, if there were any need:</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">I've had it tempered in the streams of hell</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">By masters mighty in the mystic rede:</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">I've had it tempered by the light of stars;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">Then let him come whose skin is stout as Mars;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">I've had it tempered to a trenchant blade;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">Then let him come who stole from me my maid.</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1.5em;">*/</span><br /> +<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">More mild, but brimful of the bitterness of a soul to whom the whole</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">world has become but ashes in the death of love, is the following</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">lament (p. 143):—</span><br /> +<br /> +<p> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">Call me the lovely Golden Locks no more,</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">But call me Sad Maid of the golden hair.</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">If there be wretched women, sure I think</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">I too may rank among the most forlorn.</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">I fling a palm into the sea; 'twill sink:</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">Others throw lead, and it is lightly borne.</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">What have I done, dear Lord, the world to cross?</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">Gold in my hand forthwith is turned to dross.</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">How have I made, dear Lord, dame Fortune wroth?</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">Gold in my hand forthwith is turned to froth.</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">What have I done, dear Lord, to fret the folk?</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">Gold in my hand forthwith is turned to smoke.</span><br /> +</p> + +<p>Here is pathos (p. 172):—</p> + +<p> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">The wood-dove who hath lost her mate,</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">She lives a dolorous life, I ween;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">She seeks a stream and bathes in it,</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">And drinks that water foul and green:</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">With other birds she will not mate,</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Nor haunt, I wis, the flowery treen;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">She bathes her wings and strikes her breast;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Her mate is lost: oh, sore unrest!</span><br /> +</p> + +<p>And here is fanciful despair (p. 168):—</p> + +<p> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">I'll build a house of sobs and sighs,</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 3em;">With tears the lime I'll slack;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">And there I'll dwell with weeping eyes</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 3em;">Until my love come back:</span><br /> +<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">And there I'll stay with eyes that burn</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">Until I see my love return.</span><br /> +</p> + +<p>The house of love has been deserted, and the lover comes to moan +beneath its silent eaves (p. 171):—</p> + +<p> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Dark house and window desolate!</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Where is the sun which shone so fair?</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">'Twas here we danced and laughed at fate:</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Now the stones weep; I see them there.</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">They weep, and feel a grievous chill:</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Dark house and widowed window-sill!</span><br /> +</p> + +<p>And what can be more piteous than this prayer? (p. 809):—</p> + +<p> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Love, if you love me, delve a tomb,</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">And lay me there the earth beneath;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">After a year, come see my bones,</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">And make them dice to play therewith.</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">But when you're tired of that game,</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Then throw those dice into the flame;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">But when you're tired of gaming free,</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Then throw those dice into the sea.</span><br /> +</p> + +<p>The simpler expression of sorrow to the death is, as usual, more +impressive. A girl speaks thus within sight of the grave (p. 808):—</p> + +<p> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Yes, I shall die: what wilt thou gain?</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">The cross before my bier will go;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">And thou wilt hear the bells complain,</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">The <i>Misereres</i> loud and low.</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Midmost the church thou'lt see me lie</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">With folded hands and frozen eye;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Then say at last, I do repent!—</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Nought else remains when fires are spent.</span><br /> +</p> + +<p>Here is a rustic Oenone (p. 307):—</p> + +<p> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Fell death, that fliest fraught with woe!</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Thy gloomy snares the world ensphere:</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Where no man calls, thou lov'st to go;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">But when we call, thou wilt not hear.</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Fell death, false death of treachery,</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Thou makest all content but me.</span><br /> +</p> + +<p>Another is less reproachful, but scarcely less sad (p. 308):—</p> + +<p> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Strew me with blossoms when I die,</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Nor lay me 'neath the earth below;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Beyond those walls, there let me lie,</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Where oftentimes we used to go.</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">There lay me to the wind and rain;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Dying for you, I feel no pain:</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">There lay me to the sun above;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Dying for you, I die of love.</span><br /> +</p> + +<p>Yet another of these pitiful love-wailings displays much poetry of +expression (p. 271):—</p> + +<p> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">I dug the sea, and delved the barren sand:</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">I wrote with dust and gave it to the wind:</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Of melting snow, false Love, was made thy band,</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Which suddenly the day's bright beams unbind.</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Now am I ware, and know my own mistake—</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">How false are all the promises you make;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Now am I ware, and know the fact, ah me!</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">That who confides in you, deceived will be.</span><br /> +</p> + +<p>It would scarcely be well to pause upon these very doleful ditties. +Take, then, the following little serenade, in which the lover on his +way to visit his mistress has unconsciously fallen on the same thought +as Bion (p. 85):—</p> + +<p> +<span style="margin-left: 2.5em;">Yestreen I went my love to greet,</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2.5em;">By yonder village path below:</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2.5em;">Night in a coppice found my feet;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2.5em;">I called the moon her light to show—</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">O moon, who needs no flame to fire thy face,</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Look forth and lend me light a little space!</span><br /> +</p> + +<p>Enough has been quoted to illustrate the character of the Tuscan +popular poetry. These village rispetti bear the same relation to the +canzoniere of Petrarch as the 'savage drupe' to the 'suave plum.' They +are, as it were, the wild stock of that highly artificial flower of +art. Herein lies, perhaps, their chief importance. As in our ballad +literature we may discern the stuff of the Elizabethan drama +undeveloped, so in the Tuscan people's songs we can trace the crude +form of that poetic instinct which produced the sonnets to Laura. It +is also very probable that some such rustic minstrelsy preceded the +Idylls of Theocritus and the Bucolics of Virgil; for coincidences of +thought and imagery, which can scarcely be referred to any conscious +study of the ancients, are not a few. Popular poetry has this great +value for the student of literature: it enables him to trace those +forms of fancy and of feeling which are native to the people, and +which must ultimately determine the character of national art, however +much that may be modified by culture.</p> +<h5><a href="#CONTENTS">CONTENTS</a></h5> +<br/><br /> +<hr style="width: 100%;" /> + + +<h2><a name="POPULAR_ITALIAN_POETRY_OF_THE_RENAISSANCE" id="POPULAR_ITALIAN_POETRY_OF_THE_RENAISSANCE" /><i>POPULAR ITALIAN POETRY OF THE RENAISSANCE</i></a></h2> + +<hr style="width: 100%;" /> +<br /> +<p>The semi-popular poetry of the Italians in the fifteenth century +formed an important branch of their national literature, and +flourished independently of the courtly and scholastic studies which +gave a special character to the golden age of the revival. While the +latter tended to separate the people from the cultivated classes, the +former established a new link of connection between them, different +indeed from that which existed when smiths and carters repeated the +Canzoni of Dante by heart in the fourteenth century, but still +sufficiently real to exercise a weighty influence over the national +development. Scholars like Angelo Poliziano, princes like Lorenzo de' +Medici, men of letters like Feo Belcari and Benivieni, borrowed from +the people forms of poetry, which they handled with refined taste, and +appropriated to the uses of polite literature. The most important of +these forms, native to the people but assimilated by the learned +classes, were the Miracle Play or 'Sacra Rappresentazione;' the +'Ballata' or lyric to be sung while dancing; the 'Canto +Carnascialesco' or Carnival Chorus; the 'Rispetto' or short +love-ditty; the 'Lauda' or hymn; the 'Maggio' or May-song; and the +'Madrigale' or little part-song.</p> + +<p>At Florence, where even under the despotism of the Medici a show of +republican life still lingered, all classes joined in the amusements +of carnival and spring time; and this poetry of the dance, the +pageant, and the villa flourished side by side with the more serious +efforts of the humanistic muse. It is not my purpose in this place to +inquire into the origins of each lyrical type, to discuss the +alterations they may have undergone at the hands of educated +versifiers, or to define their several characteristics; but only to +offer translations of such as seem to me best suited to represent the +genius of the people and the age.</p> + +<p>In the composition of the poetry in question, Angelo Poliziano was +indubitably the most successful. This giant of learning, who filled +the lecture-rooms of Florence with students of all nations, and whose +critical and rhetorical labours marked an epoch in the history of +scholarship, was by temperament a poet, and a poet of the people. +Nothing was easier for him than to throw aside his professor's mantle, +and to improvise 'Ballate' for the girls to sing as they danced their +'Carola' upon the Piazza di Santa Trinità in summer evenings. The +peculiarity of this lyric is that it starts with a couplet, which also +serves as refrain, supplying the rhyme to each successive stanza. The +stanza itself is identical with our rime royal, if we count the +couplet in the place of the seventh line. The form is in itself so +graceful and is so beautifully treated by Poliziano that I cannot +content myself with fewer than four of his <i>Ballate</i>.<a name="FNanchor_30_30" id="FNanchor_30_30" /></a><a href="#Footnote_30_30" class="fnanchor">[30]</a> The first is +written on the world-old theme of 'Gather ye rosebuds while ye may.'</p> + + +<p> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">I went a roaming, maidens, one bright day,</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">In a green garden in mid month of May.</span><br /> +<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Violets and lilies grew on every side</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">Mid the green grass, and young flowers wonderful,</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Golden and white and red and azure-eyed;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">Toward which I stretched my hands, eager to pull</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">Plenty to make my fair curls beautiful,</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">To crown my rippling curls with garlands gay.</span><br /> +<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">I went a roaming, maidens, one bright day,</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">In a green garden in mid month of May.</span><br /> +<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">But when my lap was full of flowers I spied</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">Roses at last, roses of every hue;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Therefore I ran to pluck their ruddy pride,</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">Because their perfume was so sweet and true</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">That all my soul went forth with pleasure new,</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">With yearning and desire too soft to say.</span><br /> +<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">I went a roaming, maidens, one bright day,</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">In a green garden in mid month of May.</span><br /> +<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">I gazed and gazed. Hard task it were to tell</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">How lovely were the roses in that hour:</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">One was but peeping from her verdant shell,</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">And some were faded, some were scarce in flower:</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">Then Love said: Go, pluck from the blooming bower</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Those that thou seest ripe upon the spray.</span><br /> +<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">I went a roaming, maidens, one bright day,</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">In a green garden in mid month of May.</span><br /> +<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">For when the full rose quits her tender sheath,</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">When she is sweetest and most fair to see,</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Then is the time to place her in thy wreath,</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">Before her beauty and her freshness flee.</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">Gather ye therefore roses with great glee,</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Sweet girls, or ere their perfume pass away.</span><br /> +<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">I went a roaming, maidens, one bright day,</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">In a green garden in mid month of May.</span><br /> +</p> + +<p>The next Ballata is less simple, but is composed with the same +intention. It may here be parenthetically mentioned that the courtly +poet, when he applied himself to this species of composition, invented +a certain rusticity of incident, scarcely in keeping with the spirit +of his art. It was in fact a conventional feature of this species of +verse that the scene should be laid in the country, where the burgher, +on a visit to his villa, is supposed to meet with a rustic beauty who +captivates his eyes and heart. Guido Cavalcanti, in his celebrated +Ballata, 'In un boschetto trovai pastorella,' struck the keynote of +this music, which, it may be reasonably conjectured, was imported into +Italy through Provençal literature from the pastorals of Northern +France. The lady so quaintly imaged by a bird in the following Ballata +of Poliziano is supposed to have been Monna Ippolita Leoncina of +Prato, white-throated, golden-haired, and dressed in crimson silk.</p> + +<p> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">I found myself one day all, all alone,</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">For pastime in a field with blossoms strewn.</span><br /> +<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">I do not think the world a field could show</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">With herbs of perfume so surpassing rare;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">But when I passed beyond the green hedge-row,</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">A thousand flowers around me flourished fair,</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">White, pied and crimson, in the summer air;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Among the which I heard a sweet bird's tone.</span><br /> +<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">I found myself one day all, all alone,</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">For pastime in a field with blossoms strewn.</span><br /> +<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Her song it was so tender and so clear</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">That all the world listened with love; then I</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">With stealthy feet a-tiptoe drawing near,</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">Her golden head and golden wings could spy,</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">Her plumes that flashed like rubies 'neath the sky,</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Her crystal beak and throat and bosom's zone.</span><br /> +<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">I found myself one day all, all alone,</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">For pastime in a field with blossoms strewn.</span><br /> +<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Fain would I snare her, smit with mighty love;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">But arrow-like she soared, and through the air</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Fled to her nest upon the boughs above;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">Wherefore to follow her is all my care,</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">For haply I might lure her by some snare</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Forth from the woodland wild where she is flown.</span><br /> +<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">I found myself one day all, all alone,</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">For pastime in a field with blossoms strewn.</span><br /> +<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Yea, I might spread some net or woven wile;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">But since of singing she doth take such pleasure,</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Without or other art or other guile</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">I seek to win her with a tuneful measure;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">Therefore in singing spend I all my leisure,</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">To make by singing this sweet bird my own.</span><br /> +<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">I found myself one day all, all alone,</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">For pastime in a field with blossoms strewn.</span><br /> +</p> + +<p>The same lady is more directly celebrated in the next Ballata, where +Poliziano calls her by her name, Ippolita. I have taken the liberty of +substituting Myrrha for this somewhat unmanageable word.</p> + +<p> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">He who knows not what thing is Paradise,</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Let him look fixedly on Myrrha's eyes.</span><br /> +<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">From Myrrha's eyes there flieth, girt with fire,</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">An angel of our lord, a laughing boy,</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Who lights in frozen hearts a flaming pyre,</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">And with such sweetness doth the soul destroy,</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">That while it dies, it murmurs forth its joy;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Oh blessed am I to dwell in Paradise!</span><br /> +<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">He who knows not what thing is Paradise,</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Let him look fixedly on Myrrha's eyes.</span><br /> +<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">From Myrrha's eyes a virtue still doth move,</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">So swift and with so fierce and strong a flight,</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">That it is like the lightning of high Jove,</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">Riving of iron and adamant the might;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">Nathless the wound doth carry such delight</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">That he who suffers dwells in Paradise.</span><br /> +<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">He who knows not what thing is Paradise,</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Let him look fixedly on Myrrha's eyes.</span><br /> +<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">From Myrrha's eyes a lovely messenger</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">Of joy so grave, so virtuous, doth flee,</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">That all proud souls are bound to bend to her;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">So sweet her countenance, it turns the key</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">Of hard hearts locked in cold security:</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Forth flies the prisoned soul to Paradise.</span><br /> +<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">He who knows not what thing is Paradise,</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Let him look fixedly on Myrrha's eyes.</span><br /> +<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">In Myrrha's eyes beauty doth make her throne,</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">And sweetly smile and sweetly speak her mind:</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Such grace in her fair eyes a man hath known</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">As in the whole wide world he scarce may find:</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">Yet if she slay him with a glance too kind,</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">He lives again beneath her gazing eyes.</span><br /> +<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">He who knows not what thing is Paradise,</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Let him look fixedly on Myrrha's eyes.</span><br /> +</p> + +<p>The fourth Ballata sets forth the fifteenth-century Italian code of +love, the code of the Novelle, very different in its avowed laxity +from the high ideal of the trecentisti poets.</p> + +<p> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">I ask no pardon if I follow Love;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">Since every gentle heart is thrall thereof.</span><br /> +<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">From those who feel the fire I feel, what use</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 3em;">Is there in asking pardon? These are so</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">Gentle, kind-hearted, tender, piteous,</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 3em;">That they will have compassion, well I know.</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 3em;">From such as never felt that honeyed woe,</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">I seek no pardon: nought they know of Love.</span><br /> +<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">I ask no pardon if I follow Love;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">Since every gentle heart is thrall thereof.</span><br /> +<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">Honour, pure love, and perfect gentleness,</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 3em;">Weighed in the scales of equity refined,</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">Are but one thing: beauty is nought or less,</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 3em;">Placed in a dame of proud and scornful mind.</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 3em;">Who can rebuke me then if I am kind</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">So far as honesty comports and Love?</span><br /> +<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">I ask no pardon if I follow Love;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">Since every gentle heart is thrall thereof.</span><br /> +<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">Let him rebuke me whose hard heart of stone</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 3em;">Ne'er felt of Love the summer in his vein!</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">I pray to Love that who hath never known</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 3em;">Love's power, may ne'er be blessed with Love's great gain;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 3em;">But he who serves our lord with might and main,</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">May dwell for ever in the fire of Love!</span><br /> +<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">I ask no pardon if I follow Love;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">Since every gentle heart is thrall thereof.</span><br /> +<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">Let him rebuke me without cause who will;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 3em;">For if he be not gentle, I fear nought:</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">My heart obedient to the same love still</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 3em;">Hath little heed of light words envy-fraught:</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 3em;">So long as life remains, it is my thought</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">To keep the laws of this so gentle Love.</span><br /> +<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">I ask no pardon if I follow Love;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">Since every gentle heart is thrall thereof.</span><br /> +</p> + +<p>This Ballata is put into a woman's mouth. Another, ascribed to Lorenzo +de' Medici, expresses the sadness of a man who has lost the favour of +his lady. It illustrates the well-known use of the word <i>Signore</i> for +mistress in Florentine poetry.</p> + +<p> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">How can I sing light-souled and fancy-free,</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">When my loved lord no longer smiles on me?</span><br /> +<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">Dances and songs and merry wakes I leave</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 3em;">To lovers fair, more fortunate and gay;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">Since to my heart so many sorrows cleave</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 3em;">That only doleful tears are mine for aye:</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 3em;">Who hath heart's ease, may carol, dance, and play</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">While I am fain to weep continually.</span><br /> +<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">How can I sing light-souled and fancy-free,</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">When my loved lord no longer smiles on me?</span><br /> +<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">I too had heart's ease once, for so Love willed,</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 3em;">When my lord loved me with love strong and great:</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">But envious fortune my life's music stilled,</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 3em;">And turned to sadness all my gleeful state.</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 3em;">Ah me! Death surely were less desolate</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">Than thus to live and love-neglected be!</span><br /> +<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">How can I sing light-souled and fancy-free,</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">When my loved lord no longer smiles on me?</span><br /> +<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">One only comfort soothes my heart's despair,</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 3em;">And mid this sorrow lends my soul some cheer;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">Unto my lord I ever yielded fair</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 3em;">Service of faith untainted pure and clear;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 3em;">If then I die thus guiltless, on my bier</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">It may be she will shed one tear for me.</span><br /> +<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">How can I sing light-souled and fancy-free,</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">When my loved lord no longer smiles on me?</span><br /> +</p> + +<p>The Florentine <i>Rispetto</i> was written for the most part in octave +stanzas, detached or continuous. The octave stanza in Italian +literature was an emphatically popular form; and it is still largely +used in many parts of the peninsula for the lyrical expression of +emotion.<a name="FNanchor_31_31" id="FNanchor_31_31" /></a><a href="#Footnote_31_31" class="fnanchor">[31]</a> Poliziano did no more than treat it with his own +facility, sacrificing the unstudied raciness of his popular models to +literary elegance.</p> + +<p>Here are a few of these detached stanzas or <i>Rispetti Spicciolati</i>:—</p> + +<p> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Upon that day when first I saw thy face,</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">I vowed with loyal love to worship thee.</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Move, and I move; stay, and I keep my place:</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">Whate'er thou dost, will I do equally.</span><br /> +<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">In joy of thine I find most perfect grace,</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">And in thy sadness dwells my misery:</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Laugh, and I laugh; weep, and I too will weep.</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Thus Love commands, whose laws I loving keep.</span><br /> +<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Nay, be not over-proud of thy great grace,</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">Lady! for brief time is thy thief and mine.</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">White will he turn those golden curls, that lace</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">Thy forehead and thy neck so marble-fine.</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Lo! while the flower still flourisheth apace,</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">Pluck it: for beauty but awhile doth shine.</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Fair is the rose at dawn; but long ere night</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">Her freshness fades, her pride hath vanished quite.</span><br /> +<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Fire, fire! Ho, water! for my heart's afire!</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">Ho, neighbours! help me, or by God I die!</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">See, with his standard, that great lord, Desire!</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">He sets my heart aflame: in vain I cry.</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Too late, alas! The flames mount high and higher.</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">Alack, good friends! I faint, I fail, I die.</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Ho! water, neighbours mine! no more delay I</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">My heart's a cinder if you do but stay.</span><br /> +<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Lo, may I prove to Christ a renegade,</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">And, dog-like, die in pagan Barbary;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Nor may God's mercy on my soul be laid,</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">If ere for aught I shall abandon thee:</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Before all-seeing God this prayer be made—</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">When I desert thee, may death feed on me:</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Now if thy hard heart scorn these vows, be sure</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">That without faith none may abide secure.</span><br /> +<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">I ask not, Love, for any other pain</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">To make thy cruel foe and mine repent,</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Only that thou shouldst yield her to the strain</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">Of these my arms, alone, for chastisement;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Then would I clasp her so with might and main,</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">That she should learn to pity and relent,</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">And, in revenge for scorn and proud despite,</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">A thousand times I'd kiss her forehead white.</span><br /> +<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Not always do fierce tempests vex the sea,</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">Nor always clinging clouds offend the sky;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Cold snows before the sunbeams haste to flee,</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">Disclosing flowers that 'neath their whiteness lie;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">The saints each one doth wait his day to see,</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">And time makes all things change; so, therefore, I</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Ween that 'tis wise to wait my turn, and say,</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">That who subdues himself, deserves to sway.</span><br /> +</p> + +<p>It will be observed that the tone of these poems is not passionate nor +elevated. Love, as understood in Florence of the fifteenth century, +was neither; nor was Poliziano the man to have revived Platonic +mysteries or chivalrous enthusiasms. When the octave stanzas, written +with this amorous intention, were strung together into a continuous +poem, this form of verse took the title of <i>Rispetto Gontinuato</i>. In +the collection of Poliziano's poems there are several examples of the +long Rispetto, carelessly enough composed, as may be gathered from the +recurrence of the same stanzas in several poems. All repeat the old +arguments, the old enticements to a less than lawful love. The one +which I have chosen for translation, styled <i>Serenata ovvero Lettera +in Istrambotti</i>, might be selected as an epitome of Florentine +convention in the matter of love-making.</p> + +<p> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">O thou of fairest fairs the first and queen,</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">Most courteous, kind, and honourable dame,</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Thine ear unto thy servant's singing lean,</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">Who loves thee more than health, or wealth, or fame;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">For thou his shining planet still hast been,</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">And day and night he calls on thy fair name:</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">First wishing thee all good the world can give,</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Next praying in thy gentle thoughts to live.</span><br /> +<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">He humbly prayeth that thou shouldst be kind</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">To think upon his pure and perfect faith,</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">And that such mercy in thy heart and mind</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">Should reign, as so much beauty argueth:</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">A thousand, thousand hints, or he were blind,</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">Of thy great courtesy he reckoneth:</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Wherefore thy loyal subject now doth sue</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Such guerdon only as shall prove them true.</span><br /> +<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">He knows himself unmeet for love from thee,</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">Unmeet for merely gazing on thine eyes;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Seeing thy comely squires so plenteous be,</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">That there is none but 'neath thy beauty sighs:</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Yet since thou seekest fame and bravery,</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">Nor carest aught for gauds that others prize,</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">And since he strives to honour thee alway,</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">He still hath hope to gain thy heart one day.</span><br /> +<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Virtue that dwells untold, unknown, unseen,</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">Still findeth none to love or value it;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Wherefore his faith, that hath so perfect been,</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">Not being known, can profit him no whit:</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">He would find pity in thine eyes, I ween,</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">If thou shouldst deign to make some proof of it;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">The rest may flatter, gape, and stand agaze;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Him only faith above the crowd doth raise.</span><br /> +<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Suppose that he might meet thee once alone,</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">Face unto face, without or jealousy,</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Or doubt or fear from false misgiving grown,</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">And tell his tale of grievous pain to thee,</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Sure from thy breast he'd draw full many a moan.</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">And make thy fair eyes weep right plenteously:</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Yea, if he had but skill his heart to show,</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">He scarce could fail to win thee by its woe.</span><br /> +<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Now art thou in thy beauty's blooming hour;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">Thy youth is yet in pure perfection's prime:</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Make it thy pride to yield thy fragile flower,</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">Or look to find it paled by envious time:</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">For none to stay the flight of years hath power,</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">And who culls roses caught by frosty rime?</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Give therefore to thy lover, give, for they</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Too late repent who act not while they may.</span><br /> +<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Time flies: and lo! thou let'st it idly fly:</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">There is not in the world a thing more dear;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">And if thou wait to see sweet May pass by,</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">Where find'st thou roses in the later year?</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">He never can, who lets occasion die:</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">Now that thou canst, stay not for doubt or fear;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">But by the forelock take the flying hour,</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Ere change begins, and clouds above thee lower.</span><br /> +<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Too long 'twixt yea and nay he hath been wrung;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">Whether he sleep or wake he little knows,</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Or free or in the bands of bondage strung:</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">Nay, lady, strike, and let thy lover loose!</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">What joy hast thou to keep a captive hung?</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">Kill him at once, or cut the cruel noose:</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">No more, I prithee, stay; but take thy part:</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Either relax the bow, or speed the dart.</span><br /> +<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Thou feedest him on words and windiness,</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">On smiles, and signs, and bladders light as air;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Saying, thou fain wouldst comfort his distress,</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">But dar'st not, canst not: nay, dear lady fair,</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">All things are possible beneath the stress</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">Of will, that flames above the soul's despair!</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Dally no longer: up, set to thy hand;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Or see his love unclothed and naked stand.</span><br /> +<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">For he hath sworn, and by this oath will bide,</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">E'en though his life be lost in the endeavour,</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">To leave no way, nor art, nor wile untried,</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">Until he pluck the fruit he sighs for ever:</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">And, though he still would spare thy honest pride,</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">The knot that binds him he must loose or sever;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Thou too, O lady, shouldst make sharp thy knife,</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">If thou art fain to end this amorous strife.</span><br /> +<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Lo! if thou lingerest still in dubious dread,</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">Lest thou shouldst lose fair fame of honesty,</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Here hast thou need of wile and warihead,</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">To test thy lover's strength in screening thee;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Indulge him, if thou find him well bestead,</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">Knowing that smothered love flames outwardly:</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Therefore, seek means, search out some privy way;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">Keep not the steed too long at idle play.</span><br /> +<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Or if thou heedest what those friars teach,</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">I cannot fail, lady, to call thee fool:</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Well may they blame our private sins and preach;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">But ill their acts match with their spoken rule;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">The same pitch clings to all men, one and each.</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">There, I have spoken: set the world to school</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">With this true proverb, too, be well acquainted</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">The devil's ne'er so black as he is painted.</span><br /> +<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Nor did our good Lord give such grace to thee</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">That thou shouldst keep it buried in thy breast,</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">But to reward thy servant's constancy,</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">Whose love and loyal faith thou hast repressed:</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Think it no sin to be some trifle free,</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">Because thou livest at a lord's behest;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">For if he take enough to feed his fill,</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">To cast the rest away were surely ill.</span><br /> +<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">They find most favour in the sight of heaven</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">Who to the poor and hungry are most kind;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">A hundred-fold shall thus to thee be given</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">By God, who loves the free and generous mind;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Thrice strike thy breast, with pure contrition riven,</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">Crying: I sinned; my sin hath made me blind!—</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">He wants not much: enough if he be able</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">To pick up crumbs that fall beneath thy table.</span><br /> +<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Wherefore, O lady, break the ice at length;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">Make thou, too, trial of love's fruits and flowers:</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">When in thine arms thou feel'st thy lover's strength,</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">Thou wilt repent of all these wasted hours;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Husbands, they know not love, its breadth and length,</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">Seeing their hearts are not on fire like ours:</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Things longed for give most pleasure; this I tell thee:</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">If still thou doubtest let the proof compel thee.</span><br /> +<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">What I have spoken is pure gospel sooth;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1.5em;">I have told all my mind, withholding nought:</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">And well, I ween, thou canst unhusk the truth,</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1.5em;">And through the riddle read the hidden thought:</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Perchance if heaven still smile upon my youth,</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1.5em;">Some good effect for me may yet be wrought:</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Then fare thee well; too many words offend:</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">She who is wise is quick to comprehend.</span><br /> +</p> + +<p>The levity of these love-declarations and the fluency of their vows +show them to be 'false as dicers' oaths,' mere verses of the moment, +made to please a facile mistress. One long poem, which cannot be +styled a Rispetto, but is rather a Canzone of the legitimate type, +stands out with distinctness from the rest of Poliziano's love-verses. +It was written by him for Giuliano de' Medici, in praise of the fair +Simonetta. The following version attempts to repeat its metrical +effects in some measure:—</p> + +<p> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">My task it is, since thus Love wills, who strains</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">And forces all the world beneath his sway,</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">In lowly verse to say</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">The great delight that in my bosom reigns.</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">For if perchance I took but little pains</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">To tell some part of all the joy I find,</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">I might be deem'd unkind</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">By one who knew my heart's deep happiness.</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">He feels but little bliss who hides his bliss;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">Small joy hath he whose joy is never sung;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">And he who curbs his tongue</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Through cowardice, knows but of love the name.</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Wherefore to succour and augment the fame</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">Of that pure, virtuous, wise, and lovely may,</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">Who like the star of day</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Shines mid the stars, or like the rising sun,</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Forth from my burning heart the words shall run.</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">Far, far be envy, far be jealous fear,</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">With discord dark and drear,</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">And all the choir that is of love the foe.—</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">The season had returned when soft winds blow,</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">The season friendly to young lovers coy,</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">Which bids them clothe their joy</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">In divers garbs and many a masked disguise.</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Then I to track the game 'neath April skies</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">Went forth in raiment strange apparellèd,</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">And by kind fate was led</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Unto the spot where stayed my soul's desire.</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">The beauteous nymph who feeds my soul with fire,</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">I found in gentle, pure, and prudent mood,</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">In graceful attitude,</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Loving and courteous, holy, wise, benign.</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">So sweet, so tender was her face divine,</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">So gladsome, that in those celestial eyes</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">Shone perfect paradise,</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Yea, all the good that we poor mortals crave.</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Around her was a band so nobly brave</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">Of beauteous dames, that as I gazed at these</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">Methought heaven's goddesses</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">That day for once had deigned to visit earth.</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">But she who gives my soul sorrow and mirth,</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">Seemed Pallas in her gait, and in her face</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">Venus; for every grace</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">And beauty of the world in her combined.</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Merely to think, far more to tell my mind</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">Of that most wondrous sight, confoundeth me,</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">For mid the maidens she</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Who most resembled her was found most rare.</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Call ye another first among the fair;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">Not first, but sole before my lady set:</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">Lily and violet</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">And all the flowers below the rose must bow.</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Down from her royal head and lustrous brow</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">The golden curls fell sportively unpent,</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">While through the choir she went</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">With feet well lessoned to the rhythmic sound.</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Her eyes, though scarcely raised above the ground,</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">Sent me by stealth a ray divinely fair;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">But still her jealous hair</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Broke the bright beam, and veiled her from my gaze.</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">She, born and nursed in heaven for angels' praise,</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">No sooner saw this wrong, than back she drew,</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">With hand of purest hue,</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Her truant curls with kind and gentle mien.</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Then from her eyes a soul so fiery keen,</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">So sweet a soul of love she cast on mine,</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">That scarce can I divine</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">How then I 'scaped from burning utterly.</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">These are the first fair signs of love to be,</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">That bound my heart with adamant, and these</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">The matchless courtesies</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Which, dreamlike, still before mine eyes must hover.</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">This is the honeyed food she gave her lover,</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">To make him, so it pleased her, half-divine;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">Nectar is not so fine,</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Nor ambrosy, the fabled feast of Jove.</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Then, yielding proofs more clear and strong of love,</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">As though to show the faith within her heart,</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">She moved, with subtle art,</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Her feet accordant to the amorous air.</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">But while I gaze and pray to God that ne'er</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">Might cease that happy dance angelical,</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">O harsh, unkind recall!</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Back to the banquet was she beckonèd.</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">She, with her face at first with pallor spread,</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">Then tinted with a blush of coral dye,</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">'The ball is best!' did cry,</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Gentle in tone and smiling as she spake.</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">But from her eyes celestial forth did break</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">Favour at parting; and I well could see</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">Young love confusedly</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Enclosed within the furtive fervent gaze,</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Heating his arrows at their beauteous rays,</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">For war with Pallas and with Dian cold.</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">Fairer than mortal mould,</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">She moved majestic with celestial gait;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">And with her hand her robe in royal state</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">Raised, as she went with pride ineffable.</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">Of me I cannot tell,</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Whether alive or dead I there was left.</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Nay, dead, methinks! since I of thee was reft,</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">Light of my life! and yet, perchance, alive—</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">Such virtue to revive</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">My lingering soul possessed thy beauteous face,</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">But if that powerful charm of thy great grace</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">Could then thy loyal lover so sustain,</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">Why comes there not again</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">More often or more soon the sweet delight?</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Twice hath the wandering moon with borrowed light</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">Stored from her brother's rays her crescent horn,</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">Nor yet hath fortune borne</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Me on the way to so much bliss again.</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Earth smiles anew; fair spring renews her reign:</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">The grass and every shrub once more is green;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">The amorous birds begin,</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">From winter loosed, to fill the field with song.</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">See how in loving pairs the cattle throng;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">The bull, the ram, their amorous jousts enjoy:</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">Thou maiden, I a boy,</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Shall we prove traitors to love's law for aye?</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Shall we these years that are so fair let fly?</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">Wilt thou not put thy flower of youth to use?</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">Or with thy beauty choose</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">To make him blest who loves thee best of all?</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Haply I am some hind who guards the stall,</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">Or of vile lineage, or with years outworn,</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">Poor, or a cripple born,</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Or faint of spirit that you spurn me so?</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Nay, but my race is noble and doth grow</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">With honour to our land, with pomp and power;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">My youth is yet in flower,</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">And it may chance some maiden sighs for me.</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">My lot it is to deal right royally</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">With all the goods that fortune spreads around,</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">For still they more abound,</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Shaken from her full lap, the more I waste.</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">My strength is such as whoso tries shall taste;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">Circled with friends, with favours crowned am I:</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">Yet though I rank so high</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Among the blest, as men may reckon bliss,</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Still without thee, my hope, my happiness,</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">It seems a sad, and bitter thing to live!</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">Then stint me not, but give</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">That joy which holds all joys enclosed in one.</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Let me pluck fruits at last, not flowers alone!</span><br /> +</p> + +<p>With much that is frigid, artificial, and tedious in this +old-fashioned love-song, there is a curious monotony of sweetness +which commends it to our ears; and he who reads it may remember the +profile portrait of Simonetta from the hand of Piero della Francesca +in the Pitti Palace at Florence.</p> + +<p>It is worth comparing Poliziano's treatment of popular or semi-popular +verse-forms with his imitations of Petrarch's manner. For this purpose +I have chosen a <i>Canzone</i>, clearly written in competition with the +celebrated 'Chiare, fresche e dolci acque,' of Laura's lover. While +closely modelled upon Petrarch's form and similar in motive, this +Canzone preserves Poliziano's special qualities of fluency and +emptiness of content.</p> + +<p> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Hills, valleys, caves and fells,</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">With flowers and leaves and herbage spread;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">Green meadows; shadowy groves where light is low;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">Lawns watered with the rills</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">That cruel Love hath made me shed,</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">Cast from these cloudy eyes so dark with woe;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">Thou stream that still dost know</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">What fell pangs pierce my heart,</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">So dost thou murmur back my moan;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">Lone bird that chauntest tone for tone,</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">While in our descant drear Love sings his part:</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">Nymphs, woodland wanderers, wind and air;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">List to the sound out-poured from my despair!</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Seven times and once more seven</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">The roseate dawn her beauteous brow</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">Enwreathed with orient jewels hath displayed;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">Cynthia once more in heaven</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">Hath orbed her horns with silver now;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">While in sea waves her brother's light was laid;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">Since this high mountain glade</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">Felt the white footsteps fall</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">Of that proud lady, who to spring</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">Converts whatever woodland thing</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">She may o'ershadow, touch, or heed at all.</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">Here bloom the flowers, the grasses spring</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">From her bright eyes, and drink what mine must bring.</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Yea, nourished with my tears</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">Is every little leaf I see,</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">And the stream rolls therewith a prouder wave.</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">Ah me! through what long years</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">Will she withhold her face from me,</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">Which stills the stormy skies howe'er they rave?</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">Speak! or in grove or cave</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">If one hath seen her stray,</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">Plucking amid those grasses green</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">Wreaths for her royal brows serene,</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">Flowers white and blue and red and golden gay!</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">Nay, prithee, speak, if pity dwell</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">Among these woods, within this leafy dell!</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">O Love! 'twas here we saw,</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">Beneath the new-fledged leaves that spring</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">From this old beech, her fair form lowly laid:—</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">The thought renews my awe!</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">How sweetly did her tresses fling</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">Waves of wreathed gold unto the winds that strayed</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">Fire, frost within me played,</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">While I beheld the bloom</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">Of laughing flowers—O day of bliss!—</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">Around those tresses meet and kiss,</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">And roses in her lap of Love the home!</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">Her grace, her port divinely fair,</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">Describe it, Love! myself I do not dare.</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">In mute intent surprise</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">I gazed, as when a hind is seen</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">To dote upon its image in a rill;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">Drinking those love-lit eyes,</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">Those hands, that face, those words serene,</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">That song which with delight the heaven did fill,</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">That smile which thralls me still,</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">Which melteth stones unkind,</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">Which in this woodland wilderness</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">Tames every beast and stills the stress</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">Of hurrying waters. Would that I could find</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">Her footprints upon field or grove!</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">I should not then be envious of Jove.</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Thou cool stream rippling by,</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">Where oft it pleased her to dip</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">Her naked foot, how blest art thou!</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">Ye branching trees on high,</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">That spread your gnarled roots on the lip</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">Of yonder hanging rock to drink heaven's dew!</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">She often leaned on you,</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">She who is my life's bliss!</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">Thou ancient beech with moss o'ergrown,</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">How do I envy thee thy throne,</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">Found worthy to receive such happiness!</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">Ye winds, how blissful must ye be,</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">Since ye have borne to heaven her harmony!</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">The winds that music bore,</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">And wafted it to God on high,</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">That Paradise might have the joy thereof.</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">Flowers here she plucked, and wore</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">Wild roses from the thorn hard by:</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">This air she lightened with her look of love:</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">This running stream above,</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">She bent her face!—Ah me!</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">Where am I? What sweet makes me swoon?</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">What calm is in the kiss of noon?</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">Who brought me here? Who speaks? What melody?</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">Whence came pure peace into my soul?</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">What joy hath rapt me from my own control?</span><br /> +</p> + +<p>Poliziano's refrain is always: 'Gather ye rosebuds while ye may. It is +spring-time now and youth. Winter and old age are coming!' A <i>Maggio</i>, +or May-day song, describing the games, dances, and jousting matches of +the Florentine lads upon the morning of the first of May, expresses +this facile philosophy of life with a quaintness that recalls Herrick. +It will be noticed that the Maggio is built, so far as rhymes go, on +the same system as Poliziano's Ballata. It has considerable historical +interest, for the opening couplet is said to be Guido Cavalcanti's, +while the whole poem is claimed by Roscoe for Lorenzo de' Medici, and +by Carducci with better reason for Poliziano.</p> + +<p> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">Welcome in the May</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">And the woodland garland gay!</span><br /> +<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Welcome in the jocund spring</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">Which bids all men lovers be!</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Maidens, up with carolling,</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">With your sweethearts stout and free,</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">With roses and with blossoms ye</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Who deck yourselves this first of May!</span><br /> +<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Up, and forth into the pure</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">Meadows, mid the trees and flowers!</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Every beauty is secure</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">With so many bachelors:</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">Beasts and birds amid the bowers</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Burn with love this first of May.</span><br /> +<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Maidens, who are young and fair,</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">Be not harsh, I counsel you;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">For your youth cannot repair</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">Her prime of spring, as meadows do:</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">None be proud, but all be true</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">To men who love, this first of May.</span><br /> +<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Dance and carol every one</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">Of our band so bright and gay!</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">See your sweethearts how they run</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">Through the jousts for you to-day!</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">She who saith her lover nay,</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Will deflower the sweets of May,</span><br /> +<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Lads in love take sword and shield</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">To make pretty girls their prize:</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Yield ye, merry maidens, yield</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">To your lovers' vows and sighs:</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">Give his heart back ere it dies:</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Wage not war this first of May.</span><br /> +<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">He who steals another's heart,</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">Let him give his own heart too:</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Who's the robber? 'Tis the smart</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">Little cherub Cupid, who</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">Homage comes to pay with you,</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Damsels, to the first of May.</span><br /> +<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Love comes smiling; round his head</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">Lilies white and roses meet:</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">'Tis for you his flight is sped.</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">Fair one, haste our king to greet:</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">Who will fling him blossoms sweet</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Soonest on this first of May?</span><br /> +<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Welcome, stranger! welcome, king!</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">Love, what hast thou to command?</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">That each girl with wreaths should ring</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">Her lover's hair with loving hand,</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">That girls small and great should band</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">In Love's ranks this first of May.</span><br /> +</p> + +<p>The <i>Canto Carnascialesco</i>, for the final development if not for the +invention of which all credit must be given to Lorenzo de' Medici, +does not greatly differ from the Maggio in structure. It admitted, +however, of great varieties, and was generally more complex in its +interweaving of rhymes. Yet the essential principle of an exordium +which should also serve for a refrain, was rarely, if ever, departed +from. Two specimens of the Carnival Song will serve to bring into +close contrast two very different aspects of Florentine history. The +earlier was composed by Lorenzo de' Medici at the height of his power +and in the summer of Italian independence. It was sung by masquers +attired in classical costume, to represent Bacchus and his crew.</p> + +<p> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">Fair is youth and void of sorrow;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 3em;">But it hourly flies away.—</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 3em;">Youths and maids, enjoy to-day;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">Nought ye know about to-morrow.</span><br /> +<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">This is Bacchus and the bright</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 3em;">Ariadne, lovers true!</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">They, in flying time's despite,</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 3em;">Each with each find pleasure new;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">These their Nymphs, and all their crew</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 3em;">Keep perpetual holiday.—</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 3em;">Youths and maids, enjoy to-day;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">Nought ye know about to-morrow.</span><br /> +<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">These blithe Satyrs, wanton-eyed,</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 3em;">Of the Nymphs are paramours:</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">Through the caves and forests wide</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 3em;">They have snared them mid the flowers;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">Warmed with Bacchus, in his bowers,</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 3em;">Now they dance and leap alway.—</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 3em;">Youths and maids, enjoy to-day;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">Nought ye know about to-morrow.</span><br /> +<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">These fair Nymphs, they are not loth</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 3em;">To entice their lovers' wiles.</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">None but thankless folk and rough</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 3em;">Can resist when Love beguiles.</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">Now enlaced, with wreathèd smiles,</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 3em;">All together dance and play.—</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 3em;">Youths and maids, enjoy to-day;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">Nought ye know about to-morrow.</span><br /> +<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">See this load behind them plodding</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 3em;">On the ass! Silenus he,</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">Old and drunken, merry, nodding,</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 3em;">Full of years and jollity;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">Though he goes so swayingly,</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 3em;">Yet he laughs and quaffs alway.—</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 3em;">Youths and maids, enjoy to-day;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">Nought ye know about to-morrow.</span><br /> +<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">Midas treads a wearier measure:</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 3em;">All he touches turns to gold:</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">If there be no taste of pleasure,</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 3em;">What's the use of wealth untold?</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">What's the joy his fingers hold,</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 3em;">When he's forced to thirst for aye?—</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 3em;">Youths and maids, enjoy to-day;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">Nought ye know about to-morrow.</span><br /> +<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">Listen well to what we're saying;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 3em;">Of to-morrow have no care!</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">Young and old together playing,</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 3em;">Boys and girls, be blithe as air!</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">Every sorry thought forswear!</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 3em;">Keep perpetual holiday.—-</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 3em;">Youths and maids, enjoy to-day;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">Nought ye know about to-morrow.</span><br /> +<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">Ladies and gay lovers young!</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 3em;">Long live Bacchus, live Desire!</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">Dance and play; let songs be sung;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 3em;">Let sweet love your bosoms fire;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">In the future come what may!—-</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">Youths and maids, enjoy to-day!</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">Nought ye know about to-morrow.</span><br /> +<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">Fair is youth and void of sorrow;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 3em;">But it hourly flies away.</span><br /> +</p> + +<p>The next, composed by Antonio Alamanni, after Lorenzo's death and the +ominous passage of Charles VIII., was sung by masquers habited as +skeletons. The car they rode on, was a Car of Death designed by Piero +di Cosimo, and their music was purposely gloomy. If in the jovial days +of the Medici the streets of Florence had rung to the thoughtless +refrain, 'Nought ye know about to-morrow,' they now re-echoed with a +cry of 'Penitence;' for times had strangely altered, and the heedless +past had brought forth a doleful present. The last stanza of +Alamanni's chorus is a somewhat clumsy attempt to adapt the too real +moral of his subject to the customary mood of the Carnival.</p> + + +<p> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Sorrow, tears, and penitence</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Are our doom of pain for aye;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">This dead concourse riding by</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Hath no cry but penitence!</span><br /> +<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">E'en as you are, once were we:</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">You shall be as now we are:</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">We are dead men, as you see:</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">We shall see you dead men, where</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Nought avails to take great care,</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">After sins, of penitence.</span><br /> +<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">We too in the Carnival</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Sang our love-songs through the town;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Thus from sin to sin we all</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Headlong, heedless, tumbled down:—</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Now we cry, the world around,</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Penitence! oh, Penitence!</span><br /> +<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Senseless, blind, and stubborn fools!</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Time steals all things as he rides:</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Honours, glories, states, and schools,</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Pass away, and nought abides;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Till the tomb our carcase hides,</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">And compels this penitence.</span><br /> +<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">This sharp scythe you see us bear,</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Brings the world at length to woe:</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">But from life to life we fare;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">And that life is joy or woe:</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">All heaven's bliss on him doth flow</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Who on earth does penitence.</span><br /> +<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Living here, we all must die;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Dying, every soul shall live:</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">For the King of kings on high</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">This fixed ordinance doth give:</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Lo, you all are fugitive!</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Penitence! Cry Penitence!</span><br /> +<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Torment great and grievous dole</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Hath the thankless heart mid you;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">But the man of piteous soul</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Finds much honour in our crew:</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Love for loving is the due</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">That prevents this penitence.</span><br /> +<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Sorrow, tears, and penitence</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Are our doom of pain for aye:</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">This dead concourse riding by</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Hath no cry but Penitence!</span><br /> +</p> + +<p>One song for dancing, composed less upon the type of the Ballata than +on that of the Carnival Song, may here be introduced, not only in +illustration of the varied forms assumed by this style of poetry, but +also because it is highly characteristic of Tuscan town-life. This +poem in the vulgar style has been ascribed to Lorenzo de' Medici, but +probably without due reason. It describes the manners and customs of +female street gossips.</p> + +<p> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">Since you beg with such a grace,</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 4em;">How can I refuse a song,</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 4em;">Wholesome, honest, void of wrong,</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 4em;">On the follies of the place?</span><br /> +<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">Courteously on you I call;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 4em;">Listen well to what I sing:</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 4em;">For my roundelay to all</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 4em;">May perchance instruction bring,</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 4em;">And of life good lessoning.—</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 4em;">When in company you meet,</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 4em;">Or sit spinning, all the street</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 4em;">Clamours like a market-place.</span><br /> +<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">Thirty of you there may be;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 4em;">Twenty-nine are sure to buzz,</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 4em;">And the single silent she</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 4em;">Racks her brains about her coz:—</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 4em;">Mrs. Buzz and Mrs. Huzz,</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 4em;">Mind your work, my ditty saith;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 4em;">Do not gossip till your breath</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 4em;">Fails and leaves you black of face!</span><br /> +<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">Governments go out and in:—</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 4em;">You the truth must needs discover.</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 4em;">Is a girl about to win</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 4em;">A brave husband in her lover?—</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 4em;">Straight you set to talk him over:</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 4em;">'Is he wealthy?' 'Does his coat</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 4em;">Fit?' 'And has he got a vote?'</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 4em;">'Who's his father?' 'What's his race?'</span><br /> +<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">Out of window one head pokes;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 4em;">Twenty others do the same:—</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 4em;">Chatter, clatter!—creaks and croaks</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 4em;">All the year the same old game!—</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 4em;">'See my spinning!' cries one dame,</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 4em;">'Five long ells of cloth, I trow!'</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 4em;">Cries another, 'Mine must go,</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 4em;">Drat it, to the bleaching base!'</span><br /> +<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">'Devil take the fowl!' says one:</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 4em;">'Mine are all bewitched, I guess;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 4em;">Cocks and hens with vermin run,</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 4em;">Mangy, filthy, featherless.'</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 4em;">Says another: 'I confess</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 4em;">Every hair I drop, I keep—</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 4em;">Plague upon it, in a heap</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 4em;">Falling off to my disgrace!'</span><br /> +<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">If you see a fellow walk</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 4em;">Up or down the street and back,</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 4em;">How you nod and wink and talk,</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 4em;">Hurry-skurry, cluck and clack!—</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 4em;">'What, I wonder, does he lack</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 4em;">Here about?'—'There's something wrong!'</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 4em;">Till the poor man's made a song</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 4em;">For the female populace.</span><br /> +<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">It were well you gave no thought</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 4em;">To such idle company;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 4em;">Shun these gossips, care for nought</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 4em;">But the business that you ply.</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 4em;">You who chatter, you who cry,</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 4em;">Heed my words; be wise, I pray:</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 4em;">Fewer, shorter stories say:</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 4em;">Bide at home, and mind your place.</span><br /> +<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">Since you beg with such a grace,</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 4em;">How can I refuse a song,</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 4em;">Wholesome, honest, void of wrong,</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 4em;">On the follies of the place?</span><br /> +</p> + +<p>The <i>Madrigale</i>, intended to be sung in parts, was another species of +popular poetry cultivated by the greatest of Italian writers. Without +seeking examples from such men as Petrarch, Michelangelo, or Tasso, +who used it as a purely literary form, I will content myself with a +few Madrigals by anonymous composers, more truly popular in style, and +more immediately intended for music.<a name="FNanchor_32_32" id="FNanchor_32_32" /></a><a href="#Footnote_32_32" class="fnanchor">[32]</a> The similarity both of manner +and matter, between these little poems and the Ballate, is obvious. +There is the same affectation of rusticity in both.</p> + +<p> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;"><i>Cogliendo per un prato.</i></span><br /> +<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Plucking white lilies in a field I saw</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">Fair women, laden with young Love's delight:</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">Some sang, some danced; but all were fresh and bright.</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Then by the margin of a fount they leaned,</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">And of those flowers made garlands for their hair—</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">Wreaths for their golden tresses quaint and rare.</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Forth from the field I passed, and gazed upon</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Their loveliness, and lost my heart to one.</span><br /> +<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;"><i>Togliendo l' una all' altra.</i></span><br /> +<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">One from the other borrowing leaves and flowers,</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">I saw fair maidens 'neath the summer trees,</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">Weaving bright garlands with low love-ditties.</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Mid that sweet sisterhood the loveliest</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">Turned her soft eyes to me, and whispered, 'Take!'</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">Love-lost I stood, and not a word I spake.</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">My heart she read, and her fair garland gave:</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Therefore I am her servant to the grave.</span><br /> +<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;"><i>Appress' un fiume chiaro</i>.</span><br /> +<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Hard by a crystal stream</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">Girls and maids were dancing round</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">A lilac with fair blossoms crowned.</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Mid these I spied out one</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">So tender-sweet, so love-laden,</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">She stole my heart with singing then:</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Love in her face so lovely-kind</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">And eyes and hands my soul did bind.</span><br /> +<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;"><i>Di riva in riva</i>.</span><br /> +<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">From lawn to lea Love led me down the valley,</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">Seeking my hawk, where 'neath a pleasant hill</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">I spied fair maidens bathing in a rill.</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Lina was there all loveliness excelling;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">The pleasure of her beauty made me sad,</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">And yet at sight of her my soul was glad.</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Downward I cast mine eyes with modest seeming,</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">And all a tremble from the fountain fled:</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">For each was naked as her maidenhead.</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Thence singing fared I through a flowery plain,</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Where bye and bye I found my hawk again!</span><br /> +<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;"><i>Nel chiaro fiume</i>.</span><br /> +<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Down a fair streamlet crystal-clear and pleasant</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">I went a fishing all alone one day,</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">And spied three maidens bathing there at play.</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Of love they told each other honeyed stories,</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">While with white hands they smote the stream, to wet</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">Their sunbright hair in the pure rivulet.</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Gazing I crouched among thick flowering leafage,</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">Till one who spied a rustling branch on high,</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">Turned to her comrades with a sudden cry,</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">And 'Go! Nay, prithee go!' she called to me:</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">'To stay were surely but scant courtesy.'</span><br /> +<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;"><i>Quel sole che nutrica.</i></span><br /> +<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">The sun which makes a lily bloom,</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">Leans down at times on her to gaze—</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">Fairer, he deems, than his fair rays:</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Then, having looked a little while,</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">He turns and tells the saints in bliss</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">How marvellous her beauty is.</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Thus up in heaven with flute and string</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Thy loveliness the angels sing.</span><br /> +<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;"><i>Di novo è giunt'.</i></span><br /> +<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Lo: here hath come an errant knight</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">On a barbed charger clothed in mail:</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">His archers scatter iron hail.</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">At brow and breast his mace he aims;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">Who therefore hath not arms of proof,</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">Let him live locked by door and roof;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Until Dame Summer on a day</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">That grisly knight return to slay.</span><br /> +</p> + +<p>Poliziano's treatment of the octave stanza for Rispetti was +comparatively popular. But in his poem of 'La Giostra,' written to +commemorate the victory of Giuliano de' Medici in a tournament and to +celebrate his mistress, he gave a new and richer form to the metre +which Boccaccio had already used for epic verse. The slight and +uninteresting framework of this poem, which opened a new sphere for +Italian literature, and prepared the way for Ariosto's golden cantos, +might be compared to one of those wire baskets which children steep in +alum water, and incrust with crystals, sparkling, artificial, +beautiful with colours not their own. The mind of Poliziano held, as +it were, in solution all the images and thoughts of antiquity, all the +riches of his native literature. In that vast reservoir of poems and +mythologies and phrases, so patiently accumulated, so tenaciously +preserved, so thoroughly assimilated, he plunged the trivial subject +he had chosen, and triumphantly presented to the world the <i>spolia +opima</i> of scholarship and taste. What mattered it that the theme was +slight? The art was perfect, the result splendid. One canto of 125 +stanzas describes the youth of Giuliano, who sought to pass his life +among the woods, a hunter dead to love, but who was doomed to be +ensnared by Cupid. The chase, the beauty of Simonetta, the palace of +Venus, these are the three subjects of a book as long as the first +Iliad. The second canto begins with dreams and prophecies of glory to +be won by Giuliano in the tournament. But it stops abruptly. The +tragic catastrophe of the Pazzi Conjuration cut short Poliziano's +panegyric by the murder of his hero. Meanwhile the poet had achieved +his purpose. His torso presented to Italy a model of style, a piece of +written art adequate to the great painting of the Renaissance period, +a double star of poetry which blent the splendours of the ancient and +the modern world. To render into worthy English the harmonies of +Poliziano is a difficult task. Yet this must be attempted if an +English reader is to gain any notion of the scope and substance of the +Italian poet's art. In the first part of the poem we are placed, as it +were, at the mid point between the 'Hippolytus' of Euripides and +Shakspere's 'Venus and Adonis.' The cold hunter Giuliano is to see +Simonetta, and seeing, is to love her. This is how he first discovers +the triumphant beauty:<a name="FNanchor_33_33" id="FNanchor_33_33" /></a><a href="#Footnote_33_33" class="fnanchor">[33]</a></p> + +<p> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">White is the maid, and white the robe around her,</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">With buds and roses and thin grasses pied;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Enwreathèd folds of golden tresses crowned her,</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Shadowing her forehead fair with modest pride:</span><br /> +<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">The wild wood smiled; the thicket where he found her,</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">To ease his anguish, bloomed on every side:</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Serene she sits, with gesture queenly mild,</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">And with her brow tempers the tempests wild.</span><br /> +</p> + +<p>After three stanzas of this sort, in which the poet's style is more +apparent than the object he describes, occurs this charming picture:—</p> + +<p> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Reclined he found her on the swarded grass</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">In jocund mood; and garlands she had made</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Of every flower that in the meadow was,</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">Or on her robe of many hues displayed;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">But when she saw the youth before her pass,</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">Raising her timid head awhile she stayed;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Then with her white hand gathered up her dress,</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">And stood, lap-full of flowers, in loveliness.</span><br /> +<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Then through the dewy field with footstep slow</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">The lingering maid began to take her way,</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Leaving her lover in great fear and woe,</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">For now he longs for nought but her alway:</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">The wretch, who cannot bear that she should go,</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">Strives with a whispered prayer her feet to stay;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">And thus at last, all trembling, all afire,</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">In humble wise he breathes his soul's desire:</span><br /> +<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">'Whoe'er thou art, maid among maidens queen,</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">Goddess, or nymph—nay, goddess seems most clear—</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">If goddess, sure my Dian I have seen;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">If mortal, let thy proper self appear!</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Beyond terrestrial beauty is thy mien;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">I have no merit that I should be here!</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">What grace of heaven, what lucky star benign</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Yields me the sight of beauty so divine?'</span><br /> +</p> + +<p>A conversation ensues, after which Giuliano departs utterly lovesick, +and Cupid takes wing exultingly for Cyprus, where his mother's palace +stands. In the following picture of the house of Venus, who shall say +how much of Ariosto's Alcina and Tasso's Armida is contained? Cupid +arrives, and the family of Love is filled with joy at Giuliano's +conquest. From the plan of the poem it is clear that its beauties are +chiefly those of detail. They are, however, very great. How perfect, +for example, is the richness combined with delicacy of the following +description of a country life:—</p> + +<p>BOOK I. STANZAS 17-21.</p> + +<p> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">How far more safe it is, how far more fair,</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">To chase the flying deer along the lea;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Through ancient woods to track their hidden lair,</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">Far from the town, with long-drawn subtlety:</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">To scan the vales, the hills, the limpid air,</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">The grass and flowers, clear ice, and streams so free;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">To hear the birds wake from their winter trance,</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">The wind-stirred leaves and murmuring waters dance.</span><br /> +<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">How sweet it were to watch the young goats hung</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">From toppling crags, cropping the tender shoot,</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">While in thick pleachèd shade the shepherd sung</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">His uncouth rural lay and woke his flute;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">To mark, mid dewy grass, red apples flung,</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">And every bough thick set with ripening fruit,</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">The butting rams, kine lowing o'er the lea,</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">And cornfields waving like the windy sea.</span><br /> +<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Lo! how the rugged master of the herd</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">Before his flock unbars the wattled cote;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Then with his rod and many a rustic word</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">He rules their going: or 'tis sweet to note</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">The delver, when his toothèd rake hath stirred</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">The stubborn clod, his hoe the glebe hath smote;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Barefoot the country girl, with loosened zone,</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Spins, while she keeps her geese 'neath yonder stone.</span><br /> +<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">After such happy wise, in ancient years,</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">Dwelt the old nations in the age of gold;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Nor had the fount been stirred of mothers' tears</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">For sons in war's fell labour stark and cold;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Nor trusted they to ships the wild wind steers,</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">Nor yet had oxen groaning ploughed the wold;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Their houses were huge oaks, whose trunks had store</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Of honey, and whose boughs thick acorns bore.</span><br /> +<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Nor yet, in that glad time, the accursèd thirst</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">Of cruel gold had fallen on this fair earth:</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Joyous in liberty they lived at first;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">Unploughed the fields sent forth their teeming birth;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Till fortune, envious of such concord, burst</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">The bond of law, and pity banned and worth;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Within their breasts sprang luxury and that rage</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Which men call love in our degenerate age.</span><br /> +</p> + +<p>We need not be reminded that these stanzas are almost a cento from +Virgil, Hesiod, and Ovid. The merits of the translator, adapter, and +combiner, who knew so well how to cull their beauties and adorn them +with a perfect dress of modern diction, are so eminent that we cannot +deny him the title of a great poet. It is always in picture-painting +more than in dramatic presentation that Poliziano excels. Here is a +basrelief of Venus rising from the Ocean foam:—</p> + + +<p>STANZAS 99-107.</p> + +<p> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">In Thetis' lap, upon the vexed Egean,</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">The seed deific from Olympus sown,</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Beneath dim stars and cycling empyrean</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">Drifts like white foam across the salt waves blown;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Thence, born at last by movements hymenean,</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">Rises a maid more fair than man hath known;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Upon her shell the wanton breezes waft her;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">She nears the shore, while heaven looks down with laughter</span><br /> +<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Seeing the carved work you would cry that real</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">Were shell and sea, and real the winds that blow;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">The lightning of the goddess' eyes you feel,</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">The smiling heavens, the elemental glow:</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">White-vested Hours across the smooth sands steal,</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">With loosened curls that to the breezes flow;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Like, yet unlike, are all their beauteous faces,</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">E'en as befits a choir of sister Graces.</span><br /> +<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Well might you swear that on those waves were riding</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1.5em;">The goddess with her right hand on her hair,</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">And with the other the sweet apple hiding;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">And that beneath her feet, divinely fair,</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Fresh flowers sprang forth, the barren sands dividing;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">Then that, with glad smiles and enticements rare,</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">The three nymphs round their queen, embosoming her,</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Threw the starred mantle soft as gossamer.</span><br /> +<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">The one, with hands above her head upraised,</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">Upon her dewy tresses fits a wreath,</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">With ruddy gold and orient gems emblazed;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">The second hangs pure pearls her ears beneath;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">The third round shoulders white and breast hath placed</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">Such wealth of gleaming carcanets as sheathe</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Their own fair bosoms, when the Graces sing</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Among the gods with dance and carolling.</span><br /> +<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Thence might you see them rising toward the spheres,</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">Seated upon a cloud of silvery white;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">The trembling of the cloven air appears</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">Wrought in the stone, and heaven serenely bright;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">The gods drink in with open eyes and ears</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">Her beauty, and desire her bed's delight;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Each seems to marvel with a mute amaze—</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Their brows and foreheads wrinkle as they gaze.</span><br /> +</p> + +<p>The next quotation shows Venus in the lap of Mars, and Visited by +Cupid:—</p> + +<p> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">STANZAS 122—124.</span><br /> +<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Stretched on a couch, outside the coverlid,</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">Love found her, scarce unloosed from Mars' embrace;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">He, lying back within her bosom, fed</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">His eager eyes on nought but her fair face;</span><br /> +<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Roses above them like a cloud were shed,</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">To reinforce them in the amorous chace;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">While Venus, quick with longings unsuppressed,</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">A thousand times his eyes and forehead kissed.</span><br /> +<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Above, around, young Loves on every side</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">Played naked, darting birdlike to and fro;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">And one, whose plumes a thousand colours dyed,</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">Fanned the shed roses as they lay arow;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">One filled his quiver with fresh flowers, and hied</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">To pour them on the couch that lay below;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Another, poised upon his pinions, through</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">The falling shower soared shaking rosy dew:</span><br /> +<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">For, as he quivered with his tremulous wing,</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">The wandering roses in their drift were stayed;—</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Thus none was weary of glad gambolling;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">Till Cupid came, with dazzling plumes displayed,</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Breathless; and round his mother's neck did fling</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">His languid arms, and with his winnowing made</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Her heart burn:—very glad and bright of face,</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">But, with his flight, too tired to speak apace.</span><br /> +</p> + +<p>These pictures have in them the very glow of Italian painting. +Sometimes we seem to see a quaint design of Piero di Cosimo, with +bright tints and multitudinous small figures in a spacious landscape. +Sometimes it is the languid grace of Botticelli, whose soul became +possessed of classic inspiration as it were in dreams, and who has +painted the birth of Venus almost exactly as Poliziano imagined it. +Again, we seize the broader beauties of the Venetian masters, or the +vehemence of Giulio Romano's pencil. To the last class belong the two +next extracts:—</p> + +<p> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">STANZAS 104—107.</span><br /> +<br /> +<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">In the last square the great artificer</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">Had wrought himself crowned with Love's perfect palm;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Black from his forge and rough, he runs to her,</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">Leaving all labour for her bosom's calm:</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Lips joined to lips with deep love-longing stir,</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">Fire in his heart, and in his spirit balm;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Far fiercer flames through breast and marrow fly</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">Than those which heat his forge in Sicily.</span><br /> +<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Jove, on the other side, becomes a bull,</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">Goodly and white, at Love's behest, and rears</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">His neck beneath his rich freight beautiful:</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">She turns toward the shore that disappears,</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">With frightened gesture; and the wonderful</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">Gold curls about her bosom and her ears</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Float in the wind; her veil waves, backward borne;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">This hand still clasps his back, and that his horn.</span><br /> +<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">With naked feet close-tucked beneath her dress,</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">She seems to fear the sea that dares not rise:</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">So, imaged in a shape of drear distress,</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">In vain unto her comrades sweet she cries;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">They left amid the meadow-flowers, no less</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">For lost Europa wail with weeping eyes:</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Europa, sounds the shore, bring back our bliss</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">But the bull swims and turns her feet to kiss.</span><br /> +<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Here Jove is made a swan, a golden shower,</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">Or seems a serpent, or a shepherd-swain,</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">To work his amorous will in secret hour;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">Here, like an eagle, soars he o'er the plain,</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Love-led, and bears his Ganymede, the flower</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">Of beauty, mid celestial peers to reign;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">The boy with cypress hath his fair locks crowned,</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Naked, with ivy wreathed his waist around.</span><br /> +<br /> +<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">STANZAS 110—112.</span><br /> +<br /> +<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Lo! here again fair Ariadne lies,</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">And to the deaf winds of false Theseus plains.</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">And of the air and slumber's treacheries;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">Trembling with fear even as a reed that strain.</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">And quivers by the mere 'neath breezy skies:</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">Her very speechless attitude complains—</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">No beast there is so cruel as thou art,</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">No beast less loyal to my broken heart.</span><br /> +<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Throned on a car, with ivy crowned and vine,</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">Rides Bacchus, by two champing tigers driven:</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Around him on the sand deep-soaked with brine</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">Satyrs and Bacchantes rush; the skies are riven</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">With shouts and laughter; Fauns quaff bubbling wine</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">From horns and cymbals; Nymphs, to madness driven,</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Trip, skip, and stumble; mixed in wild enlacements,</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Laughing they roll or meet for glad embracements.</span><br /> +<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Upon his ass Silenus, never sated,</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">With thick, black veins, wherethrough the must is soaking,</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Nods his dull forehead with deep sleep belated;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">His eyes are wine-inflamed, and red, and smoking:</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Bold Mænads goad the ass so sorely weighted,</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">With stinging thyrsi; he sways feebly poking</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">The mane with bloated fingers; Fauns behind him,</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">E'en as he falls, upon the crupper bind him.</span><br /> +</p> + +<p>We almost seem to be looking at the frescoes in some Trasteverine +palace, or at the canvas of one of the sensual Genoese painters. The +description of the garden of Venus has the charm of somewhat +artificial elegance, the exotic grace of style, which attracts us in +the earlier Renaissance work:—</p> + +<p> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">The leafy tresses of that timeless garden</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">Nor fragile brine nor fresh snow dares to whiten;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Frore winter never comes the rills to harden,</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">Nor winds the tender shrubs and herbs to frighten;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Glad Spring is always here, a laughing warden;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">Nor do the seasons wane, but ever brighten;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Here to the breeze young May, her curls unbinding,</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">With thousand flowers her wreath is ever winding.</span><br /> +</p> + +<p>Indeed it may be said with truth that Poliziano's most eminent faculty +as a descriptive poet corresponded exactly to the genius of the +painters of his day. To produce pictures radiant with Renaissance +colouring, and vigorous with Renaissance passion, was the function of +his art, not to express profound thought or dramatic situations. This +remark might be extended with justice to Ariosto, and Tasso, and +Boiardo. The great narrative poets of the Renaissance in Italy were +not dramatists; nor were their poems epics: their forte lay in the +inexhaustible variety and beauty of their pictures.</p> + +<p>Of Poliziano's plagiarism—if this be the right word to apply to the +process of assimilation and selection, by means of which the +poet-scholar of Florence taught the Italians how to use the riches of +the ancient languages and their own literature—here are some +specimens. In stanza 42 of the 'Giostra' he says of Simonetta:—</p> + +<p> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">E 'n lei discerne un non so che divino.</span><br /> +</p> + + +<p>Dante has the line:—</p> + +<p> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Vostri risplende un non so che divino.</span><br /> +</p> + +<p>In the 44th he speaks about the birds:—</p> + +<p> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">E canta ogni augelletto in suo latino.</span><br /> +</p> + +<p>This comes from Cavalcanti's:—</p> + +<p> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">E cantinne gli augelli.</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Ciascuno in suo latino.</span><br /> +</p> + +<p>Stanza 45 is taken bodily from Claudian, Dante, and Cavalcanti. It +would seem as though Poliziano wished to show that the classic and +medieval literature of Italy was all one, and that a poet of the +Renaissance could carry on the continuous tradition in his own style. +A, line in stanza 54 seems perfectly original:—</p> + +<p> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">E già dall'alte ville il fumo esala.</span><br /> +</p> + +<p>It comes straight from Virgil:—</p> + +<p> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Et jam summa pocul villarum culmina fumant.</span><br /> +</p> + +<p>In the next stanza the line—</p> + +<p> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Tal che 'l ciel tutto rasserenò d'intorno,</span><br /> +</p> + +<p>is Petrarch's. So in the 56th, is the phrase 'il dolce andar celeste.' +In stanza 57—</p> + +<p> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Par che 'l cor del petto se gli schianti,</span><br /> +</p> + +<p>belongs to Boccaccio. In stanza 60 the first line:—</p> + +<p> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">La notte che le cose ci nasconde,</span><br /> +</p> + +<p>together with its rhyme, 'sotto le amate fronde,' is borrowed from the +23rd canto of the 'Paradiso.' In the second line, 'Stellato ammanto' +is Claudian's 'stellantes sinus' applied to the heaven. When we reach +the garden of Venus we find whole passages translated from Claudian's +'Marriage of Honorius,' and from the 'Metamorphoses' of Ovid.</p> + +<p>Poliziano's second poem of importance, which indeed may historically +be said to take precedence of 'La Giostra,' was the so-called tragedy +of 'Orfeo.' The English version of this lyrical drama must be reserved +for a separate study: yet it belongs to the subject of this, inasmuch +as the 'Orfeo' is a classical legend treated in a form already +familiar to the Italian people. Nearly all the popular kinds of poetry +of which specimens have been translated in this chapter, will be found +combined in its six short scenes.</p> +<h5><a href="#CONTENTS">CONTENTS</a></h5> +<br/><br /> +<hr style="width: 100%;" /> + + + +<h2><a name="ORFEO" id="ORFEO" /><i>ORFEO</i></a></h2> +<hr style="width: 100%;" /> +<br /> +<p>The 'Orfeo' of Messer Angelo Poliziano ranks amongst the most +important poems of the fifteenth century. It was composed at Mantua in +the short space of two days, on the occasion of Cardinal Francesco +Gonzaga's visit to his native town in 1472. But, though so hastily put +together, the 'Orfeo' marks an epoch in the evolution of Italian +poetry. It is the earliest example of a secular drama, containing +within the compass of its brief scenes the germ of the opera, the +tragedy, and the pastoral play. In form it does not greatly differ +from the 'Sacre Rappresentazioni' of the fifteenth century, as those +miracle plays were handled by popular poets of the earlier +Renaissance. But while the traditional octave stanza is used for the +main movement of the piece, Poliziano has introduced episodes of +<i>terza rima</i>, madrigals, a carnival song, a <i>ballata</i>, and, above all, +choral passages which have in them the future melodrama of the musical +Italian stage. The lyrical treatment of the fable, its capacity for +brilliant and varied scenic effects, its combination of singing with +action, and the whole artistic keeping of the piece, which never +passes into genuine tragedy, but stays within the limits of romantic +pathos, distinguish the 'Orfeo' as a typical production of Italian +genius. Thus, though little better than an improvisation, it combines +the many forms of verse developed by the Tuscans at the close of the +Middle Ages, and fixes the limits beyond which their dramatic poets, +with a few exceptions, were not destined to advance. Nor was the +choice of the fable without significance. Quitting the Bible stories +and the Legends of Saints, which supplied the mediaeval playwright +with material, Poliziano selects a classic story: and this story might +pass for an allegory of Italy, whose intellectual development the +scholar-poet ruled. Orpheus is the power of poetry and art, softening +stubborn nature, civilising men, and prevailing over Hades for a +season. He is the right hero of humanism, the genius of the +Renaissance, the tutelary god of Italy, who thought she could resist +the laws of fate by verse and elegant accomplishments. To press this +kind of allegory is unwise; for at a certain moment it breaks in our +hands. And yet in Eurydice the fancy might discover Freedom, the true +spouse of poetry and art; Orfeo's last resolve too vividly depicts the +vice of the Renaissance; and the Mænads are those barbarous armies +destined to lay waste the plains of Italy, inebriate with wine and +blood, obeying a new lord of life on whom the poet's harp exerts no +charm. But a truce to this spinning of pedantic cobwebs. Let Mercury +appear, and let the play begin.</p> +<br /> +<br /> +<br /> +<h3><i>THE FABLE OF ORPHEUS</i></h3> + +<p> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">MERCURY <i>announces the show</i>.</span><br /> +<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">Ho, silence! Listen! There was once a hind,</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 3em;">Son of Apollo, Aristaeus hight,</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 3em;">Who loved with so untamed and fierce a mind</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 3em;">Eurydice, the wife of Orpheus wight,</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 3em;">That chasing her one day with will unkind</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 3em;">He wrought her cruel death in love's despite;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 3em;">For, as she fled toward the mere hard by,</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 3em;">A serpent stung her, and she had to die.</span><br /> +<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">Now Orpheus, singing, brought her back from hell,</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 3em;">But could not keep the law the fates ordain:</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 3em;">Poor wretch, he backward turned and broke the spell;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 3em;">So that once more from him his love was ta'en.</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 3em;">Therefore he would no more with women dwell,</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 3em;">And in the end by women he was slain.</span><br /> +<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;"><i>Enter</i> A SHEPHERD, <i>who says</i>—</span><br /> +<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">Nay, listen, friends! Fair auspices are given,</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">Since Mercury to earth hath come from heaven.</span><br /> +<br /> +<br /> +<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">SCENE I</span><br /> +<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">MOPSUS, <i>an old shepherd</i>.</span><br /> +<br /> +<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">Say, hast thou seen a calf of mine, all white</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 3em;">Save for a spot of black upon her front,</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 3em;">Two feet, one flank, and one knee ruddy-bright?</span><br /> +<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">ARISTAEUS, <i>a young shepherd</i>.</span><br /> +<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">Friend Mopsus, to the margin of this fount</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 3em;">No herds have come to drink since break of day;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">Yet may'st thou hear them low on yonder mount.</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 3em;">Go, Thyrsis, search the upland lawn, I pray!</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">Thou Mopsus shalt with me the while abide;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 3em;">For I would have thee listen to my lay.</span><br /> +<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 18em;">[<i>Exit</i> THYRSIS.</span><br /> +<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">'Twas yester morn where trees yon cavern hide,</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 3em;">I saw a nymph more fair than Dian, who</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 3em;">Had a young lusty lover at her side:</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">But when that more than woman met my view,</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 3em;">The heart within my bosom leapt outright,</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 3em;">And straight the madness of wild Love I knew.</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">Since then, dear Mopsus, I have no delight;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 3em;">But weep and weep: of food and drink I tire,</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 3em;">And without slumber pass the weary night.</span><br /> +<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">MOPSUS.</span><br /> +<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">Friend Aristaeus, if this amorous fire</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 4em;">Thou dost not seek to quench as best may be,</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 4em;">Thy peace of soul will vanish in desire.</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">Thou know'st that love is no new thing to me:</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 4em;">I've proved how love grown old brings bitter pain:</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 4em;">Cure it at once, or hope no remedy;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">For if thou find thee in Love's cruel chain,</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 4em;">Thy bees, thy blossoms will be out of mind,</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 4em;">Thy fields, thy vines, thy flocks, thy cotes, thy grain</span><br /> +<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">ARISTAEUS.</span><br /> +<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">Mopsus, thou speakest to the deaf and blind:</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 4em;">Waste not on me these wingèd words, I pray,</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 4em;">Lest they be scattered to the inconstant wind,</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">I love, and cannot wish to say love nay;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 4em;">Nor seek to cure so charming a disease:</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 4em;">They praise Love best who most against him say.</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">Yet if thou fain wouldst give my heart some ease,</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 4em;">Forth from thy wallet take thy pipe, and we</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 4em;">Will sing awhile beneath the leafy trees;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">For well my nymph is pleased with melody.</span><br /> +<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">THE SONG.</span><br /> +<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">Listen, ye wild woods, to my roundelay;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">Since the fair nymph will hear not, though I pray.</span><br /> +<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">The lovely nymph is deaf to my lament,</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 4em;">Nor heeds the music of this rustic reed;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">Wherefore my flocks and herds are ill content,</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 4em;">Nor bathe their hoof where grows the water weed,</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 4em;">Nor touch the tender herbage on the mead;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">So sad, because their shepherd grieves, are they.</span><br /> +<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">Listen, ye wild woods, to my roundelay;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">Since the fair nymph will hear not, though I pray.</span><br /> +<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">The herds are sorry for their master's moan;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 4em;">The nymph heeds not her lover though he die,</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">The lovely nymph, whose heart is made of stone—</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 3em;">Nay steel, nay adamant! She still doth fly</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 3em;">Far, far before me, when she sees me nigh,</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">Even as a lamb flies fern the wolf away.</span><br /> +<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">Listen, ye wild woods, to my roundelay;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">Since the fair nymph will hear not, though I pray.</span><br /> +<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">Nay, tell her, pipe of mine, how swift doth flee</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 3em;">Beauty together with our years amain;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">Tell her how time destroys all rarity,</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 3em;">Nor youth once lost can be renewed again;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 3em;">Tell her to use the gifts that yet remain:</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">Roses and violets blossom not alway.</span><br /> +<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">Listen, ye wild woods, to my roundelay;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">Since the fair nymph will hear not, though I pray.</span><br /> +<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">Carry, ye winds, these sweet words to her ears,</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 3em;">Unto the ears of my loved nymph, and tell</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">How many tears I shed, what bitter tears!</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 3em;">Beg her to pity one who loves so well:</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 3em;">Say that my life is frail and mutable,</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">And melts like rime before the rising day.</span><br /> +<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">Listen, ye wild woods, to my roundelay;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">Since the fair nymph will hear not, though I pray.</span><br /> +<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">MOPSUS.</span><br /> +<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">Less sweet, methinks the voice of waters falling</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 3em;">From cliffs that echo back their murmurous song;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 3em;">Less sweet the summer sound of breezes calling</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 3em;">Through pine-tree tops sonorous all day long;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 3em;">Than are thy rhymes, the soul of grief enthralling,</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 3em;">Thy rhymes o'er field and forest borne along:</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">If she but hear them, at thy feet she'll fawn.—</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">Lo, Thyrsis, hurrying homeward from the lawn!</span><br /> +<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 14em;">[<i>Re-enters</i> THYRSIS.</span><br /> +<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">ARISTAEUS.</span><br /> +<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">What of the calf? Say, hast thou seen her now?</span><br /> +<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">THYRSIS, <i>the cowherd</i>.</span><br /> +<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">I have, and I'd as lief her throat were cut!</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">She almost ripped my bowels up, I vow,</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">Running amuck with horns well set to butt:</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">Nathless I've locked her in the stall below:</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">She's blown with grass, I tell you, saucy slut!</span><br /> +<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">ARISTAEUS.</span><br /> +<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">Now, prithee, let me hear what made you stay</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">So long upon the upland lawns away?</span><br /> +<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">THYRSIS.</span><br /> +<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">Walking, I spied a gentle maiden there,</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 3em;">Who plucked wild flowers upon the mountain side:</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 3em;">I scarcely think that Venus is more fair,</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 3em;">Of sweeter grace, most modest in her pride:</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 3em;">She speaks, she sings, with voice so soft and rare,</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 3em;">That listening streams would backward roll their tide:</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 3em;">Her face is snow and roses; gold her head;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 3em;">All, all alone she goes, white-raimented,</span><br /> +<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">ARISTAEUS.</span><br /> +<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">Stay, Mopsus! I must follow: for 'tis she</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 3em;">Of whom I lately spoke. So, friend, farewell!</span><br /> +<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">MOPSUS.</span><br /> +<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">Hold, Aristaeus, lest for her or thee</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">Thy boldness be the cause of mischief fell!</span><br /> +<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">ARISTAEUS.</span><br /> +<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">Nay, death this day must be my destiny,</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">Unless I try my fate and break the spell.</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">Stay therefore, Mopsus, by the fountain stay!</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">I'll follow her, meanwhile, yon mountain way.</span><br /> +<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 15em;">[<i>Exit</i> ARISTAEUS.</span><br /> +<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">MOPSUS.</span><br /> +<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">Thyrsis, what thinkest thou of thy loved lord?</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 3em;">See'st thou that all his senses are distraught?</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 3em;">Couldst thou not speak some seasonable word,</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 3em;">Tell him what shame this idle love hath wrought?</span><br /> +<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">THYRSIS.</span><br /> +<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">Free speech and servitude but ill accord,</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">Friend Mopsus, and the hind is folly-fraught</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">Who rates his lord! He's wiser far than I.</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">To tend these kine is all my mastery.</span><br /> +<br /> +<br /> +<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">SCENE II</span><br /> +<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">ARISTAEUS, <i>in pursuit of</i> EURYDICE.</span><br /> +<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">Flee not from me, maiden!</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 3em;">Lo, I am thy friend!</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 3em;">Dearer far than life I hold thee.</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 3em;">List, thou beauty-laden,</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 3em;">To these prayers attend:</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 3em;">Flee not, let my arms enfold thee!</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 3em;">Neither wolf nor bear will grasp thee:</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 3em;">That I am thy friend I've told thee:</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 3em;">Stay thy course then; let me clasp thee!—</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 3em;">Since thou'rt deaf and wilt not heed me,</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 3em;">Since thou'rt still before me flying,</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 3em;">While I follow panting, dying,</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 3em;">Lend me wings, Love, wings to speed me!</span><br /> +<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 18em;">[<i>Exit</i> ARISTAEUS, <i>pursuing</i> EURYDICE.</span><br /> +<br /> +<br /> +<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">SCENE III</span><br /> +<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">A DRYAD.</span><br /> +<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">Sad news of lamentation and of pain,</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 3em;">Dear sisters, hath my voice to bear to you:</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 3em;">I scarcely dare to raise the dolorous strain.</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">Eurydice by yonder stream lies low;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 3em;">The flowers are fading round her stricken head,</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 3em;">And the complaining waters weep their woe.</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">The stranger soul from that fair house hath fled;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 3em;">And she, like privet pale, or white May-bloom</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 3em;">Untimely plucked, lies on the meadow, dead.</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">Hear then the cause of her disastrous doom!</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 3em;">A snake stole forth and stung her suddenly.</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 3em;">I am so burdened with this weight of gloom</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">That, lo, I bid you all come weep with me!</span><br /> +<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">CHORUS OF DRYADS.</span><br /> +<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">Let the wide air with our complaint resound!</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 3em;">For all heaven's light is spent.</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 3em;">Let rivers break their bound,</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 3em;">Swollen with tears outpoured from our lament!</span><br /> +<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">Fell death hath ta'en their splendour from the skies:</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 3em;">The stars are sunk in gloom.</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 3em;">Stern death hath plucked the bloom</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 3em;">Of nymphs:—Eurydice down-trodden lies.</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">Weep, Love! The woodland cries.</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 3em;">Weep, groves and founts;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 3em;">Ye craggy mounts; you leafy dell,</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 3em;">Beneath whose boughs she fell,</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 3em;">Bend every branch in time with this sad sound.</span><br /> +<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">Let the wide air with our complaint resound!</span><br /> +<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">Ah, fortune pitiless! Ah, cruel snake!</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 3em;">Ah, luckless doom of woes!</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 3em;">Like a cropped summer rose,</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 3em;">Or lily cut, she withers on the brake.</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">Her face, which once did make</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 3em;">Our age so bright</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 3em;">With beauty's light, is faint and pale;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 3em;">And the clear lamp doth fail,</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 3em;">Which shed pure splendour all the world around</span><br /> +<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">Let the wide air with our complaint resound!</span><br /> +<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">Who e'er will sing so sweetly, now she's gone?</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 4em;">Her gentle voice to hear,</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 4em;">The wild winds dared not stir;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 4em;">And now they breathe but sorrow, moan for moan:</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">So many joys are flown,</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 4em;">Such jocund days</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 4em;">Doth Death erase with her sweet eyes!</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 4em;">Bid earth's lament arise,</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 4em;">And make our dirge through heaven and sea rebound!</span><br /> +<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">Let the wide air with our complaint resound!</span><br /> +<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">A DRYAD.</span><br /> +<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">'Tis surely Orpheus, who hath reached the hill,</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 4em;">With harp in hand, glad-eyed and light of heart!</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 4em;">He thinks that his dear love is living still.</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">My news will stab him with a sudden smart:</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 4em;">An unforeseen and unexpected blow</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 4em;">Wounds worst and stings the bosom's tenderest part.</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">Death hath disjoined the truest love, I know,</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 4em;">That nature yet to this low world revealed,</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 4em;">And quenched the flame in its most charming glow.</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">Go, sisters, hasten ye to yonder field,</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 4em;">Where on the sward lies slain Eurydice;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 4em;">Strew her with flowers and grasses! I must yield</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">This man the measure of his misery.</span><br /> +<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 6em;">[<i>Exeunt</i> DRYADS. <i>Enter</i> ORPHEUS, <i>singing</i>.</span><br /> +<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">ORPHEUS.</span><br /> +<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;"><i>Musa, triumphales titulos et gesta canamus</i></span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 4em;"><i>Herculis, et forti monstra subacta manu;</i></span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;"><i>Ut timidae malri pressos ostenderit angues,</i></span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 4em;"><i>Intrepidusque fero riserit ore puer.</i></span><br /> +<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">A DRYAD.</span><br /> +<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">Orpheus, I bring thee bitter news. Alas!</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 4em;">Thy nymph who was so beautiful, is slain!</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 4em;">flying from Aristaeus o'er the grass,</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 4em;">What time she reached yon stream that threads the plain,</span><br /> +<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 3em;">A snake which lurked mid flowers where she did pass,</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 3em;">Pierced her fair foot with his envenomed bane:</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 3em;">So fierce, so potent was the sting, that she</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 3em;">Died in mid course. Ah, woe that this should be!</span><br /> +<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 4em;">[ORPHEUS <i>turns to go in silence.</i></span><br /> +<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">MNESILLUS, <i>the satyr</i>.</span><br /> +<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">Mark ye how sunk in woe</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 3em;">The poor wretch forth doth pass,</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 3em;">And may not answer, for his grief, one word?</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 3em;">On some lone shore, unheard,</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 3em;">Far, far away, he'll go,</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 3em;">And pour his heart forth to the winds, alas!</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 3em;">I'll follow and observe if he</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 3em;">Moves with his moan the hills to sympathy.</span><br /> +<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 8em;">[<i>Follows</i> ORPHEUS.</span><br /> +<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">ORPHEUS.</span><br /> +<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">Let us lament, O lyre disconsolate!</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 3em;">Our wonted music is in tune no more.</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 3em;">Lament we while the heavens revolve, and let</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 3em;">The nightingale be conquered on Love's shore!</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 3em;">O heaven, O earth, O sea, O cruel fate!</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 3em;">How shall I bear a pang so passing sore?</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 3em;">Eurydice, my love! O life of mine!</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 3em;">On earth I will no more without thee pine!</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">I will go down unto the doors of Hell,</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 3em;">And see if mercy may be found below:</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 3em;">Perchance we shall reverse fate's spoken spell</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 3em;">With tearful songs and words of honeyed woe:</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 3em;">Perchance will Death be pitiful; for well</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 3em;">With singing have we turned the streams that flow;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 3em;">Moved stones, together hind and tiger drawn,</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 3em;">And made trees dance upon the forest lawn.</span><br /> +<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 4em;">[<i>Passes from sight on his way to Hades.</i></span><br /> +<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">MNESILLUS.</span><br /> +<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">The staff of Fate is strong</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 3em;">And will not lightly bend,</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 3em;">Nor yet the stubborn gates of steely Hell.</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 3em;">Nay, I can see full well</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 3em;">His life will not be long:</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 3em;">Those downward feet no more will earthward wend.</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 3em;">What marvel if they lose the light,</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 3em;">Who make blind Love their guide by day and night!</span><br /> +<br /> +<br /> +<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">SCENE IV</span><br /> +<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">ORPHEUS, <i>at the gate of Hell.</i></span><br /> +<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">Pity, nay pity for a lover's moan!</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 3em;">Ye Powers of Hell, let pity reign in you!</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 3em;">To your dark regions led me Love alone:</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 3em;">Downward upon his wings of light I flew.</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 3em;">Hush, Cerberus! Howl not by Pluto's throne!</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 3em;">For when you hear my tale of misery, you,</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 3em;">Nor you alone, but all who here abide</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 3em;">In this blind world, will weep by Lethe's tide.</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">There is no need, ye Furies, thus to rage;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 3em;">To dart those snakes that in your tresses twine:</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 3em;">Knew ye the cause of this my pilgrimage,</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 3em;">Ye would lie down and join your moans with mine.</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 3em;">Let this poor wretch but pass, who war doth wage</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 3em;">With heaven, the elements, the powers divine!</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 3em;">I beg for pity or for death. No more!</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 3em;">But open, ope Hell's adamantine door!</span><br /> +<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 8em;">[ORPHEUS <i>enters Hell.</i></span><br /> +<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">PLUTO.</span><br /> +<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">What man is he who with his golden lyre</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 3em;">Hath moved the gates that never move,</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 3em;">While the dead folk repeat his dirge of love?</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">The rolling stone no more doth tire</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 3em;">Swart Sisyphus on yonder hill;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 3em;">And Tantalus with water slakes his fire;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">The groans of mangled Tityos are still;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 3em;">Ixion's wheel forgets to fly;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 3em;">The Danaids their urns can fill:</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">I hear no more the tortured spirits cry;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">But all find rest in that sweet harmony.</span><br /> +<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">PROSERPINE.</span><br /> +<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">Dear consort, since, compelled by love of thee,</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 3em;">I left the light of heaven serene,</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 3em;">And came to reign in hell, a sombre queen;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">The charm of tenderest sympathy</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 3em;">Hath never yet had power to turn</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 3em;">My stubborn heart, or draw forth tears from me.</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">Now with desire for yon sweet voice I yearn;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 3em;">Nor is there aught so dear</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 3em;">As that delight. Nay, be not stern</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">To this one prayer! Relax thy brows severe,</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">And rest awhile with me that song to hear!</span><br /> +<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 4em;">[ORPHEUS <i>stands before the throne.</i></span><br /> +<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">ORPHEUS.</span><br /> +<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">Ye rulers of the people lost in gloom,</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 3em;">Who see no more the jocund light of day!</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 3em;">Ye who inherit all things that the womb</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 3em;">Of Nature and the elements display!</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 3em;">Hear ye the grief that draws me to the tomb!</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 3em;">Love, cruel Love, hath led me on this way:</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 3em;">Not to chain Cerberus I hither come,</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 3em;">But to bring back my mistress to her home.</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">A serpent hidden among flowers and leaves</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 3em;">Stole my fair mistress—nay, my heart—from me:</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 3em;">Wherefore my wounded life for ever grieves,</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 3em;">Nor can I stand against this agony.</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 3em;">Still, if some fragrance lingers yet and cleaves</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 3em;">Of your famed love unto your memory,</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 3em;">If of that ancient rape you think at all,</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 3em;">Give back Eurydice!—On you I call.</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">All things ere long unto this bourne descend:</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 3em;">All mortal lives to you return at last:</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 3em;">Whate'er the moon hath circled, in the end</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 3em;">Must fade and perish in your empire vast:</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 3em;">Some sooner and some later hither wend;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 3em;">Yet all upon this pathway shall have passed:</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 3em;">This of our footsteps is the final goal;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 3em;">And then we dwell for aye in your control.</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">Therefore the nymph I love is left for you</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 3em;">When nature leads her deathward in due time:</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 3em;">But now you've cropped the tendrils as they grew,</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 3em;">The grapes unripe, while yet the sap did climb:</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 3em;">Who reaps the young blades wet with April dew,</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 3em;">Nor waits till summer hath o'erpassed her prime?</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 3em;">Give back, give back my hope one little day!—</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 3em;">Not for a gift, but for a loan I pray.</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">I pray not to you by the waves forlorn</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 3em;">Of marshy Styx or dismal Acheron,</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 3em;">By Chaos where the mighty world was born,</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 3em;">Or by the sounding flames of Phlegethon;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 3em;">But by the fruit which charmed thee on that morn</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 3em;">When thou didst leave our world for this dread throne!</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 3em;">O queen! if thou reject this pleading breath,</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 3em;">I will no more return, but ask for death!</span><br /> +<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">PROSERPINE.</span><br /> +<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">Husband, I never guessed</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 3em;">That in our realm oppressed</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 3em;">Pity could find a home to dwell:</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 3em;">But now I know that mercy teems in Hell.</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 3em;">I see Death weep; her breast</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 3em;">Is shaken by those tears that faultless fell.</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 3em;">Let then thy laws severe for him be swayed</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 3em;">By love, by song, by the just prayers he prayed!</span><br /> +<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">PLUTO.</span><br /> +<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">She's thine, but at this price:</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 3em;">Bend not on her thine eyes,</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 3em;">Till mid the souls that live she stay.</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 3em;">See that thou turn not back upon the way!</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 3em;">Check all fond thoughts that rise!</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 3em;">Else will thy love be torn from thee away.</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 3em;">I am well pleased that song so rare as thine</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 3em;">The might of my dread sceptre should incline.</span><br /> +<br /> +<br /> +<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">SCENE V</span><br /> +<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">ORPHEUS, <i>sings.</i></span><br /> +<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;"><i>Ite tritumphales circum mea tempora lauri.</i></span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 3em;"><i>Vicimus Eurydicen: reddita vita mihi est,</i></span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;"><i>Haec mea praecipue victoria digna coronâ.</i></span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 3em;"><i>Oredimus? an lateri juncta puella meo?</i></span><br /> +<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">EURYDICE.</span><br /> +<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">All me! Thy love too great</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 3em;">Hath lost not thee alone!</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 3em;">I am torn from thee by strong Fate.</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 3em;">No more I am thine own.</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 3em;">In vain I stretch these arms. Back, back to Hell</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 3em;">I'm drawn, I'm drawn. My Orpheus, fare thee well!</span><br /> +<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 14em;">[EURYDICE <i>disappears.</i></span><br /> +<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">ORPHEUS.</span><br /> +<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">Who hath laid laws on Love?</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 3em;">Will pity not be given</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 3em;">For one short look so full thereof?</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 3em;">Since I am robbed of heaven,</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 3em;">Since all my joy so great is turned to pain,</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 3em;">I will go back and plead with Death again!</span><br /> +<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 6em;">[TISIPHONE <i>blocks his way.</i></span><br /> +<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">TISIPHONE.</span><br /> +<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">Nay, seek not back to turn!</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 3em;">Vain is thy weeping, all thy words are vain.</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 3em;">Eurydice may not complain</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 3em;">Of aught but thee—albeit her grief is great.</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 3em;">Vain are thy verses 'gainst the voice of Fate!</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 3em;">How vain thy song! For Death is stern!</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 3em;">Try not the backward path: thy feet refrain!</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 3em;">The laws of the abyss are fixed and firm remain.</span><br /> +<br /> +<br /> +<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">SCENE VI</span><br /> +<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">ORPHEUS.</span><br /> +<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">What sorrow-laden song shall e'er be found</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 3em;">To match the burden of my matchless woe?</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 3em;">How shall I make the fount of tears abound,</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 3em;">To weep apace with grief's unmeasured flow?</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 3em;">Salt tears I'll waste upon the barren ground,</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 3em;">So long as life delays me here below;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 3em;">And since my fate hath wrought me wrong so sore,</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 3em;">I swear I'll never love a woman more!</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">Henceforth I'll pluck the buds of opening spring,</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 3em;">The bloom of youth when life is loveliest,</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 3em;">Ere years have spoiled the beauty which they bring:</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 3em;">This love, I swear, is sweetest, softest, best!</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 3em;">Of female charms let no one speak or sing;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 3em;">Since she is slain who ruled within my breast.</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 3em;">He who would seek my converse, let him see</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 3em;">That ne'er he talk of woman's love to me!</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">How pitiful is he who changes mind</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 3em;">For woman! for her love laments or grieves!</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 3em;">Who suffers her in chains his will to bind,</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 3em;">Or trusts her words lighter than withered leaves,</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 3em;">Her loving looks more treacherous than the wind!</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 3em;">A thousand times she veers; to nothing cleaves:</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 3em;">Follows who flies; from him who follows, flees;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 3em;">And comes and goes like waves on stormy seas!</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">High Jove confirms the truth of what I said,</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 3em;">Who, caught and bound in love's delightful snare,</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 3em;">Enjoys in heaven his own bright Ganymed:</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 3em;">Phoebus on earth had Hyacinth the fair:</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 3em;">Hercules, conqueror of the world, was led</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 3em;">Captive to Hylas by this love so rare.—</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 3em;">Advice for husbands! Seek divorce, and fly</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 3em;">Far, far away from female company!</span><br /> +<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">[<i>Enter a</i> MAENAD <i>leading a train of</i> BACCHANTES.</span><br /> +<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">A MAENAD.</span><br /> +<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">Ho! Sisters! Up! Alive!</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 3em;">See him who doth our sex deride!</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 3em;">Hunt him to death, the slave!</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">Thou snatch the thyrsus! Thou this oak-tree rive!</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 3em;">Cast down this doeskin and that hide!</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 3em;">We'll wreak our fury on the knave!</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">Yea, he shall feel our wrath, the knave!</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 3em;">He shall yield up his hide</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 3em;">Riven as woodmen fir-trees rive!</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 3em;">No power his life can save;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 3em;">Since women he hath dared deride!</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 3em;">Ho! To him, sisters! Ho! Alive!</span><br /> +<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">[ORPHEUS <i>is chased off the scene and slain: the</i> MAENADS</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;"><i>then return.</i></span><br /> +<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">A MAENAD.</span><br /> +<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">Ho! Bacchus! Ho! I yield thee thanks for this!</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 3em;">Through all the woodland we the wretch have borne:</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 3em;">So that each root is slaked with blood of his:</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 3em;">Yea, limb from limb his body have we torn</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 3em;">Through the wild forest with a fearful bliss:</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 3em;">His gore hath bathed the earth by ash and thorn!—</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 3em;">Go then! thy blame on lawful wedlock fling!</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 3em;">Ho! Bacchus! take the victim that we bring!</span><br /> +<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">CHORUS OF MAENADS.</span><br /> +<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 3em;">Bacchus! we all must follow thee!</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 3em;">Bacchus! Bacchus! Ohé! Ohé!</span><br /> +<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">With ivy coronals, bunch and berry,</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 3em;">Crown we our heads to worship thee!</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">Thou hast bidden us to make merry</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 3em;">Day and night with jollity!</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">Drink then! Bacchus is here! Drink free,</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">And hand ye the drinking-cup to me!</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 3em;">Bacchus! we all must follow thee!</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 3em;">Bacchus! Bacchus! Ohé! Ohé!</span><br /> +<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">See, I have emptied my horn already:</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 3em;">Stretch hither your beaker to me, I pray:</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">Are the hills and the lawns where we roam unsteady?</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 3em;">Or is it my brain that reels away?</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">Let every one run to and fro through the hay,</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">As ye see me run! Ho! after me!</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 3em;">Bacchus! we all must follow thee!</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 3em;">Bacchus! Bacchus! Ohé! Ohé!</span><br /> +<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">Methinks I am dropping in swoon or slumber:</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 3em;">Am I drunken or sober, yes or no?</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">What are these weights my feet encumber?</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 3em;">You too are tipsy, well I know!</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">Let every one do as ye see me do,</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">Let every one drink and quaff like me!</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 3em;">Bacchus! we all must follow thee!</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 3em;">Bacchus! Bacchus! Ohé! Ohé!</span><br /> +<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">Cry Bacchus! Cry Bacchus! Be blithe and merry,</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 3em;">Tossing wine down your throats away!</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">Let sleep then come and our gladness bury:</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 3em;">Drink you, and you, and you, while ye may!</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">Dancing is over for me to-day.</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">Let every one cry aloud Evohé!</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 3em;">Bacchus! we all must follow thee!</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 3em;">Bacchus! Bacchus! Ohé! Ohé!</span><br /> +</p> + +<p>Though an English translation can do little toward rendering the +facile graces of Poliziano's style, that 'roseate fluency' for which +it has been praised by his Italian admirers, the main qualities of the +'Orfeo' as a composition may be traced in this rough copy. Of dramatic +power, of that mastery over the deeper springs of human nature which +distinguished the first effort of the English muse in Marlowe's plays, +there is but little. A certain adaptation of the language to the +characters, as in the rudeness of Thyrsis when contrasted with the +rustic elegance of Aristæus, a touch of simple feeling in Eurydice's +lyrical outcry of farewell, a discrimination between the tender +sympathy of Proserpine and Pluto's stern relenting, a spirited +presentation of the Bacchanalian <i>furore</i> in the Mænads, an attempt to +model the Satyr Mnesillus as apart from human nature and yet +sympathetic to its anguish, these points constitute the chief dramatic +features of the melodrama. Orpheus himself is a purely lyrical +personage. Of character, he can scarcely be said to have anything +marked; and his part rises to its height precisely in that passage +where the lyrist has to be displayed. Before the gates of Hades and +the throne of Proserpine he sings, and his singing is the right +outpouring of a poet's soul; each octave resumes the theme of the last +stanza with a swell of utterance, a crescendo of intonation that +recalls the passionate and unpremeditated descant of a bird upon the +boughs alone. To this true quality of music is added the +persuasiveness of pleading. That the violin melody of his incomparable +song is lost, must be reckoned a great misfortune. We have good reason +to believe that the part of Orpheus was taken by Messer Baccio +Ugolini, singing to the viol. Here too it may be mentioned that a +<i>tondo</i> in monochrome, painted by Signorelli among the arabesques at +Orvieto, shows Orpheus at the throne of Plato, habited as a poet with +the laurel crown and playing on a violin of antique form. It would be +interesting to know whether a rumour of the Mantuan pageant had +reached the ears of the Cortonese painter.</p> + +<p>If the whole of the 'Orfeo' had been conceived and executed with the +same artistic feeling as the chief act, it would have been a really +fine poem independently of its historical interest. But we have only +to turn the page and read the lament uttered for the loss of Eurydice, +in order to perceive Poliziano's incapacity for dealing with his hero +in a situation of greater difficulty. The pathos which might have made +us sympathise with Orpheus in his misery, the passion, approaching to +madness, which might have justified his misogyny, are absent. It is +difficult not to feel that in this climax of his anguish he was a poor +creature, and that the Mænads served him right. Nothing illustrates +the defect of real dramatic imagination better than this failure to +dignify the catastrophe. Gifted with a fine lyrical inspiration, +Poliziano seems to have already felt the Bacchic chorus which forms so +brilliant a termination to his play, and to have forgotten his duty to +the unfortunate Orpheus, whose sorrow for Eurydice is stultified and +made unmeaning by the prosaic expression of a base resolve. It may +indeed be said in general that the 'Orfeo' is a good poem only where +the situation is not so much dramatic as lyrical, and that its finest +passage—the scene in Hades—was fortunately for its author one in +which the dramatic motive had to be lyrically expressed. In this +respect, as in many others, the 'Orfeo' combines the faults and merits +of the Italian attempts at melo-tragedy. To break a butterfly upon the +wheel is, however, no fit function of criticism: and probably no one +would have smiled more than the author of this improvisation, at the +thought of its being gravely dissected just four hundred years after +the occasion it was meant to serve had long been given over to +oblivion.</p> + + +<p><i>NOTE</i></p> + + +<p>Poliziano's 'Orfeo' was dedicated to Messer Carlo Canale, the husband +of that famous Vannozza who bore Lucrezia and Cesare Borgia to +Alexander VI. As first published in 1494, and as republished from time +to time up to the year 1776, it carried the title of 'La Favola di +Orfeo,' and was not divided into acts. Frequent stage-directions +sufficed, as in the case of Florentine 'Sacre Rappresentazioni,' for +the indication of the scenes. In this earliest redaction of the +'Orfeo' the chorus of the Dryads, the part of Mnesillus, the lyrical +speeches of Proserpine and Pluto, and the first lyric of the Mænads +are either omitted or represented by passages in <i>ottava rima</i>. In the +year 1776 the Padre Ireneo Affò printed at Venice a new version of +'Orfeo, Tragedia di Messer Angelo Poliziano,' collated by him from two +MSS. This play is divided into five acts, severally entitled +'Pastoricus,' 'Nymphas Habet,' 'Heroïcus,' 'Necromanticus,' and +'Bacchanalis.' The stage-directions are given partly in Latin, partly +in Italian; and instead of the 'Announcement of the Feast' by Mercury, +a prologue consisting of two octave stanzas is appended. A Latin +Sapphic ode in praise of the Cardinal Gonzaga, which was interpolated +in the first version, is omitted, and certain changes are made in the +last soliloquy of Orpheus. There is little doubt, I think, that the +second version, first given to the press by the Padre Affò, was +Poliziano's own recension of his earlier composition. I have therefore +followed it in the main, except that I have not thought it necessary +to observe the somewhat pedantic division into acts, and have +preferred to use the original 'Announcement of the Feast,' which +proves the integral connection between this ancient secular play and +the Florentine Mystery or 'Sacra Rappresentazione.' The last soliloquy +of Orpheus, again, has been freely translated by me from both versions +for reasons which will be obvious to students of the original. I have +yet to make a remark upon one detail of my translation. In line 390 +(part of the first lyric of the Mænads) the Italian gives us:—</p> + +<p> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Spezzata come il fabbro il cribro spezza.</span><br /> +</p> + + +<p>This means literally: 'Riven as a blacksmith rives a sieve or +boulter.' Now sieves are made in Tuscany of a plate of iron, pierced +with holes; and the image would therefore be familiar to an Italian. I +have, however, preferred to translate thus:—</p> + +<p> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Riven as woodmen fir-trees rive,</span><br /> +</p> + +<p>instead of giving:—</p> + +<p> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Riven as blacksmiths boulters rive,</span><br /> +</p> + +<p>because I thought that the second and faithful version would be +unintelligible as well as unpoetical for English readers.</p> +<h5><a href="#CONTENTS">CONTENTS</a></h5> +<br/><br /> +<hr style="width: 100%;" /> + +<h2><a name="EIGHT_SONNETS_OF_PETRARCH" id="EIGHT_SONNETS_OF_PETRARCH" /><i>EIGHT SONNETS OF PETRARCH</i></a></h2> + +<hr style="width: 100%;" /> +<br /> + +<p>ON THE PAPAL COURT AT AVIGNON</p> + + +<p> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Fountain of woe! Harbour of endless ire!</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">Thou school of errors, haunt of heresies!</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">Once Rome, now Babylon, the world's disease,</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">That maddenest men with fears and fell desire!</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">O forge of fraud! O prison dark and dire,</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">Where dies the good, where evil breeds increase!</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">Thou living Hell! Wonders will never cease</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">If Christ rise not to purge thy sins with fire.</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Founded in chaste and humble poverty,</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">Against thy founders thou dost raise thy horn,</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">Thou shameless harlot! And whence flows this pride?</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Even from foul and loathed adultery,</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">The wage of lewdness. Constantine, return!</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">Not so: the felon world its fate must bide.</span><br /> +</p> + + + + +<p>TO STEFANO COLONNA</p> + +<p>WRITTEN FROM VAUCLUSE</p> + +<p> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Glorius Colonna, thou on whose high head</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">Rest all our hopes and the great Latin name,</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">Whom from the narrow path of truth and fame</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">The wrath of Jove turned not with stormful dread:</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Here are no palace-courts, no stage to tread;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">But pines and oaks the shadowy valleys fill</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">Between the green fields and the neighbouring hill,</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">Where musing oft I climb by fancy led.</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">These lift from earth to heaven our soaring soul,</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">While the sweet nightingale, that in thick bowers</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">Through darkness pours her wail of tuneful woe,</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Doth bend our charmed breast to love's control;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">But thou alone hast marred this bliss of ours,</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">Since from our side, dear lord, thou needs must go.</span><br /> +</p> + + + +<p>IN VITA DI MADONNA LAURA. XI</p> + +<p>ON LEAVING AVIGNON</p> + + +<p> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">Backward at every weary step and slow</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 3em;">These limbs I turn which with great pain I bear;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 3em;">Then take I comfort from the fragrant air</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 3em;">That breathes from thee, and sighing onward go.</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">But when I think how joy is turned to woe,</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 3em;">Remembering my short life and whence I fare,</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 3em;">I stay my feet for anguish and despair,</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 3em;">And cast my tearful eyes on earth below.</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">At times amid the storm of misery</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 3em;">This doubt assails me: how frail limbs and poor</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 3em;">Can severed from their spirit hope to live.</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">Then answers Love: Hast thou no memory</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 3em;">How I to lovers this great guerdon give,</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 3em;">Free from all human bondage to endure?</span><br /> +</p> + + + + +<p>IN VITA DI MADONNA LAURA. XII</p> + +<p>THOUGHTS IN ABSENCE</p> + +<p> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">The wrinkled sire with hair like winter snow</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">Leaves the beloved spot where he hath passed his years,</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">Leaves wife and children, dumb with bitter tears,</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">To see their father's tottering steps and slow.</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Dragging his aged limbs with weary woe,</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">In these last days of life he nothing fears,</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">But with stout heart his fainting spirit cheers,</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">And spent and wayworn forward still doth go;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Then comes to Rome, following his heart's desire,</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">To gaze upon the portraiture of Him</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">Whom yet he hopes in heaven above to see:</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Thus I, alas! my seeking spirit tire,</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">Lady, to find in other features dim</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">The longed for, loved, true lineaments of thee.</span><br /> +</p> + + +<p>IN VITA DI MADONNA LAURA. LII</p> + +<p>OH THAT I HAD WINGS LIKE A DOVE!</p> + +<p> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">I am so tired beneath the ancient load</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">Of my misdeeds and custom's tyranny,</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">That much I fear to fail upon the road</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">And yield my soul unto mine enemy.</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">'Tis true a friend from whom all splendour flowed,</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">To save me came with matchless courtesy:</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">Then flew far up from sight to heaven's abode,</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">So that I strive in vain his face to see.</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Yet still his voice reverberates here below:</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">Oh ye who labour, lo! the path is here;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">Come unto me if none your going stay!</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">What grace, what love, what fate surpassing fear</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">Shall give me wings like dove's wings soft as snow,</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">That I may rest and raise me from the clay?</span><br /> +</p> + + + +<p>IN MORTE DI MADONNA LAURA. XXIV</p> + + +<p> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">The eyes whereof I sang my fervid song,</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">The arms, the hands, the feet, the face benign,</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">Which severed me from what was rightly mine,</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">And made me sole and strange amid the throng,</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">The crispèd curls of pure gold beautiful,</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">And those angelic smiles which once did shine</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">Imparadising earth with joy divine,</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">Are now a little dust—dumb, deaf, and dull.</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">And yet I live! wherefore I weep and wail,</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">Left alone without the light I loved so long,</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">Storm-tossed upon a bark that hath no sail.</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Then let me here give o'er my amorous song;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">The fountains of old inspiration fail,</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">And nought but woe my dolorous chords prolong.</span><br /> +</p> + +<p>IN MORTE DI MADONNA LAURA. XXXIV</p> + + + +<p> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">In thought I raised me to the place where she</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">Whom still on earth I seek and find not, shines;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">There 'mid the souls whom the third sphere confines,</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">More fair I found her and less proud to me.</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">She took my hand and said: Here shalt thou be</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">With me ensphered, unless desires mislead;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">Lo! I am she who made thy bosom bleed,</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">Whose day ere eve was ended utterly:</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">My bliss no mortal heart can understand;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">Thee only do I lack, and that which thou</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">So loved, now left on earth, my beauteous veil.</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Ah! wherefore did she cease and loose my hand?</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">For at the sound of that celestial tale</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">I all but stayed in paradise till now.</span><br /> +</p> + + + + +<p>IN MORTE DI MADONNA LAURA. LXXIV</p> + +<p> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">The flower of angels and the spirits blest,</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">Burghers of heaven, on that first day when she</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">Who is my lady died, around her pressed</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">Fulfilled with wonder and with piety.</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">What light is this? What beauty manifest?</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">Marvelling they cried: for such supremacy</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">Of splendour in this age to our high rest</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">Hath never soared from earth's obscurity.</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">She, glad to have exchanged her spirit's place,</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">Consorts with those whose virtues most exceed;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">At times the while she backward turns her face</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">To see me follow—seems to wait and plead:</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">Therefore toward heaven my will and soul I raise,</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">Because I hear her praying me to speed.</span><br /> +</p> + + +<h5><a href="#CONTENTS">CONTENTS</a></h5> +<br/><br /> +<hr style="width: 100%;" /> + + + + +<h2><a name="FOOTNOTES" id="FOOTNOTES" />FOOTNOTES:</a></h2> +<hr style="width: 100%;" /> +<br /> + +<blockquote> +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_1_1" id="Footnote_1_1" /></a><a href="#FNanchor_1_1"><span class="label">[1]</span></a> We may compare with Venice what is known about the +ancient Hellenic city of Sybaris. Sybaris and Ravenna were the Greek +and Roman Venice of antiquity.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_2_2" id="Footnote_2_2" /></a><a href="#FNanchor_2_2"><span class="label">[2]</span></a> His first wife was a daughter of the great general of the +Venetians against Francesco Sforza. Whether Sigismondo murdered her, +as Sansovino seems to imply in his <i>Famiglie Illustri</i>, or whether he +only repudiated her after her father's execution on the Piazza di San +Marco, admits of doubt. About the question of Sigismondo's marriage +with Isotta there is also some uncertainty. At any rate she had been +some time his mistress before she became his wife.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_3_3" id="Footnote_3_3" /></a><a href="#FNanchor_3_3"><span class="label">[3]</span></a> For the place occupied in the evolution of Italian +scholarship by this Greek sage, see my 'Revival of Learning,' +<i>Renaissance in Italy</i>, part 2.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_4_4" id="Footnote_4_4" /></a><a href="#FNanchor_4_4"><span class="label">[4]</span></a> The account of this church given by Æneas Sylvius +Piccolomini (Pii Secundi, Comment., ii. 92) deserves quotation: +'Ædificavit tamen nobile templum Arimini in honorem divi Francisci, +verum ita gentilibus operibus implevit, ut non tam Christianorum quam +infidelium dæmones adorantium templum esse videatur.'</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_5_5" id="Footnote_5_5" /></a><a href="#FNanchor_5_5"><span class="label">[5]</span></a> Almost all the facts of Alberti's life are to be found in +the Latin biography included in Muratori. It has been conjectured, and +not without plausibility, by the last editor of Alberti's complete +works, Bonucci, that this Latin life was penned by Alberti himself.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_6_6" id="Footnote_6_6" /></a><a href="#FNanchor_6_6"><span class="label">[6]</span></a> There is in reality no doubt or problem about this Saint +Clair. She was born in 1275, and joined the Augustinian Sisterhood, +dying young, in 1308, as Abbess of her convent. Continual and +impassioned meditation on the Passion of our Lord impressed her heart +with the signs of His suffering which have been described above. I owe +this note to the kindness of an anonymous correspondent, whom I here +thank.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_7_7" id="Footnote_7_7" /></a><a href="#FNanchor_7_7"><span class="label">[7]</span></a> The balance of probability leans against Isabella in this +affair. At the licentious court of the Medici she lived with +unpardonable freedom. Troilo Orsini was himself assassinated in Paris +by Bracciano's orders a few years afterwards.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_8_8" id="Footnote_8_8" /></a><a href="#FNanchor_8_8"><span class="label">[8]</span></a> I have amplified and corrected this chronicle by the +light of Professor Gnoli's monograph, <i>Vittoria Accoramboni</i>, +published by Le Monnier at Florence in 1870.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_9_9" id="Footnote_9_9" /></a><a href="#FNanchor_9_9"><span class="label">[9]</span></a> In dealing with Webster's tragedy, I have adhered to his +use and spelling of names.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_10_10" id="Footnote_10_10" /></a><a href="#FNanchor_10_10"><span class="label">[10]</span></a> The fresco of the Coronation of the Virgin upon the +semi-dome of S. Giovanni is the work of a copyist, Cesare Aretusi. But +part of the original fresco, which was removed in 1684, exists in a +good state of preservation at the end of the long gallery of the +library.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_11_11" id="Footnote_11_11" /></a><a href="#FNanchor_11_11"><span class="label">[11]</span></a> See the chapter on Euripides in my <i>Studies of Greek +Poets</i>, First Series, for a further development of this view of +artistic evolution.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_12_12" id="Footnote_12_12" /></a><a href="#FNanchor_12_12"><span class="label">[12]</span></a> I find that this story is common in the country round +Canossa. It is mentioned by Professor A. Ferretti in his monograph +entitled <i>Canossa, Studi e Ricerche</i>, Reggio, 1876, a work to which I +am indebted, and which will repay careful study.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_13_13" id="Footnote_13_13" /></a><a href="#FNanchor_13_13"><span class="label">[13]</span></a> Charles claimed under the will of René of Anjou, who in +turn claimed under the will of Joan II.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_14_14" id="Footnote_14_14" /></a><a href="#FNanchor_14_14"><span class="label">[14]</span></a> For an estimate of Cosimo's services to art and +literature, his collection of libraries, his great buildings, his +generosity to scholars, and his promotion of Greek studies, I may +refer to my <i>Renaissance in Italy</i>: 'The Revival of Learning,' chap. +iv.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_15_15" id="Footnote_15_15" /></a><a href="#FNanchor_15_15"><span class="label">[15]</span></a> Giottino had painted the Duke of Athens, in like manner, +on the same walls.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_16_16" id="Footnote_16_16" /></a><a href="#FNanchor_16_16"><span class="label">[16]</span></a> See <i>Archivio Storico</i>.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_17_17" id="Footnote_17_17" /></a><a href="#FNanchor_17_17"><span class="label">[17]</span></a> The order of rhymes runs thus: <i>a, b, b, a, a, b, b, a, +c, d, c, d, c, d</i>; or in the terzets, <i>c, d, e, c, d, e</i>, or <i>c, d, e, +d, c, e</i>, and so forth.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_18_18" id="Footnote_18_18" /></a><a href="#FNanchor_18_18"><span class="label">[18]</span></a> It has extraordinary interest for the student of our +literary development, inasmuch as it is full of experiments in metres, +which have never thriven on English soil. Not to mention the attempt +to write in asclepiads and other classical rhythms, we might point to +Sidney's <i>terza rima</i>, poems with <i>sdrucciolo</i> or treble rhymes. This +peculiar and painful form he borrowed from Ariosto and Sanazzaro; but +even in Italian it cannot be handled without sacrifice of variety, +without impeding the metrical movement and marring the sense.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_19_19" id="Footnote_19_19" /></a><a href="#FNanchor_19_19"><span class="label">[19]</span></a> The stately structure of the <i>Prothalamion</i> and +<i>Epithalamion</i> is a rebuilding of the Italian Canzone. His Eclogues, +with their allegories, repeat the manner of Petrarch's minor Latin +poems.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_20_20" id="Footnote_20_20" /></a><a href="#FNanchor_20_20"><span class="label">[20]</span></a> Marlowe makes Gaveston talk of 'Italian masques.' At the +same time, in the prologue to <i>Tamburlaine</i>, he shows that he was +conscious of the new and nobler direction followed by the drama in +England.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_21_21" id="Footnote_21_21" /></a><a href="#FNanchor_21_21"><span class="label">[21]</span></a> This sentence requires some qualification. In his +<i>Poesia Popolare Italiana</i>, 1878, Professor d'Ancona prints a Pisan, a +Venetian, and two Lombard versions of our Border ballad 'Where hae ye +been, Lord Randal, my son,' so close in general type and minor details +to the English, German, Swedish, and Finnish versions of this +Volkslied as to suggest a very ancient community of origin. It remains +as yet, however, an isolated fact in the history of Italian popular +poetry.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_22_22" id="Footnote_22_22" /></a><a href="#FNanchor_22_22"><span class="label">[22]</span></a> <i>Canti Popolari Toscani</i>, raccolti e annotati da +Giuseppe Tigri. Volume unico. Firenze: G. Barbèra, 1869.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_23_23" id="Footnote_23_23" /></a><a href="#FNanchor_23_23"><span class="label">[23]</span></a> This is a description of the Tuscan rispetto. In Sicily +the stanza generally consists of eight lines rhyming alternately +throughout, while in the North of Italy it is normally a simple +quatrain. The same poetical material assumes in Northern, Central, and +Southern Italy these diverge but associated forms.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_24_24" id="Footnote_24_24" /></a><a href="#FNanchor_24_24"><span class="label">[24]</span></a> This song, called Ciure (Sicilian for <i>fiore</i>) in +Sicily, is said by Signor Pitré to be in disrepute there. He once +asked an old dame of Palermo to repeat him some of these ditties. Her +answer was, 'You must get them from light women; I do not know any. +They sing them in bad houses and prisons, where, God be praised, I +have never been.' In Tuscany there does not appear to be so marked a +distinction between the flower song and the rispetto.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_25_25" id="Footnote_25_25" /></a><a href="#FNanchor_25_25"><span class="label">[25]</span></a> Much light has lately been thrown on the popular poetry +of Italy; and it appears that contemporary improvisatori trust more to +their richly stocked memories and to their power of recombination than +to original or novel inspiration. It is in Sicily that the vein of +truly creative lyric utterance is said to flow most freely and most +copiously at the present time.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_26_26" id="Footnote_26_26" /></a><a href="#FNanchor_26_26"><span class="label">[26]</span></a> 'Remember me, fair one, to the scrivener. I do not know +him or who he is, but he seems to me a sovereign poet, so cunning is +he in his use of verse.'</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_27_27" id="Footnote_27_27" /></a><a href="#FNanchor_27_27"><span class="label">[27]</span></a> It must be remarked that Tigri draws a strong contrast +in this respect between the songs of the mountain districts which he +has printed and those of the towns, and that Pitrè, in his edition of +Sicilian <i>Volkslieder</i>, expressly alludes to the coarseness of a whole +class which he had omitted. The MSS. of Sicilian and Tuscan songs, +dating from the fifteenth century and earlier, yield a fair proportion +of decidedly obscene compositions. Yet the fact stated above is +integrally correct. When acclimatised in the large towns, the rustic +Muse not unfrequently assumes a garb of grossness. At home, among the +fields and on the mountains, she remains chaste and romantic.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_28_28" id="Footnote_28_28" /></a><a href="#FNanchor_28_28"><span class="label">[28]</span></a> <p> In a rispetto, of which I subjoin a translation, sung by +a poor lad to a mistress of higher rank, love itself is pleaded as the +sign of a gentle soul:—</p></div> + +<p> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">My state is poor: I am not meet</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">To court so nobly born a love;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">For poverty hath tied my feet,</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">Trying to climb too far above.</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Yet am I gentle, loving thee;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Nor need thou shun my poverty.</span><br /> +<br /> +</p> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_29_29" id="Footnote_29_29" /></a><a href="#FNanchor_29_29"><span class="label">[29]</span></a> When the Cherubina, of whom mention has been made above, +was asked by Signor Tigri to dictate some of her rispetti, she answered, +'O signore! ne dico tanti quando li canto! . . . ma ora . . . bisognerebbe +averli tutti in visione; se no, proprio non vengono.'</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_30_30" id="Footnote_30_30" /></a><a href="#FNanchor_30_30"><span class="label">[30]</span></a> I need hardly guard myself against being supposed to +mean that the form of <i>Ballata</i> in question was the only one of its +kind in Italy.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_31_31" id="Footnote_31_31" /></a><a href="#FNanchor_31_31"><span class="label">[31]</span></a> See my <i>Sketches in Italy and Greece</i>, p. 114.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_32_32" id="Footnote_32_32" /></a><a href="#FNanchor_32_32"><span class="label">[32]</span></a> The originals will be found in Carducci's <i>Studi +Letterari</i>, p. 273 <i>et seq.</i> I have preserved their rhyming +structure.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_33_33" id="Footnote_33_33" /></a><a href="#FNanchor_33_33"><span class="label">[33]</span></a> Stanza XLIII. All references are made to Carducci's +excellent edition, <i>Le Stanze, l'Orfeo e le Rime di Messer Angelo +Ambrogini Poliziano.</i> Firenze: G. Barbéra. 1863.</p></div> + +</blockquote> + +<div>*** END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 14634 ***</div> +</body> +</html> diff --git a/LICENSE.txt b/LICENSE.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..6312041 --- /dev/null +++ b/LICENSE.txt @@ -0,0 +1,11 @@ +This eBook, including all associated images, markup, improvements, +metadata, and any other content or labor, has been confirmed to be +in the PUBLIC DOMAIN IN THE UNITED STATES. + +Procedures for determining public domain status are described in +the "Copyright How-To" at https://www.gutenberg.org. + +No investigation has been made concerning possible copyrights in +jurisdictions other than the United States. 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You may copy it, give it away or +re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included +with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org + + +Title: Sketches and Studies in Italy and Greece, Second Series + +Author: John Addington Symonds + +Release Date: January 7, 2005 [EBook #14634] + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1 + +*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK ITALY AND GREECE *** + + + + +Produced by Ted Garvin, Jayam and the PG Online Distributed +Proofreading Team + + + + + + +SKETCHES AND STUDIES IN ITALY AND GREECE + + + + + + +BY JOHN ADDINGTON SYMONDS + + +AUTHOR OF "RENAISSANCE IN ITALY" "STUDIES OF THE GREEK POETS," ETC + + + + + + +SECOND SERIES + +LONDON JOHN MURRAY, ALBEMARLE STREET, W. + +1914 + +_All rights reserved_ + + + + + FIRST EDITION (_Smith, Elder & Co._) _October, 1898_ + _Reprinted_ _May, 1900_ + _Reprinted_ _June, 1902_ + _Reprinted_ _November, 1905_ + _Reprinted_ _December, 1907_ + _Reprinted_ _February, 1914_ + _Taken over by John Murray_ _January, 1917_ + + + +_Printed in Great Britain at_ THE BALLANTYNE PRESS _by_ SPOTTISWOODE, +BALLANTYNE & Co. LTD. _Colchester, London & Eton_ + + + + +CONTENTS + + PAGE + + RAVENNA 1 + RIMINI 14 + MAY IN UMBRIA 32 + THE PALACE OF URBINO 50 + VITTORIA ACCORAMBONI 88 + AUTUMN WANDERINGS 127 + PARMA 147 + CANOSSA 163 + FORNOVO 180 + FLORENCE AND THE MEDICI 201 + THE DEBT OF ENGLISH TO ITALIAN LITERATURE 258 + POPULAR SONGS OF TUSCANY 276 + POPULAR ITALIAN POETRY OF THE RENAISSANCE 305 + THE 'ORFEO' OF POLIZIANO 345 + EIGHT SONNETS OF PETRARCH 365 + + + + + + + +SKETCHES AND STUDIES IN ITALY AND GREECE + + + + +_RAVENNA_ + + +The Emperor Augustus chose Ravenna for one of his two naval stations, +and in course of time a new city arose by the sea-shore, which +received the name of Portus Classis. Between this harbour and the +mother city a third town sprang up, and was called Cæsarea. Time and +neglect, the ravages of war, and the encroaching powers of Nature have +destroyed these settlements, and nothing now remains of the three +cities but Ravenna. It would seem that in classical times Ravenna +stood, like modern Venice, in the centre of a huge lagune, the fresh +waters of the Ronco and the Po mixing with the salt waves of the +Adriatic round its very walls. The houses of the city were built on +piles; canals instead of streets formed the means of communication, +and these were always filled with water artificially conducted from +the southern estuary of the Po. Round Ravenna extended a vast morass, +for the most part under shallow water, but rising at intervals into +low islands like the Lido or Murano or Torcello which surround Venice. +These islands were celebrated for their fertility: the vines and +fig-trees and pomegranates, springing from a fat and fruitful soil, +watered with constant moisture, and fostered by a mild sea-wind and +liberal sunshine, yielded crops that for luxuriance and quality +surpassed the harvests of any orchards on the mainland. All the +conditions of life in old Ravenna seem to have resembled those of +modern Venice; the people went about in gondolas, and in the early +morning barges laden with fresh fruit or meat and vegetables flocked +from all quarters to the city of the sea.[1] Water also had to be +procured from the neighbouring shore, for, as Martial says, a well at +Ravenna was more valuable than a vineyard. Again, between the city and +the mainland ran a long low causeway all across the lagune like that +on which the trains now glide into Venice. Strange to say, the air of +Ravenna was remarkably salubrious: this fact, and the ease of life +that prevailed there, and the security afforded by the situation of +the town, rendered it a most desirable retreat for the monarchs of +Italy during those troublous times in which the empire nodded to its +fall. Honorius retired to its lagunes for safety; Odoacer, who +dethroned the last Cæsar of the West, succeeded him; and was in turn, +supplanted by Theodoric the Ostrogoth. Ravenna, as we see it now, +recalls the peaceful and half-Roman rule of the great Gothic king. His +palace, his churches, and the mausoleums in which his daughter +Amalasuntha laid the hero's bones, have survived the sieges of +Belisarius and Astolphus, the conquest of Pepin, the bloody quarrels +of Iconoclasts with the children of the Roman Church, the mediæval +wars of Italy, the victory of Gaston de Foix, and still stand gorgeous +with marbles and mosaics in spite of time and the decay of all around +them. + +As early as the sixth century, the sea had already retreated to such a +distance from Ravenna that orchards and gardens were cultivated on +the spot where once the galleys of the Cæsars rode at anchor. Groves +of pines sprang up along the shore, and in their lofty tops the music +of the wind moved like the ghost of waves and breakers plunging upon +distant sands. This Pinetum stretches along the shore of the Adriatic +for about forty miles, forming a belt of variable width between the +great marsh and the tumbling sea. From a distance the bare stems and +velvet crowns of the pine-trees stand up like palms that cover an +oasis on Arabian sands; but at a nearer view the trunks detach +themselves from an inferior forest-growth of juniper and thorn and ash +and oak, the tall roofs of the stately firs shooting their breadth of +sheltering greenery above the lower and less sturdy brushwood. It is +hardly possible to imagine a more beautiful and impressive scene than +that presented by these long alleys of imperial pines. They grow so +thickly one behind another, that we might compare them to the pipes of +a great organ, or the pillars of a Gothic church, or the basaltic +columns of the Giant's Causeway. Their tops are evergreen and laden +with the heavy cones, from which Ravenna draws considerable wealth. +Scores of peasants are quartered on the outskirts of the forest, whose +business it is to scale the pines and rob them of their fruit at +certain seasons of the year. Afterwards they dry the fir-cones in the +sun, until the nuts which they contain fall out. The empty husks are +sold for firewood, and the kernels in their stony shells reserved for +exportation. You may see the peasants, men, women, and boys, sorting +them by millions, drying and sifting them upon the open spaces of the +wood, and packing them in sacks to send abroad through Italy. The +_pinocchi_ or kernels of the stone-pine are largely used in cookery, +and those of Ravenna are prized for their good quality and aromatic +flavour. When roasted or pounded, they taste like a softer and more +mealy kind of almonds. The task of gathering this harvest is not a +little dangerous. Men have to cut notches in the straight shafts, and +having climbed, often to the height of eighty feet, to lean upon the +branches, and detach the fir-cones with a pole--and this for every +tree. Some lives, they say, are yearly lost in the business. + +As may be imagined, the spaces of this great forest form the haunt of +innumerable living creatures. Lizards run about by myriads in the +grass. Doves coo among the branches of the pines, and nightingales +pour their full-throated music all day and night from thickets of +white-thorn and acacia. The air is sweet with aromatic scents: the +resin of the pine and juniper, the mayflowers and acacia-blossoms, the +violets that spring by thousands in the moss, the wild roses and faint +honeysuckles which throw fragrant arms from bough to bough of ash or +maple, join to make one most delicious perfume. And though the air +upon the neighbouring marsh is poisonous, here it is dry, and spreads +a genial health. The sea-wind murmuring through these thickets at +nightfall or misty sunrise, conveys no fever to the peasants stretched +among their flowers. They watch the red rays of sunset flaming through +the columns of the leafy hall, and flaring on its fretted rafters of +entangled boughs; they see the stars come out, and Hesper gleam, an +eye of brightness, among dewy branches; the moon walks silver-footed +on the velvet tree-tops, while they sleep beside the camp-fires; fresh +morning wakes them to the sound of birds and scent of thyme and +twinkling of dewdrops on the grass around. Meanwhile ague, fever, and +death have been stalking all night long about the plain, within a few +yards of their couch, and not one pestilential breath has reached the +charmed precincts of the forest. + +You may ride or drive for miles along green aisles between the pines +in perfect solitude; and yet the creatures of the wood, the sunlight +and the birds, the flowers and tall majestic columns at your side, +prevent all sense of loneliness or fear. Huge oxen haunt the +wilderness--grey creatures, with mild eyes and spreading horns and +stealthy tread. Some are patriarchs of the forest, the fathers and +the mothers of many generations who have been carried from their sides +to serve in ploughs or waggons on the Lombard plain. Others are +yearling calves, intractable and ignorant of labour. In order to +subdue them to the yoke, it is requisite to take them very early from +their native glades, or else they chafe and pine away with weariness. +Then there is a sullen canal, which flows through the forest from the +marshes to the sea; it is alive with frogs and newts and snakes. You +may see these serpents basking on the surface among thickets of the +flowering rush, or coiled about the lily leaves and flowers--lithe +monsters, slippery and speckled, the tyrants of the fen. + +It is said that when Dante was living at Ravenna he would spend whole +days alone among the forest glades, thinking of Florence and her civil +wars, and meditating cantos of his poem. Nor have the influences of +the pine-wood failed to leave their trace upon his verse. The charm of +its summer solitude seems to have sunk into his soul; for when he +describes the whispering of winds and singing birds among the boughs +of his terrestrial paradise, he says:-- + + Non però dal lor esser dritto sparte + Tanto, che gli augelletti per le cime + Lasciasser d' operare ogni lor arte: + Ma con piena letizia l' aure prime, + Cantando, ricevano intra le foglie, + Che tenevan bordone alle sue rime + Tal, qual di ramo in ramo si raccoglie + Per la pineta in sul lito di Chiassi + Quand' Eolo Scirocco fuor discioglie. + +With these verses in our minds, while wandering down the grassy +aisles, beside the waters of the solitary place, we seem to meet that +lady singing as she went, and plucking flower by flower, 'like +Proserpine when Ceres lost a daughter, and she lost her spring.' +There, too, the vision of the griffin and the car, of singing +maidens, and of Beatrice descending to the sound of Benedictus and of +falling flowers, her flaming robe and mantle green as grass, and veil +of white, and olive crown, all flashed upon the poet's inner eye, and +he remembered how he bowed before her when a boy. There is yet another +passage in which it is difficult to believe that Dante had not the +pine-forest in his mind. When Virgil and the poet were waiting in +anxiety before the gates of Dis, when the Furies on the wall were +tearing their breasts and crying, 'Venga Medusa, e si 'l farem di +smalto,' suddenly across the hideous river came a sound like that +which whirlwinds make among the shattered branches and bruised stems +of forest-trees; and Dante, looking out with fear upon the foam and +spray and vapour of the flood, saw thousands of the damned flying +before the face of one who forded Styx with feet unwet. 'Like frogs,' +he says, 'they fled, who scurry through the water at the sight of +their foe, the serpent, till each squats and hides himself close to +the ground.' The picture of the storm among the trees might well have +occurred to Dante's mind beneath the roof of pine-boughs. Nor is there +any place in which the simile of the frogs and water-snake attains +such dignity and grandeur. I must confess that till I saw the ponds +and marshes of Ravenna, I used to fancy that the comparison was +somewhat below the greatness of the subject; but there so grave a note +of solemnity and desolation is struck, the scale of Nature is so +large, and the serpents coiling in and out among the lily leaves and +flowers are so much in their right place, that they suggest a scene by +no means unworthy of Dante's conception. + +Nor is Dante the only singer who has invested this wood with poetical +associations. It is well known that Boccaccio laid his story of +'Honoria' in the pine-forest, and every student of English literature +must be familiar with the noble tale in verse which Dryden has founded +on this part of the 'Decameron.' We all of us have followed Theodore, +and watched with him the tempest swelling in the grove, and seen the +hapless ghost pursued by demon hounds and hunter down the glades. This +story should be read while storms are gathering upon the distant sea, +or thunderclouds descending from the Apennines, and when the pines +begin to rock and surge beneath the stress of labouring winds. Then +runs the sudden flash of lightning like a rapier through the boughs, +the rain streams hissing down, and the thunder 'breaks like a whole +sea overhead.' + +With the Pinetum the name of Byron will be for ever associated. During +his two years' residence in Ravenna he used to haunt its wilderness, +riding alone or in the company of friends. The inscription placed +above the entrance to the house he occupied alludes to it as one of +the objects which principally attracted the poet to the neighbourhood +of Ravenna: 'Impaziente di visitare l' antica selva, che inspirò già +il Divino e Giovanni Boccaccio.' We know, however, that a more +powerful attraction, in the person of the Countess Guiccioli, +maintained his fidelity to 'that place of old renown, once in the +Adrian Sea, Ravenna.' + +Between the Bosco, as the people of Ravenna call this pine-wood, and +the city, the marsh stretches for a distance of about three miles. It +is a plain intersected by dykes and ditches, and mapped out into +innumerable rice-fields. For more than half a year it lies under +water, and during the other months exhales a pestilential vapour, +which renders it as uninhabitable as the Roman Campagna; yet in +springtime this dreary flat is even beautiful. The young blades of the +rice shoot up above the water, delicately green and tender. The +ditches are lined with flowering rush and golden flags, while white +and yellow lilies sleep in myriads upon the silent pools. Tamarisks +wave their pink and silver tresses by the road, and wherever a plot of +mossy earth emerges from the marsh, it gleams with purple orchises and +flaming marigolds; but the soil beneath is so treacherous and spongy, +that these splendid blossoms grow like flowers in dreams or fairy +stories. You try in vain to pick them; they elude your grasp, and +flourish in security beyond the reach of arm or stick. + +Such is the sight of the old town of Classis. Not a vestige of the +Roman city remains, not a dwelling or a ruined tower, nothing but the +ancient church of S. Apollinare in Classe. Of all desolate buildings +this is the most desolate. Not even the deserted grandeur of S. Paolo +beyond the walls of Rome can equal it. Its bare round campanile gazes +at the sky, which here vaults only sea and plain--a perfect dome, +star-spangled like the roof of Galla Placidia's tomb. Ravenna lies low +to west, the pine-wood stretches away in long monotony to east. There +is nothing else to be seen except the spreading marsh, bounded by dim +snowy Alps and purple Apennines, so very far away that the level rack +of summer clouds seem more attainable and real. What sunsets and +sunrises that tower must see; what glaring lurid afterglows in August, +when the red light scowls upon the pestilential fen; what sheets of +sullen vapour rolling over it in autumn; what breathless heats, and +rainclouds big with thunder; what silences; what unimpeded blasts of +winter winds! One old monk tends this deserted spot. He has the huge +church, with its echoing aisles and marble columns and giddy +bell-tower and cloistered corridors, all to himself. At rare +intervals, priests from Ravenna come to sing some special mass at +these cold altars; pious folk make vows to pray upon their mouldy +steps and kiss the relics which are shown on great occasions. But no +one stays; they hurry, after muttering their prayers, from the +fever-stricken spot, reserving their domestic pieties and customary +devotions for the brighter and newer chapels of the fashionable +churches in Ravenna. So the old monk is left alone to sweep the marsh +water from his church floor, and to keep the green moss from growing +too thickly on its monuments. A clammy conferva covers everything +except the mosaics upon tribune, roof, and clerestory, which defy the +course of age. Christ on His throne _sedet aternumque sedebit_: the +saints around him glitter with their pitiless uncompromising eyes and +wooden gestures, as if twelve centuries had not passed over them, and +they were nightmares only dreamed last night, and rooted in a sick +man's memory. For those gaunt and solemn forms there is no change of +life or end of days. No fever touches them; no dampness of the wind +and rain loosens their firm cement. They stare with senseless faces in +bitter mockery of men who live and die and moulder away beneath. Their +poor old guardian told us it was a weary life. He has had the fever +three times, and does not hope to survive many more Septembers. The +very water that he drinks is brought him from Ravenna; for the vast +fen, though it pours its overflow upon the church floor, and spreads +like a lake around, is death to drink. The monk had a gentle woman's +voice and mild brown eyes. What terrible crime had consigned him to +this living tomb? For what past sorrow is he weary of his life? What +anguish of remorse has driven him to such a solitude? Yet he looked +simple and placid; his melancholy was subdued and calm, as if life +were over for him, and he were waiting for death to come with a +friend's greeting upon noiseless wings some summer night across the +fen-lands in a cloud of soft destructive fever-mist. + +Another monument upon the plain is worthy of a visit. It is the +so-called Colonna dei Francesi, a _cinquecento_ pillar of Ionic +design, erected on the spot where Gaston de Foix expired victorious +after one of the bloodiest battles ever fought. The Ronco, a straight +sluggish stream, flows by the lonely spot; mason bees have covered +with laborious stucco-work the scrolls and leafage of its ornaments, +confounding epitaphs and trophies under their mud houses. A few +cypress-trees stand round it, and the dogs and chickens of a +neighbouring farmyard make it their rendezvous. Those mason bees are +like posterity, which settles down upon the ruins of a Baalbec or a +Luxor, setting up its tents, and filling the fair spaces of Hellenic +or Egyptian temples with clay hovels. Nothing differs but the scale; +and while the bees content themselves with filling up and covering, +man destroys the silent places of the past which he appropriates. + +In Ravenna itself, perhaps what strikes us most is the abrupt +transition everywhere discernible from monuments of vast antiquity to +buildings of quite modern date. There seems to be no interval between +the marbles and mosaics of Justinian or Theodoric and the +insignificant frippery of the last century. The churches of +Ravenna--S. Vitale, S. Apollinare, and the rest--are too well known, +and have been too often described by enthusiastic antiquaries, to need +a detailed notice in this place. Every one is aware that the +ecclesiastical customs and architecture of the early Church can be +studied in greater perfection here than elsewhere. Not even the +basilicas and mosaics of Rome, nor those of Palermo and Monreale, are +equal for historical interest to those of Ravenna. Yet there is not +one single church which remains entirely unaltered and unspoiled. The +imagination has to supply the atrium or outer portico from one +building, the vaulted baptistery with its marble font from another, +the pulpits and ambones from a third the tribune from a fourth, the +round brick bell-tower from a fifth, and then to cover all the concave +roofs and chapel walls with grave and glittering mosaics. + +There is nothing more beautiful in decorative art than the mosaics of +such tiny buildings as the tomb of Galla Placidia or the chapel of the +Bishop's Palace. They are like jewelled and enamelled cases; not an +inch of wall can be seen which is not covered with elaborate patterns +of the brightest colours. Tall date-palms spring from the floor with +fruit and birds among their branches, and between them stand the +pillars and apostles of the Church. In the spandrels and lunettes +above the arches and the windows angels fly with white extended wings. +On every vacant place are scrolls and arabesques of foliage,--birds +and beasts, doves drinking from the vase, and peacocks spreading +gorgeous plumes--a maze of green and gold and blue. Overhead, the +vault is powdered with stars gleaming upon the deepest azure, and in +the midst is set an aureole embracing the majestic head of Christ, or +else the symbol of the sacred fish, or the hand of the Creator +pointing from a cloud. In Galla Placidia's tomb these storied vaults +spring above the sarcophagi of empresses and emperors, each lying in +the place where he was laid more than twelve centuries ago. The light +which struggles through the narrow windows serves to harmonise the +brilliant hues and make a gorgeous gloom. + +Besides these more general and decorative subjects, many of the +churches are adorned with historical mosaics, setting forth the Bible +narrative or incidents from the life of Christian emperors and kings. +In S. Apollinare Nuovo there is a most interesting treble series of +such mosaics extending over both walls of the nave. On the left hand, +as we enter, we see the town of Classis; on the right the palace of +Theodoric, its doors and loggie rich with curtains, and its friezes +blazing with coloured ornaments. From the city gate of Classis virgins +issue, and proceed in a long line until they reach Madonna seated on a +throne, with Christ upon her knees, and the three kings in adoration +at her feet. From Theodoric's palace door a similar procession of +saints and martyrs carry us to Christ surrounded by archangels. Above +this double row of saints and virgins stand the fathers and prophets +of the Church, and highest underneath the roof are pictures from the +life of our Lord. It will be remembered in connection with these +subjects that the women sat upon the left and the men upon the right +side of the church. Above the tribune, at the east end of the church, +it was customary to represent the Creative Hand, or the monogram of +the Saviour, or the head of Christ with the letters A and [Greek Ô]. +Moses and Elijah frequently stand on either side to symbolise the +transfiguration, while the saints and bishops specially connected with +the church appeared upon a lower row. Then on the side walls were +depicted such subjects as Justinian and Theodora among their +courtiers, or the grant of the privileges of the church to its first +founder from imperial patrons, with symbols of the old Hebraic +ritual--Abel's lamb, the sacrifice of Isaac, Melchisedec's offering of +bread and wine,--which were regarded as the types of Christian +ceremonies. The baptistery was adorned with appropriate mosaics +representing Christ's baptism in Jordan. + +Generally speaking, one is struck with the dignity of these designs, +and especially with the combined majesty and sweetness of the face of +Christ. The sense for harmony of hue displayed in their composition is +marvellous. It would be curious to trace in detail the remnants of +classical treatment which may be discerned--Jordan, for instance, +pours his water from an urn like a river-god crowned with sedge--or to +show what points of ecclesiastical tradition are established these +ancient monuments. We find Mariolatry already imminent, the names of +the three kings, Kaspar, Melchior, and Balthazar, the four evangelists +as we now recognise them, and many of the rites and vestments which +Ritualists of all denominations regard with superstitious reverence. + +There are two sepulchral monuments in Ravenna which cannot be passed +over unnoticed. The one is that of Theodoric the Goth, crowned by its +semisphere of solid stone, a mighty tomb, well worthy of the conqueror +and king. It stands in a green field, surrounded by acacias, where the +nightingales sing ceaselessly in May. The mason bees have covered it, +and the water has invaded its sepulchral vaults. In spite of many +trials, it seems that human art is unable to pump out the pond and +clear the frogs and efts from the chamber where the great Goth was +laid by Amalasuntha. + +The other is Dante's temple, with its basrelief and withered garlands. +The story of his burial, and of the discovery of his real tomb, is +fresh in the memory of every one. But the 'little cupola, more neat +than solemn,' of which Lord Byron speaks, will continue to be the goal +of many a pilgrimage. For myself--though I remember Chateaubriand's +bareheaded genuflection on its threshold, Alfieri's passionate +prostration at the altar-tomb, and Byron's offering of poems on the +poet's shrine--I confess that a single canto of the 'Inferno,' a +single passage of the 'Vita Nuova,' seems more full of soul-stirring +associations than the place where, centuries ago, the mighty dust was +laid. It is the spirit that lives and makes alive. And Dante's spirit +seems more present with us under the pine-branches of the Bosco than +beside his real or fancied tomb. 'He is risen,'--'Lo, I am with you +alway'--these are the words that ought to haunt us in a +burying-ground. There is something affected and self-conscious in +overpowering grief or enthusiasm or humiliation at a tomb. + + * * * * * + + + + +_RIMINI_ + +SIGISMONDO PANDOLFO MALATESTA AND LEO BATTISTA ALBERTI + + +Rimini is a city of about 18,000 souls, famous for its Stabilmento de' +Bagni and its antiquities, seated upon the coast of the Adriatic, a +little to the south-east of the world-historical Rubicon. It is our +duty to mention the baths first among its claims to distinction, +since the prosperity and cheerfulness of the little town depend on +them in a great measure. But visitors from the north will fly from +these, to marvel at the bridge which Augustus built and Tiberius +completed, and which still spans the Marecchia with five gigantic +arches of white Istrian limestone, as solidly as if it had not borne +the tramplings of at least three conquests. The triumphal arch, too, +erected in honour of Augustus, is a notable monument of Roman +architecture. Broad, ponderous, substantial, tufted here and there +with flowering weeds, and surmounted with mediaeval machicolations, +proving it to have sometimes stood for city gate or fortress, it +contrasts most favourably with the slight and somewhat gimcrack arch +of Trajan in the sister city of Ancona. Yet these remains of the +imperial pontifices, mighty and interesting as they are, sink into +comparative insignificance beside the one great wonder of Rimini, the +cathedral remodelled for Sigismondo Pandolfo Malatesta by Leo Battista +Alberti in 1450. This strange church, one of the earliest extant +buildings in which the Neopaganism of the Renaissance showed itself in +full force, brings together before our memory two men who might be +chosen as typical in their contrasted characters of the transitional +age which gave them birth. + +No one with any tincture of literary knowledge is ignorant of the fame +at least of the great Malatesta family--the house of the Wrongheads, +as they were rightly called by some prevision of their future part in +Lombard history. The readers of the twenty-seventh and twenty-eighth +cantos of the 'Inferno' have all heard of + + E il mastin vecchio e il nuovo da Verucchio + Che fecer di Montagna il mal governo, + +while the story of Francesca da Polenta, who was wedded to the +hunchback Giovanni Malatesta and murdered by him with her lover Paolo, +is known not merely to students of Dante, but to readers of Byron and +Leigh Hunt, to admirers of Flaxman, Ary Scheffer, Doré--to all, in +fact, who have of art and letters any love. + +The history of these Malatesti, from their first establishment under +Otho III. as lieutenants for the Empire in the Marches of Ancona, down +to their final subjugation by the Papacy in the age of the +Renaissance, is made up of all the vicissitudes which could befall a +mediaeval Italian despotism. Acquiring an unlawful right over the +towns of Rimini, Cesena, Sogliano, Ghiacciuolo, they ruled their petty +principalities like tyrants by the help of the Guelf and Ghibelline +factions, inclining to the one or the other as it suited their humour +or their interest, wrangling among themselves, transmitting the +succession of their dynasty through bastards and by deeds of force, +quarrelling with their neighbours the Counts of Urbino, alternately +defying and submitting to the Papal legates in Romagna, serving as +condottieri in the wars of the Visconti and the state of Venice, and +by their restlessness and genius for military intrigues contributing +in no slight measure to the general disturbance of Italy. The +Malatesti were a race of strongly marked character: more, perhaps, +than any other house of Italian tyrants, they combined for generations +those qualities of the fox and the lion, which Machiavelli thought +indispensable to a successful despot. Son after son, brother with +brother, they continued to be fierce and valiant soldiers, cruel in +peace, hardy in war, but treasonable and suspicious in all +transactions that could not be settled by the sword. Want of union, +with them as with the Baglioni and many other of the minor noble +families in Italy, prevented their founding a substantial dynasty. +Their power, based on force, was maintained by craft and crime, and +transmitted through tortuous channels by intrigue. While false in +their dealings with the world at large, they were diabolical in the +perfidy with which they treated one another. No feudal custom, no +standard of hereditary right, ruled the succession in their family. +Therefore the ablest Malatesta for the moment clutched what he could +of the domains that owned his house for masters. Partitions among sons +or brothers, mutually hostile and suspicious, weakened the whole +stock. Yet they were great enough to hold their own for centuries +among the many tyrants who infested Lombardy. That the other princely +families of Romagna, Emilia, and the March were in the same state of +internal discord and dismemberment, was probably one reason why the +Malatesti stood their ground so firmly as they did. + +So far as Rimini is concerned, the house of Malatesta culminated in +Sigismondo Pandolfo, son of Gian Galeazzo Visconti's general, the +perfidious Pandolfo. It was he who built the Rocca, or castle of the +despots, which stands a little way outside the town, commanding a fair +view of Apennine tossed hill-tops and broad Lombard plain, and who +remodelled the Cathedral of S. Francis on a plan suggested by the +greatest genius of the age. Sigismondo Pandolfo Malatesta was one of +the strangest products of the earlier Renaissance. To enumerate the +crimes which he committed within the sphere of his own family, +mysterious and inhuman outrages which render the tale of the Cenci +credible, would violate the decencies of literature. A thoroughly +bestial nature gains thus much with posterity that its worst qualities +must be passed by in silence. It is enough to mention that he murdered +three wives in succession,[2] Bussoni di Carmagnuola, Guinipera +d'Este, and Polissena Sforza, on various pretexts of infidelity, and +carved horns upon his own tomb with this fantastic legend +underneath:-- + + Porto le corna ch' ognuno le vede, + E tal le porta che non se lo crede. + +He died in wedlock with the beautiful and learned Isotta degli Atti, +who had for some time been his mistress. But, like most of the +Malatesti, he left no legitimate offspring. Throughout his life he was +distinguished for bravery and cunning, for endurance of fatigue and +rapidity of action, for an almost fretful rashness in the execution of +his schemes, and for a character terrible in its violence. He was +acknowledged as a great general; yet nothing succeeded with him. The +long warfare which he carried on against the Duke of Montefeltro ended +in his discomfiture. Having begun by defying the Holy See, he was +impeached at Rome for heresy, parricide, incest, adultery, rape, and +sacrilege, burned in effigy by Pope Pius II., and finally restored to +the bosom of the Church, after suffering the despoliation of almost +all his territories, in 1463. The occasion on which this fierce and +turbulent despiser of laws human and divine was forced to kneel as a +penitent before the Papal legate in the gorgeous temple dedicated to +his own pride, in order that the ban of excommunication might be +removed from Rimini, was one of those petty triumphs, interesting +chiefly for their picturesqueness, by which the Popes confirmed their +questionable rights over the cities of Romagna. Sigismondo, shorn of +his sovereignty, took the command of the Venetian troops against the +Turks in the Morea, and returned in 1465, crowned with laurels, to die +at Rimini in the scene of his old splendour. + +A very characteristic incident belongs to this last act of his life. +Dissolute, treacherous, and inhuman as he was, the tyrant of Rimini +had always encouraged literature, and delighted in the society of +artists. He who could brook no contradiction from a prince or soldier, +allowed the pedantic scholars of the sixteenth century to dictate to +him in matters of taste, and sat with exemplary humility at the feet +of Latinists like Porcellio, Basinio, and Trebanio. Valturio, the +engineer, and Alberti, the architect, were his familiar friends; and +the best hours of his life were spent in conversation with these men. +Now that he found himself upon the sacred soil of Greece, he was +determined not to return to Italy empty-handed. Should he bring +manuscripts or marbles, precious vases or inscriptions in half-legible +Greek character? These relics were greedily sought for by the +potentates of Italian cities; and no doubt Sigismondo enriched his +library with some such treasures. But he obtained a nobler +prize--nothing less than the body of a saint of scholarship, the +authentic bones of the great Platonist, Gemisthus Pletho.[3] These he +exhumed from their Greek grave and caused them to be deposited in a +stone sarcophagus outside the cathedral of his building in Rimini. The +Venetians, when they stole the body of S. Mark from Alexandria, were +scarcely more pleased than was Sigismondo with the acquisition of this +Father of the Neopagan faith. Upon the tomb we still may read this +legend: 'Jemisthii Bizantii philosopher sua temp principis reliquum +Sig. Pan. Mal. Pan. F. belli Pelop adversus Turcor regem Imp ob +ingentem eruditorum quo flagrat amorem huc afferendum introque +mittendum curavit MCCCCLXVI.' Of the Latinity of the inscription much +cannot be said; but it means that 'Sigismondo Pandolfo Malatesta, +having served as general against the Turks in the Morea, induced by +the great love with which he burns for all learned men, brought and +placed here the remains of Gemisthus of Byzantium, the prince of the +philosophers of his day.' + +Sigismondo's portrait, engraved on medals, and sculptured upon every +frieze and point of vantage in the Cathedral of Rimini, well denotes +the man. His face is seen in profile. The head, which is low and flat +above the forehead, rising swiftly backward from the crown, carries a +thick bushy shock of hair curling at the ends, such as the Italians +call a _zazzera_. The eye is deeply sunk, with long venomous flat +eyelids, like those which Leonardo gives to his most wicked faces. The +nose is long and crooked, curved like a vulture's over a petulant +mouth, with lips deliberately pressed together, as though it were +necessary to control some nervous twitching. The cheek is broad, and +its bone is strongly marked. Looking at these features in repose, we +cannot but picture to our fancy what expression they might assume +under a sudden fit of fury, when the sinews of the face were +contracted with quivering spasms, and the lips writhed in sympathy +with knit forehead and wrinkled eyelids. + +Allusion has been made to the Cathedral of S. Francis at Rimini, as +the great ornament of the town, and the chief monument of Sigismondo's +fame. It is here that all the Malatesti lie. Here too is the chapel +consecrated to Isotta, 'Divæ Isottæ Sacrum;' and the tombs of the +Malatesta ladies, 'Malatestorum domûs heroidum sepulchrum;' and +Sigismondo's own grave with the cuckold's horns and scornful epitaph. +Nothing but the fact that the church is duly dedicated to S. Francis, +and that its outer shell of classic marble encases an old Gothic +edifice, remains to remind us that it is a Christian place of +worship.[4] It has no sanctity, no spirit of piety. The pride of the +tyrant whose legend--'Sigismundus Pandulphus Malatesta Pan. F. Fecit +Anno Gratiæ MCCCCL'--occupies every arch and stringcourse of the +architecture, and whose coat-of-arms and portrait in medallion, with +his cipher and his emblems of an elephant and a rose, are wrought in +every piece of sculptured work throughout the building, seems so to +fill this house of prayer that there is no room left for God. Yet the +Cathedral of Rimini remains a monument of first-rate importance for +all students who seek to penetrate the revived Paganism of the +fifteenth century. It serves also to bring a far more interesting +Italian of that period than the tyrant of Rimini himself, before our +notice. + +In the execution of his design, Sigismondo received the assistance of +one of the most remarkable men of this or any other age. Leo Battista +Alberti, a scion of the noble Florentine house of that name, born +during the exile of his parents, and educated in the Venetian +territory, was endowed by nature with aptitudes, faculties, and +sensibilities so varied, as to deserve the name of universal genius. +Italy in the Renaissance period was rich in natures of this sort, to +whom nothing that is strange or beautiful seemed unfamiliar, and who, +gifted with a kind of divination, penetrated the secrets of the world +by sympathy. To Pico della Mirandola, Lionardo da Vinci, and Michel +Agnolo Buonarroti may be added Leo Battista Alberti. That he achieved +less than his great compeers, and that he now exists as the shadow of +a mighty name, was the effect of circumstances. He came half a century +too early into the world, and worked as a pioneer rather than a +settler of the realm which Lionardo ruled as his demesne. Very early +in his boyhood Alberti showed the versatility of his talents. The use +of arms, the management of horses, music, painting, modelling for +sculpture, mathematics, classical and modern literature, physical +science as then comprehended, and all the bodily exercises proper to +the estate of a young nobleman, were at his command. His biographer +asserts that he was never idle, never subject to ennui or fatigue. He +used to say that books at times gave him the same pleasure as +brilliant jewels or perfumed flowers: hunger and sleep could not keep +him from them then. At other times the letters on the page appeared to +him like twining and contorted scorpions, so that he preferred to gaze +on anything but written scrolls. He would then turn to music or +painting, or to the physical sports in which he excelled. The language +in which this alternation of passion and disgust for study is +expressed, bears on it the stamp of Alberti's peculiar temperament, +his fervid and imaginative genius, instinct with subtle sympathies and +strange repugnances. Flying from his study, he would then betake +himself to the open air. No one surpassed him in running, in +wrestling, in the force with which he cast his javelin or discharged +his arrows. So sure was his aim and so skilful his cast, that he could +fling a farthing from the pavement of the square, and make it ring +against a church roof far above. When he chose to jump, he put his +feet together and bounded over the shoulders of men standing erect +upon the ground. On horseback he maintained perfect equilibrium, and +seemed incapable of fatigue. The most restive and vicious animals +trembled under him and became like lambs. There was a kind of +magnetism in the man. We read, besides these feats of strength and +skill, that he took pleasure in climbing mountains, for no other +purpose apparently than for the joy of being close to nature. + +In this, as in many other of his instincts, Alberti was before his +age. To care for the beauties of landscape unadorned by art, and to +sympathise with sublime or rugged scenery, was not in the spirit of +the Renaissance. Humanity occupied the attention of poets and +painters; and the age was yet far distant when the pantheistic feeling +for the world should produce the art of Wordsworth and of Turner. Yet +a few great natures even then began to comprehend the charm and +mystery which the Greeks had imaged in their Pan, the sense of an +all-pervasive spirit in wild places, the feeling of a hidden want, the +invisible tie which makes man a part of rocks and woods and streams +around him. Petrarch had already ascended the summit of Mont Ventoux, +to meditate, with an exaltation of the soul he scarcely understood, +upon the scene spread at his feet and above his head. Æneas Sylvius +Piccolomini delighted in wild places for no mere pleasure of the +chase, but for the joy he took in communing with nature. How S. +Francis found God in the sun and the air, the water and the stars, we +know by his celebrated hymn; and of Dante's acute observation, every +canto of the 'Divine Comedy' is witness. + +Leo Alberti was touched in spirit by even a deeper and a stranger +pathos than any of these men: 'In the early spring, when he beheld the +meadows and hills covered with flowers, and saw the trees and plants +of all kinds bearing promise of fruit, his heart became exceeding +sorrowful; and when in autumn he looked on fields heavy with harvest +and orchards apple-laden, he felt such grief that many even saw him +weep for the sadness of his soul.' It would seem that he scarcely +understood the source of this sweet trouble: for at such times he +compared the sloth and inutility of men with the industry and +fertility of nature; as though this were the secret of his melancholy. +A poet of our century has noted the same stirring of the spirit, and +has striven to account for it:-- + + Tears from the depth of some divine despair + Rise in the heart, and gather to the eyes, + In looking on the happy autumn fields, + And thinking of the days that are no more. + +Both Alberti and Tennyson have connected the _mal du pays_ of the +human soul for that ancient country of its birth, the mild Saturnian +earth from which we sprang, with a sense of loss. It is the waste of +human energy that affects Alberti; the waste of human life touches the +modern poet. Yet both perhaps have scarcely interpreted their own +spirit; for is not the true source of tears deeper and more secret? +Man is a child of nature in the simplest sense; and the stirrings of +the secular breasts that gave him suck, and on which he even now must +hang, have potent influences over his emotions. + +Of Alberti's extraordinary sensitiveness to all such impressions many +curious tales are told. The sight of refulgent jewels, of flowers, and +of fair landscapes, had the same effect upon his nerves as the sound +of the Dorian mood upon the youths whom Pythagoras cured of passion by +music. He found in them an anodyne for pain, a restoration from +sickness. Like Walt Whitman, who adheres to nature by closer and more +vital sympathy than any other poet of the modern world, Alberti felt +the charm of excellent old age no less than that of florid youth. 'On +old men gifted with a noble presence and hale and vigorous, he gazed +again and again, and said that he revered in them the delights of +nature (_naturæ delitias_).' Beasts and birds and all living creatures +moved him to admiration for the grace with which they had been gifted, +each in his own kind. It is even said that he composed a funeral +oration for a dog which he had loved and which died. + +To this sensibility for all fair things in nature, Alberti added the +charm of a singularly sweet temper and graceful conversation. The +activity of his mind, which was always being exercised on subjects of +grave speculation, removed him from the noise and bustle of +commonplace society. He was somewhat silent, inclined to solitude, +and of a pensive countenance; yet no man found him difficult of +access: his courtesy was exquisite, and among familiar friends he was +noted for the flashes of a delicate and subtle wit. Collections were +made of his apophthegms by friends, and some are recorded by his +anonymous biographer.[5] Their finer perfume, as almost always happens +with good sayings which do not certain the full pith of a proverb, but +owe their force, in part at least, to the personality of their author, +and to the happy moment of their production, has evanesced. Here, +however, is one which seems still to bear the impress of Alberti's +genius: 'Gold is the soul of labour, and labour the slave of +pleasure.' Of women he used to say that their inconstancy was an +antidote to their falseness; for if a woman could but persevere in +what she undertook, all the fair works of men would be ruined. One of +his strongest moral sentences is aimed at envy, from which he suffered +much in his own life, and against which he guarded with a curious +amount of caution. His own family grudged the distinction which his +talents gained for him, and a dark story is told of a secret attempt +made by them to assassinate him through his servants. Alberti met +these ignoble jealousies with a stately calm and a sweet dignity of +demeanour, never condescending to accuse his relatives, never seeking +to retaliate, but acting always for the honour of his illustrious +house. In the same spirit of generosity he refused to enter into wordy +warfare with detractors and calumniators, sparing the reputation even +of his worst enemy when chance had placed him in his power. This +moderation both of speech and conduct was especially distinguished in +an age which tolerated the fierce invectives of Filelfo, and applauded +the vindictive courage of Cellini. To money Alberti showed a calm +indifference. He committed his property to his friends and shared with +them in common. Nor was he less careless about vulgar fame, spending +far more pains in the invention of machinery and the discovery of +laws, than in their publication to the world. His service was to +knowledge, not to glory. Self-control was another of his eminent +qualities. With the natural impetuosity of a large heart, and the +vivacity of a trained athlete, he yet never allowed himself to be +subdued by anger or by sensual impulses, but took pains to preserve +his character unstained and dignified before the eyes of men. A story +is told of him which may remind us of Goethe's determination to +overcome his giddiness. In his youth his head was singularly sensitive +to changes of temperature; but by gradual habituation he brought +himself at last to endure the extremes of heat and cold bareheaded. In +like manner he had a constitutional disgust for onions and honey; so +powerful, that the very sight of these things made him sick. Yet by +constantly viewing and touching what was disagreeable, he conquered +these dislikes; and proved that men have a complete mastery over what +is merely instinctive in their nature. His courage corresponded to his +splendid physical development. When a boy of fifteen, he severely +wounded himself in the foot. The gash had to be probed and then sewn +up. Alberti not only bore the pain of this operation without a groan, +but helped the surgeon with his own hands; and effected a cure of the +fever which succeeded by the solace of singing to his cithern. For +music he had a genius of the rarest order; and in painting he is said +to have achieved success. Nothing, however, remains of his work and +from what Vasari says of it, we may fairly conclude that he gave less +care to the execution of finished pictures, than to drawings +subsidiary to architectural and mechanical designs. His biographer +relates that when he had completed a painting, he called children and +asked them what it meant. If they did not know, he reckoned it a +failure. He was also in the habit of painting from memory. While at +Venice, he put on canvas the faces of friends at Florence whom he had +not seen for months. That the art of painting was subservient in his +estimation to mechanics, is indicated by what we hear about the +camera, in which he showed landscapes by day and the revolutions of +the stars by night, so lively drawn that the spectators were affected +with amazement. The semi-scientific impulse to extend man's mastery +over nature, the magician's desire to penetrate secrets, which so +powerfully influenced the development of Lionardo's genius, seems to +have overcome the purely æsthetic instincts of Alberti, so that he +became in the end neither a great artist like Raphael, nor a great +discoverer like Galileo, but rather a clairvoyant to whom the miracles +of nature and of art lie open. + +After the first period of youth was over, Leo Battista Alberti devoted +his great faculties and all his wealth of genius to the study of the +law--then, as now, the quicksand of the noblest natures. The industry +with which he applied himself to the civil and ecclesiastical codes +broke his health. For recreation he composed a Latin comedy called +'Philodoxeos,' which imposed upon the judgment of scholars, and was +ascribed as a genuine antique to Lepidus, the comic poet. Feeling +stronger, Alberti returned at the age of twenty to his law studies, +and pursued them in the teeth of disadvantages. His health was still +uncertain, and the fortune of an exile reduced him to the utmost want. +It was no wonder that under these untoward circumstances even his +Herculean strength gave way. Emaciated and exhausted, he lost the +clearness of his eyesight, and became subject to arterial +disturbances, which filled his ears with painful sounds. This nervous +illness is not dissimilar to that which Rousseau describes in the +confessions of his youth. In vain, however, his physicians warned +Alberti of impending peril. A man of so much stanchness, accustomed +to control his nature with an iron will, is not ready to accept +advice. Alberti persevered in his studies, until at last the very seat +of intellect was invaded. His memory began to fail him for names, +while he still retained with wonderful accuracy whatever he had seen +with his eyes. It was now impossible to think of law as a profession. +Yet since he could not live without severe mental exercise, he had +recourse to studies which tax the verbal memory less than the +intuitive faculties of the reason. Physics and mathematics became his +chief resource; and he devoted his energies to literature. His +'Treatise on the Family' may be numbered among the best of those +compositions on social and speculative subjects in which the Italians +of the Renaissance sought to rival Cicero. His essays on the arts are +mentioned by Vasari with sincere approbation. Comedies, interludes, +orations, dialogues, and poems flowed with abundance from his facile +pen. Some were written in Latin, which he commanded more than fairly; +some in the Tuscan tongue, of which owing to the long exile of his +family in Lombardy, he is said to have been less a master. It was +owing to this youthful illness, from which apparently his constitution +never wholly recovered, that Alberti's genius was directed to +architecture. + +Through his friendship with Flavio Biondo, the famous Roman antiquary, +Alberti received an introduction to Nicholas V. at the time when this, +the first great Pope of the Renaissance, was engaged in rebuilding the +palaces and fortifications of Rome. Nicholas discerned the genius of +the man, and employed him as his chief counsellor in all matters of +architecture. When the Pope died, he was able, while reciting his long +Latin will upon his deathbed, to boast that he had restored the Holy +See to its due dignity, and the Eternal City to the splendour worthy +of the seat of Christendom. The accomplishment of the second part of +his work he owed to the genius of Alberti. After doing thus much for +Rome under Thomas of Sarzana, and before beginning to beautify +Florence at the instance of the Rucellai family, Alberti entered the +service of the Malatesta, and undertook to remodel the Cathedral of S. +Francis at Rimini. He found it a plain Gothic structure with apse and +side chapels. Such churches are common enough in Italy, where pointed +architecture never developed its true character of complexity and +richness, but was doomed to the vast vacuity exemplified in S. +Petronio of Bologna. He left it a strange medley of mediæval and +Renaissance work, a symbol of that dissolving scene in the world's +pantomime, when the spirit of classic art, as yet but little +comprehended, was encroaching on the early Christian taste. Perhaps +the mixture of styles so startling in S. Francesco ought not to be +laid to the charge of Alberti, who had to execute the task of turning +a Gothic into a classic building. All that he could do was to alter +the whole exterior of the church, by affixing a screen-work of Roman +arches and Corinthian pilasters, so as to hide the old design and yet +to leave the main features of the fabric, the windows and doors +especially, _in statu quo_. With the interior he dealt upon the same +general principle, by not disturbing its structure, while he covered +every available square inch of surface with decorations alien to the +Gothic manner. Externally, S. Francesco is perhaps the most original +and graceful of the many attempts made by Italian builders to fuse the +mediæval and the classic styles. For Alberti attempted nothing less. A +century elapsed before Palladio, approaching the problem from a +different point of view, restored the antique in its purity, and +erected in the Palazzo della Ragione of Vicenza an almost unique +specimen of resuscitated Roman art. + +Internally, the beauty of the church is wholly due to its exquisite +wall-ornaments. These consist for the most part of low reliefs in a +soft white stone, many of them thrown out upon a blue ground in the +style of Della Robbia. Allegorical figures designed with the purity of +outline we admire in Botticelli, draperies that Burne-Jones might +copy, troops of singing boys in the manner of Donatello, great angels +traced upon the stone so delicately that they seem to be rather drawn +than sculptured, statuettes in niches, personifications of all arts +and sciences alternating with half-bestial shapes of satyrs and +sea-children:--such are the forms which fill the spaces of the chapel +walls, and climb the pilasters, and fret the arches, in such abundance +that had the whole church been finished as it was designed, it would +have presented one splendid though bizarre effect of incrustation. +Heavy screens of Verona marble, emblazoned in open arabesques with the +ciphers of Sigismondo and Isotta, with coats-of-arms, emblems, and +medallion portraits, shut the chapels from the nave. Who produced all +this sculpture it is difficult to say. Some of it is very good: much +is indifferent. We may hazard the opinion that, besides Bernardo +Ciuffagni, of whom Vasari speaks, some pupils of Donatello and +Benedetto da Majano worked at it. The influence of the sculptors of +Florence is everywhere perceptible. + +Whatever be the merit of these reliefs, there is no doubt that they +fairly represent one of the most interesting moments in the history of +modern art. Gothic inspiration had failed; the early Tuscan style of +the Pisani had been worked out; Michelangelo was yet far distant, and +the abundance of classic models had not overwhelmed originality. The +sculptors of the school of Ghiberti and Donatello, who are represented +in this church, were essentially pictorial, preferring low to high +relief, and relief in general to detached figures. Their style, like +the style of Boiardo in poetry, of Botticelli in painting, is specific +to Italy in the middle of the fifteenth century. Mediæval standards of +taste were giving way to classical, Christian sentiment to Pagan; yet +the imitation of the antique had not been carried so far as to efface +the spontaneity of the artist, and enough remained of Christian +feeling to tinge the fancy with a grave and sweet romance. The +sculptor had the skill and mastery to express his slightest shade of +thought with freedom, spirit, and precision. Yet his work showed no +sign of conventionality, no adherence to prescribed rules. Every +outline, every fold of drapery, every attitude was pregnant, to the +artist's own mind at any rate, with meaning. In spite of its +symbolism, what he wrought was never mechanically figurative, but +gifted with the independence of its own beauty, vital with an +inbreathed spirit of life. It was a happy moment, when art had reached +consciousness, and the artist had not yet become self-conscious. The +hand and the brain then really worked together for the procreation of +new forms of grace, not for the repetition of old models, or for the +invention of the strange and startling. 'Delicate, sweet, and +captivating,' are good adjectives to express the effect produced upon +the mind by the contemplation even of the average work of this period. + +To study the flowing lines of the great angels traced upon the walls +of the Chapel of S. Sigismund in the Cathedral of Rimini, to follow +the undulations of their drapery that seems to float, to feel the +dignified urbanity of all their gestures, is like listening to one of +those clear early Italian compositions for the voice, which surpasses +in suavity of tone and grace of movement all that Music in her +full-grown vigour has produced. There is indeed something infinitely +charming in the crepuscular moments of the human mind. Whether it be +the rathe loveliness of an art still immature, or the beauty of art +upon the wane--whether, in fact, the twilight be of morning or of +evening, we find in the masterpieces of such periods a placid calm and +chastened pathos, as of a spirit self-withdrawn from vulgar cares, +which in the full light of meridian splendour is lacking. In the +Church of S. Francesco at Rimini the tempered clearness of the dawn is +just about to broaden into day. + + * * * * * + + + + +_MAY IN UMBRIA_ + +FROM ROME TO TERNI + + +We left Rome in clear sunset light. The Alban Hills defined themselves +like a cameo of amethyst upon a pale blue distance; and over the +Sabine Mountains soared immeasurable moulded domes of alabaster +thunderclouds, casting deep shadows, purple and violet, across the +slopes of Tivoli. To westward the whole sky was lucid, like some +half-transparent topaz, flooded with slowly yellowing sunbeams. The +Campagna has often been called a garden of wild-flowers. Just now +poppy and aster, gladiolus and thistle, embroider it with patterns +infinite and intricate beyond the power of art. They have already mown +the hay in part; and the billowy tracts of greyish green, where no +flowers are now in bloom, supply a restful groundwork to those +brilliant patches of diapered _fioriture_. These are like +praying-carpets spread for devotees upon the pavement of a mosque +whose roof is heaven. In the level light the scythes of the mowers +flash as we move past. From their bronzed foreheads the men toss +masses of dark curls. Their muscular flanks and shoulders sway +sideways from firm yet pliant reins. On one hill, fronting the sunset, +there stands a herd of some thirty huge grey oxen, feeding and raising +their heads to look at us, with just a flush of crimson on their +horns and dewlaps. This is the scale of Mason's and of Costa's +colouring. This is the breadth and magnitude of Rome. + +Thus, through dells of ilex and oak, yielding now a glimpse of Tiber +and S. Peter's, now opening on a purple section of the distant Sabine +Hills, we came to Monte Rotondo. The sun sank; and from the flames +where he had perished, Hesper and the thin moon, very white and keen, +grew slowly into sight. Now we follow the Tiber, a swollen, hurrying, +turbid river, in which the mellowing Western sky reflects itself. This +changeful mirror of swift waters spreads a dazzling foreground to +valley, hill, and lustrous heaven. There is orange on the far horizon, +and a green ocean above, in which sea-monsters fashioned from the +clouds are floating. Yonder swims an elf with luminous hair astride +upon a sea-horse, and followed by a dolphin plunging through the fiery +waves. The orange deepens into dying red. The green divides into +daffodil and beryl. The blue above grows fainter, and the moon and +stars shine stronger. + +Through these celestial changes we glide into a landscape fit for +Francia and the early Umbrian painters. Low hills to right and left; +suavely modelled heights in the far distance; a very quiet width of +plain, with slender trees ascending into the pellucid air; and down in +the mystery of the middle distance a glimpse of heaven-reflecting +water. The magic of the moon and stars lends enchantment to this +scene. No painting could convey their influences. Sometimes both +luminaries tremble, all dispersed and broken, on the swirling river. +Sometimes they sleep above the calm cool reaches of a rush-grown mere. +And here and there a ruined turret, with a broken window and a tuft +of shrubs upon the rifted battlement, gives value to the fading pallor +of the West. The last phase in the sunset is a change to blue-grey +monochrome, faintly silvered with starlight; hills, Tiber, fields and +woods, all floating in aërial twilight. There is no definition of +outline now. The daffodil of the horizon has faded into scarcely +perceptible pale greenish yellow. + +We have passed Stimigliano. Through the mystery of darkness we hurry +past the bridges of Augustus and the lights of Narni. + + +THE CASCADES OF TERNI + + +The Velino is a river of considerable volume which rises in the +highest region of the Abruzzi, threads the upland valley of Rieti, and +precipitates itself by an artificial channel over cliffs about seven +hundred feet in height into the Nera. The water is densely charged +with particles of lime. This calcareous matter not only tends +continually to choke its bed, but clothes the precipices over which +the torrent thunders with fantastic drapery of stalactite; and, +carried on the wind in foam, incrusts the forests that surround the +falls with fine white dust. These famous cascades are undoubtedly the +most sublime and beautiful which Europe boasts; and their situation is +worthy of so great a natural wonder. We reach them through a noble +mid-Italian landscape, where the mountain forms are austere and boldly +modelled, but the vegetation, both wild and cultivated, has something +of the South-Italian richness. The hillsides are a labyrinth of box +and arbutus, with coronilla in golden bloom. The turf is starred with +cyclamens and orchises. Climbing the staircase paths beside the falls +in morning sunlight, or stationed on the points of vantage that +command their successive cataracts, we enjoyed a spectacle which might +be compared in its effect upon the mind to the impression left by a +symphony or a tumultuous lyric. The turbulence and splendour, the +swiftness and resonance, the veiling of the scene in smoke of +shattered water-masses, the withdrawal of these veils according as the +volume of the river slightly shifted in its fall, the rainbows +shimmering on the silver spray, the shivering of poplars hung above +impendent precipices, the stationary grandeur of the mountains keeping +watch around, the hurry and the incoherence of the cataracts, the +immobility of force and changeful changelessness in nature, were all +for me the elements of one stupendous poem. It was like an ode of +Shelley translated into symbolism, more vivid through inarticulate +appeal to primitive emotion than any words could be. + + +MONTEFALCO + + +The rich land of the Clitumnus is divided into meadows by transparent +watercourses, gliding with a glassy current over swaying reeds. +Through this we pass, and leave Bevagna to the right, and ascend one +of those long gradual roads which climb the hills where all the cities +of the Umbrians perch. The view expands, revealing Spello, Assisi, +Perugia on its mountain buttress, and the far reaches northward of the +Tiber valley. Then Trevi and Spoleto came into sight, and the severe +hill-country above Gubbio in part disclosed itself. Over Spoleto the +fierce witch-haunted heights of Norcia rose forbidding. This is the +kind of panorama that dilates the soul. It is so large, so dignified, +so beautiful in tranquil form. The opulent abundance of the plain +contrasts with the severity of mountain ranges desolately grand; and +the name of each of all those cities thrills the heart with memories. + +The main object of a visit to Montefalco is to inspect its many +excellent frescoes; painted histories of S. Francis and S. Jerome, by +Benozzo Gozzoli; saints, angels, and Scripture episodes by the gentle +Tiberio d'Assisi. Full justice had been done to these, when a little +boy, seeing us lingering outside the church of S. Chiara, asked +whether we should not like to view the body of the saint. This +privilege could be purchased at the price of a small fee. It was only +necessary to call the guardian of her shrine at the high altar. +Indolent, and in compliant mood, with languid curiosity and half an +hour to spare, we assented. A handsome young man appeared, who +conducted us with decent gravity into a little darkened chamber behind +the altar. There he lighted wax tapers, opened sliding doors in what +looked like a long coffin, and drew curtains. Before us in the dim +light there lay a woman covered with a black nun's dress. Only her +hands, and the exquisitely beautiful pale contour of her face +(forehead, nose, mouth, and chin, modelled in purest outline, as +though the injury of death had never touched her) were visible. Her +closed eyes seemed to sleep. She had the perfect peace of Luini's S. +Catherine borne by the angels to her grave on Sinai. I have rarely +seen anything which surprised and touched me more. The religious +earnestness of the young custode, the hushed adoration of the +country-folk who had silently assembled round us, intensified the +sympathy-inspiring beauty of the slumbering girl. Could Julia, +daughter of Claudius, have been fairer than this maiden, when the +Lombard workmen found her in her Latin tomb, and brought her to be +worshipped on the Capitol? S. Chiara's shrine was hung round with her +relics; and among these the heart extracted from her body was +suspended. Upon it, apparently wrought into the very substance of the +mummied flesh, were impressed a figure of the crucified Christ, the +scourge, and the five stigmata. The guardian's faith in this +miraculous witness to her sainthood, the gentle piety of the men and +women who knelt before it, checked all expressions of incredulity. We +abandoned ourselves to the genius of the place; forgot even to ask +what Santa Chiara was sleeping here; and withdrew, toned to a not +unpleasing melancholy. The world-famous S. Clair, the spiritual sister +of S. Francis, lies in Assisi. I have often asked myself, Who, then, +was this nun? What history had she? And I think now of this girl as of +a damsel of romance, a Sleeping Beauty in the wood of time, secluded +from intrusive elements of fact, and folded in the love and faith of +her own simple worshippers. Among the hollows of Arcadia, how many +rustic shrines in ancient days held saints of Hellas, apocryphal, +perhaps, like this, but hallowed by tradition and enduring homage![6] + + +FOLIGNO + + +In the landscape of Raphael's votive picture, known as the Madonna di +Foligno, there is a town with a few towers, placed upon a broad plain +at the edge of some blue hills. Allowing for that license as to +details which imaginative masters permitted themselves in matters of +subordinate importance, Raphael's sketch is still true to Foligno. The +place has not materially changed since the beginning of the sixteenth +century. Indeed, relatively to the state of Italy at large, it is +still the same as in the days of ancient Rome. Foligno forms a station +of commanding interest between Rome and the Adriatic upon the great +Flaminian Way. At Foligno the passes of the Apennines debouch into the +Umbrian plain, which slopes gradually toward the valley of the Tiber, +and from it the valley of the Nera is reached by an easy ascent +beneath the walls of Spoleto. An army advancing from the north by the +Metaurus and the Furlo Pass must find itself at Foligno; and the level +champaign round the city is well adapted to the maintenance and +exercises of a garrison. In the days of the Republic and the Empire, +the value of this position was well understood; but Foligno's +importance, as the key to the Flaminian Way, was eclipsed by two +flourishing cities in its immediate vicinity, Hispellum and Mevania, +the modern Spello and Bevagna. We might hazard a conjecture that the +Lombards, when they ruled the Duchy of Spoleto, following their usual +policy of opposing new military centres to the ancient Roman +municipia, encouraged Fulginium at the expense of her two neighbours. +But of this there is no certainty to build upon. All that can be +affirmed with accuracy is that in the Middle Ages, while Spello and +Bevagna declined into the inferiority of dependent burghs, Foligno +grew in power and became the chief commune of this part of Umbria. It +was famous during the last centuries of struggle between the Italian +burghers and their native despots, for peculiar ferocity in civil +strife. Some of the bloodiest pages in mediæval Italian history are +those which relate the vicissitudes of the Trinci family, the +exhaustion of Foligno by internal discord, and its final submission to +the Papal power. Since railways have been carried from Rome through +Narni and Spoleto to Ancona and Perugia, Foligno has gained +considerably in commercial and military status. It is the point of +intersection for three lines; the Italian government has made it a +great cavalry depôt, and there are signs of reviving traffic in its +decayed streets. Whether the presence of a large garrison has already +modified the population, or whether we may ascribe something to the +absence of Roman municipal institutions in the far past, and to the +savagery of the mediæval period, it is difficult to say. Yet the +impression left by Foligno upon the mind is different from that of +Assisi, Spello, and Montefalco, which are distinguished for a certain +grace and gentleness in their inhabitants. + +My window in the city wall looks southward across the plain to +Spoleto, with Montefalco perched aloft upon the right, and Trevi on +its mountain-bracket to the left. From the topmost peaks of the Sabine +Apennines, gradual tender sloping lines descend to find their quiet in +the valley of Clitumnus. The space between me and that distance is +infinitely rich with every sort of greenery, dotted here and there +with towers and relics of baronial houses. The little town is in +commotion; for the working men of Foligno and its neighbourhood have +resolved to spend their earnings on a splendid festa--horse-races, and +two nights of fireworks. The acacias and paulownias on the ramparts +are in full bloom of creamy white and lilac. In the glare of Bengal +lights these trees, with all their pendulous blossoms, surpassed the +most fantastic of artificial decorations. The rockets sent aloft into +the sky amid that solemn Umbrian landscape were nowise out of harmony +with nature. I never sympathised with critics who resent the intrusion +of fireworks upon scenes of natural beauty. The Giessbach, lighted up +at so much per head on stated evenings, with a band playing and a +crowd of cockneys staring, presents perhaps an incongruous spectacle. +But where, as here at Foligno, a whole city has made itself a +festival, where there are multitudes of citizens and soldiers and +country-people slowly moving and gravely admiring, with the decency +and order characteristic of an Italian crowd, I have nothing but a +sense of satisfaction. + +It is sometimes the traveller's good fortune in some remote place to +meet with an inhabitant who incarnates and interprets for him the +_genius loci_ as he has conceived it. Though his own subjectivity will +assuredly play a considerable part in such an encounter, transferring +to his chance acquaintance qualities he may not possess, and +connecting this personality in some purely imaginative manner with +thoughts derived from study, or impressions made by nature; yet the +stranger will henceforth become the meeting-point of many memories, +the central figure in a composition which derives from him its +vividness. Unconsciously and innocently he has lent himself to the +creation of a picture, and round him, as around the hero of a myth, +have gathered thoughts and sentiments of which he had himself no +knowledge. On one of these nights I had been threading the aisles of +acacia-trees, now glaring red, now azure, as the Bengal lights kept +changing. My mind instinctively went back to scenes of treachery and +bloodshed in the olden time, when Gorrado Trinci paraded the mangled +remnants of three hundred of his victims, heaped on mule-back, through +Foligno, for a warning to the citizens. As the procession moved along +the ramparts, I found myself in contest with a young man, who readily +fell into conversation. He was very tall, with enormous breadth of +shoulders, and long sinewy arms, like Michelangelo's favourite models. +His head was small, curled over with crisp black hair. Low forehead, +and thick level eyebrows absolutely meeting over intensely bright +fierce eyes. The nose descending straight from the brows, as in a +statue of Hadrian's age. The mouth full-lipped, petulant, and +passionate above a firm round chin. He was dressed in the shirt, white +trousers, and loose white jacket of a contadino; but he did not move +with a peasant's slouch, rather with the elasticity and alertness of +an untamed panther. He told me that he was just about to join a +cavalry regiment; and I could well imagine, when military dignity was +added to that gait, how grandly he would go. This young man, of whom I +heard nothing more after our half-hour's conversation among the +crackling fireworks and roaring cannon, left upon my mind an +indescribable impression of dangerousness--of 'something fierce and +terrible, eligible to burst forth.' Of men like this, then, were +formed the Companies of Adventure who flooded Italy with villany, +ambition, and lawlessness in the fifteenth century. Gattamelata, who +began life as a baker's boy at Narni and ended it with a bronze statue +by Donatello on the public square in Padua, was of this breed. Like +this were the Trinci and their bands of murderers. Like this were the +bravi who hunted Lorenzaccio to death at Venice. Like this was Pietro +Paolo Baglioni, whose fault, in the eyes of Machiavelli, was that he +could not succeed in being 'perfettamente tristo.' Beautiful, but +inhuman; passionate, but cold; powerful, but rendered impotent for +firm and lofty deeds by immorality and treason; how many centuries of +men like this once wasted Italy and plunged her into servitude! Yet +what material is here, under sterner discipline, and with a nobler +national ideal, for the formation of heroic armies. Of such stuff, +doubtless, were the Roman legionaries. When will the Italians learn to +use these men as Fabius or as Cæsar, not as the Vitelli and the Trinci +used them? In such meditations, deeply stirred by the meeting of my +own reflections with one who seemed to represent for me in life and +blood the spirit of the place which had provoked them, I said farewell +to Cavallucci, and returned to my bedroom on the city wall. The last +rockets had whizzed and the last cannons had thundered ere I fell +asleep. + + +SPELLO + + +Spello contains some not inconsiderable antiquities--the remains of a +Roman theatre, a Roman gate with the heads of two men and a woman +leaning over it, and some fragments of Roman sculpture scattered +through its buildings. The churches, especially those of S.M. Maggiore +and S. Francesco, are worth a visit for the sake of Pinturicchio. +Nowhere, except in the Piccolomini Library at Siena, can that master's +work in fresco be better studied than here. The satisfaction with +which he executed the wall paintings in S. Maria Maggiore is testified +by his own portrait introduced upon a panel in the decoration of the +Virgin's chamber. The scrupulously rendered details of books, chairs, +window seats, &c., which he here has copied, remind one of Carpaccio's +study of S. Benedict at Venice. It is all sweet, tender, delicate, and +carefully finished; but without depth, not even the depth of +Perugino's feeling. In S. Francesco, Pinturicchio, with the same +meticulous refinement, painted a letter addressed to him by Gentile +Baglioni. It lies on a stool before Madonna and her court of saints. +Nicety of execution, technical mastery of fresco as a medium for Dutch +detail-painting, prettiness of composition, and cheerfulness of +colouring, are noticeable throughout his work here rather than either +thought or sentiment. S. Maria Maggiore can boast a fresco of Madonna +between a young episcopal saint and Catherine of Alexandria from the +hand of Perugino. The rich yellow harmony of its tones, and the +graceful dignity of its emotion, conveyed no less by a certain +Raphaelesque pose and outline than by suavity of facial expression, +enable us to measure the distance between this painter and his +quasi-pupil Pinturicchio. + +We did not, however, drive to Spello to inspect either Roman +antiquities or frescoes, but to see an inscription on the city walls +about Orlando. It is a rude Latin elegiac couplet, saying that, 'from +the sign below, men may conjecture the mighty members of Roland, +nephew of Charles; his deeds are written in history.' Three agreeable +old gentlemen of Spello, who attended us with much politeness, and +were greatly interested in my researches, pointed out a mark +waist-high upon the wall, where Orlando's knee is reported to have +reached. But I could not learn anything about a phallic monolith, +which is said by Guerin or Panizzi to have been identified with the +Roland myth at Spello. Such a column either never existed here, or +had been removed before the memory of the present generation. + + +EASTER MORNING AT ASSISI + + +We are in the lower church of S. Francesco. High mass is being sung, +with orchestra and organ and a choir of many voices. Candles are +lighted on the altar, over-canopied with Giotto's allegories. From the +low southern windows slants the sun, in narrow bands, upon the +many-coloured gloom and embrowned glory of these painted aisles. Women +in bright kerchiefs kneel upon the stones, and shaggy men from the +mountains stand or lean against the wooden benches. There is no moving +from point to point. Where we have taken our station, at the +north-western angle of the transept, there we stay till mass be over. +The whole low-vaulted building glows duskily; the frescoed roof, the +stained windows, the figure-crowded pavements blending their rich but +subdued colours, like hues upon some marvellous moth's wings, or like +a deep-toned rainbow mist discerned in twilight dreams, or like such +tapestry as Eastern queens, in ancient days, wrought for the pavilion +of an empress. Forth from this maze of mingling tints, indefinite in +shade and sunbeams, lean earnest, saintly faces--ineffably +pure--adoring, pitying, pleading; raising their eyes in ecstasy to +heaven, or turning them in ruth toward earth. Men and women of whom +the world was not worthy--at the hands of those old painters they have +received the divine grace, the dovelike simplicity, whereof Italians +in the fourteenth century possessed the irrecoverable secret. Each +face is a poem; the counterpart in painting to a chapter from the +Fioretti di San Francesco. Over the whole scene--in the architecture, +in the frescoes, in the coloured windows, in the gloom, on the +people, in the incense, from the chiming bells, through the +music--broods one spirit: the spirit of him who was 'the co-espoused, +co-transforate with Christ;' the ardent, the radiant, the beautiful in +soul; the suffering, the strong, the simple, the victorious over self +and sin; the celestial who trampled upon earth and rose on wings of +ecstasy to heaven; the Christ-inebriated saint of visions supersensual +and life beyond the grave. Far down below the feet of those who +worship God through him, S. Francis sleeps; but his soul, the +incorruptible part of him, the message he gave the world, is in the +spaces round us. This is his temple. He fills it like an unseen god. +Not as Phoebus or Athene, from their marble pedestals; but as an +abiding spirit, felt everywhere, nowhere seized, absorbing in itself +all mysteries, all myths, all burning exaltations, all abasements, all +love, self-sacrifice, pain, yearning, which the thought of Christ, +sweeping the centuries, hath wrought for men. Let, therefore, choir +and congregation raise their voices on the tide of prayers and +praises; for this is Easter morning--Christ is risen! Our sister, +Death of the Body, for whom S. Francis thanked God in his hymn, is +reconciled to us this day, and takes us by the hand, and leads us to +the gate whence floods of heavenly glory issue from the faces of a +multitude of saints. Pray, ye poor people; chant and pray. If all be +but a dream, to wake from this were loss for you indeed! + + +PERUSIA AUGUSTA + + +The piazza in front of the Prefettura is my favourite resort on these +nights of full moon. The evening twilight is made up partly of sunset +fading over Thrasymene and Tuscany; partly of moonrise from the +mountains of Gubbio and the passes toward Ancona. The hills are capped +with snow, although the season is so forward. Below our parapets the +bulk of S. Domenico, with its gaunt perforated tower, and the finer +group of S. Pietro, flaunting the arrowy 'Pennacchio di Perugia,' jut +out upon the spine of hill which dominates the valley of the Tiber. As +the night gloom deepens, and the moon ascends the sky, these buildings +seem to form the sombre foreground to some French etching. Beyond them +spreads the misty moon-irradiated plain of Umbria. Over all rise +shadowy Apennines, with dim suggestions of Assisi, Spello, Foligno, +Montefalco, and Spoleto on their basements. Little thin whiffs of +breezes, very slight and searching, flit across, and shiver as they +pass from Apennine to plain. The slowly moving population--women in +veils, men winter-mantled--pass to and fro between the buildings and +the grey immensity of sky. Bells ring. The bugles of the soldiers blow +retreat in convents turned to barracks. Young men roam the streets +beneath, singing May songs. Far, far away upon the plain, red through +the vitreous moonlight ringed with thundery gauze, fires of unnamed +castelli smoulder. As we lean from ledges eighty feet in height, gas +vies with moon in chequering illuminations on the ancient walls; +Etruscan mouldings, Roman letters, high-piled hovels, suburban +world-old dwellings plastered like martins' nests against the masonry. + +Sunlight adds more of detail to this scene. To the right of Subasio, +where the passes go from Foligno towards Urbino and Ancona, heavy +masses of thundercloud hang every day; but the plain and +hill-buttresses are clear in transparent blueness. First comes Assisi, +with S.M. degli Angeli below; then Spello; then Foligno; then Trevi; +and, far away, Spoleto; with, reared against those misty battlements, +the village height of Montefalco--the 'ringhiera dell' Umbria,' as +they call it in this country. By daylight, the snow on yonder peaks is +clearly visible, where the Monti della Sibilla tower up above the +sources of the Nera and Velino from frigid wastes of Norcia. The lower +ranges seem as though painted, in films of airiest and palest azure, +upon china; and then comes the broad green champaign, flecked with +villages and farms. Just at the basement of Perugia winds Tiber, +through sallows and grey poplar-trees, spanned by ancient arches of +red brick, and guarded here and there by castellated towers. The mills +beneath their dams and weirs are just as Raphael drew them; and the +feeling of air and space reminds one, on each coign of vantage, of +some Umbrian picture. Every hedgerow is hoary with May-bloom and +honeysuckle. The oaks hang out their golden-dusted tassels. Wayside +shrines are decked with laburnum boughs and iris blossoms plucked from +the copse-woods, where spires of purple and pink orchis variegate the +thin, fine grass. The land waves far and wide with young corn, emerald +green beneath the olive-trees, which take upon their under-foliage +tints reflected from this verdure or red tones from the naked earth. A +fine race of _contadini_, with large, heroically graceful forms, and +beautiful dark eyes and noble faces, move about this garden, intent on +ancient, easy tillage of the kind Saturnian soil. + + +LA MAGIONE + + +On the road from Perugia to Cortona, the first stage ends at La +Magione, a high hill-village commanding the passage from the Umbrian +champaign to the lake of Thrasymene. + +It has a grim square fortalice above it, now in ruins, and a stately +castle to the south-east, built about the time of Braccio. Here took +place that famous diet of Cesare Borgia's enemies, when the son of +Alexander VI. was threatening Bologna with his arms, and bidding fair +to make himself supreme tyrant of Italy in 1502. It was the policy of +Cesare to fortify himself by reducing the fiefs of the Church to +submission, and by rooting out the dynasties which had acquired a +sort of tyranny in Papal cities. The Varani of Camerino and the +Manfredi of Faenza had been already extirpated. There was only too +good reason to believe that the turn of the Vitelli at Città di +Castello, of the Baglioni at Perugia, and of the Bentivogli at Bologna +would come next. Pandolfo Petrucci at Siena, surrounded on all sides +by Cesare's conquests, and specially menaced by the fortification of +Piombino, felt himself in danger. The great house of the Orsini, who +swayed a large part of the Patrimony of S. Peter's, and were closely +allied to the Vitelli, had even graver cause for anxiety. But such was +the system of Italian warfare, that nearly all these noble families +lived by the profession of arms, and most of them were in the pay of +Cesare. When, therefore, the conspirators met at La Magione, they were +plotting against a man whose money they had taken, and whom they had +hitherto aided in his career of fraud and spoliation. + +The diet consisted of the Cardinal Orsini, an avowed antagonist of +Alexander VI.; his brother Paolo, the chieftain of the clan; +Vitellozzo Vitelli, lord of Città di Castello; Gian-Paolo Baglioni, +made undisputed master of Perugia by the recent failure of his cousin +Grifonetto's treason; Oliverotto, who had just acquired the March of +Fermo by the murder of his uncle Giovanni da Fogliani; Ermes +Bentivoglio, the heir of Bologna; and Antonio da Venafro, the +secretary of Pandolfo Petrueci. These men vowed hostility on the basis +of common injuries and common fear against the Borgia. But they were +for the most part stained themselves with crime, and dared not trust +each other, and could not gain the confidence of any respectable power +in Italy except the exiled Duke of Urbino. Procrastination was the +first weapon used by the wily Cesare, who trusted that time would sow +among his rebel captains suspicion and dissension. He next made +overtures to the leaders separately, and so far succeeded in his +perfidious policy as to draw Vitellozzo Vitelli, Oliverotto da Fermo, +Paolo Orsini, and Francesco Orsini, Duke of Gravina, into his nets at +Sinigaglia. Under pretext of fair conference and equitable settlement +of disputed claims, he possessed himself of their persons, and had +them strangled--two upon December 31, and two upon January 18, 1503. +Of all Cesare's actions, this was the most splendid for its successful +combination of sagacity and policy in the hour of peril, of persuasive +diplomacy, and of ruthless decision when the time to strike his blow +arrived. + + +CORTONA + + +After leaving La Magione, the road descends upon the lake of +Thrasymene through oak-woods full of nightingales. The lake lay +basking, leaden-coloured, smooth and waveless, under a misty, +rain-charged, sun-irradiated sky. At Passignano, close beside its +shore, we stopped for mid-day. This is a little fishing village of +very poor people, who live entirely by labour on the waters. They +showed us huge eels coiled in tanks, and some fine specimens of the +silver carp--Reina del Lago. It was off one of the eels that we made +our lunch; and taken, as he was, alive from his cool lodging, he +furnished a series of dishes fit for a king. + +Climbing the hill of Cortona seemed a quite interminable business. It +poured a deluge. Our horses were tired, and one lean donkey, who, +after much trouble, was produced from a farmhouse and yoked in front +of them, rendered but little assistance. + +Next day we duly saw the Muse and Lamp in the Museo, the Fra +Angelicos, and all the Signorellis. One cannot help thinking that too +much fuss is made nowadays about works of art--running after them for +their own sakes, exaggerating their importance, and detaching them as +objects of study, instead of taking them with sympathy and +carelessness as pleasant or instructive adjuncts to our actual life. +Artists, historians of art, and critics are forced to isolate +pictures; and it is of profit to their souls to do so. But simple +folk, who have no aesthetic vocation, whether creative or critical, +suffer more than is good for them by compliance with mere fashion. +Sooner or later we shall return to the spirit of the ages which +produced these pictures, and which regarded them with less of an +industrious bewilderment than they evoke at present. + +I am far indeed from wishing to decry art, the study of art, or the +benefits to be derived from its intelligent enjoyment. I only mean to +suggest that we go the wrong way to work at present in this matter. +Picture and sculpture galleries accustom us to the separation of art +from life. Our methods of studying art, making a beginning of +art-study while traveling, tend to perpetuate this separation. It is +only on reflection, after long experience, that we come to perceive +that the most fruitful moments in our art education have been casual +and unsought, in quaint nooks and unexpected places, where nature, +art, and life are happily blent. + +The Palace of the Commune at Cortona is interesting because of the +shields of Florentine governors, sculptured on blocks of grey stone, +and inserted in its outer walls--Peruzzi, Albizzi, Strozzi, Salviati, +among the more ancient--de' Medici at a later epoch. The revolutions +in the Republic of Florence may be read by a herald from these +coats-of-arms and the dates beneath them. + +The landscape of this Tuscan highland satisfies me more and more with +sense of breadth and beauty. From S. Margherita above the town the +prospect is immense and wonderful and wild--up into those brown, +forbidding mountains; down to the vast plain; and over to the cities +of Chiusi, Montepulciano, and Foiano. The jewel of the view is +Trasimeno, a silvery shield encased with serried hills, and set upon +one corner of the scene, like a precious thing apart and meant for +separate contemplation. There is something in the singularity and +circumscribed completeness of the mountain-girded lake, diminished by +distance, which would have attracted Lionardo da Vinci's pencil, had +he seen it. + +Cortona seems desperately poor, and the beggars are intolerable. One +little blind boy, led by his brother, both frightfully ugly and ragged +urchins, pursued us all over the city, incessantly whining 'Signore +Padrone!' It was only on the threshold of the inn that I ventured to +give them a few coppers, for I knew well that any public beneficence +would raise the whole swarm of the begging population round us. +Sitting later in the day upon the piazza of S. Domenico, I saw the +same blind boy taken by his brother to play. The game consists, in the +little creature throwing his arms about the trunk of a big tree, and +running round and round it, clasping it. This seemed to make him quite +inexpressibly happy. His face lit up and beamed with that inner +beatitude blind people show--a kind of rapture shining over it, as +though nothing could be more altogether delightful. This little boy +had the smallpox at eight months, and has never been able to see +since. He looks sturdy, and may live to be of any age--doomed always, +is that possible, to beg? + + +CHIUSI + + +What more enjoyable dinner can be imagined than a flask of excellent +Montepulciano, a well-cooked steak, and a little goat's cheese in the +inn of the Leone d'Oro at Chiusi? The windows are open, and the sun is +setting. Monte Cetona bounds the view to the right, and the wooded +hills of Città della Pieve to the left. The deep green dimpled valley +goes stretching away toward Orvieto; and at its end a purple mountain +mass, distinct and solitary, which may peradventure be Soracte! The +near country is broken into undulating hills, forested with fine +olives and oaks; and the composition of the landscape, with its +crowning villages, is worthy of a background to an Umbrian picture. +The breadth and depth and quiet which those painters loved, the space +of lucid sky, the suggestion of winding waters in verdant fields, all +are here. The evening is beautiful--golden light streaming softly from +behind us on this prospect, and gradually mellowing to violet and blue +with stars above. + +At Chiusi we visited several Etruscan tombs, and saw their red and +black scrawled pictures. One of the sepulchres was a well-jointed +vault of stone with no wall-paintings. The rest had been scooped out +of the living tufa. This was the excuse for some pleasant hours spent +in walking and driving through the country. Chiusi means for me the +mingling of grey olives and green oaks in limpid sunlight; deep leafy +lanes; warm sandstone banks; copses with nightingales and cyclamens +and cuckoos; glimpses of a silvery lake; blue shadowy distances; the +bristling ridge of Monte Cetona; the conical towers, Becca di Questo +and Becca di Quello, over against each other on the borders; ways +winding among hedgerows like some bit of England in June, but not so +full of flowers. It means all this, I fear, for me far more than +theories about Lars Porsenna and Etruscan ethnology. + + +GUBBIO + + +Gubbio ranks among the most ancient of Italian hill-towns. With its +back set firm against the spine of central Apennines, and piled, house +over house, upon the rising slope, it commands a rich tract of upland +champaign, bounded southward toward Perugia and Foligno by peaked and +rolling ridges. This amphitheatre, which forms its source of wealth +and independence, is admirably protected by a chain of natural +defences; and Gubbio wears a singularly old-world aspect of antiquity +and isolation. Houses climb right to the crests of gaunt bare peaks; +and the brown mediæval walls with square towers which protected them +upon the mountain side, following the inequalities of the ground, are +still a marked feature in the landscape. It is a town of steep streets +and staircases, with quaintly framed prospects, and solemn vistas +opening at every turn across the lowland. One of these views might be +selected for especial notice. In front, irregular buildings losing +themselves in country as they straggle by the roadside; then the open +post-road with a cypress to the right; afterwards, the rich green +fields, and on a bit of rising ground an ancient farmhouse with its +brown dependencies; lastly, the blue hills above Fossato, and far away +a wrack of tumbling clouds. All this enclosed by the heavy archway of +the Porta Romana, where sunlight and shadow chequer the mellow tones +of a dim fresco, indistinct with age, but beautiful. + +Gubbio has not greatly altered since the middle ages. But poor people +are now living in the palaces of noblemen and merchants. These new +inhabitants have walled up the fair arched windows and slender portals +of the ancient dwellers, spoiling the beauty of the streets without +materially changing the architectural masses. In that witching hour +when the Italian sunset has faded, and a solemn grey replaces the +glowing tones of daffodil and rose, it is not difficult, here dreaming +by oneself alone, to picture the old noble life--the ladies moving +along those open loggias, the young men in plumed caps and curling +hair with one foot on those doorsteps, the knights in armour and the +sumpter mules and red-robed Cardinals defiling through those gates +into the courts within. The modern bricks and mortar with which that +picturesque scene has been overlaid, the ugly oblong windows and +bright green shutters which now interrupt the flowing lines of arch +and gallery; these disappear beneath the fine remembered touch of a +sonnet sung by Folgore, when still the Parties had their day, and this +deserted city was the centre of great aims and throbbing aspirations. + +The names of the chief buildings in Gubbio are strongly suggestive of +the middle ages. They abut upon a Piazza de' Signori. One of them, the +Palazzo del Municipio, is a shapeless unfinished block of masonry. It +is here that the Eugubine tables, plates of brass with Umbrian and +Roman incised characters, are shown. The Palazzo de' Consoli has +higher architectural qualities, and is indeed unique among Italian +palaces for the combination of massiveness with lightness in a +situation of unprecedented boldness. Rising from enormous +substructures mortised into the solid hillside, it rears its vast +rectangular bulk to a giddy height above the town; airy loggias +imposed on great forbidding masses of brown stone, shooting aloft into +a light aërial tower. The empty halls inside are of fair proportions +and a noble size, and the views from the open colonnades in all +directions fascinate. But the final impression made by the building is +one of square, tranquil, massive strength--perpetuity embodied in +masonry--force suggesting facility by daring and successful addition +of elegance to hugeness. Vast as it is, this pile is not forbidding, +as a similarly weighty structure in the North would be. The fine +quality of the stone and the delicate though simple mouldings of the +windows give it an Italian grace. + +These public palaces belong to the age of the Communes, when Gubbio +was a free town, with a policy of its own, and an important part to +play in the internecine struggles of Pope and Empire, Guelf and +Ghibelline. The ruined, deserted, degraded Palazzo Ducale reminds us +of the advent of the despots. It has been stripped of all its +tarsia-work and sculpture. Only here and there a Fe.D., with the +cupping-glass of Federigo di Montefeltro, remains to show that Gubbio +once became the fairest fief of the Urbino duchy. S. Ubaldo, who gave +his name to this duke's son, was the patron of Gubbio, and to him the +cathedral is dedicated--one low enormous vault, like a cellar or +feudal banqueting hall, roofed with a succession of solid Gothic +arches. This strange old church, and the House of Canons, buttressed +on the hill beside it, have suffered less from modernisation than most +buildings in Gubbio. The latter, in particular, helps one to +understand what this city of grave palazzi must have been, and how the +mere opening of old doors and windows would restore it to its +primitive appearance. The House of the Canons has, in fact, not yet +been given over to the use of middle-class and proletariate. + +At the end of a day in Gubbio, it is pleasant to take our ease in the +primitive hostelry, at the back of which foams a mountain-torrent, +rushing downward from the Apennines. The Gubbio wine is very fragrant, +and of a rich ruby colour. Those to whom the tints of wine and jewels +give a pleasure not entirely childish, will take delight in its +specific blending of tawny hues with rose. They serve the table still, +at Gubbio, after the antique Italian fashion, covering it with a +cream-coloured linen cloth bordered with coarse lace--the creases of +the press, the scent of old herbs from the wardrobe, are still upon +it--and the board is set with shallow dishes of warm, white +earthenware, basket-worked in open lattice at the edge, which contain +little separate messes of meat, vegetables, cheese, and comfits. The +wine stands in strange, slender phials of smooth glass, with stoppers; +and the amber-coloured bread lies in fair round loaves upon the cloth. +Dining thus is like sitting down to the supper at Emmaus, in some +picture of Gian Bellini or of Masolino. The very bareness of the +room--its open rafters, plastered walls, primitive settees, and +red-brick floor, on which a dog sits waiting for a bone--enhances the +impression of artistic delicacy in the table. + + +FROM GUBBIO TO FANO + + +The road from Gubbio, immediately after leaving the city, enters a +narrow Alpine ravine, where a thin stream dashes over dark, red rocks, +and pendent saxifrages wave to the winds. The carriage in which we +travelled at the end of May, one morning, had two horses, which our +driver soon supplemented with a couple of white oxen. Slowly and +toilsomely we ascended between the flanks of barren hills--gaunt +masses of crimson and grey crag, clothed at their summits with short +turf and scanty pasture. The pass leads first to the little town of +Scheggia, and is called the Monte Calvo, or bald mountain. At +Scheggia, it joins the great Flaminian Way, or North road of the Roman +armies. At the top there is a fine view over the conical hills that +dominate Gubbio, and, far away, to noble mountains above the Furlo and +the Foligno line of railway to Ancona. Range rises over range, +crossing at unexpected angles, breaking into sudden precipices, and +stretching out long, exquisitely modelled outlines, as only Apennines +can do, in silvery sobriety of colours toned by clearest air. Every +square piece of this austere, wild landscape forms a varied picture, +whereof the composition is due to subtle arrangements of lines always +delicate; and these lines seem somehow to have been determined in +their beauty by the vast antiquity of the mountain system, as though +they all had taken time to choose their place and wear down into +harmony. The effect of tempered sadness was heightened for us by +stormy lights and dun clouds, high in air, rolling vapours and flying +shadows, over all the prospect, tinted in ethereal grisaille. + +After Scheggia, one enters a land of meadow and oak-trees. This is the +sacred central tract of Jupiter Apenninus, whose fane-- + + Delubra Jovis saxoque minantes + Apenninigenis cultae pastoribus arae + +--once rose behind us on the bald Iguvian summits. A second little +pass leads from this region to the Adriatic side of the Italian +watershed, and the road now follows the Barano downward toward the +sea. The valley is fairly green with woods, where mistletoe may here +and there be seen on boughs of oak, and rich with cornfields. Cagli is +the chief town of the district, and here they show one of the best +pictures left to us by Raphael's father, Giovanni Santi. It is a +Madonna, attended by S. Peter, S. Francis, S. Dominic, S. John, and +two angels. One of the angels is traditionally supposed to have been +painted from the boy Raphael, and the face has something which reminds +us of his portraits. The whole composition, excellent in modelling, +harmonious in grouping, soberly but strongly coloured, with a peculiar +blending of dignity and sweetness, grace and vigour, makes one wonder +why Santi thought it necessary to send his son from his own workshop +to study under Perugino. He was himself a master of his art, and this, +perhaps the most agreeable of his paintings, has a masculine sincerity +which is absent from at least the later works of Perugino. + +Some miles beyond Cagli, the real pass of the Furlo begins. It owes +its name to a narrow tunnel bored by Vespasian in the solid rock, +where limestone crags descend on the Barano. The Romans called this +gallery Petra Pertusa, or Intercisa, or more familiarly Forulus, +whence comes the modern name. Indeed, the stations on the old +Flaminian Way are still well marked by Latin designations; for Cagli +is the ancient Calles, and Fossombrone is Forum Sempronii, and Fano +the Fanum Fortunæ. Vespasian commemorated this early achievement in +engineering by an inscription carved on the living stone, which still +remains; and Claudian, when he sang the journey of his Emperor +Honorius from Rimini to Rome, speaks thus of what was even then an +object of astonishment to travellers:-- + + Laetior hinc fano recipit fortuna vetusto, + Despiciturque vagus praerupta valle Metaurus, + Qua mons arte patens vivo se perforat arcu + Admittitque viam sectae per viscera rupis. + +The Forulus itself may now be matched, on any Alpine pass, by several +tunnels of far mightier dimensions; for it is narrow, and does not +extend more than 126 feet in length. But it occupies a fine position +at the end of a really imposing ravine. The whole Furlo Pass might, +without too much exaggeration, be described as a kind of Cheddar on +the scale of the Via Mala. The limestone rocks, which rise on either +hand above the gorge to an enormous height, are noble in form and +solemn, like a succession of gigantic portals, with stupendous +flanking obelisks and pyramids. Some of these crag-masses rival the +fantastic cliffs of Capri, and all consist of that southern mountain +limestone which changes from pale yellow to blue grey and dusky +orange. A river roars precipitately through the pass, and the +roadsides wave with many sorts of campanulas--a profusion of azure and +purple bells upon the hard white stone. Of Roman remains there is +still enough (in the way of Roman bridges and bits of broken masonry) +to please an antiquary's eye. But the lover of nature will dwell +chiefly on the picturesque qualities of this historic gorge, so alien +to the general character of Italian scenery, and yet so remote from +anything to which Swiss travelling accustoms one. + +The Furlo breaks out into a richer land of mighty oaks and waving +cornfields, a fat pastoral country, not unlike Devonshire in detail, +with green uplands, and wild-rose tangled hedgerows, and much running +water, and abundance of summer flowers. At a point above Fossombrone, +the Barano joins the Metauro, and here one has a glimpse of faraway +Urbino, high upon its mountain eyrie. It is so rare, in spite of +immemorial belief, to find in Italy a wilderness of wild flowers, that +I feel inclined to make a list of those I saw from our carriage +windows as we rolled down lazily along the road to Fossombrone. Broom, +and cytisus, and hawthorn mingled with roses, gladiolus, and sainfoin. +There were orchises, and clematis, and privet, and wild-vine, vetches +of all hues, red poppies, sky-blue cornflowers, and lilac pimpernel. +In the rougher hedges, dogwood, honeysuckle, pyracanth, and acacia +made a network of white bloom and blushes. Milk-worts of all bright +and tender tints combined with borage, iris, hawkweeds, harebells, +crimson clover, thyme, red snap-dragon, golden asters, and dreamy +love-in-a-mist, to weave a marvellous carpet such as the looms of +Shiraz or of Cashmere never spread. Rarely have I gazed on Flora in +such riot, such luxuriance, such self-abandonment to joy. The air was +filled with fragrances. Songs of cuckoos and nightingales echoed from +the copses on the hillsides. The sun was out, and dancing over all the +landscape. + +After all this, Fano was very restful in the quiet sunset. It has a +sandy stretch of shore, on which the long, green-yellow rollers of the +Adriatic broke into creamy foam, beneath the waning saffron light over +Pesaro and the rosy rising of a full moon. This Adriatic sea carries +an English mind home to many a little watering-place upon our coast. +In colour and the shape of waves it resembles our Channel. + +The sea-shore is Fano's great attraction; but the town has many +churches, and some creditable pictures, as well as Roman antiquities. +Giovanni Santi may here be seen almost as well as at Cagli; and of +Perugino there is one truly magnificent altar-piece--lunette, great +centre panel, and predella--dusty in its present condition, but +splendidly painted, and happily not yet restored or cleaned. It is +worth journeying to Fano to see this. Still better would the journey +be worth the traveller's while if he could be sure to witness such a +game of _Pallone_ as we chanced upon in the Via dell' Arco di +Augusto--lads and grown-men, tightly girt, in shirt sleeves, driving +the great ball aloft into the air with cunning bias and calculation of +projecting house-eaves. I do not understand the game; but it was +clearly played something after the manner of our football, that is to +say; with sides, and front and back players so arranged as to cover +the greatest number of angles of incidence on either wall. + +Fano still remembers that it is the Fane of Fortune. On the fountain +in the market-place stands a bronze Fortuna, slim and airy, offering +her veil to catch the wind. May she long shower health and prosperity +upon the modern watering-place of which she is the patron saint! + + * * * * * + + + + +_THE PALACE OF URBINO_ + + +I + +At Rimini, one spring, the impulse came upon my wife and me to make +our way across San Marino to Urbino. In the Piazza, called +apocryphally after Julius Cæsar, I found a proper _vetturino_, with a +good carriage and two indefatigable horses. He was a splendid fellow, +and bore a great historic name, as I discovered when our bargain was +completed. 'What are you called?' I asked him. '_Filippo Visconti, per +servirla!_' was the prompt reply. Brimming over with the darkest +memories of the Italian Renaissance, I hesitated when I heard this +answer. The associations seemed too ominous. And yet the man himself +was so attractive--tall, stalwart, and well looking--no feature of his +face or limb of his athletic form recalling the gross tyrant who +concealed worse than Caligula's ugliness from sight in secret +chambers--that I shook this preconception from my mind. As it turned +out, Filippo Visconti had nothing in common with his infamous namesake +but the name. On a long and trying journey, he showed neither sullen +nor yet ferocious tempers; nor, at the end of it, did he attempt by +any master-stroke of craft to wheedle from me more than his fair pay; +but took the meerschaum pipe I gave him for a keepsake, with the frank +goodwill of an accomplished gentleman. The only exhibition of his hot +Italian blood which I remember did his humanity credit. + +While we were ascending a steep hillside, he jumped from his box to +thrash a ruffian by the roadside for brutal treatment to a little boy. +He broke his whip, it is true, in this encounter; risked a dangerous +quarrel; and left his carriage, with myself and wife inside it, to the +mercy of his horses in a somewhat perilous position. But when he came +back, hot and glowing, from this deed of justice, I could only applaud +his zeal. + +An Italian of this type, handsome as an antique statue, with the +refinement of a modern gentleman and that intelligence which is innate +in a race of immemorial culture, is a fascinating being. He may be +absolutely ignorant in all book-learning. He may be as ignorant as a +Bersagliere from Montalcino with whom I once conversed at Rimini, who +gravely said that he could walk in three months to North America, and +thought of doing it when his term of service was accomplished. But he +will display, as this young soldier did, a grace and ease of address +which are rare in London drawing-rooms; and by his shrewd remarks upon +the cities he has visited, will show that he possesses a fine natural +taste for things of beauty. The speech of such men, drawn from the +common stock of the Italian people, is seasoned with proverbial +sayings, the wisdom of centuries condensed in a few nervous words. +When emotion fires their brain, they break into spontaneous eloquence, +or suggest the motive of a poem by phrases pregnant with imagery. + +For the first stage of the journey out of Rimini, Filippo's two horses +sufficed. The road led almost straight across the level between +quickset hedges in white bloom. But when we reached the long steep +hill which ascends to San Marino, the inevitable oxen were called out, +and we toiled upwards leisurely through cornfields bright with red +anemones and sweet narcissus. At this point pomegranate hedges +replaced the May-thorns of the plain. In course of time our _bovi_ +brought us to the Borgo, or lower town, whence there is a further +ascent of seven hundred feet to the topmost hawk's-nest or acropolis +of the republic. These we climbed on foot, watching the view expand +around us and beneath. Crags of limestone here break down abruptly to +the rolling hills, which go to lose themselves in field and shore. +Misty reaches of the Adriatic close the world to eastward. Cesena, +Rimini, Verucchio, and countless hill-set villages, each isolated on +its tract of verdure conquered from the stern grey soil, define the +points where Montefeltri wrestled with Malatestas in long bygone +years. Around are marly mountain-flanks in wrinkles and gnarled +convolutions like some giant's brain, furrowed by rivers crawling +through dry wasteful beds of shingle. Interminable ranges of gaunt +Apennines stretch, tier by tier, beyond; and over all this landscape, +a grey-green mist of rising crops and new-fledged oak-trees lies like +a veil upon the nakedness of Nature's ruins. + +Nothing in Europe conveys a more striking sense of geological +antiquity than such a prospect. The denudation and abrasion of +innumerable ages, wrought by slow persistent action of weather and +water on an upheaved mountain mass, are here made visible. Every wave +in that vast sea of hills, every furrow in their worn flanks, tells +its tale of a continuous corrosion still in progress. The dominant +impression is one of melancholy. We forget how Romans, countermarching +Carthaginians, trod the land beneath us. The marvel of San Marino, +retaining independence through the drums and tramplings of the last +seven centuries, is swallowed in a deeper sense of wonder. We turn +instinctively in thought to Leopardi's musings on man's destiny at war +with unknown nature-forces and malignant rulers of the universe. + + + Omai disprezza + Te, la natura, il brutto + Poter che, ascoso, a comun danno impera, + E l' infinita vanità del tutto. + +And then, straining our eyes southward, we sweep the dim blue distance +for Recanati, and remember that the poet of modern despair and +discouragement was reared in even such a scene as this. + +The town of San Marino is grey, narrow-streeted, simple; with a great, +new, decent, Greek-porticoed cathedral, dedicated to the eponymous +saint. A certain austerity defines it from more picturesque +hill-cities with a less uniform history. There is a marble statue of +S. Marino in the choir of his church; and in his cell is shown the +stone bed and pillow on which he took austere repose. One narrow +window near the saint's abode commands a proud but melancholy +landscape of distant hills and seaboard. To this, the great absorbing +charm of San Marino, our eyes instinctively, recurrently, take +flight. It is a landscape which by variety and beauty thralls +attention, but which by its interminable sameness might grow almost +overpowering. There is no relief. The gladness shed upon far humbler +Northern lands in May is ever absent here. The German word +_Gemüthlichkeit_, the English phrase 'a home of ancient peace,' are +here alike by art and nature untranslated into visibilities. And yet +(as we who gaze upon it thus are fain to think) if peradventure the +intolerable _ennui_ of this panorama should drive a citizen of San +Marino into out-lands, the same view would haunt him whithersoever he +went--the swallows of his native eyrie would shrill through his +sleep--he would yearn to breathe its fine keen air in winter, and to +watch its iris-hedges deck themselves with blue in spring;--like +Virgil's hero, dying, he would think of San Marino: _Aspicit, et +dulces moriens reminiscitur Argos_. Even a passing stranger may feel +the mingled fascination and oppression of this prospect--the monotony +which maddens, the charm which at a distance grows upon the mind, +environing it with memories. + +Descending to the Borgo, we found that Filippo Visconti had ordered a +luncheon of excellent white bread, pigeons, and omelette, with the +best red muscat wine I ever drank, unless the sharp air of the hills +deceived my appetite. An Italian history of San Marino, including its +statutes, in three volumes, furnished intellectual food. But I confess +to having learned from these pages little else than this: first, that +the survival of the Commonwealth through all phases of European +politics had been semi-miraculous; secondly, that the most eminent San +Marinesi had been lawyers. It is possible on a hasty deduction from +these two propositions (to which, however, I am far from wishing to +commit myself), that the latter is a sufficient explanation of the +former. + +From San Marino the road plunges at a break-neck pace. We are now in +the true Feltrian highlands, whence the Counts of Montefeltro issued +in the twelfth century. Yonder eyrie is San Leo, which formed the key +of entrance to the duchy of Urbino in campaigns fought many hundred +years ago. Perched on the crest of a precipitous rock, this fortress +looks as though it might defy all enemies but famine. And yet San Leo +was taken and re-taken by strategy and fraud, when Montefeltro, +Borgia, Malatesta, Rovere, contended for dominion in these valleys. +Yonder is Sta. Agata, the village to which Guidobaldo fled by night +when Valentino drove him from his dukedom. A little farther towers +Carpegna, where one branch of the Montefeltro house maintained a +countship through seven centuries, and only sold their fief to Rome in +1815. Monte Coppiolo lies behind, Pietra Rubia in front: two other +eagles' nests of the same brood. What a road it is! + +It beats the tracks on Exmoor. The uphill and downhill of Devonshire +scorns compromise or mitigation by _détour_ and zigzag. But here +geography is on a scale so far more vast, and the roadway is so far +worse metalled than with us in England--knotty masses of talc and +nodes of sandstone cropping up at dangerous turnings--that only +Dante's words describe the journey:-- + + Vassi in Sanleo, e discendesi in Noli, + Montasi su Bismantova in cacume + Con esso i piè; ma qui convien ch' uom voli. + +Of a truth, our horses seemed rather to fly than scramble up and down +these rugged precipices; Visconti cheerily animating them with the +brave spirit that was in him, and lending them his wary driver's help +of hand and voice at need. + +We were soon upon a cornice-road between the mountains and the +Adriatic: following the curves of gulch and cleft ravine; winding +round ruined castles set on points of vantage; the sea-line high +above their grass-grown battlements, the shadow-dappled champaign +girdling their bastions mortised on the naked rock. Except for the +blue lights across the distance, and the ever-present sea, these +earthy Apennines would be too grim. Infinite air and this spare veil +of spring-tide greenery on field and forest soothe their sternness. +Two rivers, swollen by late rains, had to be forded. Through one of +these, the Foglia, bare-legged peasants led the way. The horses waded +to their bellies in the tawny water. Then more hills and vales; green +nooks with rippling corn-crops; secular oaks attired in golden +leafage. The clear afternoon air rang with the voices of a thousand +larks overhead. The whole world seemed quivering with light and +delicate ethereal sound. And yet my mind turned irresistibly to +thoughts of war, violence, and pillage. How often has this +intermediate land been fought over by Montefeltro and Brancaleoni, by +Borgia and Malatesta, by Medici and Della Rovere! Its _contadini_ are +robust men, almost statuesque in build, and beautiful of feature. No +wonder that the Princes of Urbino, with such materials to draw from, +sold their service and their troops to Florence, Rome, S. Mark, and +Milan. The bearing of these peasants is still soldierly and proud. Yet +they are not sullen or forbidding like the Sicilians, whose habits of +life, for the rest, much resemble theirs. The villages, there as here, +are few and far between, perched high on rocks, from which the folk +descend to till the ground and reap the harvest. But the southern +_brusquerie_ and brutality are absent from this district. The men have +something of the dignity and slow-eyed mildness of their own huge +oxen. As evening fell, more solemn Apennines upreared themselves to +southward. The Monte d'Asdrubale, Monte Nerone, and Monte Catria hove +into sight. At last, when light was dim, a tower rose above the +neighbouring ridge, a broken outline of some city barred the sky-line. +Urbino stood before us. Our long day's march was at an end. + +The sunset was almost spent, and a four days' moon hung above the +western Apennines, when we took our first view of the palace. It is a +fancy-thralling work of wonder seen in that dim twilight; like some +castle reared by Atlante's magic for imprisonment of Ruggiero, or +palace sought in fairyland by Astolf winding his enchanted horn. Where +shall we find its like, combining, as it does, the buttressed +battlemented bulk of mediæval strongholds with the airy balconies, +suspended gardens, and fantastic turrets of Italian pleasure-houses? +This unique blending of the feudal past with the Renaissance spirit of +the time when it was built, connects it with the art of Ariosto--or +more exactly with Boiardo's epic. Duke Federigo planned his palace at +Urbino just at the moment when the Count of Scandiano had began to +chaunt his lays of Roland in the Castle of Ferrara. Chivalry, +transmuted by the Italian genius into something fanciful and quaint, +survived as a frail work of art. The men-at-arms of the Condottieri +still glittered in gilded hauberks. Their helmets waved with plumes +and bizarre crests. Their surcoats blazed with heraldries; their +velvet caps with medals bearing legendary emblems. The pomp and +circumstance of feudal war had not yet yielded to the cannon of the +Gascon or the Switzer's pike. The fatal age of foreign invasions had +not begun for Italy. Within a few years Charles VIII.'s holiday +excursion would reveal the internal rottenness and weakness of her +rival states, and the peninsula for half a century to come would be +drenched in the blood of Frenchmen, Germans, Spaniards, fighting for +her cities as their prey. But now Lorenzo de' Medici was still alive. +The famous policy which bears his name held Italy suspended for a +golden time in false tranquillity and independence. The princes who +shared his culture and his love of art were gradually passing into +modern noblemen, abandoning the savage feuds and passions of more +virile centuries, yielding to luxury and scholarly enjoyments. The +castles were becoming courts, and despotisms won by force were +settling into dynasties. + +It was just at this epoch that Duke Federigo built his castle at +Urbino. One of the ablest and wealthiest Condottieri of his time, one +of the best instructed and humanest of Italian princes, he combined in +himself the qualities which mark that period of transition. And these +he impressed upon his dwelling-house, which looks backward to the +mediæval fortalice and forward to the modern palace. This makes it the +just embodiment in architecture of Italian romance, the perfect +analogue of the 'Orlando Innamorato.' By comparing it with the castle +of the Estes at Ferrara and the Palazzo del Te of the Gonzagas at +Mantua, we place it in its right position between mediæval and +Renaissance Italy, between the age when principalities arose upon the +ruins of commercial independence and the age when they became dynastic +under Spain. + +The exigencies of the ground at his disposal forced Federigo to give +the building an irregular outline. The fine façade, with its embayed +_loggie_ and flanking turrets, is placed too close upon the city +ramparts for its due effect. We are obliged to cross the deep ravine +which separates it from a lower quarter of the town, and take our +station near the Oratory of S. Giovanni Battista, before we can +appreciate the beauty of its design, or the boldness of the group it +forms with the cathedral dome and tower and the square masses of +numerous out-buildings. Yet this peculiar position of the palace, +though baffling to a close observer of its details, is one of singular +advantage to the inhabitants. Set on the verge of Urbino's towering +eminence, it fronts a wave-tossed sea of vales and mountain summits +toward the rising and the setting sun. There is nothing but +illimitable air between the terraces and loggias of the Duchess's +apartments and the spreading pyramid of Monte Catria. + +A nobler scene is nowhere swept from palace windows than this, which +Castiglione touched in a memorable passage at the end of his +'Cortegiano.' To one who in our day visits Urbino, it is singular how +the slight indications of this sketch, as in some silhouette, bring +back the antique life, and link the present with the past--a hint, +perhaps, for reticence in our descriptions. The gentlemen and ladies +of the court had spent a summer night in long debate on love, rising +to the height of mystical Platonic rapture on the lips of Bembo, when +one of them exclaimed, 'The day has broken!' 'He pointed to the light +which was beginning to enter by the fissures of the windows. Whereupon +we flung the casements wide upon that side of the palace which looks +toward the high peak of Monte Catria, and saw that a fair dawn of rosy +hue was born already in the eastern skies, and all the stars had +vanished except the sweet regent of the heaven of Venus, who holds the +borderlands of day and night; and from her sphere it seemed as though +a gentle wind were breathing, filling the air with eager freshness, +and waking among the numerous woods upon the neighbouring hills the +sweet-toned symphonies of joyous birds.' + + +II + +The House of Montefeltro rose into importance early in the twelfth +century. Frederick Barbarossa erected their fief into a county in +1160. Supported by imperial favour, they began to exercise an +undefined authority over the district, which they afterwards converted +into a duchy. But, though Ghibelline for several generations, the +Montefeltri were too near neighbours of the Papal power to free +themselves from ecclesiastical vassalage. Therefore in 1216 they +sought and obtained the title of Vicars of the Church. Urbino +acknowledged them as semi-despots in their double capacity of Imperial +and Papal deputies. Cagli and Gubbio followed in the fourteenth +century. In the fifteenth, Castel Durante was acquired from the +Brancaleoni by warfare, and Fossombrone from the Malatestas by +purchase. Numerous fiefs and villages fell into their hands upon the +borders of Rimini in the course of a continued struggle with the House +of Malatesta: and when Fano and Pesaro were added at the opening of +the sixteenth century, the domain over which they ruled was a compact +territory, some forty miles square, between the Adriatic and the +Apennines. From the close of the thirteenth century they bore the +title of Counts of Urbino. The famous Conte Guido, whom Dante placed +among the fraudulent in hell, supported the honours of the house and +increased its power by his political action, at this epoch. But it was +not until the year 1443 that the Montefeltri acquired their ducal +title. This was conferred by Eugenius IV. upon Oddantonio, over whose +alleged crimes and indubitable assassination a veil of mystery still +hangs. He was the son of Count Guidantonio, and at his death the +Montefeltri of Urbino were extinct in the legitimate line. A natural +son of Guidantonio had been, however, recognised in his father's +lifetime, and married to Gentile, heiress of Mercatello. This was +Federigo, a youth of great promise, who succeeded his half-brother in +1444 as Count of Urbino. It was not until 1474 that the ducal title +was revived for him. + +Duke Frederick was a prince remarkable among Italian despots for +private virtues and sober use of his hereditary power. He spent his +youth at Mantua, in that famous school of Vittorino da Feltre, where +the sons and daughters of the first Italian nobility received a model +education in humanities, good manners, and gentle physical +accomplishments. More than any of his fellow-students Frederick +profited by this rare scholar's discipline. On leaving school he +adopted the profession of arms, as it was then practised, and joined +the troop of the Condottiere Niccolò Piccinino. Young men of his own +rank, especially the younger sons and bastards of ruling families, +sought military service under captains of adventure. If they +succeeded they were sure to make money. The coffers of the Church and +the republics lay open to their not too scrupulous hands; the wealth +of Milan and Naples was squandered on them in retaining-fees and +salaries for active service. There was always the further possibility +of placing a coronet upon their brows before they died, if haply they +should wrest a town from their employers, or obtain the cession of a +province from a needy Pope. The neighbours of the Montefeltri in +Umbria, Romagna, and the Marches of Ancona were all of them +Condottieri. Malatestas of Rimini and Pesaro, Vitelli of Città di +Castello, Varani of Camerino, Baglioni of Perugia, to mention only a +few of the most eminent nobles, enrolled themselves under the banners +of plebeian adventurers like Piccinino and Sforza Attendolo. Though +their family connections gave them a certain advantage, the system was +essentially democratic. Gattamelata and Carmagnola sprang from +obscurity by personal address and courage to the command of armies. +Colleoni fought his way up from the grooms to princely station and the +_bâton_ of S. Mark. Francesco Sforza, whose father had begun life as a +tiller of the soil, seized the ducal crown of Milan, and founded a +house which ranked among the first in Europe. + +It is not needful to follow Duke Frederick in his military career. We +may briefly remark that when he succeeded to Urbino by his brother's +death in 1444, he undertook generalship on a grand scale. His own +dominions supplied him with some of the best troops in Italy. He was +careful to secure the goodwill of his subjects by attending personally +to their interests, relieving them of imposts, and executing equal +justice. He gained the then unique reputation of an honest prince, +paternally disposed toward his dependents. Men flocked to his +standards willingly, and he was able to bring an important contingent +into any army. These advantages secured for him alliances with +Francesco Sforza, and brought him successively into connection with +Milan, Venice, Florence, the Church of Naples. As a tactician in the +field he held high rank among the generals of the age, and so +considerable were his engagements that he acquired great wealth in the +exercise of his profession. We find him at one time receiving 8000 +ducats a month as war-pay from Naples, with a peace pension of 6000. +While Captain-General of the League, he drew for his own use in war +45,000 ducats of annual pay. Retaining-fees and pensions in the name +of past services swelled his income, the exact extent of which has +not, so far as I am aware, been estimated, but which must have made +him one of the richest of Italian princes. All this wealth he spent +upon his duchy, fortifying and beautifying its cities, drawing youths +of promise to his court, maintaining a great train of life, and +keeping his vassals in good-humour by the lightness of a rule which +contrasted favourably with the exactions of needier despots. + +While fighting for the masters who offered him _condotta_ in the +complicated wars of Italy, Duke Frederick used his arms, when occasion +served, in his own quarrels. Many years of his life were spent in a +prolonged struggle with his neighbour Sigismondo Pandolfo Malatesta, +the bizarre and brilliant tyrant of Rimini, who committed the fatal +error of embroiling himself beyond all hope of pardon with the Church, +and who died discomfited in the duel with his warier antagonist. +Urbino profited by each mistake of Sigismondo, and the history of this +long desultory strife with Rimini is a history of gradual +aggrandisement and consolidation for the Montefeltrian duchy. + +In 1459 Duke Frederick married his second wife, Battista, daughter of +Alessandro Sforza, Lord of Pesaro. Their portraits, painted by Piero +della Francesca, are to be seen in the Uffizzi at Florence. Some years +earlier, Frederick lost his right eye and had the bridge of his nose +broken in a jousting match outside the town-gate of Urbino. After this +accident, he preferred to be represented in profile--the profile so +well known to students of Italian art on medals and basreliefs. It was +not without medical aid and vows fulfilled by a mother's +self-sacrifice to death, if we may trust the diarists of Urbino, that +the ducal couple got an heir. In 1472, however, a son was born to +them, whom they christened Guido Paolo Ubaldo. He proved a youth of +excellent parts and noble nature--apt at study, perfect in all +chivalrous accomplishments. But he inherited some fatal physical +debility, and his life was marred with a constitutional disease, which +then received the name of gout, and which deprived him of the free use +of his limbs. After his father's death in 1482, Naples, Florence, and +Milan continued Frederick's war engagements to Guidobaldo. The prince +was but a boy of ten. Therefore these important _condotte_ must be +regarded as compliments and pledges for the future. They prove to what +a pitch Duke Frederick had raised the credit of his state and war +establishment. Seven years later, Guidobaldo married Elisabetta, +daughter of Francesco Gonzaga, Marquis of Mantua. This union, though a +happy one, was never blessed with children; and in the certainty of +barrenness, the young Duke thought it prudent to adopt a nephew as +heir to his dominions. He had several sisters, one of whom, Giovanna, +had been married to a nephew of Sixtus IV., Giovanni della Rovere, +Lord of Sinigaglia and Prefect of Rome. They had a son, Francesco +Maria, who, after his adoption by Guidobaldo, spent his boyhood at +Urbino. + +The last years of the fifteenth century were marked by the sudden rise +of Cesare Borgia to a power which threatened the liberties of Italy. +Acting as General for the Church, he carried his arms against the +petty tyrants of Romagna, whom he dispossessed and extirpated. His +next move was upon Camerino and Urbino. He first acquired Camerino, +having lulled Guidobaldo into false security by treacherous +professions of goodwill. Suddenly the Duke received intelligence that +the Borgia was marching on him over Cagli. This was in the middle of +June 1502. It is difficult to comprehend the state of weakness in +which Guidobaldo was surprised, or the panic which then seized him. He +made no efforts to rouse his subjects to resistance, but fled by night +with his nephew through rough mountain roads, leaving his capital and +palace to the marauder. Cesare Borgia took possession without striking +a blow, and removed the treasures of Urbino to the Vatican. His +occupation of the duchy was not undisturbed, however; for the people +rose in several places against him, proving that Guidobaldo had +yielded too hastily to alarm. By this time the fugitive was safe in +Mantua, whence he returned, and for a short time succeeded in +establishing himself again at Urbino. But he could not hold his own +against the Borgias, and in December, by a treaty, he resigned his +claims and retired to Venice, where he lived upon the bounty of S. +Mark. It must be said, in justice to the Duke, that his constitutional +debility rendered him unfit for active operations in the field. +Perhaps he could not have done better than thus to bend beneath the +storm. + +The sudden death of Alexander VI. and the election of a Della Rovere +to the Papacy in 1503 changed Guidobaldo's prospects. Julius II. was +the sworn foe of the Borgias and the close kinsman of Urbino's heir. +It was therefore easy for the Duke to walk into his empty palace on +the hill, and to reinstate himself in the domains from which he had so +recently been ousted. The rest of his life was spent in the retirement +of his court, surrounded with the finest scholars and the noblest +gentlemen of Italy. The ill-health which debarred him from the active +pleasures and employments of his station, was borne with uniform +sweetness of temper and philosophy. + +When he died, in 1508, his nephew, Francesco Maria della Rovere, +succeeded to the duchy, and once more made the palace of Urbino the +resort of men-at-arms and captains. He was a prince of very violent +temper: of its extravagance history has recorded three remarkable +examples. He murdered the Cardinal of Pavia with his own hand in the +streets of Ravenna; stabbed a lover of his sister to death at Urbino; +and in a council of war knocked Francesco Guicciardini down with a +blow of his fist. When the history of Italy came to be written, +Guicciardini was probably mindful of that insult, for he painted +Francesco Maria's character and conduct in dark colours. At the same +time this Duke of Urbino passed for one of the first generals of the +age. The greatest stain upon his memory is his behaviour in the year +1527, when, by dilatory conduct of the campaign in Lombardy, he +suffered the passage of Frundsberg's army unopposed, and afterwards +hesitated to relieve Rome from the horrors of the sack. He was the +last Italian Condottiere of the antique type; and the vices which +Machiavelli exposed in that bad system of mercenary warfare were +illustrated on these occasions. During his lifetime, the conditions of +Italy were so changed by Charles V.'s imperial settlement in 1530, +that the occupation of Condottiere ceased to have any meaning. Strozzi +and Farnesi, who afterwards followed this profession, enlisted in the +ranks of France or Spain, and won their laurels in Northern Europe. + +While Leo X. held the Papal chair, the duchy of Urbino was for a while +wrested from the house of Della Rovere, and conferred upon Lorenzo de' +Medici. Francesco Maria made a better fight for his heritage than +Guidobaldo had done. Yet he could not successfully resist the power of +Rome. The Pope was ready to spend enormous sums of money on this petty +war; the Duke's purse was shorter, and the mercenary troops he was +obliged to use, proved worthless in the field. Spaniards, for the +most part, pitted against Spaniards, they suffered the campaigns to +degenerate into a guerilla warfare of pillage and reprisals. In 1517 +the duchy was formally ceded to Lorenzo. But this Medici did not live +long to enjoy it, and his only child Catherine, the future Queen of +France, never exercised the rights which had devolved upon her by +inheritance. The shifting scene of Italy beheld Francesco Maria +reinstated in Urbino after Leo's death in 1522. + +This Duke married Leonora Gonzaga, a princess of the House of Mantua. +Their portraits, painted by Titian, adorn the Venetian room of the +Uffizzi. Of their son, Guidobaldo II., little need be said. He was +twice married, first to Giulia Varano, Duchess by inheritance of +Camerino; secondly, to Vittoria Farnese, daughter of the Duke of +Parma. Guidobaldo spent a lifetime in petty quarrels with his +subjects, whom he treated badly, attempting to draw from their pockets +the wealth which his father and the Montefeltri had won in military +service. He intervened at an awkward period of Italian politics. The +old Italy of despots, commonwealths, and Condottieri, in which his +predecessors played substantial parts, was at an end. The new Italy of +Popes and Austro-Spanish dynasties had hardly settled into shape. +Between these epochs, Guidobaldo II., of whom we have a dim and hazy +presentation on the page of history, seems somehow to have fallen +flat. As a sign of altered circumstances, he removed his court to +Pesaro, and built the great palace of the Della Roveres upon the +public square. + +Guidobaldaccio, as he was called, died in 1574, leaving an only son, +Francesco Maria II., whose life and character illustrate the new age +which had begun for Italy. He was educated in Spain at the court of +Philip II., where he spent more than two years. When he returned, his +Spanish haughtiness, punctilious attention to etiquette, and +superstitious piety attracted observation. The violent temper of the +Della Roveres, which Francesco Maria I. displayed in acts of +homicide, and which had helped to win his bad name for Guidobaldaccio, +took the form of sullenness in the last Duke. The finest episode in +his life was the part he played in the battle of Lepanto, under his +old comrade, Don John of Austria. His father forced him to an +uncongenial marriage with Lucrezia d'Este, Princess of Ferrara. She +left him, and took refuge in her native city, then honoured by the +presence of Tasso and Guarini. He bore her departure with +philosophical composure, recording the event in his diary as something +to be dryly grateful for. Left alone, the Duke abandoned himself to +solitude, religious exercises, hunting, and the economy of his +impoverished dominions. He became that curious creature, a man of +narrow nature and mediocre capacity, who, dedicated to the cult of +self, is fain to pass for saint and sage in easy circumstances. He +married, for the second time, a lady, Livia della Rovere, who belonged +to his own family, but had been born in private station. She brought +him one son, the Prince Federigo-Ubaldo. This youth might have +sustained the ducal honours of Urbino, but for his sage-saint father's +want of wisdom. The boy was a spoiled child in infancy. Inflated with +Spanish vanity from the cradle, taught to regard his subjects as +dependents on a despot's will, abandoned to the caprices of his own +ungovernable temper, without substantial aid from the paternal piety +or stoicism, he rapidly became a most intolerable princeling. His +father married him, while yet a boy, to Claudia de' Medici, and +virtually abdicated in his favour. Left to his own devices, Federigo +chose companions from the troupes of players whom he drew from Venice. +He filled his palaces with harlots, and degraded himself upon the +stage in parts of mean buffoonery. The resources of the duchy were +racked to support these parasites. Spanish rules of etiquette and +ceremony were outraged by their orgies. His bride brought him one +daughter, Vittoria, who afterwards became the wife of Ferdinand, Grand +Duke of Tuscany. Then in the midst of his low dissipation and +offences against ducal dignity, he died of apoplexy at the early age +of eighteen--the victim, in the severe judgment of history, of his +father's selfishness and want of practical ability. + +This happened in 1623. Francesco Maria was stunned by the blow. His +withdrawal from the duties of the sovereignty in favour of such a son +had proved a constitutional unfitness for the duties of his station. +The life he loved was one of seclusion in a round of pious exercises, +petty studies, peddling economies, and mechanical amusements. A +powerful and grasping Pope was on the throne of Rome. Urban at this +juncture pressed Francesco Maria hard; and in 1624 the last Duke of +Urbino devolved his lordships to the Holy See. He survived the formal +act of abdication seven years; when he died, the Pontiff added his +duchy to the Papal States, which thenceforth stretched from Naples to +the bounds of Venice on the Po. + + +III + +Duke Frederick began the palace at Urbino in 1454, when he was still +only Count. The architect was Luziano of Lauranna, a Dalmatian; and +the beautiful white limestone, hard as marble, used in the +construction, was brought from the Dalmatian coast. This stone, like +the Istrian stone of Venetian buildings, takes and retains the chisel +mark with wonderful precision. It looks as though, when fresh, it must +have had the pliancy of clay, so delicately are the finest curves in +scroll or foliage scooped from its substance. And yet it preserves +each cusp and angle of the most elaborate pattern with the crispness +and the sharpness of a crystal. + +When wrought by a clever craftsman, its surface has neither the +waxiness of Parian, nor the brittle edge of Carrara marble; and it +resists weather better than marble of the choicest quality. This may +be observed in many monuments of Venice, where the stone has been long +exposed to sea-air. These qualities of the Dalmatian limestone, no +less than its agreeable creamy hue and smooth dull polish, adapt it to +decoration in low relief. The most attractive details in the palace at +Urbino are friezes carved of this material in choice designs of early +Renaissance dignity and grace. One chimney-piece in the Sala degli +Angeli deserves especial comment. A frieze of dancing Cupids, with +gilt hair and wings, their naked bodies left white on a ground of +ultramarine, is supported by broad flat pilasters. These are engraved +with children holding pots of flowers; roses on one side, carnations +on the other. Above the frieze another pair of angels, one at each +end, hold lighted torches; and the pyramidal cap of the chimney is +carved with two more, flying, and supporting the eagle of the +Montefeltri on a raised medallion. Throughout the palace we notice +emblems appropriate to the Houses of Montefeltro and Della Rovere: +their arms, three golden bends upon a field of azure: the Imperial +eagle, granted when Montefeltro was made a fief of the Empire: the +Garter of England, worn by the Dukes Federigo and Guidobaldo: the +ermine of Naples: the _ventosa_, or cupping-glass, adopted for a +private badge by Frederick: the golden oak-tree on an azure field of +Della Rovere: the palm-tree, bent beneath a block of stone, with its +accompanying motto, _Inclinata Resurgam_: the cipher, FE DX. Profile +medallions of Federigo and Guidobaldo, wrought in the lowest possible +relief, adorn the staircases. Round the great courtyard runs a frieze +of military engines and ensigns, trophies, machines, and implements of +war, alluding to Duke Frederick's profession of Condottiere. The +doorways are enriched with scrolls of heavy-headed flowers, acanthus +foliage, honeysuckles, ivy-berries, birds and boys and sphinxes, in +all the riot of Renaissance fancy. + +This profusion of sculptured _rilievo_ is nearly all that remains to +show how rich the palace was in things of beauty. Castiglione, writing +in the reign of Guidobaldo, says that 'in the opinion of many it is +the fairest to be found in Italy; and the Duke filled it so well with +all things fitting its magnificence, that it seemed less like a palace +than a city. Not only did he collect articles of common use, vessels +of silver, and trappings for chambers of rare cloths of gold and silk, +and suchlike furniture, but he added multitudes of bronze and marble +statues, exquisite pictures, and instruments of music of all sorts. +There was nothing but was of the finest and most excellent quality to +be seen there. Moreover, he gathered together at a vast cost a large +number of the best and rarest books in Greek, Latin, and Hebrew, all +of which he adorned with gold and silver, esteeming them the chiefest +treasure of his spacious palace.' When Cesare Borgia entered Urbino as +conqueror in 1502, he is said to have carried off loot to the value of +150,000 ducats, or perhaps about a quarter of a million sterling. +Vespasiano, the Florentine bookseller, has left us a minute account of +the formation of the famous library of manuscripts, which he valued at +considerably over 30,000 ducats. Yet wandering now through these +deserted halls, we seek in vain for furniture or tapestry or works of +art. The books have been removed to Rome. The pictures are gone, no +man knows whither. The plate has long been melted down. The +instruments of music are broken. If frescoes adorned the corridors, +they have been whitewashed; the ladies' chambers have been stripped of +their rich arras. Only here and there we find a raftered ceiling, +painted in fading colours, which, taken with the stonework of the +chimney, and some fragments of inlaid panel-work on door or window, +enables us to reconstruct the former richness of these princely rooms. + +Exception must be made in favour of two apartments between the towers +upon the southern facade. These were apparently the private rooms of +the Duke and Duchess, and they are still approached by a great winding +staircase in one of the _torricini_. Adorned in indestructible or +irremovable materials, they retain some traces of their ancient +splendour. On the first floor, opening on the vaulted loggia, we find +a little chapel encrusted with lovely work in stucco and marble; +friezes of bulls, sphinxes, sea-horses, and foliage; with a low relief +of Madonna and Child in the manner of Mino da Fiesole. Close by is a +small study with inscriptions to the Muses and Apollo. The cabinet +connecting these two cells has a Latin legend, to say that Religion +here dwells near the temple of the liberal arts: + + Bina vides parvo discrimine juncta sacella, + Altera pars Musis altera sacra Deo est. + +On the floor above, corresponding in position to this apartment, is a +second, of even greater interest, since it was arranged by the Duke +Frederick for his own retreat. The study is panelled in tarsia of +beautiful design and execution. Three of the larger compartments show +Faith, Hope, and Charity; figures not unworthy of a Botticelli or a +Filippino Lippi. The occupations of the Duke are represented on a +smaller scale by armour, _bâtons_ of command, scientific instruments, +lutes, viols, and books, some open and some shut. The Bible, Homer, +Virgil, Seneca, Tacitus, and Cicero, are lettered; apparently to +indicate his favourite authors. The Duke himself, arrayed in his state +robes, occupies a fourth great panel; and the whole of this elaborate +composition is harmonised by emblems, badges, and occasional devices +of birds, articles of furniture, and so forth. The tarsia, or inlaid +wood of different kinds and colours, is among the best in this kind of +art to be found in Italy, though perhaps it hardly deserves to rank +with the celebrated choir-stalls of Bergamo and Monte Oliveto. Hard by +is a chapel, adorned, like the lower one, with excellent reliefs. The +loggia to which these rooms have access looks across the Apennines, +and down on what was once a private garden. It is now enclosed and +paved for the exercise of prisoners who are confined in one part of +the desecrated palace! + +A portion of the pile is devoted to more worthy purposes; for the +Academy of Raphael here holds its sittings, and preserves a collection +of curiosities and books illustrative of the great painter's life and +works. They have recently placed in a tiny oratory, scooped by +Guidobaldo II. from the thickness of the wall, a cast of Raphael's +skull, which will be studied with interest and veneration. It has the +fineness of modelling combined with shapeliness of form and smallness +of scale which is said to have characterised Mozart and Shelley. + +The impression left upon the mind after traversing this palace in its +length and breadth is one of weariness and disappointment. How shall +we reconstruct the long-past life which filled its rooms with sound, +the splendour of its pageants, the thrill of tragedies enacted here? +It is not difficult to crowd its doors and vacant spaces with liveried +servants, slim pages in tight hose, whose well-combed hair escapes +from tiny caps upon their silken shoulders. We may even replace the +tapestries of Troy which hung one hall, and build again the sideboards +with their embossed gilded plate. But are these chambers really those +where Emilia Pia held debate on love with Bembo and Castiglione; where +Bibbiena's witticisms and Fra Serafino's pranks raised smiles on +courtly lips; where Bernardo Accolti, 'the Unique,' declaimed his +verses to applauding crowds? Is it possible that into yonder hall, +where now the lion of S. Mark looks down alone on staring desolation, +strode the Borgia in all his panoply of war, a gilded glittering +dragon, and from the dais tore the Montefeltri's throne, and from the +arras stripped their ensigns, replacing these with his own Bull and +Valentinus Dux? Here Tasso tuned his lyre for Francesco Maria's +wedding-feast, and read 'Aminta' to Lucrezia d'Este. Here Guidobaldo +listened to the jests and whispered scandals of the Aretine. Here +Titian set his easel up to paint; here the boy Raphael, cap in hand, +took signed and sealed credentials from his Duchess to the Gonfalonier +of Florence. Somewhere in these huge chambers, the courtiers sat +before a torch-lit stage, when Bibbiena's 'Calandria' and +Caetiglione's 'Tirsi,' with their miracles of masques and mummers, +whiled the night away. Somewhere, we know not where, Giuliano de' +Medici made love in these bare rooms to that mysterious mother of +ill-fated Cardinal Ippolito; somewhere, in some darker nook, the +bastard Alessandro sprang to his strange-fortuned life of tyranny and +license, which Brutus-Lorenzino cut short with a traitor's +poignard-thrust in Via Larga. How many men, illustrious for arts and +letters, memorable by their virtues or their crimes, have trod these +silent corridors, from the great Pope Julius down to James III., +self-titled King of England, who tarried here with Clementina Sobieski +through some twelve months of his ex-royal exile! The memories of all +this folk, flown guests and masters of the still-abiding +palace-chambers, haunt us as we hurry through. They are but filmy +shadows. We cannot grasp them, localise them, people surrounding +emptiness with more than withering cobweb forms. + +Death takes a stronger hold on us than bygone life. Therefore, +returning to the vast Throne-room, we animate it with one scene it +witnessed on an April night in 1508. Duke Guidobaldo had died at +Fossombrone, repeating to his friends around his bed these lines of +Virgil: + + Me circum limus niger et deformis arundo Cocyti tardaque + palus inamabilis unda Alligat, et novies Styx interfusa + coercet. + +His body had been carried on the shoulders of servants through those +mountain ways at night, amid the lamentations of gathering multitudes +and the baying of dogs from hill-set farms alarmed by flaring +flambeaux. Now it is laid in state in the great hall. The dais and the +throne are draped in black. The arms and _bâtons_ of his father hang +about the doorways. His own ensigns are displayed in groups and +trophies, with the banners of S. Mark, the Montefeltrian eagle, and +the cross keys of S. Peter. The hall itself is vacant, save for the +high-reared catafalque of sable velvet and gold damask, surrounded +with wax candles burning steadily. Round it passes a ceaseless stream +of people, coming and going, gazing at their Duke. He is attired in +crimson hose and doublet of black damask. Black velvet slippers are on +his feet, and his ducal cap is of black velvet. The mantle of the +Garter, made of dark-blue Alexandrine velvet, hooded with crimson, +lined with white silk damask, and embroidered with the badge, drapes +the stiff sleeping form. + +It is easier to conjure up the past of this great palace, strolling +round it in free air and twilight; perhaps because the landscape and +the life still moving on the city streets bring its exterior into +harmony with real existence. The southern façade, with its vaulted +balconies and flanking towers, takes the fancy, fascinates the eye, +and lends itself as a fit stage for puppets of the musing mind. Once +more imagination plants trim orange-trees in giant jars of Gubbio ware +upon the pavement where the garden of the Duchess lay--the pavement +paced in these bad days by convicts in grey canvas jackets--that +pavement where Monsignor Bombo courted 'dear dead women' with +Platonic phrase, smothering the Menta of his natural man in lettuce +culled from Academe and thyme of Mount Hymettus. In yonder loggia, +lifted above the garden and the court, two lovers are in earnest +converse. They lean beneath the coffered arch, against the marble of +the balustrade, he fingering his dagger under the dark velvet doublet, +she playing with a clove carnation, deep as her own shame. The man is +Giannandrea, broad-shouldered bravo of Verona, Duke Guidobaldo's +favourite and carpet-count. The lady is Madonna Maria, daughter of +Rome's Prefect, widow of Venanzio Varano, whom the Borgia strangled. +On their discourse a tale will hang of woman's frailty and man's +boldness--Camerino's Duchess yielding to a low-born suitor's stalwart +charms. And more will follow, when that lady's brother, furious +Francesco Maria della Rovere, shall stab the bravo in torch-litten +palace rooms with twenty poignard strokes 'twixt waist and throat, and +their Pandarus shall be sent down to his account by a varlet's +_coltellata_ through the midriff. Imagination shifts the scene, and +shows in that same loggia Rome's warlike Pope, attended by his +cardinals and all Urbino's chivalry. The snowy beard of Julius flows +down upon his breast, where jewels clasp the crimson mantle, as in +Raphael's picture. His eyes are bright with wine; for he has come to +gaze on sunset from the banquet-chamber, and to watch the line of +lamps which soon will leap along that palace cornice in his honour. +Behind him lies Bologna humbled. The Pope returns, a conqueror, to +Rome. Yet once again imagination is at work. A gaunt, bald man, +close-habited in Spanish black, his spare, fine features carved in +purest ivory, leans from that balcony. Gazing with hollow eyes, he +tracks the swallows in their flight, and notes that winter is at hand. +This is the last Duke of Urbino, Francesco Maria II., he whose young +wife deserted him, who made for himself alone a hermit-pedant's round +of petty cares and niggard avarice and mean-brained superstition. He +drew a second consort from the convent, and raised up seed unto his +line by forethought, but beheld his princeling fade untimely in the +bloom of boyhood. Nothing is left but solitude. To the mortmain of the +Church reverts Urbino's lordship, and even now he meditates the terms +of devolution. Jesuits cluster in the rooms behind, with comfort for +the ducal soul and calculations for the interests of Holy See. + +A farewell to these memories of Urbino's dukedom should be taken in +the crypt of the cathedral, where Francesco Maria II., the last Duke, +buried his only son and all his temporal hopes. The place is scarcely +solemn. Its dreary _barocco_ emblems mar the dignity of death. A bulky +_Pietà_ by Gian Bologna, with Madonna's face unfinished, towers up and +crowds the narrow cell. Religion has evanished from this late +Renaissance art, nor has the afterglow of Guido Reni's hectic piety +yet overflushed it. Chilled by the stifling humid sense of an extinct +race here entombed in its last representative, we gladly emerge from +the sepulchral vault into the air of day. + +Filippo Visconti, with a smile on his handsome face, is waiting for us +at the inn. His horses, sleek, well fed, and rested, toss their heads +impatiently. We take our seats in the carriage, open wide beneath a +sparkling sky, whirl past the palace and its ghost-like recollections, +and are halfway on the road to Fossombrone in a cloud of dust and +whirr of wheels before we think of looking back to greet Urbino. There +is just time. The last decisive turning lies in front. We stand +bareheaded to salute the grey mass of buildings ridged along the sky. +Then the open road invites us with its varied scenery and movement. +From the shadowy past we drive into the world of human things, for +ever changefully unchanged, unrestfully the same. This interchange +between dead memories and present life is the delight of travel. + + * * * * * + + + + +_VITTORIA ACCORAMBONI_ + +AND THE TRAGEDY OF WEBSTER + + +I + +During the pontificate of Gregory XIII. (1572-85), Papal authority in +Rome reached its lowest point of weakness, and the ancient splendour +of the Papal court was well-nigh eclipsed. Art and learning had died +out. The traditions of the days of Leo, Julius, and Paul III. were +forgotten. It seemed as though the genius of the Renaissance had +migrated across the Alps. All the powers of the Papacy were directed +to the suppression of heresies and to the re-establishment of +spiritual supremacy over the intellect of Europe. Meanwhile society in +Rome returned to mediæval barbarism. The veneer of classical +refinement and humanistic urbanity, which for a time had hidden the +natural savagery of the Roman nobles, wore away. The Holy City became +a den of bandits; the territory of the Church supplied a battle-ground +for senseless party strife, which the weak old man who wore the triple +crown was quite unable to control. It is related how a robber +chieftain, Marianazzo, refused the offer of a general pardon from the +Pope, alleging that the profession of brigand was far more lucrative, +and offered greater security of life, than any trade within the walls +of Rome. The Campagna, the ruined citadels about the basements of the +Sabine and Ciminian hills, the quarters of the aristocracy within the +city, swarmed with bravos, who were protected by great nobles and fed +by decent citizens for the advantages to be derived from the +assistance of abandoned and courageous ruffians. Life, indeed, had +become impossible without fixed compact with the powers of +lawlessness. There was hardly a family in Rome which did not number +some notorious criminal among the outlaws. Murder, sacrilege, the love +of adventure, thirst for plunder, poverty, hostility to the ascendant +faction of the moment, were common causes of voluntary or involuntary +outlawry; nor did public opinion regard a bandit's calling as other +than honourable. + +It may readily be imagined that in such a state of society the +grisliest tragedies were common enough in Rome. The history of some of +these has been preserved to us in documents digested from public +trials and personal observation by contemporary writers. That of the +Cenci, in which a notorious act of parricide furnished the plot of a +popular novella, is well known. And such a tragedy, even more rife in +characteristic incidents, and more distinguished by the quality of its +_dramatis personæ_, is that of Vittoria Accoramboni. + +Vittoria was born in 1557, of a noble but impoverished family, at +Gubbio, among the hills of Umbria. Her biographers are rapturous in +their praises of her beauty, grace, and exceeding charm of manner. Not +only was her person most lovely, but her mind shone at first with all +the amiable lustre of a modest, innocent, and winning youth. Her +father, Claudio Accoramboni, removed to Rome, where his numerous +children were brought up under the care of their mother, Tarquinia, an +ambitious and unscrupulous woman, bent on rehabilitating the decayed +honours of their house. Here Vittoria in early girlhood soon became +the fashion. She exercised an irresistible influence over all who saw +her, and many were the offers of marriage she refused. At length a +suitor appeared whose condition and connection with the Roman +ecclesiastical nobility rendered him acceptable in the eyes of the +Accoramboni. Francesco Peretti was welcomed as the successful +candidate for Vittoria's hand. His mother, Camilla, was sister to +Felice, Cardinal of Montalto; and her son, Francesco Mignucci, had +changed his surname in compliment to this illustrious relative. The +Peretti were of humble origin. The cardinal himself had tended swine +in his native village; but, supported by an invincible belief in his +own destinies, and gifted with a powerful intellect and determined +character, he passed through all grades of the Franciscan Order to its +generalship, received the bishoprics of Fermo and S. Agata, and +lastly, in the year 1570, assumed the scarlet with the title of +Cardinal Montalto. He was now upon the high way to the Papacy, +amassing money by incessant care, studying the humours of surrounding +factions, effacing his own personality, and by mixing but little in +the intrigues of the court, winning the reputation of a prudent, +inoffensive old man. These were his tactics for securing the Papal +throne; nor were his expectations frustrated; for in 1585 he was +chosen Pope, the parties of the Medici and the Farnesi agreeing to +accept him as a compromise. When Sixtus V. was once firmly seated on +S. Peter's chair, he showed himself in his true colours. An implacable +administrator of severest justice, a rigorous economist, an +iconoclastic foe to paganism, the first act of his reign was to +declare a war of extirpation against the bandits who had reduced Rome +in his predecessor's rule to anarchy. + +It was the nephew, then, of this man, whom historians have judged the +greatest personage of his own times, that Vittoria Accoramboni married +on the 28th of June 1573. For a short while the young couple lived +happily together. According to some accounts of their married life, +the bride secured the favour of her powerful uncle-in-law, who +indulged her costly fancies to the full. It is, however, more probable +that the Cardinal Montalto treated her follies with a grudging +parsimony; for we soon find the Peretti household hopelessly involved +in debt. Discord, too, arose between Vittoria and her husband on the +score of a certain levity in her behaviour; and it was rumoured that +even during the brief space of their union she had proved a faithless +wife. Yet she contrived to keep Francesco's confidence, and it is +certain that her family profited by their connection with the Peretti. +Of her six brothers, Mario, the eldest, was a favourite courtier of +the great Cardinal d'Este. Ottavio was in orders, and through +Montalto's influence obtained the See of Fossombrone. The same +eminent protector placed Scipione in the service of the Cardinal +Sforza. Camillo, famous for his beauty and his courage, followed the +fortunes of Filibert of Savoy, and died in France. Flaminio was still +a boy, dependent, as the sequel of this story shows, upon his sister's +destiny. Of Marcello, the second in age and most important in the +action of this tragedy, it is needful to speak with more +particularity. He was young, and, like the rest of his breed, +singularly handsome--so handsome, indeed, that he is said to have +gained an infamous ascendency over the great Duke of Bracciano, whose +privy chamberlain he had become. Marcello was an outlaw for the murder +of Matteo Pallavicino, the brother of the Cardinal of that name. This +did not, however, prevent the chief of the Orsini house from making +him his favourite and confidential friend. Marcello, who seems to have +realised in actual life the worst vices of those Roman courtiers +described for us by Aretino, very soon conceived the plan of exalting +his own fortunes by trading on his sister's beauty. He worked upon the +Duke of Bracciano's mind so cleverly, that he brought this haughty +prince to the point of an insane passion for Peretti's young wife; and +meanwhile so contrived to inflame the ambition of Vittoria and her +mother, Tarquinia, that both were prepared to dare the worst of crimes +in expectation of a dukedom. The game was a difficult one to play. Not +only had Francesco Peretti first to be murdered, but the inequality of +birth and wealth and station between Vittoria and the Duke of +Bracciano rendered a marriage almost impossible. It was also an affair +of delicacy to stimulate without satisfying the Duke's passion. Yet +Marcello did not despair. The stakes were high enough to justify great +risks; and all he put in peril was his sister's honour, the fame of +the Accoramboni, and the favour of Montalto. Vittoria, for her part, +trusted in her power to ensnare and secure the noble prey both had in +view. + +Paolo Giordano Orsini, born about the year 1537, was reigning Duke of +Bracciano. Among Italian princes he ranked at least upon a par with +the Dukes of Urbino, and his family, by its alliances, was more +illustrious than any of that time in Italy. He was a man of gigantic +stature, prodigious corpulence, and marked personal daring; agreeable +in manners, but subject to uncontrollable fits of passion, and +incapable of self-restraint when crossed in any whim or fancy. Upon +the habit of his body it is needful to insist, in order that the part +he played in this tragedy of intrigue, crime, and passion may be well +defined. He found it difficult to procure a charger equal to his +weight, and he was so fat that a special dispensation relieved him +from the duty of genuflexion in the Papal presence. Though lord of a +large territory, yielding princely revenues, he laboured under heavy +debts; for no great noble of the period lived more splendidly, with +less regard for his finances. In the politics of that age and country, +Paolo Giordano leaned toward France. Yet he was a grandee of Spain, +and had played a distinguished part in the battle of Lepanto. Now the +Duke of Bracciano was a widower. He had been married in 1553 to +Isabella de' Medici, daughter of the Grand Duke Cosimo, sister of +Francesco, Bianca Capello's lover, and of the Cardinal Ferdinando. +Suspicion of adultery with Troilo Orsini had fallen on Isabella, and +her husband, with the full concurrence of her brothers, removed her in +1576 from this world.[7] No one thought the worse of Bracciano for +this murder of his wife. In those days of abandoned vice and intricate +villany, certain points of honour were maintained with scrupulous +fidelity. A wife's adultery was enough to justify the most savage and +licentious husband in an act of semi-judicial vengeance; and the shame +she brought upon his head was shared by the members of her own house, +so that they stood by, consenting to her death. Isabella, it may be +said, left one son, Virginio, who became in due time Duke of +Bracciano. + +It appears that in the year 1581, four years after Vittoria's +marriage, the Duke of Bracciano had satisfied Marcello of his +intention to make her his wife, and of his willingness to countenance +Francesco Peretti's murder. Marcello, feeling sure of his game, +introduced the Duke in private to his sister, and induced her to +overcome any natural repugnance she may have felt for the unwieldy and +gross lover. Having reached this point, it was imperative to push +matters quickly on toward matrimony. + +But how should the unfortunate Francesco be entrapped? They caught him +in a snare of peculiar atrocity, by working on the kindly feelings +which his love for Vittoria had caused him to extend to all the +Acooramboni. Marcello, the outlaw, was her favourite brother, and +Marcello at that time lay in hiding, under the suspicion of more than +ordinary crime, beyond the walls of Rome. Late in the evening of the +18th of April, while the Peretti family were retiring to bed, a +messenger from Marcello arrived, entreating Francesco to repair at +once to Monte Cavallo. Marcello had affairs of the utmost importance +to communicate, and begged his brother-in-law not to fail him at a +grievous pinch. The letter containing this request was borne by one +Dominico d'Aquaviva, _alias_ Il Mancino, a confederate of Vittoria's +waiting-maid. This fellow, like Marcello, was an outlaw; but when he +ventured into Rome he frequented Peretti's house, and had made himself +familiar with its master as a trusty bravo. Neither in the message, +therefore, nor in the messenger was there much to rouse suspicion. The +time, indeed, was oddly chosen, and Marcello had never made a similar +appeal on any previous occasion. Yet his necessities might surely have +obliged him to demand some more than ordinary favour from a brother. +Francesco immediately made himself ready to set out, armed only with +his sword and attended by a single servant. It was in vain that his +wife and his mother reminded him of the dangers of the night, the +loneliness of Monte Cavallo, its ruinous palaces and robber-haunted +caves. He was resolved to undertake the adventure, and went forth, +never to return. As he ascended the hill, he fell to earth, shot with +three harquebuses. His body was afterwards found on Monte Cavallo, +stabbed through and through, without a trace that could identify the +murderers. Only, in the course of subsequent investigations, Il +Mancino (on the 24th of February 1582) made the following +statements:--That Vittoria's mother, assisted by the waiting woman, +had planned the trap; that Marchionne of Gubbio and Paolo Barca of +Bracciano, two of the Duke's men, had despatched the victim. Marcello +himself, it seems, had come from Bracciano to conduct the whole +affair. Suspicion fell immediately upon Vittoria and her kindred, +together with the Duke of Bracciano; nor was this diminished when the +Accoramboni, fearing the pursuit of justice, took refuge in a villa of +the Duke's at Magnanapoli a few days after the murder. + +A cardinal's nephew, even in those troublous times, was not killed +without some noise being made about the matter. Accordingly Pope +Gregory XIII. began to take measures for discovering the authors of +the crime. Strange to say, however, the Cardinal Montalto, +notwithstanding the great love he was known to bear his nephew, begged +that the investigation might be dropped. The coolness with which he +first received the news of Francesco Peretti's death, the +dissimulation with which he met the Pope's expression of sympathy in a +full consistory, his reserve in greeting friends on ceremonial visits +of condolence, and, more than all, the self-restraint he showed in the +presence of the Duke of Bracciano, impressed the society of Rome with +the belief that he was of a singularly moderate and patient temper. It +was thought that the man who could so tamely submit to his nephew's +murder, and suspend the arm of justice when already raised for +vengeance, must prove a mild and indulgent ruler. When, therefore, in +the fifth year after this event, Montalto was elected Pope, men +ascribed his elevation in no small measure to his conduct at the +present crisis. Some, indeed, attributed his extraordinary moderation +and self-control to the right cause. _'Veramente costui è un gran +frate!_' was Gregory's remark at the close of the consistory when +Montalto begged him to let the matter of Peretti's murder rest. '_Of a +truth, that fellow is a consummate hypocrite!_' How accurate this +judgment was, appeared when Sixtus V. assumed the reins of power. The +same man who, as monk and cardinal, had smiled on Bracciano, though he +knew him to be his nephew's assassin, now, as Pontiff and sovereign, +bade the chief of the Orsini purge his palace and dominions of the +scoundrels he was wont to harbour, adding significantly, that if +Felice Peretti forgave what had been done against him in a private +station, he would exact uttermost vengeance for disobedience to the +will of Sixtus. The Duke of Bracciano judged it best, after that +warning, to withdraw from Rome. + +Francesco Peretti had been murdered on the 16th of April 1581. Sixtus +V. was proclaimed on the 24th of April 1585. In this interval Vittoria +underwent a series of extraordinary perils and adventures. First of +all, she had been secretly married to the Duke in his gardens of +Magnanapoli at the end of April 1581. That is to say, Marcello and she +secured their prize, as well as they were able, the moment after +Francesco had been removed by murder. But no sooner had the marriage +become known, than the Pope, moved by the scandal it created, no less +than by the urgent instance of the Orsini and Medici, declared it +void. After some while spent in vain resistance, Bracciano submitted, +and sent Vittoria back to her father's house. By an order issued under +Gregory's own hand, she was next removed to the prison of Corte +Savella, thence to the monastery of S. Cecilia in Trastevere, and +finally to the Castle of S. Angelo. Here, at the end of December 1581, +she was put on trial for the murder of her first husband. In prison +she seems to have borne herself bravely, arraying her beautiful person +in delicate attire, entertaining visitors, exacting from her friends +the honours due to a duchess, and sustaining the frequent examinations +to which she was submitted with a bold, proud front. In the middle of +the month of July her constancy was sorely tried by the receipt of a +letter in the Duke's own handwriting, formally renouncing his +marriage. It was only by a lucky accident that she was prevented on +this occasion from committing suicide. The Papal court meanwhile kept +urging her either to retire to a monastery or to accept another +husband. She firmly refused to embrace the religious life, and +declared that she was already lawfully united to a living husband, the +Duke of Bracciano. It seemed impossible to deal with her; and at last, +on the 8th of November, she was released from prison under the +condition of retirement to Gubbio. The Duke had lulled his enemies to +rest by the pretence of yielding to their wishes. But Marcello was +continually beside him at Bracciano, where we read of a mysterious +Greek enchantress whom he hired to brew love-philters for the +furtherance of his ambitious plots. Whether Bracciano was stimulated +by the brother's arguments or by the witch's potions need not be too +curiously questioned. But it seems in any case certain that absence +inflamed his passion instead of cooling it. + +Accordingly, in September 1583, under the excuse of a pilgrimage to +Loreto, he contrived to meet Vittoria at Trevi, whence he carried her +in triumph to Bracciano. Here he openly acknowledged her as his wife, +installing her with all the splendour due to a sovereign duchess. On +the 10th of October following, he once more performed the marriage +ceremony in the principal church of his fief; and in the January of +1584 he brought her openly to Rome. This act of contumacy to the Pope, +both as feudal superior and as supreme Pontiff, roused all the former +opposition to his marriage. Once more it was declared invalid. Once +more the Duke pretended to give way. But at this juncture Gregory +died; and while the conclave was sitting for the election of the new +Pope, he resolved to take the law into his own hands, and to ratify +his union with Vittoria by a third and public marriage in Rome. On the +morning of the 24th of April 1585, their nuptials were accordingly +once more solemnised in the Orsini palace. Just one hour after the +ceremony, as appears from the marriage register, the news arrived of +Cardinal Montalto's election to the Papacy, Vittoria lost no time in +paying her respects to Camilla, sister of the new Pope, her former +mother-in-law. The Duke visited Sixtus V. in state to compliment him +on his elevation. But the reception which both received proved that +Rome was no safe place for them to live in. They consequently made up +their minds for flight. + +A chronic illness from which Bracciano had lately suffered furnished a +sufficient pretext. This seems to have been something of the nature of +a cancerous ulcer, which had to be treated by the application of raw +meat to open sores. Such details are only excusable in the present +narrative on the ground that Bracciano's disease considerably affects +our moral judgment of the woman who could marry a man thus physically +tainted, and with her husband's blood upon his hands. At any rate, +the Duke's _lupa_ justified his trying what change of air, together +with the sulphur waters of Abano, would do for him. + +The Duke and Duchess arrived in safety at Venice, where they had +engaged the Dandolo palace on the Zuecca. There they only stayed a few +days, removing to Padua, where they had hired palaces of the Foscari +in the Arena and a house called De' Cavalli. At Salò, also, on the +Lake of Garda, they provided themselves with fit dwellings for their +princely state and their large retinues, intending to divide their +time between the pleasures which the capital of luxury afforded and +the simpler enjoyments of the most beautiful of the Italian lakes. But +_la gioia dei profani è un fumo passaggier_. Paolo Giordano Orsini, +Duke of Bracciano, died suddenly at Salò on the 10th of November 1585, +leaving the young and beautiful Vittoria helpless among enemies. What +was the cause of his death? It is not possible to give a clear and +certain answer. We have seen that he suffered from a horrible and +voracious disease, which after his removal from Rome seems to have +made progress. Yet though this malady may well have cut his life +short, suspicion of poison was not, in the circumstances, quite +unreasonable. The Grand Duke of Tuscany, the Pope, and the Orsini +family were all interested in his death. Anyhow, he had time to make a +will in Vittoria's favour, leaving her large sums of money, jewels, +goods, and houses--enough, in fact, to support her ducal dignity with +splendour. His hereditary fiefs and honours passed by right to his +only son, Virginio. + +Vittoria, accompanied by her brother, Marcello, and the whole court of +Bracciano, repaired at once to Padua, where she was soon after joined +by Flaminio, and by the Prince Lodovico Orsini. Lodovico Orsini +assumed the duty of settling Vittoria's affairs under her dead +husband's will. In life he had been the Duke's ally as well as +relative. His family pride was deeply wounded by what seemed to him an +ignoble, as it was certainly an unequal, marriage. He now showed +himself the relentless enemy of the Duchess. Disputes arose between +them as to certain details, which seem to have been legally decided in +the widow's favour. On the night of the 22nd of December, however, +forty men disguised in black and fantastically tricked out to elude +detection, surrounded her palace. Through the long galleries and +chambers hung with arras, eight of them went, bearing torches, in +search of Vittoria and her brothers. Marcello escaped, having fled the +house under suspicion of the murder of one of his own followers. +Flaminio, the innocent and young, was playing on his lute and singing +_Miserere_ in the great hall of the palace. The murderers surprised +him with a shot from one of their harquebuses. He ran, wounded in the +shoulder, to his sister's room. She, it is said, was telling her beads +before retiring for the night. When three of the assassins entered, +she knelt before the crucifix, and there they stabbed her in the left +breast, turning the poignard in the wound, and asking her with savage +insults if her heart was pierced. Her last words were, 'Jesus, I +pardon you.' Then they turned to Flaminio, and left him pierced with +seventy-four stiletto wounds. + +The authorities of Padua identified the bodies of Vittoria and +Flaminio, and sent at once for further instructions to Venice. +Meanwhile it appears that both corpses were laid out in one open +coffin for the people to contemplate. The palace and the church of the +Eremitani, to which they had been removed, were crowded all through +the following day with a vast concourse of the Paduans. Vittoria's +wonderful dead body, pale yet sweet to look upon, the golden hair +flowing around her marble shoulders, the red wound in her breast +uncovered, the stately limbs arrayed in satin as she died, maddened +the populace with its surpassing loveliness. '_Dentibus fremebant_,' +says the chronicler, when they beheld that gracious lady stiff in +death. And of a truth, if her corpse was actually exposed in the +chapel of the Eremitani, as we have some right to assume, the +spectacle must have been impressive. Those grim gaunt frescoes of +Mantegna looked down on her as she lay stretched upon her bier, solemn +and calm, and, but for pallor, beautiful as though in life. No wonder +that the folk forgot her first husband's murder, her less than comely +marriage to the second. It was enough for them that this flower of +surpassing loveliness had been cropped by villains in its bloom. +Gathering in knots around the torches placed beside the corpse, they +vowed vengeance against the Orsini; for suspicion, not unnaturally, +fell on Prince Lodovico. + +The Prince was arrested and interrogated before the court of Padua. He +entered their hall attended by forty armed men, responded haughtily to +their questions, and demanded free passage for his courier to Virginio +Orsini, then at Florence. To this demand the court acceded; but the +precaution of way-laying the courier and searching his person was +very wisely taken. Besides some formal dispatches which announced +Vittoria's assassination, they found in this man's boot a compromising +letter, declaring Virginio a party to the crime, and asserting that +Lodovico had with his own poignard killed their victim. Padua placed +itself in a state of defence, and prepared to besiege the palace of +Prince Lodovico, who also got himself in readiness for battle. +Engines, culverins, and firebrands were directed against the +barricades which he had raised. The militia was called out and the +Brenta was strongly guarded. Meanwhile the Senate of S. Mark had +dispatched the Avogadore, Aloisio Bragadin, with full power to the +scene of action. Lodovico Orsini, it may be mentioned, was in their +service; and had not this affair intervened, he would in a few weeks +have entered on his duties as Governor for Venice of Corfu. + +The bombardment of Orsini's palace began on Christmas Day. Three of +the Prince's men were killed in the first assault; and since the +artillery brought to bear upon him threatened speedy ruin to the house +and its inhabitants, he made up his mind to surrender. 'The Prince +Luigi,' writes one-chronicler of these events, 'walked attired in +brown, his poignard at his side, and his cloak slung elegantly under +his arm. The weapon being taken from him, he leaned upon a balustrade, +and began to trim his nails with a little pair of scissors he happened +to find there.' On the 27th he was strangled in prison by order of the +Venetian Republic. His body was carried to be buried, according to his +own will, in the church of S. Maria dell' Orto at Venice. Two of his +followers were hung next day. Fifteen were executed on the following +Monday; two of these were quartered alive; one of them, the Conte +Paganello, who confessed to having slain Vittoria, had his left side +probed with his own cruel dagger. Eight were condemned to the galleys, +six to prison, and eleven were acquitted. Thus ended this terrible +affair, which brought, it is said, good credit and renown to the lords +of Venice through all nations of the civilised world. It only remains +to be added that Marcello Accoramboni was surrendered to the Pope's +vengeance and beheaded at Ancona, where also his mysterious +accomplice, the Greek sorceress, perished. + + +II + +This story of Vittoria Accoramboni's life and tragic ending is drawn, +in its main details, from a narrative published by Henri Beyle in his +'Chroniques et Novelles.'[8] He professes to have translated it +literally from a manuscript communicated to him by a nobleman of +Mantua; and there are strong internal evidences of the truth of this +assertion. Such compositions are frequent in Italian libraries, nor is +it rare for one of them to pass into the common market--as Mr. +Browning's famous purchase of the tale on which he based his 'Ring +and the Book' sufficiently proves. These pamphlets were produced, in +the first instance, to gratify the curiosity of the educated public in +an age which had no newspapers, and also to preserve the memory of +famous trials. How far the strict truth was represented, or whether, +as in the case of Beatrice Cenci, the pathetic aspect of the tragedy +was unduly dwelt on, depended, of course, upon the mental bias of the +scribe, upon his opportunities of obtaining exact information, and +upon the taste of the audience for whom he wrote. Therefore, in +treating such documents as historical data, we must be upon our +guard. Professor Gnoli, who has recently investigated the whole of +Vittoria's eventful story by the light of contemporary documents, +informs us that several narratives exist in manuscript, all dealing +more or less accurately with the details of the tragedy. One of these +was published in Italian at Brescia in 1586. A Frenchman, De Rosset, +printed the same story in its main outlines at Lyons in 1621. Our own +dramatist, John Webster, made it the subject of a tragedy, which he +gave to the press in 1612. What were his sources of information we do +not know for certain. But it is clear that he was well acquainted with +the history. He has changed some of the names and redistributed some +of the chief parts. Vittoria's first husband, for example, becomes +Camillo; her mother, named Cornelia instead of Tarquinia, is so far +from abetting Peretti's murder and countenancing her daughter's shame, +that she acts the _rôle_ of a domestic Cassandra. Flaminio and not +Marcello is made the main instrument of Vittoria's crime and +elevation. The Cardinal Montalto is called Monticelso, and his papal +title is Paul IV. instead of Sixtus V. These are details of +comparative indifference, in which a playwright may fairly use his +liberty of art. On the other hand, Webster shows a curious knowledge +of the picturesque circumstances of the tale. The garden in which +Vittoria meets Bracciano is the villa of Magnanapoli; Zanche, the +Moorish slave, combines Vittoria's waiting-woman, Caterina, and the +Greek sorceress who so mysteriously dogged Marcello's footsteps to the +death. The suspicion of Bracciano's murder is used to introduce a +quaint episode of Italian poisoning. + +Webster exercised the dramatist's privilege of connecting various +threads of action in one plot, disregarding chronology, and hazarding +an ethical solution of motives which mere fidelity to fact hardly +warrants. He shows us Vittoria married to Camillo, a low-born and +witless fool, whose only merit consists in being nephew to the +Cardinal Monticelso, afterwards Pope Paul IV.[9] Paulo Giordano +Ursini, Duke of Brachiano, loves Vittoria, and she suggests to him +that, for the furtherance of their amours, his wife, the Duchess +Isabella, sister to Francesco de' Medici, Grand Duke of Florence, +should be murdered at the same time as her own husband, Camillo. +Brachiano is struck by this plan, and with the help of Vittoria's +brother, Flamineo, he puts it at once into execution. Flamineo hires a +doctor who poisons Brachiano's portrait, so that Isabella dies after +kissing it. He also with his own hands twists Camillo's neck during a +vaulting-match, making it appear that he came by his death +accidentally. Suspicion of the murder attaches, however, to Vittoria. +She is tried for her life before Monticelso and De' Medici; acquitted, +and relegated to a house of Convertites or female reformatory. +Brachiano, on the accession of Monticelso to the Papal throne, +resolves to leave Rome with Vittoria. They escape, together with her +mother Cornelia, and her brothers Flamineo and Marcello, to Padua; and +it is here that the last scenes of the tragedy are laid. + +The use Webster made of Lodovico Orsini deserves particular attention. +He introduces this personage in the very first scene as a spendthrift, +who, having run through his fortune, has been outlawed. Count +Lodovico, as he is always called, has no relationship with the Orsini, +but is attached to the service of Francesco de' Medici, and is an old +lover of the Duchess Isabella. When, therefore, the Grand Duke +meditates vengeance on Brachiano, he finds a fitting instrument in the +desperate Lodovico. Together, in disguise, they repair to Padua. +Lodovico poisons the Duke of Brachiano's helmet, and has the +satisfaction of ending his last struggles by the halter. Afterwards, +with companions, habited as a masquer, he enters Vittoria's palace and +puts her to death together with her brother Flamineo. Just when the +deed of vengeance has been completed, young Giovanni Orsini, heir of +Brachiano, enters and orders the summary execution of Lodovico for +this deed of violence. Webster's invention in this plot is confined to +the fantastic incidents attending on the deaths of Isabella, Camillo, +and Brachiano, and to the murder of Marcello by his brother Flamineo, +with the further consequence of Cornelia's madness and death. He has +heightened our interest in Isabella, at the expense of Brachiano's +character, by making her an innocent and loving wife instead of an +adulteress. He has ascribed different motives from the real ones to +Lodovico in order to bring this personage into rank with the chief +actors, though this has been achieved with only moderate success. +Vittoria is abandoned to the darkest interpretation. She is a woman +who rises to eminence by crime, as an unfaithful wife, the murderess +of her husband, and an impudent defier of justice. Her brother, +Flamineo, becomes under Webster's treatment one of those worst human +infamies--a court dependent; ruffian, buffoon, pimp, murderer by +turns. Furthermore, and without any adequate object beyond that of +completing this study of a type he loved, Webster makes him murder his +own brother Marcello by treason. The part assigned to Marcello, it +should be said, is a genial and happy one; and Cornelia, the mother of +the Accoramboni, is a dignified character, pathetic in her suffering. +Webster, it may be added, treats the Cardinal Monticelso as allied in +some special way to the Medici. Yet certain traits in his character, +especially his avoidance of bloodshed and the tameness of his temper +after Camillo has been murdered, seem to have been studied from the +historical Sixtus. + +III + +The character of the 'White Devil, or Vittoria Corombona,' is perhaps +the most masterly creation of Webster's genius. Though her history is +a true one in its leading incidents, the poet, while portraying a real +personage, has conceived an original individuality. It is impossible +to know for certain how far the actual Vittoria was guilty of her +first husband's murder. Her personality fails to detach itself from +the romance of her biography by any salient qualities. But Webster, +with true playwright's instinct, casts aside historical doubts, and +delineates in his heroine a woman of a very marked and terrible +nature. Hard as adamant, uncompromising, ruthless, Vittoria follows +ambition as the loadstar of her life. It is the ambition to reign as +Duchess, far more than any passion for a paramour, which makes her +plot Camillo's and Isabella's murders, and throws her before marriage +into Brachiano's arms. Added to this ambition, she is possessed with +the cold demon of her own imperial and victorious beauty. She has the +courage of her criminality in the fullest sense; and much of the +fascination with which Webster has invested her, depends upon her +dreadful daring. Her portrait is drawn with full and firm touches. +Although she appears but five times on the scene, she fills it from +the first line of the drama to the last. Each appearance adds +effectively to the total impression. We see her first during a +criminal interview with Brachiano, contrived by her brother Flamineo. +The plot of the tragedy is developed in this scene; Vittoria +suggesting, under the metaphor of a dream, that her lover should +compass the deaths of his duchess and her husband. The dream is told +with deadly energy and ghastly picturesqueness. The cruel sneer at its +conclusion, murmured by a voluptuous woman in the ears of an +impassioned paramour, chills us with the sense of concentrated vice. +Her next appearance is before the court, on trial for her husband's +murder. The scene is celebrated, and has been much disputed by +critics. Relying on her own dauntlessness, on her beauty, and on the +protection of Brachiano, Vittoria hardly takes the trouble to plead +innocence or to rebut charges. She stands defiant, arrogant, vigilant, +on guard; flinging the lie in the teeth of her arraigners; quick to +seize the slightest sign of feebleness in their attack; protesting her +guiltlessness so loudly that she shouts truth down by brazen strength +of lung; retiring at the close with taunts; blazing throughout with +the intolerable lustre of some baleful planet. When she enters for the +third time, it is to quarrel with her paramour. He has been stung to +jealousy by a feigned love-letter. She knows that she has given him no +cause; it is her game to lure him by fidelity to marriage. Therefore +she resolves to make his mistake the instrument of her exaltation. +Beginning with torrents of abuse, hurling reproaches at him for her +own dishonour and the murder of his wife, working herself by studied +degrees into a tempest of ungovernable rage, she flings herself upon +the bed, refuses his caresses, spurns and tramples on him, till she +has brought Brachiano, terrified, humbled, fascinated, to her feet. +Then she gradually relents beneath his passionate protestations and +repeated promises of marriage. At this point she speaks but little. +We only feel her melting humour in the air, and long to see the scene +played by such an actress as Madame Bernhardt. When Vittoria next +appears, it is as Duchess by the deathbed of the Duke, her husband. +Her attendance here is necessary, but it contributes little to the +development of her character. We have learned to know her, and expect +neither womanish tears nor signs of affection at a crisis which +touches her heart less than her self-love. Webster, among his other +excellent qualities, knew how to support character by reticence. +Vittoria's silence in this act is significant; and when she retires +exclaiming, 'O me! this place is hell!' we know that it is the outcry, +not of a woman who has lost what made life dear, but of one who sees +the fruits of crime imperilled by a fatal accident. The last scene of +the play is devoted to Vittoria. It begins with a notable altercation +between her and Flamineo. She calls him 'ruffian' and 'villain,' +refusing him the reward of his vile service. This quarrel emerges in +one of Webster's grotesque contrivances to prolong a poignant +situation. Flamineo quits the stage and reappears with pistols. He +affects a kind of madness; and after threatening Vittoria, who never +flinches, he proposes they should end their lives by suicide. She +humours him, but manages to get the first shot. Flamineo falls, +wounded apparently to death. Then Vittoria turns and tramples on him +with her feet and tongue, taunting him in his death agony with the +enumeration of his crimes. Her malice and her energy are equally +infernal. Soon, however, it appears that the whole device was but a +trick of Flamineo's to test his sister. The pistol was not loaded. He +now produces a pair which are properly charged, and proceeds in good +earnest to the assassination of Vittoria. But at this critical moment +Lodovico and his masquers appear; brother and sister both die +unrepentant, defiant to the end. Vittoria's customary pride and her +familiar sneers impress her speech in these last moments with a +trenchant truth to nature: + + _You_ my death's-man! + Methinks thou dost not look horrid enough, + Thou hast too good a face to be a hangman: + If thou be, do thy office in right form; + Fall down upon thy knees, and ask forgiveness! + + * * * * * + + I will be waited on in death; my servant + Shall never go before me. + + * * * * * + + Yes, I shall welcome death + As princes do some great ambassadors: + I'll meet thy weapon half-way. + + * * * * * + + 'Twas a manly blow! + The next thou giv'st, murder some sucking infant; + And then thou wilt be famous. + +So firmly has Webster wrought the character of this white devil, that +we seem to see her before us as in a picture. 'Beautiful as the +leprosy, dazzling as the lightning,' to use a phrase of her +enthusiastic admirer Hazlitt, she takes her station like a lady in +some portrait by Paris Bordone, with gleaming golden hair twisted into +snakelike braids about her temples, with skin white as cream, bright +cheeks, dark dauntless eyes, and on her bosom, where it has been +chafed by jewelled chains, a flush of rose. She is luxurious, but not +so abandoned to the pleasures of the sense as to forget the purpose of +her will and brain. Crime and peril add zest to her enjoyment. When +arraigned in open court before the judgment-seat of deadly and +unscrupulous foes, she conceals the consciousness of guilt, and stands +erect, with fierce front, unabashed, relying on the splendour of her +irresistible beauty and the subtlety of her piercing wit. Chafing with +rage, the blood mounts and adds a lustre to her cheek. It is no flush +of modesty, but of rebellious indignation. The Cardinal, who hates +her, brands her emotion with the name of shame. She rebukes him, +hurling a jibe at his own mother. And when they point with spiteful +eagerness to the jewels blazing on her breast, to the silks and satins +that she rustles in, her husband lying murdered, she retorts: + + Had I foreknown his death, as you suggest, I would have + bespoke my mourning. + +She is condemned, but not vanquished, and leaves the court with a +stinging sarcasm. They send her to a house of Convertites: + + _V.C_. A house of Convertites! what's that? + + _M_. A house of penitent whores. + + _V.C_. Do the noblemen of Rome Erect it for their wives, + that I am sent To lodge there? + +Charles Lamb was certainly in error? when he described Vittoria's +attitude as one of 'innocence-resembling boldness.' In the trial +scene, no less than in the scenes of altercation with Brachiano and +Flamineo, Webster clearly intended her to pass for a magnificent +vixen, a beautiful and queenly termagant. Her boldness is the audacity +of impudence, which does not condescend to entertain the thought of +guilt. Her egotism is so hard and so profound that the very victims +whom she sacrifices to ambition seem in her sight justly punished. Of +Camillo and Isabella, her husband and his wife, she says to Brachiano: + + And both were struck dead by that sacred yew, In that base + shallow grave that was their due. + +IV + +It is tempting to pass from this analysis of Vittoria's life to a +consideration of Webster's drama as a whole, especially in a book +dedicated to Italian byways. For that mysterious man of genius had +explored the dark and devious paths of Renaissance vice, and had +penetrated the secrets of Italian wickedness with truly appalling +lucidity. His tragedies, though worthless as historical documents, +have singular value as commentaries upon history, as revelations to us +of the spirit of the sixteenth century in its deepest gloom. + +Webster's plays, owing to the condensation of their thought and the +compression of their style, are not easy to read for the first time. +He crowds so many fantastic incidents into one action, and burdens his +discourse with so much profoundly studied matter, that we rise from +the perusal of his works with a blurred impression of the fables, a +deep sense of the poet's power and personality, and an ineffaceable +recollection of one or two resplendent scenes. His Roman history-play +of 'Appius and Virginia' proves that he understood the value of a +simple plot, and that he was able, when he chose, to work one out with +conscientious calmness. But the two Italian dramas upon which his fame +is justly founded, by right of which he stands alone among the +playwrights of all literatures, are marked by a peculiar and wayward +mannerism. Each part is etched with equal effort after luminous effect +upon a back-ground of lurid darkness; and the whole play is made up +of these parts, without due concentration on a master-motive. The +characters are definite in outline, but, taken together in the conduct +of a single plot, they seem to stand apart, like figures in a _tableau +vivant_; nor do they act and react each upon the other in the play of +interpenetrative passions. That this mannerism was deliberately +chosen, we have a right to believe. 'Willingly, and not ignorantly, in +this kind have I faulted,' is the answer Webster gives to such as may +object that he has not constructed his plays upon the classic model. +He seems to have had a certain sombre richness of tone and intricacy +of design in view, combining sensational effect and sententious +pregnancy of diction in works of laboured art, which, when adequately +represented to the ear and eye upon the stage, might at a touch obtain +the animation they now lack for chamber-students. + +When familiarity has brought us acquainted with his style, when we +have disentangled the main characters and circumstances from their +adjuncts, we perceive that he treats poignant and tremendous +situations with a concentrated vigour special to his genius; that he +has studied each word and trait of character, and that he has prepared +by gradual approaches and degrees of horror for the culmination of his +tragedies. The sentences which seem at first sight copied from a +commonplace book, are found to be appropriate. Brief lightning flashes +of acute perception illuminate the midnight darkness of his all but +unimaginably depraved characters. Sharp unexpected touches evoke +humanity in the _fantoccini_ of his wayward art. No dramatist has +shown more consummate ability in heightening terrific effects, in +laying bare the innermost mysteries of crime, remorse, and pain, +combined to make men miserable. It has been said of Webster that, +feeling himself deficient in the first poetic qualities, he +concentrated his powers upon one point, and achieved success by sheer +force of self-cultivation. There is perhaps some truth in this. At any +rate, his genius was of a narrow and peculiar order, and he knew well +how to make the most of its limitations. Yet we must not forget that +he felt a natural bias toward the dreadful stuff with which he deals. +The mystery of iniquity had an irresistible attraction for his mind. +He was drawn to comprehend and reproduce abnormal elements of +spiritual anguish. The materials with which he builds his tragedies +are sought for in the ruined places of lost souls, in the agonies of +madness and despair, in the sarcasms of criminal and reckless atheism, +in slow tortures, griefs beyond endurance, the tempests of remorseful +death, the spasms of fratricidal bloodshed. He is often melodramatic +in the means employed to bring these psychological conditions home to +us. He makes too free use of poisoned engines, daggers, pistols, +disguised murderers, and so forth. Yet his firm grasp upon the +essential qualities of diseased and guilty human nature saves him, +even at his wildest, from the unrealities and extravagances into which +less potent artists of the _drame sanglant_--Marston, for +example--blundered. + +With Webster, the tendency to brood on horrors was no result of +calculation. It belonged to his idiosyncrasy. He seems to have been +suckled from birth at the breast of that _Mater Tenebrarum_, our Lady +of Darkness, whom De Quincey in one of his 'Suspiria de Profundis' +describes among the Semnai Theai, the august goddesses, the mysterious +foster-nurses of suffering humanity. He cannot say the simplest thing +without giving it a ghastly or sinister turn. If one of his characters +draws a metaphor from pie-crust, he must needs use language of the +churchyard: + + You speak as if a man + Should know what fowl is coffined in a baked meat + Afore you cut it open. + +Hideous similes are heaped together in illustration of the commonest +circumstances: + + Places at court are but like beds in the hospital, where + this man's head lies at that man's foot, and so lower and + lower. + + When knaves come to preferment, they rise as gallowses are + raised in the Low Countries, one upon another's shoulders. + + I would sooner eat a dead pigeon taken from the soles of the + feet of one sick of the plague than kiss one of you fasting. + +A soldier is twitted with serving his master: + + As witches do their serviceable spirits, + Even with thy prodigal blood. + +An adulterous couple get this curse: + + Like mistletoe on sear elms spent by weather, + Let him cleave to her, and both rot together. + +A bravo is asked: + + Dost thou imagine thou canst slide on blood, + And not be tainted with a shameful fall? + Or, like the black and melancholic yew-tree, + Dost think to root thyself in dead men's graves, + And yet to prosper? + +It is dangerous to extract philosophy of life from any dramatist. Yet +Webster so often returns to dark and doleful meditations, that we may +fairly class him among constitutional pessimists. Men, according to +the grimness of his melancholy, are: + + Only like dead walls or vaulted graves, + That, ruined, yield no echo. + O this gloomy world! + In what a shadow or deep pit of darkness + Doth womanish and fearful mankind live! + + * * * * * + + We are merely the stars' tennis-balls, struck and banded + Which way please them. + + * * * * * + + Pleasure of life! what is't? only the good hours of an ague. + +A Duchess is 'brought to mortification,' before her strangling by the +executioner, in this high fantastical oration: + + Thou art a box of worm-seed, at best but a salvatory of + green mummy. What's this flesh? A little crudded milk, + fantastical puff-paste, &c. &c. + +Man's life in its totality is summed up with monastic cynicism in +these lyric verses: + + Of what is't fools make such vain keeping? + Sin their conception, their birth weeping, + Their life a general mist of error, + Their death a hideous storm of terror. + +The greatness of the world passes by with all its glory: + + Vain the ambition of kings, + Who seek by trophies and dead things + To leave a living name behind, + And weave but nets to catch the wind. + +It would be easy to surfeit criticism with similar examples; where +Webster is writing in sarcastic, meditative, or deliberately +terror-stirring moods. The same dark dye of his imagination shows +itself even more significantly in circumstances where, in the work of +any other artist, it would inevitably mar the harmony of the picture. +A lady, to select one instance, encourages her lover to embrace her at +the moment of his happiness. She cries: + + Sir, be confident! + What is't distracts you? This is flesh and blood, sir; + 'Tis not the figure cut in alabaster, + Kneels at my husband's tomb. + +Yet so sustained is Webster's symphony of sombre tints, that we do not +feel this sepulchral language, this 'talk fit for a charnel' (to use +one of his own phrases), to be out of keeping. It sounds like a +presentiment of coming woes, which, as the drama grows to its +conclusion, gather and darken on the wretched victims of his bloody +plot. + +It was with profound sagacity, or led by some deep-rooted instinct, +that Webster sought the fables of his two great tragedies, 'The White +Devil' and 'The Duchess of Malfi,' in Italian annals. Whether he had +visited Italy in his youth, we cannot say; for next to nothing is +known about Webster's life. But that he had gazed long and earnestly +into the mirror held up by that enchantress of the nations in his age, +is certain. Aghast and fascinated by the sins he saw there flaunting +in the light of day--sins on whose pernicious glamour Ascham, Greene, +and Howell have insisted with impressive vehemence--Webster discerned +in them the stuff he needed for philosophy and art. Withdrawing from +that contemplation, he was like a spirit 'loosed out of hell to speak +of horrors.' Deeper than any poet of the time, deeper than any even of +the Italians, he read the riddle of the sphinx of crime. He found +there something akin to his own imaginative mood, something which he +alone could fully comprehend and interpret. From the superficial +narratives of writers like Bandello he extracted a spiritual essence +which was, if not the literal, at least the ideal, truth involved in +them. + +The enormous and unnatural vices, the domestic crimes of cruelty, +adultery, and bloodshed, the political scheming and the subtle arts of +vengeance, the ecclesiastical tyranny and craft, the cynical +scepticism and lustre of luxurious godlessness, which made Italy in +the midst of her refinement blaze like 'a bright and ominous star' +before the nations; these were the very elements in which the genius +of Webster--salamander-like in flame--could live and flourish. Only +the incidents of Italian history, or of French history in its +Italianated epoch, were capable of supplying him with the proper type +of plot. It was in Italy alone, or in an Italianated country, such as +England for a brief space in the reign of the first Stuart threatened +to become, that the well-nigh diabolical wickedness of his characters +might have been realised. An audience familiar with Italian novels +through Belleforest and Painter, inflamed by the long struggle of the +Reformation against the scarlet abominations of the Papal See, +outraged in their moral sense by the political paradoxes of +Machiavelli, horror-stricken at the still recent misdoings of Borgias +and Medici and Farnesi, alarmed by that Italian policy which had +conceived the massacre of S. Bartholomew in France, and infuriated by +that ecclesiastical hypocrisy which triumphed in the same; such an +audience were at the right point of sympathy with a poet who undertook +to lay the springs of Southern villany before them bare in a dramatic +action. But, as the old proverb puts it, 'Inglese Italianato è un +diavolo incarnato.' 'An Englishman assuming the Italian habit is a +devil in the flesh.' The Italians were depraved, but spiritually +feeble. The English playwright, when he brought them on the stage, +arrayed with intellectual power and gleaming with the lurid splendour +of a Northern fancy, made them tenfold darker and more terrible. To +the subtlety and vices of the South he added the melancholy, +meditation, and sinister insanity of his own climate. He deepened the +complexion of crime and intensified lawlessness by robbing the Italian +character of levity. Sin, in his conception of that character, was +complicated with the sense of sin, as it never had been in a +Florentine or a Neapolitan. He had not grasped the meaning of the +Machiavellian conscience, in its cold serenity and disengagement from +the dread of moral consequence. Not only are his villains stealthy, +frigid, quick to evil, merciless, and void of honour; but they brood +upon their crimes and analyse their motives. In the midst of their +audacity they are dogged by dread of coming retribution. At the crisis +of their destiny they look back upon their better days with +intellectual remorse. In the execution of their bloodiest schemes they +groan beneath the chains of guilt they wear, and quake before the +phantoms of their haunted brains. + +Thus passion and reflection, superstition and profanity, deliberate +atrocity and fear of judgment, are united in the same nature; and to +make the complex still more strange, the play-wright has gifted these +tremendous personalities with his own wild humour and imaginative +irony. The result is almost monstrous, such an ideal of character as +makes earth hell. And yet it is not without justification. To the +Italian text has been added the Teutonic commentary, and both are +fused by a dramatic genius into one living whole. + +One of these men is Flamineo, the brother of Vittoria Corombona, upon +whose part the action of the 'White Devil' depends. He has been bred +in arts and letters at the university of Padua; but being poor and of +luxurious appetites, he chooses the path of crime in courts for his +advancement. A duke adopts him for his minion, and Flamineo acts the +pander to this great man's lust. He contrives the death of his +brother-in-law, suborns a doctor to poison the Duke's wife, and +arranges secret meetings between his sister and the paramour who is to +make her fortune and his own. His mother appears like a warning Até to +prevent her daughter's crime. In his rage he cries: + + What fury raised _thee_ up? Away, away! + +And when she pleads the honour of their house he answers: + + Shall I, + Having a path so open and so free + To my preferment, still retain your milk + In my pale forehead? + +Later on, when it is necessary to remove another victim, he runs his +own brother through the body and drives his mother to madness. Yet, in +the midst of these crimes, we are unable to regard him as a simple +cut-throat. His irony and reckless courting of damnation open-eyed to +get his gust of life in this world, make him no common villain. He can +be brave as well as fierce. When the Duke insults him he bandies taunt +for taunt: + + _Brach_. No, you pander? + + _Flam_. What, me, my lord? + Am I your dog? + + _B_. A bloodhound; do you brave, do you stand me? + + _F_. Stand you! let those that have diseases run; + I need no plasters. + + _B_. Would you be kicked? + + _F_. Would you have your neck broke? + I tell you, duke, I am not in Russia; + My shins must be kept whole. + + _B_. Do you know me? + + _F_. Oh, my lord, methodically: + As in this world there are degrees of evils, + So in this world there are degrees of devils. + You're a great duke, I your poor secretary. + +When the Duke dies and his prey escapes him, the rage of +disappointment breaks into this fierce apostrophe: + + I cannot conjure; but if prayers or oaths. Will get the + speech of him, though forty devils Wait on him in his livery + of flames, I'll speak to him and shake him by the hand, + Though I be blasted. + +As crimes thicken round him, and he still despairs of the reward for +which he sold himself, conscience awakes: + + I have lived + Riotously ill, like some that live in court, + And sometimes when my face was full of smiles Have felt the + maze of conscience in my breast. + +The scholar's scepticism, which lies at the root of his perversity, +finds utterance in this meditation upon death: + + Whither shall I go now? O Lucian, thy ridiculous purgatory! + to find Alexander the Great cobbling shoes, Pompey tagging + points, and Julius Cæsar making hair-buttons! + + Whether I resolve to fire, earth, water, air, or all the + elements by scruples, I know not, nor greatly care. + +At the last moment he yet can say: + + We cease to grieve, cease to be Fortune's slaves, Nay, cease + to die, by dying. + +And again, with the very yielding of his spirit: + + My life was a black charnel. + +It will be seen that in no sense does Flamineo resemble Iago. He is +not a traitor working by craft and calculating ability to +well-considered ends. He is the desperado frantically clutching at an +uncertain and impossible satisfaction. Webster conceives him as a +self-abandoned atheist, who, maddened by poverty and tainted by +vicious living, takes a fury to his heart, and, because the goodness +of the world has been for ever lost to him, recklessly seeks the bad. + +Bosola, in the 'Duchess of Malfi,' is of the same stamp. He too has +been a scholar. He is sent to the galleys 'for a notorious murder,' +and on his release he enters the service of two brothers, the Duke of +Calabria and the Cardinal of Aragon, who place him as their +intelligencer at the court of their sister. + + + _Bos_. It seems you would create me + One of your familiars. + + _Ferd_. Familiar! what's that? + + _Bos_. Why, a very quaint invisible devil in flesh, + An intelligencer. + + _Ferd_. Such a kind of thriving thing + I would wish thee; and ere long thou may'st arrive + At a higher place by it. + +Lured by hope of preferment, Bosola undertakes the office of spy, +tormentor, and at last of executioner. For: + + Discontent and want + Is the best clay to mould a villain of. + +But his true self, though subdued to be what he quaintly styles 'the +devil's quilted anvil,' on which 'all sins are fashioned and the blows +never heard,' continually rebels against this destiny. Compared with +Flamineo, he is less unnaturally criminal. His melancholy is more +fantastic, his despair more noble. Throughout the course of craft and +cruelty on which he is goaded by a relentless taskmaster, his nature, +hardened as it is, revolts. + +At the end, when Bosola presents the body of the murdered Duchess to +her brother, Webster has wrought a scene of tragic savagery that +surpasses almost any other that the English stage can show. The +sight, of his dead sister maddens Ferdinand, who, feeling the eclipse +of reason gradually absorb his faculties, turns round with frenzied +hatred on the accomplice of his fratricide. Bosola demands the price +of guilt. Ferdinand spurns him with the concentrated eloquence of +despair and the extravagance of approaching insanity. The murderer +taunts his master coldly and laconically, like a man whose life is +wrecked, who has waded through blood to his reward, and who at the +last moment discovers the sacrifice of his conscience and masculine +freedom to be fruitless. Remorse, frustrated hopes, and thirst for +vengeance convert Bosola from this hour forward into an instrument of +retribution. The Duke and his brother the Cardinal are both brought to +bloody deaths by the hand which they had used to assassinate their +sister. + +It is fitting that something should be said about Webster's conception +of the Italian despot. Brachiano and Ferdinand, the employers of +Flamineo and Bosola, are tyrants such as Savonarola described, and as +we read of in the chronicles of petty Southern cities. Nothing is +suffered to stand between their lust and its accomplishment. They +override the law by violence, or pervert its action to their own +advantage: + + The law to him + Is like a foul black cobweb to a spider; + He makes it his dwelling and a prison + To entangle those shall feed him. + +They are eaten up with parasites, accomplices, and all the creatures +of their crimes: + + He and his brother are like plum-trees that grow crooked + over standing pools; they are rich and over-laden with + fruit, but none but crows, pies, and caterpillars feed on + them. + +In their lives they are without a friend; for society in guilt brings +nought of comfort, and honours are but emptiness: + + Glories, like glow-worms, afar off shine bright; + But looked to near, have neither heat nor light. + +Their plots and counterplots drive repose far from them: + + There's but three furies found in spacious hell; + But in a great man's breast three thousand dwell. + +Fearful shapes afflict their fancy; shadows of ancestral crime or +ghosts of their own raising: + + For these many years + None of our family dies, but there is seen + The shape of an old woman; which is given + By tradition to us to have been murdered + By her nephews for her riches. + +Apparitions haunt them: + + How tedious is a guilty conscience! + When I look into the fish-ponds in my garden, + Methinks I see a thing armed with a rake + That seems to strike at me. + +Continually scheming against the objects of their avarice and hatred, +preparing poisons or suborning bravoes, they know that these same arts +will be employed against them. The wine-cup hides arsenic; the +headpiece is smeared with antimony; there is a dagger behind every +arras, and each shadow is a murderer's. When death comes, they meet it +trembling. What irony Webster has condensed in Brachiano's outcry: + + On pain of death, let no man name death to me; + It is a word infinitely horrible. + +And how solemn are the following reflections on the death of princes: + + O thou soft natural death, that art joint-twin + To sweetest slumber! no rough-bearded comet + Stares on thy mild departure; the dull owl + Beats not against thy casement, the hoarse wolf + Scents not thy carrion: pity winds thy corse, + Whilst horror waits on princes. + +After their death, this is their epitaph: + + These wretched eminent things + Leave no more fame behind'em than should one + Fall in a frost and leave his print in snow. + +Of Webster's despots, the finest in conception and the firmest in +execution is Ferdinand of Aragon. Jealousy of his sister and avarice +take possession of him and torment him like furies. The flash of +repentance over her strangled body is also the first flash of +insanity. He survives to present the spectacle of a crazed lunatic, +and to be run through the body by his paid assassin. In the Cardinal +of Aragon, Webster paints a profligate Churchman, no less voluptuous, +blood-guilty, and the rest of it, than his brother the Duke of +Calabria. It seems to have been the poet's purpose in each of his +Italian tragedies to unmask Rome as the Papal city really was. In the +lawless desperado, the intemperate tyrant, and the godless +ecclesiastic, he portrayed the three curses from which Italian society +was actually suffering. + +It has been needful to dwell upon the gloomy and fantastic side of +Webster's genius. But it must not be thought that he could touch no +finer chord. Indeed, it might be said that in the domain of pathos he +is even more powerful than in that of horror. His mastery in this +region is displayed in the creation of that dignified and beautiful +woman, the Duchess of Malfi, who, with nothing in her nature, had she +but lived prosperously, to divide her from the sisterhood of gentle +ladies, walks, shrined in love and purity and conscious rectitude, +amid the snares and pitfalls of her persecutors, to die at last the +victim of a brother's fevered avarice and a desperado's egotistical +ambition. The apparatus of infernal cruelty, the dead man's hand, the +semblances of murdered sons and husband, the masque of madmen, the +dirge and doleful emblems of the tomb with which she is environed in +her prison by the torturers who seek to goad her into lunacy, are +insufficient to disturb the tranquillity and tenderness of her nature. +When the rope is being fastened to her throat, she does not spend her +breath in recriminations, but turns to the waiting-woman and says: + + Farewell, Cariola! + I pray thee look thou givest my little boy + Some syrup for his cold, and let the girl + Say her prayers ere she sleep. + +In the preceding scenes we have had enough, nay, over-much, of +madness, despair, and wrestling with doom. This is the calm that comes +when death is present, when the tortured soul lays down its burden of +the flesh with gladness. But Webster has not spared another touch of +thrilling pathos. + +The death-struggle is over; the fratricide has rushed away, a maddened +man; the murderer is gazing with remorse upon the beautiful dead body +of his lady, wishing he had the world wherewith to buy her back to +life again; when suddenly she murmurs 'Mercy!' Our interest, already +overstrained, revives with momentary hope. But the guardians of the +grave will not be exorcised; and 'Mercy!' is the last groan of the +injured Duchess. + +Webster showed great skill in his delineation of the Duchess. He had +to paint a woman in a hazardous situation: a sovereign stooping in her +widowhood to wed a servant; a lady living with the mystery of this +unequal marriage round her like a veil. He dowered her with no salient +qualities of intellect or heart or will; but he sustained our sympathy +with her, and made us comprehend her. To the last she is a Duchess; +and when she has divested state and bowed her head to enter the low +gate of heaven--too low for coronets--her poet shows us, in the lines +already quoted, that the woman still survives. + +The same pathos surrounds the melancholy portrait of Isabella in +'Vittoria Corombona.' But Isabella, in that play, serves chiefly to +enhance the tyranny of her triumphant rival. The main difficulty under +which these scenes of rarest pathos would labour, were they brought +upon the stage, is their simplicity in contrast with the ghastly and +contorted horrors that envelop them. A dialogue abounding in the +passages I have already quoted--a dialogue which bandies 'O you +screech-owl!' and 'Thou foul black cloud!'--in which a sister's +admonition to her brother to think twice of suicide assumes a form so +weird as this: + + I prithee, yet remember, + Millions are now in graves, which at last day + Like mandrakes shall rise shrieking.-- + +such a dialogue could not be rendered save by actors strung up to a +pitch of almost frenzied tension. To do full justice to what in +Webster's style would be spasmodic were it not so weighty, and at the +same time to maintain the purity of outline and melodious rhythm of +such characters as Isabella, demands no common histrionic power. + +In attempting to define Webster's touch upon Italian tragic story, I +have been led perforce to concentrate attention on what is painful and +shocking to our sense of harmony in art. He was a vigorous and +profoundly imaginative playwright. But his most enthusiastic admirers +will hardly contend that good taste or moderation determined the +movement of his genius. Nor, though his insight into the essential +dreadfulness of Italian tragedy was so deep, is it possible to +maintain that his portraiture of Italian life was true to its more +superficial aspects. What place would there be for a Correggio or a +Raphael in such a world as Webster's? Yet we know that the art of +Raphael and Correggio is in exact harmony with the Italian temperament +of the same epoch which gave birth to Cesare Borgia and Bianca +Gapello. The comparatively slighter sketch of Iachimo in 'Cymbeline' +represents the Italian as he felt and lived, better than the laboured +portrait of Flamineo. Webster's Italian tragedies are consequently +true, not so much to the actual conditions of Italy, as to the moral +impression made by those conditions on a Northern imagination. + + * * * * * + + + + +_AUTUMN WANDERINGS_ + +I.--ITALIAM PETIMUS + + +_Italiam Petimus!_ We left our upland home before daybreak on a clear +October morning. There had been a hard frost, spangling the meadows +with rime-crystals, which twinkled where the sun's rays touched them. +Men and women were mowing the frozen grass with thin short Alpine +scythes; and as the swathes fell, they gave a crisp, an almost +tinkling sound. Down into the gorge, surnamed of Avalanche, our horses +plunged; and there we lost the sunshine till we reached the Bear's +Walk, opening upon the vales of Albula, and Julier, and Schyn. But up +above, shone morning light upon fresh snow, and steep torrent-cloven +slopes reddening with a hundred fading plants; now and then it caught +the grey-green icicles that hung from cliffs where summer streams had +dripped. There is no colour lovelier than the blue of an autumn sky in +the high Alps, defining ridges powdered with light snow, and melting +imperceptibly downward into the warm yellow of the larches and the +crimson of the bilberry. Wiesen was radiantly beautiful: those aërial +ranges of the hills that separate Albula from Julier soared +crystal-clear above their forests; and for a foreground, on the green +fields starred with lilac crocuses, careered a group of children on +their sledges. Then came the row of giant peaks--Pitz d'Aela, +Tinzenhorn, and Michelhorn, above the deep ravine of Albula--all seen +across wide undulating golden swards, close-shaven and awaiting +winter. Carnations hung from cottage windows in full bloom, casting +sharp angular black shadows on white walls. + +_Italiam petimus!_ We have climbed the valley of the Julier, following +its green, transparent torrent. A night has come and gone at Mühlen. +The stream still leads us up, diminishing in volume as we rise, up +through the fleecy mists that roll asunder for the sun, disclosing +far-off snowy ridges and blocks of granite mountains. The lifeless, +soundless waste of rock, where only thin winds whistle out of silence +and fade suddenly into still air, is passed. Then comes the descent, +with its forests of larch and cembra, golden and dark green upon a +ground of grey, and in front the serried shafts of the Bernina, and +here and there a glimpse of emerald lake at turnings of the road. +Autumn is the season for this landscape. Through the fading of +innumerable leaflets, the yellowing of larches, and something +vaporous in the low sun, it gains a colour not unlike that of the +lands we seek. By the side of the lake at Silvaplana the light was +strong and warm, but mellow. Pearly clouds hung over the Maloja, and +floating overhead cast shadows on the opaque water, which may +literally be compared to chrysoprase. The breadth of golden, brown, +and russet tints upon the valley at this moment adds softness to its +lines of level strength. Devotees of the Engadine contend that it +possesses an austere charm beyond the common beauty of Swiss +landscape; but this charm is only perfected in autumn. The fresh snow +on the heights that guard it helps. And then there are the forests of +dark pines upon those many knolls and undulating mountain-flanks +beside the lakes. Sitting and dreaming there in noonday sun, I kept +repeating to myself _Italiam petimus!_ + +A hurricane blew upward from the pass as we left Silvaplana, ruffling +the lake with gusts of the Italian wind. By Silz Maria we came in +sight of a dozen Italian workmen, arm linked in arm in two rows, +tramping in rhythmic stride, and singing as they went. Two of them +were such nobly built young men, that for a moment the beauty of the +landscape faded from my sight, and I was saddened. They moved to their +singing, like some of Mason's or Frederick Walker's figures, with the +free grace of living statues, and laughed as we drove by. And yet, +with all their beauty, industry, sobriety, intelligence, these +Italians of the northern valleys serve the sterner people of the +Grisons like negroes, doing their roughest work at scanty wages. + +So we came to the vast Alpine wall, and stood on a bare granite slab, +and looked over into Italy, as men might lean from the battlements of +a fortress. Behind lies the Alpine valley, grim, declining slowly +northward, with wind-lashed lakes and glaciers sprawling from +storm-broken pyramids of gneiss. Below spread the unfathomable depths +that lead to Lombardy, flooded with sunlight, filled with swirling +vapour, but never wholly hidden from our sight. For the blast kept +shifting the cloud-masses, and the sun streamed through in spears and +bands of sheeny rays. Over the parapet our horses dropped, down +through sable spruce and amber larch, down between tangles of rowan +and autumnal underwood. Ever as we sank, the mountains rose--those +sharp embattled precipices, toppling spires, impendent chasms blurred +with mist, that make the entrance into Italy sublime. Nowhere do the +Alps exhibit their full stature, their commanding puissance, with such +majesty as in the gates of Italy; and of all those gates I think there +is none to compare with Maloja, none certainly to rival it in +abruptness of initiation into the Italian secret. Below Vico Soprano +we pass already into the violets and blues of Titian's landscape. Then +come the purple boulders among chestnut trees; then the double +dolomite-like peak of Pitz Badin and Promontogno. + +It is sad that words can do even less than painting could to bring +this window-scene at Promontogno before another eye. The casement just +frames it. In the foreground are meadow slopes, thinly, capriciously +planted with chestnut trees and walnuts, each standing with its shadow +cast upon the sward. A little farther falls the torrent, foaming down +between black jaws of rain-stained granite, with the wooden buildings +of a rustic mill set on a ledge of rock. Suddenly above this landscape +soars the valley, clothing its steep sides on either hand with pines; +and there are emerald isles of pasture on the wooded flanks; and then +cliffs, where the red-stemmed larches glow; and at the summit, +shooting into ether with a swathe of mist around their basement, soar +the double peaks, the one a pyramid, the other a bold broken crystal +not unlike the Finsteraarhorn seen from Furka. These are connected by +a snowy saddle, and snow is lying on their inaccessible crags in +powdery drifts. Sunlight pours between them into the ravine. The green +and golden forests now join from either side, and now recede, +according as the sinuous valley brings their lines together or +disparts them. There is a sound of cow-bells on the meadows; and the +roar of the stream is dulled or quickened as the gusts of this October +wind sweep by or slacken. _Italiam petimus!_ + +_Tangimus Italiam!_ Chiavenna is a worthy key to this great gate +Italian. We walked at night in the open galleries of the cathedral +cloister--white, smoothly curving, well-proportioned loggie, enclosing +a green space, whence soars the campanile to the stars. The moon had +sunk, but her light still silvered the mountains that stand at watch +round Chiavenna; and the castle rock was flat and black against that +dreamy background. Jupiter, who walked so lately for us on the long +ridge of the Jacobshorn above our pines, had now an ample space of sky +over Lombardy to light his lamp in. Why is it, we asked each other, as +we smoked our pipes and strolled, my friend and I;--why is it that +Italian beauty does not leave the spirit so untroubled as an Alpine +scene? Why do we here desire the flower of some emergent feeling to +grow from the air, or from the soil, or from humanity to greet us? +This sense of want evoked by Southern beauty is perhaps the antique +mythopœic yearning. But in our perplexed life it takes another form, +and seems the longing for emotion, ever fleeting, ever new, +unrealised, unreal, insatiable. + + +II.--OVER THE APENNINES + + + +At Parma we slept in the Albergo della Croce Bianca, which is more a +bric-à-brac shop than an inn; and slept but badly, for the good folk +of Parma twanged guitars and exercised their hoarse male voices all +night in the street below. We were glad when Christian called us, at 5 +A.M., for an early start across the Apennines. This was the day of a +right Roman journey. In thirteen and a half hours, leaving Parma at 6, +and arriving in Sarzana at 7.30, we flung ourselves across the spine +of Italy, from the plains of Eridanus to the seashore of Etruscan +Luna. I had secured a carriage and extra post-horses the night before; +therefore we found no obstacles upon the road, but eager drivers, +quick relays, obsequious postmasters, change, speed, perpetual +movement. The road itself is a noble one, and nobly entertained in all +things but accommodation for travellers. At Berceto, near the summit +of the pass, we stopped just half an hour, to lunch off a mouldy hen +and six eggs; but that was all the halt we made. + +As we drove out of Parma, striking across the plain to the _ghiara_ of +the Taro, the sun rose over the austere autumnal landscape, with its +withered vines and crimson haws. Christian, the mountaineer, who at +home had never seen the sun rise from a flat horizon, stooped from the +box to call attention to this daily recurring miracle, which on the +plain of Lombardy is no less wonderful than on a rolling sea. From the +village of Fornovo, where the Italian League was camped awaiting +Charles VIII. upon that memorable July morn in 1495, the road strikes +suddenly aside, gains a spur of the descending Apennines, and keeps +this vantage till the pass of La Cisa is reached. Many windings are +occasioned by thus adhering to arêtes, but the total result is a +gradual ascent with free prospect over plain and mountain. The +Apennines, built up upon a smaller scale than the Alps, perplexed in +detail and entangled with cross sections and convergent systems, lend +themselves to this plan of carrying highroads along their ridges +instead of following the valley. + +What is beautiful in the landscape of that northern watershed is the +subtlety, delicacy, variety, and intricacy of the mountain outlines. +There is drawing wherever the eye falls. Each section of the vast +expanse is a picture of tossed crests and complicated undulations. And +over the whole sea of stationary billows, light is shed like an +ethereal raiment, with spare colour--blue and grey, and parsimonious +green--in the near foreground. The detail is somewhat dry and +monotonous; for these so finely moulded hills are made up of washed +earth, the immemorial wrecks of earlier mountain ranges. Brown +villages, not unlike those of Midland England, low houses built of +stone and tiled with stone, and square-towered churches, occur at rare +intervals in cultivated hollows, where there are fields and fruit +trees. Water is nowhere visible except in the wasteful river-beds. As +we rise, we break into a wilder country, forested with oak, where oxen +and goats are browsing. The turf is starred with lilac gentian and +crocus bells, but sparely. Then comes the highest village, Berceto, +with keen Alpine air. After that, broad rolling downs of yellowing +grass and russet beech-scrub lead onward to the pass La Cisa. The +sense of breadth in composition is continually satisfied through this +ascent by the fine-drawn lines, faint tints, and immense air-spaces of +Italian landscape. Each little piece reminds one of England; but the +geographical scale is enormously more grandiose, and the effect of +majesty proportionately greater. + +From La Cisa the road descends suddenly; for the southern escarpment +of the Apennine, as of the Alpine, barrier is pitched at a far steeper +angle than the northern. Yet there is no view of the sea. That is +excluded by the lower hills which hem the Magra. The upper valley is +beautiful, with verdant lawns and purple hillsides breaking down into +thick chestnut woods, through which we wound at a rapid pace for +nearly an hour. The leaves were still green, mellowing to golden; but +the fruit was ripe and heavy, ready at all points to fall. In the +still October air the husks above our heads would loosen, and the +brown nuts rustle through the foliage, and with a dull short thud, +like drops of thunder-rain, break down upon the sod. At the foot of +this rich forest, wedged in between huge buttresses, we found +Pontremoli, and changed our horses here for the last time. It was +Sunday, and the little town was alive with country-folk; tall stalwart +fellows wearing peacock's feathers in their black slouched hats, and +nut-brown maids. + +From this point the valley of the Magra is exceeding rich with fruit +trees, vines, and olives. The tendrils of the vine are yellow now, and +in some places hued like generous wine; through their thick leaves the +sun shot crimson. In one cool garden, as the day grew dusk, I noticed +quince trees laden with pale fruit entangled with pomegranates--green +spheres and ruddy amid burnished leaves. By the roadside too were many +berries of bright hues; the glowing red of haws and hips, the amber of +the pyracanthus, the rose tints of the spindle-wood. These make autumn +even lovelier than spring. And then there was a wood of chestnuts +carpeted with pale pinkling, a place to dream of in the twilight. But +the main motive of this landscape was the indescribable Carrara range, +an island of pure form and shooting peaks, solid marble, crystalline +in shape and texture, faintly blue against the blue sky, from which +they were but scarce divided. These mountains close the valley to +south-east, and seem as though they belonged to another and more +celestial region. + +Soon the sunlight was gone, and moonrise came to close the day, as we +rolled onward to Sarzana, through arundo donax and vine-girdled olive +trees and villages, where contadini lounged upon the bridges. There +was a stream of sound in our ears, and in my brain a rhythmic dance of +beauties caught through the long-drawn glorious golden autumn-day. + + +III.--FOSDINOVO + + +The hamlet and the castle of Fosdinovo stand upon a mountain-spur +above Sarzana, commanding the valley of the Magra and the plains of +Luni. This is an ancient fief of the Malaspina House, and is still in +the possession of the Marquis of that name. + +The road to Fosdinovo strikes across the level through an avenue of +plane trees, shedding their discoloured leaves. It then takes to the +open fields, bordered with tall reeds waving from the foss on either +hand, where grapes are hanging to the vines. The country-folk allow +their vines to climb into the olives, and these golden festoons are a +great ornament to the grey branches. The berries on the trees are +still quite green, and it is a good olive season. Leaving the main +road, we pass a villa of the Malaspini, shrouded in immense thickets +of sweet bay and ilex, forming a grove for the Nymphs or Pan. Here may +you see just such clean stems and lucid foliage as Gian Bellini +painted, inch by inch, in his Peter Martyr picture. The place is +neglected now; the semicircular seats of white Carrara marble are +stained with green mosses, the altars chipped, the fountains choked +with bay leaves; and the rose trees, escaped from what were once trim +garden alleys, have gone wandering a-riot into country hedges. There +is no demarcation between the great man's villa and the neighbouring +farms. From this point the path rises, and the barren hillside is +a-bloom with late-flowering myrtles. Why did the Greeks consecrate +these myrtle-rods to Death as well as Love? Electra complained that +her father's tomb had not received the honour of the myrtle branch; +and the Athenians wreathed their swords with myrtle in memory of +Harmodius. Thinking of these matters, I cannot but remember lines of +Greek, which have themselves the rectitude and elasticity of myrtle +wands: + +(Greek:) + + kai prospesôn eklaus' erêmias tuchôn + spondas te lusas askon hon pherô xenois + espeisa tumbô d'amphethêka mursinas. + +As we approach Fosdinovo, the hills above us gain sublimity; the +prospect over plain and sea--the fields where Luna was, the widening +bay of Spezzia--grows ever grander. The castle is a ruin, still +capable of partial habitation, and now undergoing repair--the state in +which a ruin looks most sordid and forlorn. How strange it is, too, +that, to enforce this sense of desolation, sad dishevelled weeds cling +ever to such antique masonry! Here are the henbane, the sow-thistle, +the wild cucumber. At Avignon, at Orvieto, at Dolce Acqua, at Les +Baux, we never missed them. And they have the dusty courtyards, the +massive portals, where portcullises still threaten, of Fosdinovo to +themselves. Over the gate, and here and there on corbels, are carved +the arms of Malaspina--a barren thorn-tree, gnarled with the +geometrical precision of heraldic irony. + +Leaning from the narrow windows of this castle, with the spacious view +to westward, I thought of Dante. For Dante in this castle was the +guest of Moroello Malaspina, what time he was yet finishing the +'Inferno.' There is a little old neglected garden, full to south, +enclosed upon a rampart which commands the Borgo, where we found frail +canker-roses and yellow amaryllis. Here, perhaps, he may have sat +with ladies--for this was the Marchesa's pleasaunce; or may have +watched through a short summer's night, until he saw that _tremolar +della marina_, portending dawn, which afterwards he painted in the +'Purgatory.' + +From Fosdinovo one can trace the Magra work its way out seaward, not +into the plain where once the _candentia moenia Lunae_ flashed sunrise +from their battlements, but close beside the little hills which back +the southern arm of the Spezzian gulf. At the extreme end of that +promontory, called Del Corvo, stood the Benedictine convent of S. +Croce; and it was here in 1309, if we may trust to tradition, that +Dante, before his projected journey into France, appeared and left the +first part of his poem with the Prior. Fra Ilario, such was the good +father's name, received commission to transmit the 'Inferno' to +Uguccione della Faggiuola; and he subsequently recorded the fact of +Dante's visit in a letter which, though its genuineness has been +called in question, is far too interesting to be left without +allusion. The writer says that on occasion of a journey into lands +beyond the Riviera, Dante visited this convent, appearing silent and +unknown among the monks. To the Prior's question what he wanted, he +gazed upon the brotherhood, and only answered, 'Peace!' Afterwards, in +private conversation, he communicated his name and spoke about his +poem. A portion of the 'Divine Comedy' composed in the Italian tongue +aroused Ilario's wonder, and led him to inquire why his guest had not +followed the usual course of learned poets by committing his thoughts +to Latin. Dante replied that he had first intended to write in that +language, and that he had gone so far as to begin the poem in +Virgilian hexameters. Reflection upon the altered conditions of +society in that age led him, however, to reconsider the matter; and he +was resolved to tune another lyre, 'suited to the sense of modern +men.' 'For,' said he, 'it is idle to set solid food before the lips +of sucklings.' + +If we can trust Fra Ilario's letter as a genuine record, which is +unhappily a matter of some doubt, we have in this narration not only a +picturesque, almost a melodramatically picturesque glimpse of the +poet's apparition to those quiet monks in their seagirt house of +peace, but also an interesting record of the destiny which presided +over the first great work of literary art in a distinctly modern +language. + + +IV.--LA SPEZZIA + + +While we were at Fosdinovo the sky filmed over, and there came a halo +round the sun. This portended change; and by evening, after we had +reached La Spezzia, earth, sea, and air were conscious of a coming +tempest. At night I went down to the shore, and paced the sea-wall +they have lately built along the Rada. The moon was up, but overdriven +with dry smoky clouds, now thickening to blackness over the whole bay, +now leaving intervals through which the light poured fitfully and +fretfully upon the wrinkled waves; and ever and anon they shuddered +with electric gleams which were not actual lightning. Heaven seemed to +be descending on the sea; one might have fancied that some powerful +charms were drawing down the moon with influence malign upon those +still resisting billows. For not as yet the gulf was troubled to its +depth, and not as yet the breakers dashed in foam against the +moonlight-smitten promontories. There was but an uneasy murmuring of +wave to wave; a whispering of wind, that stooped its wing and hissed +along the surface, and withdrew into the mystery of clouds again; a +momentary chafing of churned water round the harbour piers, subsiding +into silence petulant and sullen. I leaned against an iron stanchion +and longed for the sea's message. But nothing came to me, and the +drowned secret of Shelley's death those waves which were his grave +revealed not. + + Howler and scooper of storms! capricious and dainty sea! + +Meanwhile the incantation swelled in shrillness, the electric shudders +deepened. Alone in this elemental overture to tempest I took no note +of time, but felt, through self-abandonment to the symphonic +influence, how sea and air, and clouds akin to both, were dealing with +each other complainingly, and in compliance to some maker of unrest +within them. A touch upon my shoulder broke this trance; I turned and +saw a boy beside me in a coastguard's uniform. Francesco was on patrol +that night; but my English accent soon assured him that I was no +_contrabbandiere_, and he too leaned against the stanchion and told me +his short story. He was in his nineteenth year, and came from +Florence, where his people live in the Borgo Ognissanti. He had all +the brightness of the Tuscan folk, a sort of innocent malice mixed +with _espieglerie_. It was diverting to see the airs he gave himself +on the strength of his new military dignity, his gun, and uniform, and +night duty on the shore. I could not help humming to myself _Non più +andrai_; for Francesco was a sort of Tuscan Cherubino. We talked about +picture galleries and libraries in Florence, and I had to hear his +favourite passages from the Italian poets. And then there came the +plots of Jules Verne's stories and marvellous narrations about _l' +uomo cavallo, l' uomo volante, l' uomo pesce_. The last of these +personages turned out to be Paolo Boÿnton (so pronounced), who had +swam the Arno in his diving dress, passing the several bridges, and +when he came to the great weir 'allora tutti stare con bocca aperta.' +Meanwhile the storm grew serious, and our conversation changed. +Francesco told me about the terrible sun-stricken sand shores of the +Riviera, burning in summer noon, over which the coast-guard has to +tramp, their perils from falling stones in storm, and the trains that +come rushing from those narrow tunnels on the midnight line of march. +It is a hard life; and the thirst for adventure which drove this +boy--'il più matto di tutta la famiglia'--to adopt it, seems well-nigh +quenched. And still, with a return to Giulio Verne, he talked +enthusiastically of deserting, of getting on board a merchant ship, +and working his way to southern islands where wonders are. + +A furious blast swept the whole sky for a moment almost clear. The +moonlight fell, with racing cloud-shadows, upon sea and hills, the +lights of Lerici, the great _fanali_ at the entrance of the gulf, and +Francesco's upturned handsome face. Then all again was whirled in mist +and foam; one breaker smote the sea wall in a surge of froth, another +plunged upon its heels; with inconceivable swiftness came rain; +lightning deluged the expanse of surf, and showed the windy trees bent +landward by the squall. It was long past midnight now, and the storm +was on us for the space of three days. + + +V.--PORTO VENERE + + +For the next three days the wind went worrying on, and a line of surf +leapt on the sea-wall always to the same height. The hills all around +were inky black and weary. + +At night the wild libeccio still rose, with floods of rain and +lightning poured upon the waste. I thought of the Florentine patrol. +Is he out in it, and where? + +At last there came a lull. When we rose on the fourth morning, the +sky was sulky, spent and sleepy after storm--the air as soft and tepid +as boiled milk or steaming flannel. We drove along the shore to Porto +Venere, passing the arsenals and dockyards, which have changed the +face of Spezzia since Shelley knew it. This side of the gulf is not so +rich in vegetation as the other, probably because it lies open to the +winds from the Carrara mountains. The chestnuts come down to the shore +in many places, bringing with them the wild mountain-side. To make up +for this lack of luxuriance, the coast is furrowed with a succession +of tiny harbours, where the fishing-boats rest at anchor. There are +many villages upon the spurs of hills, and on the headlands naval +stations, hospitals, lazzaretti, and prisons. A prickly bindweed (the +_Smilax Sarsaparilla_) forms a feature in the near landscape, with its +creamy odoriferous blossoms, coral berries, and glossy thorned leaves. + +A turn of the road brought Porto Venere in sight, and on its grey +walls flashed a gleam of watery sunlight. The village consists of one +long narrow street, the houses on the left side hanging sheer above +the sea. Their doors at the back open on to cliffs which drop about +fifty feet upon the water. A line of ancient walls, with mediaeval +battlements and shells of chambers suspended midway between earth and +sky, runs up the rock behind the town; and this wall is pierced with a +deep gateway above which the inn is piled. We had our lunch in a room +opening upon the town-gate, adorned with a deep-cut Pisan arch +enclosing images and frescoes--a curious episode in a place devoted to +the jollity of smugglers and seafaring folk. The whole house was such +as Tintoretto loved to paint--huge wooden rafters; open chimneys with +pent-house canopies of stone, where the cauldrons hung above logs of +chestnut; rude low tables spread with coarse linen embroidered at the +edges, and laden with plates of fishes, fruit, quaint glass, +big-bellied jugs of earthenware, and flasks of yellow wine. The people +of the place were lounging round in lazy attitudes. There were odd +nooks and corners everywhere; unexpected staircases with windows +slanting through the thickness of the town-wall; pictures of saints; +high-zoned serving women, on whose broad shoulders lay big coral +beads; smoke-blackened roofs, and balconies that opened on the sea. +The house was inexhaustible in motives for pictures. + +We walked up the street, attended by a rabble rout of boys--_diavoli +scatenati_--clean, grinning, white-teethed, who kept incessantly +shouting, 'Soldo, soldo!' I do not know why these sea-urchins are so +far more irrepressible than their land brethren. But it is always thus +in Italy. They take an imperturbable delight in noise and mere +annoyance. I shall never forget the sea-roar of Porto Venere, with +that shrill obligate, 'Soldo, soldo, soldo!' rattling like a dropping +fire from lungs of brass. + +At the end of Porto Venere is a withered and abandoned city, climbing +the cliffs of S. Pietro; and on the headland stands the ruined church, +built by Pisans with alternate rows of white and black marble, upon +the site of an old temple of Venus. This is a modest and pure piece of +Gothic architecture, fair in desolation, refined and dignified, and +not unworthy in its grace of the dead Cyprian goddess. Through its +broken lancets the sea-wind whistles and the vast reaches of the +Tyrrhene gulf are seen. Samphire sprouts between the blocks of marble, +and in sheltered nooks the caper hangs her beautiful purpureal snowy +bloom. + +The headland is a bold block of white limestone stained with red. It +has the pitch of Exmoor stooping to the sea near Lynton. To north, as +one looks along the coast, the line is broken by Porto Fino's +amethystine promontory; and in the vaporous distance we could trace +the Riviera mountains, shadowy and blue. The sea came roaring, rolling +in with tawny breakers; but, far out, it sparkled in pure azure, and +the cloud-shadows over it were violet. Where Corsica should have been +seen, soared banks of fleecy, broad-domed alabaster clouds. + +This point, once dedicated to Venus, now to Peter--both, be it +remembered, fishers of men--is one of the most singular in Europe. The +island of Palmaria, rich in veined marbles, shelters the port; so that +outside the sea rages, while underneath the town, reached by a narrow +strait, there is a windless calm. It was not without reason that our +Lady of Beauty took this fair gulf to herself; and now that she has +long been dispossessed, her memory lingers yet in names. For Porto +Venere remembers her, and Lerici is only Eryx. There is a grotto here, +where an inscription tells us that Byron once 'tempted the Ligurian +waves.' It is just such a natural sea-cave as might have inspired +Euripides when he described the refuge of Orestes in 'Iphigenia.' + + +VI.--LERICI + + +Libeccio at last had swept the sky clear. The gulf was ridged with +foam-fleeced breakers, and the water churned into green, tawny wastes. +But overhead there flew the softest clouds, all silvery, dispersed in +flocks. It is the day for pilgrimage to what was Shelley's home. + +After following the shore a little way, the road to Lerici breaks into +the low hills which part La Spezzia from Sarzana. The soil is red, and +overgrown with arbutus and pinaster, like the country around Cannes. +Through the scattered trees it winds gently upwards, with frequent +views across the gulf, and then descends into a land rich with +olives--a genuine Riviera landscape, where the mountain-slopes are +hoary, and spikelets of innumerable light-flashing leaves twinkle +against a blue sea, misty-deep. The walls here are not unfrequently +adorned with basreliefs of Carrara marble--saints and madonnas very +delicately wrought, as though they were love-labours of sculptors who +had passed a summer on this shore. San Terenzio is soon discovered low +upon the sands to the right, nestling under little cliffs; and then +the high-built castle of Lerici comes in sight, looking across, the bay +to Porto Venere--one Aphrodite calling to the other, with the foam +between. The village is piled around its cove with tall and +picturesquely coloured houses; the molo and the fishing-boats lie just +beneath the castle. There is one point of the descending carriage road +where all this gracefulness is seen, framed by the boughs of olive +branches, swaying, wind-ruffled, laughing the many-twinkling smiles of +ocean back from their grey leaves. Here _Erycina ridens_ is at home. +And, as we stayed to dwell upon the beauty of the scene, came women +from the bay below--barefooted, straight as willow wands, with +burnished copper bowls upon their heads. These women have the port of +goddesses, deep-bosomed, with the length of thigh and springing ankles +that betoken strength no less than elasticity and grace. The hair of +some of them was golden, rippling in little curls around brown brows +and glowing eyes. Pale lilac blent with orange on their dress, and +coral beads hung from their ears. + +At Lerici we took a boat and pushed into the rolling breakers. +Christian now felt the movement of the sea for the first time. This +was rather a rude trial, for the grey-maned monsters played, as it +seemed, at will with our cockle-shell, tumbling in dolphin curves to +reach the shore. Our boatmen knew all about Shelley and the Casa +Magni. It is not at Lerici, but close to San Terenzio, upon the south +side of the village. Looking across the bay from the molo, one could +clearly see its square white mass, tiled roof, and terrace built on +rude arcades with a broad orange awning. Trelawny's description hardly +prepares one for so considerable a place. I think the English exiles +of that period must have been exacting if the Casa Magni seemed to +them no better than a bathing-house. + +We left our boat at the jetty, and walked through some gardens to the +villa. There we were kindly entertained by the present occupiers, +who, when I asked them whether such visits as ours were not a great +annoyance, gently but feelingly replied: 'It is not so bad now as it +used to be.' The English gentleman who rents the Casa Magni has known +it uninterruptedly since Shelley's death, and has used it for +_villeggiatura_ during the last thirty years. We found him in the +central sitting-room, which readers of Trelawny's 'Recollections' have +so often pictured to themselves. The large oval table, the settees +round the walls, and some of the pictures are still unchanged. As we +sat talking, I laughed to think of that luncheon party, when Shelley +lost his clothes, and came naked, dripping with sea-water, into the +room, protected by the skirts of the sympathising waiting-maid. And +then I wondered where they found him on the night when he stood +screaming in his sleep, after the vision of his veiled self, with its +question, '_Siete soddisfatto_?' + +There were great ilexes behind the house in Shelley's time, which have +been cut down, and near these he is said to have sat and written the +'Triumph of Life.' Some new houses, too, have been built between the +villa and the town; otherwise the place is unaltered. Only an awning +has been added to protect the terrace from the sun. I walked out on +this terrace, where Shelley used to listen to Jane's singing. The sea +was fretting at its base, just as Mrs. Shelley says it did when the +Don Juan disappeared. + +From San Terenzio we walked back to Lerici through olive woods, +attended by a memory which toned the almost overpowering beauty of the +place to sadness. + + +VII.--VIAREGGIO + + +The same memory drew us, a few days later, to the spot where +Shelley's body was burned. Viareggio is fast becoming a fashionable +watering-place for the people of Florence and Lucca, who seek fresher +air and simpler living than Livorno offers. It has the usual new inns +and improvised lodging-houses of such places, built on the outskirts +of a little fishing village, with a boundless stretch of noble sands. +There is a wooden pier on which we walked, watching the long roll of +waves, foam-flaked, and quivering with moonlight. The Apennines faded +into the grey sky beyond, and the sea-wind was good to breathe. There +is a feeling of 'immensity, liberty, action' here, which is not common +in Italy. It reminds us of England; and to-night the Mediterranean had +the rough force of a tidal sea. + +Morning revealed beauty enough in Viareggio to surprise even one who +expects from Italy all forms of loveliness. The sand-dunes stretch for +miles between the sea and a low wood of stone pines, with the Carrara +hills descending from their glittering pinnacles by long lines to the +headlands of the Spezzian Gulf. The immeasurable distance was all +painted in sky-blue and amethyst; then came the golden green of the +dwarf firs; and then dry yellow in the grasses of the dunes; and then +the many-tinted sea, with surf tossed up against the furthest cliffs. +It is a wonderful and tragic view, to which no painter but the Roman +Costa has done justice; and he, it may be said, has made this +landscape of the Carrarese his own. The space between sand and +pine-wood was covered with faint, yellow, evening primroses. They +flickered like little harmless flames in sun and shadow, and the +spires of the Carrara range were giant flames transformed to marble. +The memory of that day described by Trelawny in a passage of immortal +English prose, when he and Byron and Leigh Hunt stood beside the +funeral pyre, and libations were poured, and the 'Cor Cordium' was +found inviolate among the ashes, turned all my thoughts to flame +beneath the gentle autumn sky. + +Still haunted by these memories, we took the carriage road to Pisa, +over which Shelley's friends had hurried to and fro through those last +days. It passes an immense forest of stone-pines--aisles and avenues; +undergrowth of ilex, laurustinus, gorse, and myrtle; the crowded +cyclamens, the solemn silence of the trees; the winds hushed in their +velvet roof and stationary domes of verdure. + + * * * * * + + + + +_PARMA_ + + +Parma is perhaps the brightest _Residenzstadt_ of the second class in +Italy. Built on a sunny and fertile tract of the Lombard plain, within +view of the Alps, and close beneath the shelter of the Apennines, it +shines like a well-set gem with stately towers and cheerful squares in +the midst of verdure. The cities of Lombardy are all like large +country houses: walking out of their gates, you seem to be stepping +from a door or window that opens on a trim and beautiful garden, where +mulberry-tree is married to mulberry by festoons of vines, and where +the maize and sunflower stand together in rows between patches of flax +and hemp. But it is not in order to survey the union of well-ordered +husbandry with the civilities of ancient city-life that we break the +journey at Parma between Milan and Bologna. We are attracted rather by +the fame of one great painter, whose work, though it may be studied +piecemeal in many galleries of Europe, in Parma has a fulness, +largeness, and mastery that can nowhere else be found. In Parma alone +Correggio challenges comparison with Raphael, with Tintoret, with all +the supreme decorative painters who have deigned to make their art the +handmaid of architecture. Yet even in the cathedral and the church of +S. Giovanni, where Correggio's frescoes cover cupola and chapel wall, +we could scarcely comprehend his greatness now--so cruelly have time +and neglect dealt with those delicate dream-shadows of celestial +fairyland--were it not for an interpreter, who consecrated a lifetime +to the task of translating his master's poetry of fresco into the +prose of engraving. That man was Paolo Toschi--a name to be ever +venerated by all lovers of the arts; since without his guidance we +should hardly know what to seek for in the ruined splendours of the +domes of Parma, or even seeking, how to find the object of our search. +Toschi's labour was more effectual than that of a restorer however +skilful, more loving than that of a follower however faithful. He +respected Correggio's handiwork with religious scrupulousness, adding +not a line or tone or touch of colour to the fading frescoes; but he +lived among them, aloft on scaffoldings, and face to face with the +originals which he designed to reproduce. By long and close +familiarity, by obstinate and patient interrogation, he divined +Correggio's secret, and was able at last to see clearly through the +mist of cobweb and mildew and altar smoke, and through the still more +cruel travesty of so-called restoration. What he discovered, he +faithfully committed first to paper in water colours, and then to +copperplate with the burin, so that we enjoy the privilege of seeing +Correggio's masterpieces as Toschi saw them, with the eyes of genius +and of love and of long scientific study. It is not too much to say +that some of Correggio's most charming compositions--for example, the +dispute of S. Augustine and S. John--have been resuscitated from the +grave by Toschi's skill. The original offers nothing but a mouldering +surface from which the painter's work has dropped in scales. The +engraving presents a design which we doubt not was Correggio's, for it +corresponds in all particulars to the style and spirit of the master. +To be critical in dealing with so successful an achievement of +restoration and translation is difficult. Yet it may be admitted once +and for all that Toschi has not unfrequently enfeebled his original. +Under his touch Correggio loses somewhat of his sensuous audacity, his +dithyrambic ecstasy, and approaches the ordinary standard of +prettiness and graceful beauty. The Diana of the Camera di S. Paolo, +for instance, has the strong calm splendour of a goddess: the same +Diana in Toschi's engraving seems about to smile with girlish joy. In +a word, the engraver was a man of a more common stamp--more timid and +more conventional than the painter. But this is after all a trifling +deduction from the value of his work. + +Our debt to Paolo Toschi is such that it would be ungrateful not to +seek some details of his life. The few that can be gathered even at +Parma are brief and bald enough. The newspaper articles and funeral +panegyrics which refer to him are as barren as all such occasional +notices in Italy have always been; the panegyrist seeming more anxious +about his own style than eager to communicate information. Yet a bare +outline of Toschi's biography may be supplied. He was born at Parma in +1788. His father was cashier of the post-office, and his mother's name +was Anna Maria Brest. Early in his youth he studied painting at Parma +under Biagio Martini; and in 1809 he went to Paris, where he learned +the art of engraving from Bervic and of etching from Oortman. In Paris +he contracted an intimate friendship with the painter Gérard. But +after ten years he returned to Parma, where he established a company +and school of engravers in concert with his friend Antonio Isac. Maria +Louisa, the then Duchess, under whose patronage the arts flourished at +Parma (witness Bodoni's exquisite typography), soon recognised his +merit, and appointed him Director of the Ducal Academy. He then formed +the project of engraving a series of the whole of Correggio's +frescoes. The undertaking was a vast one. Both the cupolas of S. John +and the cathedral, together with the vault of the apse of S. +Giovanni[10] and various portions of the side aisles, and the +so-called Camera di S. Paolo, are covered by frescoes of Correggio and +his pupil Parmegiano. These frescoes have suffered so much from +neglect and time, and from unintelligent restoration, that it is +difficult in many cases to determine their true character. Yet Toschi +did not content himself with selections, or shrink from the task of +deciphering and engraving the whole. He formed a school of disciples, +among whom were Carlo Raimondi of Milan, Antonio Costa of Venice, +Edward Eichens of Berlin, Aloisio Juvara of Naples, Antonio Dalcò, +Giuseppe Magnani, and Lodovico Bisola of Parma, and employed them as +assistants in his work. Death overtook him in 1854, before it was +finished, and now the water-colour drawings which are exhibited in the +Gallery of Parma prove to what extent the achievement fell short of +his design. Enough, however, was accomplished to place the chief +masterpieces of Correggio beyond the possibility of utter oblivion. + +To the piety of his pupil Carlo Raimondi, the bearer of a name +illustrious in the annals of engraving, we owe a striking portrait of +Toschi. The master is represented on his seat upon the scaffold in the +dizzy half-light of the dome. The shadowy forms of saints and angels +are around him. He has raised his eyes from his cartoon to study one +of these. In his right hand is the opera-glass with which he +scrutinises the details of distant groups. The upturned face, with its +expression of contemplative intelligence, is like that of an +astronomer accustomed to commerce with things above the sphere of +common life, and ready to give account of all that he has gathered +from his observation of a world not ours. In truth the world created +by Correggio and interpreted by Toschi is very far removed from that +of actual existence. No painter has infused a more distinct +individuality into his work, realising by imaginative force and +powerful projection an order of beauty peculiar to himself, before +which it is impossible to remain quite indifferent. We must either +admire the manner of Correggio, or else shrink from it with the +distaste which sensual art is apt to stir in natures of a severe or +simple type. + +What, then, is the Correggiosity of Correggio? In other words, what is +the characteristic which, proceeding from the personality of the +artist, is impressed on all his work? The answer to this question, +though by no means simple, may perhaps be won by a process of gradual +analysis. The first thing that strikes us in the art of Correggio is, +that he has aimed at the realistic representation of pure unrealities. +His saints and angels are beings the like of whom we have hardly seen +upon the earth. Yet they are displayed before us with all the movement +and the vivid truth of nature. Next we feel that what constitutes the +superhuman, visionary quality of these creatures, is their uniform +beauty of a merely sensuous type. They are all created for pleasure, +not for thought or passion or activity or heroism. The uses of their +brains, their limbs, their every feature, end in enjoyment; innocent +and radiant wantonness is the condition of their whole existence. +Correggio conceived the universe under the one mood of sensuous joy: +his world was bathed in luxurious light; its inhabitants were capable +of little beyond a soft voluptuousness. Over the domain of tragedy he +had no sway, and very rarely did he attempt to enter on it: nothing, +for example, can be feebler than his endeavour to express anguish in +the distorted features of Madonna, S. John, and the Magdalen, who are +bending over the dead body of a Christ extended in the attitude of +languid repose. In like manner he could not deal with subjects which +demand a pregnancy of intellectual meaning. He paints the three Fates +like young and joyous Bacchantes, places rose-garlands and +thyrsi in their hands instead of the distaff and the thread of human +destinies, and they might figure appropriately upon the panels of a +banquet-chamber in Pompeii. In this respect Correggio might be termed +the Rossini of painting. The melodies of the 'Stabat Mater'--_Fac ut +portem_ or _Quis est homo_--are the exact analogues in music of +Correggio's voluptuous renderings of grave or mysterious motives. Nor, +again, did he possess that severe and lofty art of composition which +subordinates the fancy to the reason, and which seeks for the highest +intellectual beauty in a kind of architectural harmony supreme above +the melodies of gracefulness in detail. The Florentines and those who +shared their spirit--Michelangelo and Lionardo and Raphael--deriving +this principle of design from the geometrical art of the Middle Ages, +converted it to the noblest uses in their vast well-ordered +compositions. But Correggio ignored the laws of scientific +construction. It was enough for him to produce a splendid and +brilliant effect by the life and movement of his figures, and by the +intoxicating beauty of his forms. His type of beauty, too, is by no +means elevated. Lionardo painted souls whereof the features and the +limbs are but an index. The charm of Michelangelo's ideal is like a +flower upon a tree of rugged strength. Raphael aims at the loveliness +which cannot be disjoined from goodness. But Correggio is contented +with bodies 'delicate and desirable.' His angels are genii +disimprisoned from the perfumed chalices of flowers, houris of an +erotic paradise, elemental spirits of nature wantoning in Eden in her +prime. To accuse the painter of conscious immorality or of what is +stigmatised as sensuality, would be as ridiculous as to class his +seraphic beings among the products of the Christian imagination. They +belong to the generation of the fauns; like fauns, they combine a +certain savage wildness, a dithyrambic ecstasy of inspiration, a +delight in rapid movement as they revel amid clouds or flowers, with +the permanent and all-pervading sweetness of the master's style. When +infantine or childlike, these celestial sylphs are scarcely to be +distinguished for any noble quality of beauty from Murillo's cherubs, +and are far less divine than the choir of children who attend Madonna +in Titian's 'Assumption.' But in their boyhood and their prime of +youth, they acquire a fulness of sensuous vitality and a radiance that +are peculiar to Correggio. The lily-bearer who helps to support S. +Thomas beneath the dome of the cathedral at Parma, the groups of +seraphs who crowd behind the Incoronata of S. Giovanni, and the two +wild-eyed open-mouthed S. Johns stationed at each side of the +celestial throne, are among the most splendid instances of the +adolescent loveliness conceived by Correggio. Where the painter found +their models may be questioned but not answered; for he has made them +of a different fashion from the race of mortals: no court of Roman +emperor or Turkish sultan, though stocked with the flowers of +Bithynian and Circassian youth, have seen their like. Mozart's +Cherubino seems to have sat for all of them. At any rate they +incarnate the very spirit of the songs he sings. + +As a consequence of this predilection for sensuous and voluptuous +forms, Correggio had no power of imagining grandly or severely. +Satisfied with material realism in his treatment even of sublime +mysteries, he converts the hosts of heaven into a 'fricassee of +frogs,' according to the old epigram. His apostles, gazing after the +Virgin who has left the earth, are thrown into attitudes so violent +and so dramatically foreshortened, that seen from below upon the +pavement of the cathedral, little of their form is distinguishable +except legs and arms in vehement commotion. Very different is Titian's +conception of this scene. To express the spiritual meaning, the +emotion of Madonna's transit, with all the pomp which colour and +splendid composition can convey, is Titian's sole care; whereas +Correggio appears to have been satisfied with realising the tumult of +heaven rushing to meet earth, and earth straining upwards to ascend to +heaven in violent commotion--a very orgasm of frenetic rapture. The +essence of the event is forgotten: its external manifestation alone is +presented to the eye; and only the accessories of beardless angels and +cloud-encumbered cherubs are really beautiful amid a surge of limbs in +restless movement. More dignified, because designed with more repose, +is the Apocalypse of S. John painted upon the cupola of S. Giovanni. +The apostles throned on clouds, with which the dome is filled, gaze +upward to one point. Their attitudes are noble; their form is heroic; +in their eyes there is the strange ecstatic look by which Correggio +interpreted his sense of supernatural vision: it is a gaze not of +contemplation or deep thought, but of wild half-savage joy, as if +these saints also had become the elemental genii of cloud and air, +spirits emergent from ether, the salamanders of an empyrean +intolerable to mortal sense. The point on which their eyes converge, +the culmination of their vision, is the figure of Christ. Here all the +weakness of Correggio's method is revealed. He had undertaken to +realise by no ideal allegorical suggestion, by no symbolism of +architectural grouping, but by actual prosaic measurement, by +corporeal form in subjection to the laws of perspective and +foreshortening, things which in their very essence admit of only a +figurative revelation. Therefore his Christ, the centre of all those +earnest eyes, is contracted to a shape in which humanity itself is +mean, a sprawling figure which irresistibly reminds one of a frog. The +clouds on which the saints repose are opaque and solid; cherubs in +countless multitudes, a swarm of merry children, crawl about upon +these feather-beds of vapour, creep between the legs of the apostles, +and play at bopeep behind their shoulders. There is no propriety in +their appearance there. They take no interest in the beatific vision. +They play no part in the celestial symphony; nor are they capable of +more than merely infantine enjoyment. Correggio has sprinkled them +lavishly like living flowers about his cloudland, because he could not +sustain a grave and solemn strain of music, but was forced by his +temperament to overlay the melody with roulades. Gazing at these +frescoes, the thought came to me that Correggio was like a man +listening to sweetest flute-playing, and translating phrase after +phrase as they passed through his fancy into laughing faces, breezy +tresses, and rolling mists. Sometimes a grander cadence reached his +ear; and then S. Peter with the keys, or S. Augustine of the mighty +brow, or the inspired eyes of S. John, took form beneath his pencil. +But the light airs returned, and rose and lily faces bloomed again for +him among the clouds. It is not therefore in dignity or sublimity that +Correggio excels, but in artless grace and melodious tenderness. The +Madonna della Scala clasping her baby with a caress which the little +child returns, S. Catherine leaning in a rapture of ecstatic love to +wed the infant Christ, S. Sebastian in the bloom of almost boyish +beauty, are the so-called sacred subjects to which the painter was +adequate, and which he has treated with the voluptuous tenderness we +find in his pictures of Leda and Danae and Io. Could these saints and +martyrs descend from Correggio's canvas, and take flesh, and breathe, +and begin to live; of what high action, of what grave passion, of what +exemplary conduct in any walk of life would they be capable? That is +the question which they irresistibly suggest; and we are forced to +answer, None! The moral and religious world did not exist for +Correggio. His art was but a way of seeing carnal beauty in a dream +that had no true relation to reality. + +Correggio's sensibility to light and colour was exactly on a par with +his feeling for form. He belongs to the poets of chiaroscuro and the +poets of colouring; but in both regions he maintains the individuality +so strongly expressed in his choice of purely sensuous beauty. +Tintoretto makes use of light and shade for investing his great +compositions with dramatic intensity. Rembrandt interprets sombre and +fantastic moods of the mind by golden gloom and silvery irradiation, +translating thought into the language of penumbral mystery. Lionardo +studies the laws of light scientifically, so that the proper roundness +and effect of distance should be accurately rendered, and all the +subtleties of nature's smiles be mimicked. Correggio is content with +fixing on his canvas the [Greek: anêrithmon gelasma], the +many-twinkling laughter of light in motion, rained down through fleecy +clouds or trembling foliage, melting into half-shadows, bathing and +illuminating every object with a soft caress. There are no tragic +contrasts of splendour sharply defined on blackness, no mysteries of +half-felt and pervasive twilight, no studied accuracies of noonday +clearness in his work. Light and shadow are woven together on his +figures like an impalpable Coan gauze, aërial and transparent, +enhancing the palpitations of voluptuous movement which he loved. His +colouring, in like manner, has none of the superb and mundane pomp +which the Venetians affected; it does not glow or burn or beat the +fire of gems into our brain; joyous and wanton, it seems to be exactly +such a beauty-bloom as sense requires for its satiety. There is +nothing in his hues to provoke deep passion or to stimulate the +yearnings of the soul: the pure blushes of the dawn and the crimson +pyres of sunset are nowhere in the world that he has painted. But that +chord of jocund colour which may fitly be married to the smiles of +light, the blues which are found in laughing eyes, the pinks that +tinge the cheeks of early youth, and the warm yet silvery tones of +healthy flesh, mingle as in a marvellous pearl-shell on his pictures. +Both chiaroscuro and colouring have this supreme purpose in art, to +effect the sense like music, and like music to create a mood in the +soul of the spectator. Now the mood which Correggio stimulates is one +of natural and thoughtless pleasure. To feel his influence, and at the +same moment to be the subject of strong passion, or fierce lust, or +heroic resolve, or profound contemplation, or pensive melancholy, is +impossible. Wantonness, innocent because unconscious of sin, immoral +because incapable of any serious purpose, is the quality which +prevails in all that he has painted. The pantomimes of a Mohammedan +paradise might be put upon the stage after patterns supplied by this +least spiritual of painters. + +It follows from this analysis that the Correggiosity of Correggio, +that which sharply distinguished him from all previous artists, was +the faculty of painting a purely voluptuous dream of beautiful beings +in perpetual movement, beneath the laughter of morning light, in a +world of never-failing April hues. When he attempts to depart from the +fairyland of which he was the Prospero, and to match himself with the +masters of sublime thought or earnest passion, he proves his weakness. +But within his own magic circle he reigns supreme, no other artist +having blended the witcheries of colouring, chiaroscuro,and faunlike +loveliness of form into a harmony so perfect in its sensuous charm. +Bewitched by the strains of the siren, we pardon affectations of +expression, emptiness of meaning, feebleness of composition, +exaggerated and melodramatic attitudes. There is what Goethe called a +demonic influence in the art of Correggio: 'In poetry,' said Goethe to +Eckermann, 'especially in that which is unconscious, before which +reason and understanding fall short, and which therefore produces +effects so far surpassing all conception, there is always something +demonic.' It is not to be wondered that Correggio, possessed of this +demonic power in the highest degree, and working to a purely sensuous +end, should have exercised a fatal influence over art. His successors, +attracted by an intoxicating loveliness which they could not analyse, +which had nothing in common with the reason or the understanding, but +was like a glamour cast upon the soul in its most secret +sensibilities, threw themselves blindly into the imitation of +Correggio's faults. His affectation, his want of earnest thought, his +neglect of composition, his sensuous realism, his all-pervading +sweetness, his infantine prettiness, his substitution of +thaumaturgical effects for conscientious labour, admitted only too +easy imitation, and were but too congenial with the spirit of the late +Renaissance. Cupolas through the length and breadth of Italy began to +be covered with clouds and simpering cherubs in the convulsions of +artificial ecstasy. The attenuated elegance of Parmigiano, the +attitudinising of Anselmi's saints and angels, and a general sacrifice +of what is solid and enduring to sentimental gewgaws on the part of +all painters who had submitted to the magic of Correggio, proved how +easy it was to go astray with the great master. Meanwhile no one could +approach him in that which was truly his own--the delineation of a +transient moment in the life of sensuous beauty, the painting of a +smile on Nature's face, when light and colour tremble in harmony with +the movement of joyous living creatures. Another demonic nature of a +far more powerful type contributed his share to the ruin of art in +Italy. Michelangelo's constrained attitudes and muscular anatomy were +imitated by painters and sculptors, who thought that the grand style +lay in the presentation of theatrical athletes, but who could not +seize the secret whereby the great master made even the bodies of men +and women--colossal trunks and writhen limbs--interpret the meanings +of his deep and melancholy soul. + +It is a sad law of progress in art, that when the æsthetic impulse is +on the wane, artists should perforce select to follow the weakness +rather than the vigour, of their predecessors. While painting was in +the ascendant, Raphael could take the best of Perugino and discard the +worst; in its decadence Parmigiano reproduces the affectations of +Correggio, and Bernini carries the exaggerations of Michelangelo to +absurdity. All arts describe a parabola. The force which produces +them causes them to rise throughout their growth up to a certain +point, and then to descend more gradually in a long and slanting line +of regular declension. There is no real break of continuity. The end +is the result of simple exhaustion. Thus the last of our Elizabethan +dramatists, Shirley and Crowne and Killigrew, pushed to its ultimate +conclusion the principle inherent in Marlowe, not attempting to break +new ground, nor imitating the excellences so much as the defects of +their forerunners. Thus too the Pointed style of architecture in +England gave birth first to what is called the Decorated, next to the +Perpendicular, and finally expired in the Tudor. Each step was a step +of progress--at first for the better--at last for the worse--but +logical, continuous, necessitated.[11] + +It is difficult to leave Correggio without at least posing the +question of the difference between moralised and merely sensual art. +Is all art excellent in itself and good in its effect that is +beautiful and earnest? There is no doubt that Correggio's work is in a +way most beautiful; and it bears unmistakable signs of the master +having given himself with single-hearted devotion to the expression of +that phase of loveliness which he could apprehend. In so far we must +admit that his art is both excellent and solid. Yet we are unable to +conceive that any human being could be made better--stronger for +endurance, more fitted for the uses of the world, more sensitive to +what is noble in nature--by its contemplation. At the best Correggio +does but please us in our lighter moments, and we are apt to feel that +the pleasure he has given is of an enervating kind. To expect obvious +morality of any artist is confessedly absurd. It is not the artist's +province to preach, or even to teach, except by remote suggestion. Yet +the mind of the artist may be highly moralised, and then he takes rank +not merely with the ministers to refined pleasure, but also with the +educators of the world. He may, for example, be penetrated with a just +sense of humanity like Shakspere, or with a sublime temperance like +Sophocles, instinct with prophetic intuition like Michelangelo, or +with passionate experience like Beethoven. The mere sight of the work +of Pheidias is like breathing pure health-giving air. Milton and Dante +were steeped in religious patriotism; Goethe was pervaded with +philosophy, and Balzac with scientific curiosity. Ariosto, Cervantes, +and even Boccaccio are masters in the mysteries of common life. In all +these cases the tone of the artist's mind is felt throughout his work: +what he paints, or sings, or writes, conveys a lesson while it +pleases. On the other hand, depravity in an artist or a poet +percolates through work which has in it nothing positive of evil, and +a very miasma of poisonous influence may rise from the apparently +innocuous creations of a tainted soul. Now Correggio is moralised in +neither way--neither as a good nor as a bad man, neither as an acute +thinker nor as a deliberate voluptuary. He is simply sensuous. On his +own ground he is even very fresh and healthy: his delineation of +youthful maternity, for example, is as true as it is beautiful; and +his sympathy with the gleefulness of children is devoid of +affectation. We have then only to ask ourselves whether the defect in +him of all thought and feeling which is not at once capable of +graceful fleshly incarnation, be sufficient to lower him in the scale +of artists. This question must of course be answered according to our +definition of the purposes of art. There is no doubt that the most +highly organised art--that which absorbs the most numerous human +qualities and effects a harmony between the most complex elements--is +the noblest. Therefore the artist who combines moral elevation and +power of thought with a due appreciation of sensual beauty, is more +elevated and more beneficial than one whose domain is simply that of +carnal loveliness. Correggio, if this be so, must take a comparatively +low rank. Just as we welcome the beautiful athlete for the radiant +life that is in him, but bow before the personality of Sophocles, +whose perfect form enshrined a noble and highly educated soul, so we +gratefully accept Correggio for his grace, while we approach the +consummate art of Michelangelo with reverent awe. It is necessary in +æsthetics as elsewhere to recognise a hierarchy of excellence, the +grades of which are determined by the greater or less +comprehensiveness of the artist's nature expressed in his work. At the +same time, the calibre of the artist's genius must be estimated; for +eminent greatness even of a narrow kind will always command our +admiration: and the amount of his originality has also to be taken +into account. What is unique has, for that reason alone, a claim on +our consideration. Judged in this way, Correggio deserves a place, +say, in the sweet planet Venus, above the moon and above Mercury, +among the artists who have not advanced beyond the contemplations +which find their proper outcome in love. Yet, even thus, he aids the +culture of humanity. 'We should take care,' said Goethe, apropos of +Byron, to Eckermann, 'not to be always looking for culture in the +decidedly pure and moral. Everything that is great promotes +cultivation as soon as we are aware of it.' + + * * * * * + + + + +_CANOSSA_ + + +Italy is less the land of what is venerable in antiquity, than of +beauty, by divine right young eternally in spite of age. This is due +partly to her history and art and literature, partly to the temper of +the races who have made her what she is, and partly to her natural +advantages. Her oldest architectural remains, the temples of Paestum +and Girgenti, or the gates of Perugia and Volterra, are so adapted to +Italian landscape and so graceful in their massive strength, that we +forget the centuries which have passed over them. We leap as by a +single bound from the times of Roman greatness to the new birth of +humanity in the fourteenth century, forgetting the many years during +which Italy, like the rest of Europe, was buried in what our ancestors +called Gothic barbarism. The illumination cast upon the classic period +by the literature of Rome and by the memory of her great men is so +vivid, that we feel the days of the Republic and the Empire to be near +us; while the Italian Renaissance is so truly a revival of that former +splendour, a resumption of the music interrupted for a season, that it +is extremely difficult to form any conception of the five long +centuries which elapsed between the Lombard invasion in 568 and the +accession of Hildebrand to the Pontificate in 1073. So true is it that +nothing lives and has reality for us but what is spiritual, +intellectual, self-possessed in personality and consciousness. When +the Egyptian priest said to Solon, 'You Greeks are always children,' +he intended a gentle sarcasm, but he implied a compliment; for the +quality of imperishable youth belonged to the Hellenic spirit, and has +become the heritage of every race which partook of it. And this spirit +in no common degree has been shared by the Italians of the earlier and +the later classic epoch. The land is full of monuments pertaining to +those two brilliant periods; and whenever the voice of poet has spoken +or the hand of artist has been at work, that spirit, as distinguished +from the spirit of mediaevalism, has found expression. + +Yet it must be remembered that during the five centuries above +mentioned Italy was given over to Lombards, Franks, and Germans. +Feudal institutions, alien to the social and political ideals of the +classic world, took a tolerably firm hold on the country. The Latin +element remained silent, passive, in abeyance, undergoing an important +transformation. It was in the course of those five hundred years that +the Italians as a modern people, separable from their Roman ancestors, +were formed. At the close of this obscure passage in Italian history, +their communes, the foundation of Italy's future independence, and the +source of her peculiar national development, appeared in all the +vigour and audacity of youth. At its close the Italian genius +presented Europe with its greatest triumph of constructive ability, +the Papacy. At its close again the series of supreme artistic +achievements, starting with the architecture of churches and public +palaces, passing on to sculpture and painting, and culminating in +music, which only ended with the temporary extinction of national +vitality in the seventeenth century, was simultaneously begun in all +the provinces of the peninsula. + +So important were these five centuries of incubation for Italy, and so +little is there left of them to arrest the attention of the student, +dazzled as he is by the ever-living glories of Greece, Rome, and the +Renaissance, that a visit to the ruins of Canossa is almost a duty. +There, in spite of himself, by the very isolation and forlorn +abandonment of what was once so formidable a seat of feudal despotism +and ecclesiastical tyranny, he is forced to confront the obscure but +mighty spirit of the middle ages. There, if anywhere, the men of those +iron-hearted times anterior to the Crusades will acquire distinctness +for his imagination, when he recalls the three main actors in the +drama enacted on the summit of Canossa's rock in the bitter winter of +1077. + +Canossa lies almost due south of Reggio d'Emilia, upon the slopes of +the Apennines. Starting from Reggio, the carriage-road keeps to the +plain for some while in a westerly direction, and then bends away +towards the mountains. As we approach their spurs, the ground begins +to rise. The rich Lombard tilth of maize and vine gives place to +English-looking hedgerows, lined with oaks, and studded with handsome +dark tufts of green hellebore. The hills descend in melancholy +earth-heaps on the plain, crowned here and there with ruined castles. +Four of these mediaeval strongholds, called Bianello, Montevetro, +Monteluzzo, and Montezano, give the name of Quattro Castelli to the +commune. The most important of them, Bianello, which, next to Canossa, +was the strongest fortress possessed by the Countess Matilda and her +ancestors, still presents a considerable mass of masonry, roofed and +habitable. The group formed a kind of advance-guard for Canossa +against attack from Lombardy. After passing Quattro Castelli we enter +the hills, climbing gently upwards between barren slopes of ashy grey +earth--the _débris_ of most ancient Apennines--crested at favourable +points with lonely towers. In truth the whole country bristles with +ruined forts, making it clear that during the middle ages Canossa was +but the centre of a great military system, the core and kernel of a +fortified position which covered an area to be measured by scores of +square miles, reaching far into the mountains, and buttressed on the +plain. As yet, however, after nearly two hours' driving, Canossa has +not come in sight. At last a turn in the road discloses an opening in +the valley of the Enza to the left: up this lateral gorge we see first +the Castle of Rossena on its knoll of solid red rock, flaming in the +sunlight; and then, further withdrawn, detached from all surrounding +objects, and reared aloft as though to sweep the sea of waved and +broken hills around it, a sharp horn of hard white stone. That is +Canossa--the _alba Canossa_, the _candida petra_ of its rhyming +chronicler. There is no mistaking the commanding value of its +situation. At the same time the brilliant whiteness of Canossa's +rocky hill, contrasted with the red gleam of Rossena, and outlined +against the prevailing dulness of these earthy Apennines, secures a +picturesque individuality concordant with its unique history and +unrivalled strength. + +There is still a journey of two hours before the castle can be +reached: and this may be performed on foot or horseback. The path +winds upward over broken ground; following the _arête_ of curiously +jumbled and thwarted hill-slopes; passing beneath the battlements of +Rossena, whence the unfortunate Everelina threw herself in order to +escape the savage love of her lord and jailor; and then skirting those +horrid earthen _balze_ which are so common and so unattractive a +feature of Apennine scenery. The most hideous _balze_ to be found in +the length and breadth of Italy are probably those of Volterra, from +which the citizens themselves recoil with a kind of terror, and which +lure melancholy men by intolerable fascination on to suicide. For ever +crumbling, altering with frost and rain, discharging gloomy glaciers +of slow-crawling mud, and scarring the hillside with tracts of +barrenness, these earth-precipices are among the most ruinous and +discomfortable failures of nature. They have not even so much of +wildness or grandeur as forms, the saving merit of nearly all wasteful +things in the world, and can only be classed with the desolate +_ghiare_ of Italian river-beds. + +Such as they are, these _balze_ form an appropriate preface to the +gloomy and repellent isolation of Canossa. The rock towers from a +narrow platform to the height of rather more than 160 feet from its +base. The top is fairly level, forming an irregular triangle, of which +the greatest length is about 260 feet, and the width about 100 feet. +Scarcely a vestige of any building can be traced either upon the +platform or the summit, with the exception of a broken wall and +windows supposed to belong to the end of the sixteenth century. The +ancient castle, with its triple circuit of walls, enclosing barracks +for the garrison, lodgings for the lord and his retainers, a stately +church, a sumptuous monastery, storehouses, stables, workshops, and +all the various buildings of a fortified stronghold, have utterly +disappeared. The very passage of approach cannot be ascertained; for +it is doubtful whether the present irregular path that scales the +western face of the rock be really the remains of some old staircase, +corresponding to that by which Mont S. Michel in Normandy is ascended. +One thing is tolerably certain--that the three walls of which we hear +so much from the chroniclers, and which played so picturesque a part +in the drama of Henry IV.'s penance, surrounded the cliff at its base, +and embraced a large acreage of ground. The citadel itself must have +been but the acropolis or keep of an extensive fortress. + +There has been plenty of time since the year 1255, when the people of +Reggio sacked and destroyed Canossa, for Nature to resume her +undisputed sway by obliterating the handiwork of men; and at present +Nature forms the chief charm of Canossa. Lying one afternoon of May on +the crisp short grass at the edge of a precipice purple with iris in +full blossom, I surveyed, from what were once the battlements of +Matilda's castle, a prospect than which there is none more +spirit-stirring by reason of its beauty and its manifold associations +in Europe. The lower castle-crowded hills have sunk. Reggio lies at +our feet, shut in between the crests of Monte Carboniano and Monte +delle Celle. Beyond Reggio stretches Lombardy--the fairest and most +memorable battlefield of nations, the richest and most highly +cultivated garden of civilised industry. Nearly all the Lombard cities +may be seen, some of them faint like bluish films of vapour, some +clear with dome and spire. There is Modena and her Ghirlandina. Carpi, +Parma, Mirandola, Verona, Mantua, lie well defined and russet on the +flat green map; and there flashes a bend of lordly Po; and there the +Euganeans rise like islands, telling us where Padua and Ferrara nestle +in the amethystine haze Beyond and above all to the northward sweep +the Alps, tossing their silvery crests up into the cloudless sky from +the violet mist that girds their flanks and drowns their basements. +Monte Adamello and the Ortler, the cleft of the Brenner, and the sharp +peaks of the Venetian Alps are all distinctly visible. An eagle flying +straight from our eyrie might traverse Lombardy and light among the +snow-fields of the Valtelline between sunrise and sundown. Nor is the +prospect tame to southward. Here the Apennines roll, billow above +billow, in majestic desolation, soaring to snow summits in the +Pellegrino region. As our eye attempts to thread that labyrinth of +hill and vale, we tell ourselves that those roads wind to Tuscany, and +yonder stretches Garfagnana, where Ariosto lived and mused in +honourable exile from the world he loved. + +It was by one of the mountain passes that lead from Lucca northward +that the first founder of Canossa is said to have travelled early in +the tenth century. Sigifredo, if the tradition may be trusted, was +very wealthy; and with his money he bought lands and signorial rights +at Reggio, bequeathing to his children, when he died about 945, a +patrimony which they developed into a petty kingdom. Azzo, his second +son, fortified Canossa, and made it his principal place of residence. +When Lothair, King of Italy, died in 950, leaving his beautiful widow +to the ill-treatment of his successor, Berenger, Adelaide found a +protector in this Azzo. She had been imprisoned on the Lake of Garda; +but managing to escape in man's clothes to Mantua, she thence sent +news of her misfortunes to Canossa. Azzo lost no time in riding with +his knights to her relief, and brought her back in safety to his +mountain fastness. It is related that Azzo was afterwards instrumental +in calling Otho into Italy and procuring his marriage with Adelaide, +in consequence of which events Italy became a fief of the Empire. +Owing to the part he played at this time, the Lord of Canossa was +recognised as one of the most powerful vassals of the German Emperor +in Lombardy. Honours were heaped upon him; and he grew so rich and +formidable that Berenger, the titular King of Italy, laid siege to his +fortress of Canossa. The memory of this siege, which lasted for three +years and a half, is said still to linger in the popular traditions of +the place. When Azzo died at the end of the tenth century, he left to +his son Tedaldo the title of Count of Reggio and Modena; and this +title was soon after raised to that of Marquis. The Marches governed +as Vicar of the Empire by Tedaldo included Reggio, Modena, Ferrara, +Brescia, and probably Mantua. They stretched, in fact, across the +north of Italy, forming a quadrilateral between the Alps and +Apennines. Like his father, Tedaldo adhered consistently to the +Imperial party; and when he died and was buried at Canossa, he in his +turn bequeathed to his son Bonifazio a power and jurisdiction +increased by his own abilities. Bonifazio held the state of a +sovereign at Canossa, adding the duchy of Tuscany to his father's +fiefs, and meeting the allied forces of the Lombard barons in the +field of Coviolo like an independent potentate. His power and +splendour were great enough to rouse the jealousy of the Emperor; but +Henry III. seems to have thought it more prudent to propitiate this +proud vassal, and to secure his kindness, than to attempt his +humiliation. Bonifazio married Beatrice, daughter of Frederick, Duke +of Lorraine--her whose marble sarcophagus in the Campo Santo at Pisa +is said to have inspired Niccola Pisano with his new style of +sculpture. Their only child, Matilda, was born, probably at Lucca, in +1046; and six years after her birth, Bonifazio, who had swayed his +subjects like an iron-handed tyrant, was murdered. To the great House +of Canossa, the rulers of one-third of Italy, there now remained only +two women, Bonifazio's widow Beatrice, and his daughter Matilda. +Beatrice married Godfrey, Duke of Lorraine, who was recognised by +Henry IV. as her husband and as feudatory of the Empire in the full +place of Boniface. He died about 1070; and in this year Matilda was +married by proxy to his son, Godfrey the Hunchback, whom, however, +she did not see till the year 1072. The marriage was not a happy one; +and the question has even been disputed among Matilda's biographers +whether it was ever consummated. At any rate it did not last long; for +Godfrey was killed at Antwerp in 1076. In this year Matilda also lost +her mother, Beatrice, who died at Pisa, and was buried in the +cathedral. + +By this rapid enumeration of events it will be seen how the power and +honours of the House of Canossa, including Tuscany, Spoleto, and the +fairest portions of Lombardy, had devolved upon a single woman of the +age of thirty at the moment when the fierce quarrel between Pope and +Emperor began in the year 1076. Matilda was destined to play a great, +a striking, and a tragic part in the opening drama of Italian history. +Her decided character and uncompromising course of action have won for +her the name of 'la gran donna d'Italia,' and have caused her memory +to be blessed or execrated, according as the temporal pretensions and +spiritual tyranny of the Papacy may have found supporters or opponents +in posterity. She was reared from childhood in habits of austerity and +unquestioning piety. Submission to the Church became for her not +merely a rule of conduct, but a passionate enthusiasm. She identified +herself with the cause of four successive Popes, protected her idol, +the terrible and iron-hearted Hildebrand, in the time of his +adversity; remained faithful to his principles after his death; and +having served the Holy See with all her force and all that she +possessed through all her lifetime, she bequeathed her vast dominions +to it on her deathbed. Like some of the greatest mediaeval +characters--like Hildebrand himself--Matilda was so thoroughly of one +piece, that she towers above the mists of ages with the massive +grandeur of an incarnated idea. She is for us the living statue of a +single thought, an undivided impulse, the more than woman born to +represent her age. Nor was it without reason that Dante symbolised in +her the love of Holy Church; though students of the 'Purgatory' will +hardly recognise the lovely maiden, singing and plucking flowers +beside the stream of Lethe, in the stern and warlike chatelaine of +Canossa. Unfortunately we know but little of Matilda's personal +appearance. Her health was not strong; and it is said to have been +weakened, especially in her last illness, by ascetic observances. Yet +she headed her own troops, armed with sword and cuirass, avoiding +neither peril nor fatigue in the quarrels of her master Gregory. Up to +the year 1622 two strong suits of mail were preserved at Quattro +Castelli, which were said to have been worn by her in battle, and +which were afterwards sold on the market-place at Reggio. This habit +of donning armour does not, however, prove that Matilda was +exceptionally vigorous; for in those savage times she could hardly +have played the part of heroine without participating personally in +the dangers of warfare. + +No less monumental in the plastic unity of his character was the monk +Hildebrand, who for twenty years before his elevation to the Papacy +had been the maker of Popes and the creator of the policy of Rome. +When he was himself elected in the year 1073, and had assumed the name +of Gregory VII., he immediately began to put in practice the plans for +Church aggrandisement he had slowly matured during the previous +quarter of a century. To free the Church from its subservience to the +Empire, to assert the Pope's right to ratify the election of the +Emperor and to exercise the right of jurisdiction over him, to place +ecclesiastical appointments in the sole power of the Roman See, and to +render the celibacy of the clergy obligatory, were the points he had +resolved to carry. Taken singly and together, these chief aims of +Hildebrand's policy had but one object--the magnification of the +Church at the expense both of the people and of secular authorities, +and the further separation of the Church from the ties and sympathies +of common life that bound it to humanity. To accuse Hildebrand of +personal ambition would be but shallow criticism, though it is clear +that his inflexible and puissant nature found a savage selfish +pleasure in trampling upon power and humbling pride at warfare with +his own. Yet his was in no sense an egotistic purpose like that which +moved the Popes of the Renaissance to dismember Italy for their +bastards. Hildebrand, like Matilda, was himself the creature of a +great idea. These two potent personalities completely understood each +other, and worked towards a single end. Tho mythopoeic fancy might +conceive of them as the male and female manifestations of one dominant +faculty, the spirit of ecclesiastical dominion incarnate in a man and +woman of almost super-human mould. + +Opposed to them, as the third actor in the drama of Canossa, was a man +of feebler mould. Henry IV., King of Italy, but not yet crowned +Emperor, had none of his opponents' unity of purpose or monumental +dignity of character. At war with his German feudatories, browbeaten +by rebellious sons, unfaithful and cruel to his wife, vacillating in +the measures he adopted to meet his divers difficulties, at one time +tormented by his conscience into cowardly submission, and at another +treasonably neglectful of the most solemn obligations, Henry was no +match for the stern wills against which he was destined to break in +unavailing passion. Early disagreements with Gregory had culminated in +his excommunication. The German nobles abandoned his cause; and Henry +found it expedient to summon a council in Augsburg for the settlement +of matters in dispute between the Empire and the Papacy. Gregory +expressed his willingness to attend this council, and set forth from +Rome accompanied by the Countess Matilda in December 1076. He did not, +however, travel further than Vercelli, for news here reached him that +Henry was about to enter Italy at the head of a powerful army. Matilda +hereupon persuaded the Holy Father to place himself in safety among +her strongholds of Canossa. Thither accordingly Gregory retired before +the ending of that year; and bitter were the sarcasms uttered by the +imperial partisans in Italy upon this protection offered by a fair +countess to the monk who had been made a Pope. The foul calumnies of +that bygone age would be unworthy of even so much as this notice, if +we did not trace in them the ineradicable Italian tendency to cynical +insinuation--a tendency which has involved the history of the +Renaissance Popes in an almost impenetrable mist of lies and +exaggerations. Henry was in truth upon his road to Italy, but with a +very different attendance from that which Gregory expected. +Accompanied by Bertha, his wife, and his boy son Conrad, the Emperor +elect left Spires in the condition of a fugitive, crossed Burgundy, +spent Christmas at Besançon, and journeyed to the foot of Mont Cenis. +It is said that he was followed by a single male servant of mean +birth; and if the tale of his adventures during the passage of the +Alps can be credited, history presents fewer spectacles more +picturesque than the straits to which this representative of the +Cæsars, this supreme chief of feudal civility, this ruler destined +still to be the leader of mighty armies and the father of a line of +monarchs, was exposed. Concealing his real name and state, he induced +some shepherds to lead him and his escort through the thick snows to +the summit of Mont Cenis; and by the help of these men the imperial +party were afterwards let down the snow-slopes on the further side by +means of ropes. Bertha and her women were sewn up in hides and dragged +across the frozen surface of the winter drifts. It was a year +memorable for its severity. Heavy snow had fallen in October, which +continued ice-bound and unyielding till the following April. + +No sooner had Henry reached Turin, than he set forward again in the +direction of Canossa. The fame of his arrival had preceded him, and +he found that his party was far stronger in Italy than he had ventured +to expect. Proximity to the Church of Rome divests its fulminations of +half their terrors. The Italian bishops and barons, less superstitious +than the Germans, and with greater reason to resent the domineering +graspingness of Gregory, were ready to espouse the Emperor's cause. +Henry gathered a formidable force as he marched onward across +Lombardy; and some of the most illustrious prelates and nobles of the +South were in his suite. A more determined leader than Henry proved +himself to be, might possibly have forced Gregory to some +accommodation, in spite of the strength of Canossa and the Pope's +invincible obstinacy, by proper use of these supporters. Meanwhile the +adherents of the Church were mustered in Matilda's fortress; among +whom may be mentioned Azzo, the progenitor of Este and Brunswick; +Hugh, Abbot of Clugny; and the princely family of Piedmont. 'I am +become a second Rome,' exclaims Canossa, in the language of Matilda's +rhyming chronicler; 'all honours are mine; I hold at once both Pope +and King, the princes of Italy and those of Gaul, those of Rome, and +those from far beyond the Alps.' The stage was ready; the audience had +assembled; and now the three great actors were about to meet. +Immediately upon his arrival at Canossa, Henry sent for his cousin, +the Countess Matilda, and besought her to intercede for him with +Gregory. He was prepared to make any concessions or to undergo any +humiliations, if only the ban of excommunication might be removed; +nor, cowed as he was by his own superstitious conscience, and by the +memory of the opposition he had met with from his German vassals, does +he seem to have once thought of meeting force with force, and of +returning to his northern kingdom triumphant in the overthrow of +Gregory's pride. Matilda undertook to plead his cause before the +Pontiff. But Gregory was not to be moved so soon to mercy. 'If Henry +has in truth repented,' he replied, 'let him lay down crown and +sceptre, and declare himself unworthy of the name of king.' The only +point conceded to the suppliant was that he should be admitted in the +garb of a penitent within the precincts of the castle. Leaving his +retinue outside the walls, Henry entered the first series of outworks, +and was thence conducted to the second, so that between him and the +citadel itself there still remained the third of the surrounding +bastions. Here he was bidden to wait the Pope's pleasure; and here, in +the midst of that bitter winter weather, while the fierce winds of the +Apennines were sweeping sleet upon him in their passage from Monte +Pellegrino to the plain, he knelt barefoot, clothed in sackcloth, +fasting from dawn till eve, for three whole days. On the morning of +the fourth day, judging that Gregory was inexorable, and that his suit +would not be granted, Henry retired to the Chapel of S. Nicholas, +which stood within this second precinct. There he called to his aid +the Abbot of Clugny and the Countess, both of whom were his relations, +and who, much as they might sympathise with Gregory, could hardly be +supposed to look with satisfaction on their royal kinsman's outrage. +The Abbot told Henry that nothing in the world could move the Pope; +but Matilda, when in turn he fell before her knees and wept, engaged +to do for him the utmost. She probably knew that the moment for +unbending had arrived, and that her imperious guest could not with +either decency or prudence prolong the outrage offered to the civil +chief of Christendom. It was the 25th of January when the Emperor +elect was brought, half dead with cold and misery, into the Pope's +presence. There he prostrated himself in the dust, crying aloud for +pardon. It is said that Gregory first placed his foot upon Henry's +neck, uttering these words of Scripture: 'Super aspidem et basiliscum +ambulabis, et conculcabis leonem et draconem,' and that then he raised +him from the earth and formally pronounced his pardon. The prelates +and nobles who took part in this scene were compelled to guarantee +with their own oaths the vows of obedience pronounced by Henry; so +that in the very act of reconciliation a new insult was offered to +him. After this Gregory said mass, and permitted Henry to communicate; +and at the close of the day a banquet was served, at which the King +sat down to meat with the Pope and the Countess. + +It is probable that, while Henry's penance was performed in the castle +courts beneath the rock, his reception by the Pope, and all that +subsequently happened, took place in the citadel itself. But of this +we have no positive information. Indeed the silence of the chronicles +as to the topography of Canossa is peculiarly unfortunate for lovers +of the picturesque in historic detail, now that there is no +possibility of tracing the outlines of the ancient building. Had the +author of the 'Vita Mathildis' (Muratori, vol. v.) foreseen that his +beloved Canossa would one day be nothing but a mass of native rock, he +would undoubtedly have been more explicit on these points; and much +that is vague about an event only paralleled by our Henry II.'s +penance before Becket's shrine at Canterbury, might now be clear. + +Very little remains to be told about Canossa. During the same year, +1077, Matilda made the celebrated donation of her fiefs to Holy +Church. This was accepted by Gregory in the name of S. Peter, and it +was confirmed by a second deed during the pontificate of Urban IV. in +1102. Though Matilda subsequently married Guelfo d'Este, son of the +Duke of Bavaria, she was speedily divorced from him; nor was there any +heir to a marriage ridiculous by reason of disparity of age, the +bridegroom being but eighteen, while the bride was forty-three in the +year of her second nuptials. During one of Henry's descents into +Italy, he made an unsuccessful attack upon Canossa, assailing it at +the head of a considerable force one October morning in 1092. +Matilda's biographer informs us that the mists of autumn veiled his +beloved fortress from the eyes of the beleaguerers. They had not even +the satisfaction of beholding the unvanquished citadel; and, what was +more, the banner of the Emperor was seized and dedicated as a trophy +in the Church of S. Apollonio. In the following year the Countess +opened her gates of Canossa to an illustrious fugitive, Adelaide, the +wife of her old foeman, Henry, who had escaped with difficulty from +the insults and the cruelty of her husband. After Henry's death, his +son, the Emperor Henry V., paid Matilda a visit in her castle of +Bianello, addressed her by the name of mother, and conferred upon her +the vice-regency of Liguria. At the age of sixty-nine she died, in +1115, at Bondeno de' Roncori, and was buried, not among her kinsmen at +Canossa, but in an abbey of S. Benedict near Mantua. With her expired +the main line of the noble house she represented; though Canossa, now +made a fief of the Empire in spite of Matilda's donation, was given to +a family which claimed descent from Bonifazio's brother Conrad--a +young man killed in the battle of Coviolo. This family, in its turn, +was extinguished in the year 1570; but a junior branch still exists at +Verona. It will be remembered that Michelangelo Buonarroti claimed +kinship with the Count of Canossa; and a letter from the Count is +extant acknowledging the validity of his pretension. + +As far back as 1255 the people of Reggio destroyed the castle; nor did +the nobles of Canossa distinguish themselves in subsequent history +among those families who based their despotisms on the _débris_ of the +Imperial power in Lombardy. It seemed destined that Canossa and all +belonging to it should remain as a mere name and memory of the +outgrown middle ages. Estensi, Carraresi, Visconti, Bentivogli, and +Gonzaghi belong to a later period of Lombard history, and mark the +dawn of the Renaissance. + +As I lay and mused that afternoon of May upon the short grass, cropped +by two grey goats, whom a little boy was tending, it occurred to me to +ask the woman who had served me as guide, whether any legend remained +in the country concerning the Countess Matilda. She had often, +probably, been asked this question by other travellers. Therefore she +was more than usually ready with an answer, which, as far as I could +understand her dialect, was this. Matilda was a great and potent +witch, whose summons the devil was bound to obey. One day she aspired, +alone of all her sex, to say mass; but when the moment came for +sacring the elements, a thunderbolt fell from the clear sky, and +reduced her to ashes.[12] That the most single-hearted handmaid of the +Holy Church, whose life was one long devotion to its ordinances, +should survive in this grotesque myth, might serve to point a satire +upon the vanity of earthly fame. The legend in its very extravagance +is a fanciful distortion of the truth. + + * * * * * + + + + +_FORNOVO_ + + +In the town of Parma there is one surpassingly strange relic of the +past. The palace of the Farnesi, like many a haunt of upstart tyranny +and beggared pride on these Italian plains, rises misshapen and +disconsolate above the stream that bears the city's name. The squalor +of this grey-brown edifice of formless brick, left naked like the +palace of the same Farnesi at Piacenza, has something even horrid in +it now that only vague memory survives of its former uses. The +princely _sprezzatura_ of its ancient occupants, careless of these +unfinished courts and unroofed galleries amid the splendour of their +purfled silks and the glitter of their torchlight pageantry, has +yielded to sullen cynicism--the cynicism of arrested ruin and +unreverend age. All that was satisfying to the senses and distracting +to the eyesight in their transitory pomp has passed away, leaving a +sinister and naked shell. Remembrance can but summon up the crimes, +the madness, the trivialities of those dead palace-builders. An +atmosphere of evil clings to the dilapidated walls, as though the +tainted spirit of the infamous Pier Luigi still possessed the spot, on +which his toadstool brood of princelings sprouted in the mud of their +misdeeds. Enclosed in this huge labyrinth of brickwork is the relic of +which I spoke. It is the once world-famous Teatro Farnese, raised in +the year 1618 by Ranunzio Farnese for the marriage of Odoardo Farnese +with Margaret of Austria. Giambattista Aleotti, a native of +pageant-loving Ferrara, traced the stately curves and noble orders of +the galleries, designed the columns that support the raftered roof, +marked out the orchestra, arranged the stage, and breathed into the +whole the spirit of Palladio's most heroic neo-Latin style. Vast, +built of wood, dishevelled, with broken statues and blurred coats of +arms, with its empty scene, its uncurling frescoes, its hangings all +in rags, its cobwebs of two centuries, its dust and mildew and +discoloured gold--this theatre, a sham in its best days, and now that +ugliest of things, a sham unmasked and naked to the light of day, is +yet sublime, because of its proportioned harmony, because of its grand +Roman manner. The sight and feeling of it fasten upon the mind and +abide in the memory like a nightmare,--like one of Piranesi's weirdest +and most passion-haunted etchings for the _Carceri_. Idling there at +noon in the twilight of the dust-bedarkened windows, we fill the tiers +of those high galleries with ladies, the space below with grooms and +pages; the stage is ablaze with torches, and an Italian Masque, such +as our Marlowe dreamed of, fills the scene. But it is impossible to +dower these fancies with even such life as in healthier, happier +ruins phantasy may lend to imagination's figments. This theatre is +like a maniac's skull, empty of all but unrealities and mockeries of +things that are. The ghosts we raise here could never have been living +men and women: _questi sciaurati non fur mai vivi._ So clinging is the +sense of instability that appertains to every fragment of that dry-rot +tyranny which seized by evil fortune in the sunset of her golden day +on Italy. + +In this theatre I mused one morning after visiting Fornovo; and the +thoughts suggested by the battlefield found their proper atmosphere in +the dilapidated place. What, indeed, is the Teatro Farnese but a +symbol of those hollow principalities which the despot and the +stranger built in Italy after the fatal date of 1494, when national +enthusiasm and political energy were expiring in a blaze of art, and +when the Italians as a people had ceased to be; but when the phantom +of their former life, surviving in high works of beauty, was still +superb by reason of imperishable style! How much in Italy of the +Renaissance was, like this plank-built plastered theatre, a glorious +sham! The sham was seen through then; and now it stands unmasked: and +yet, strange to say, so perfect is its form that we respect the sham +and yield our spirits to the incantation of its music. + +The battle of Fornovo, as modern battles go, was a paltry affair; and +even at the time it seemed sufficiently without result. Yet the +trumpets which rang on July 6, 1495, for the onset, sounded the +_réveil_ of the modern world; and in the inconclusive termination of +the struggle of that day, the Italians were already judged and +sentenced as a nation. The armies who met that morning represented +Italy and France,--Italy, the Sibyl of Renaissance; France, the Sibyl +of Revolution. At the fall of evening Europe was already looking +northward; and the last years of the fifteenth century were opening +an act which closed in blood at Paris on the ending of the eighteenth. + +If it were not for thoughts like these, no one, I suppose, would take +the trouble to drive for two hours out of Parma to the little village +of Fornovo--a score of bare grey hovels on the margin of a pebbly +river-bed beneath the Apennines. The fields on either side, as far as +eye can see, are beautiful indeed in May sunlight, painted here with +flax, like shallow sheets of water reflecting a pale sky, and there +with clover red as blood. Scarce unfolded leaves sparkle like +flamelets of bright green upon the knotted vines, and the young corn +is bending all one way beneath a western breeze. But not less +beautiful than this is the whole broad plain of Lombardy; nor are the +nightingales louder here than in the acacia trees around Pavia. As we +drive, the fields become less fertile, and the hills encroach upon the +level, sending down their spurs upon that waveless plain like blunt +rocks jutting out into a tranquil sea. When we reach the bed of the +Taro, these hills begin to narrow on either hand, and the road rises. +Soon they open out again with gradual curving lines, forming a kind of +amphitheatre filled up from flank to flank with the _ghiara_ or pebbly +bottom of the Taro. The Taro is not less wasteful than any other of +the brotherhood of streams that pour from Alp or Apennine to swell the +Po. It wanders, an impatient rivulet, through a wilderness of +boulders, uncertain of its aim, shifting its course with the season of +the year, unless the jaws of some deep-cloven gully hold it tight and +show how insignificant it is. As we advance, the hills approach again; +between their skirts there is nothing but the river-bed; and now on +rising ground above the stream, at the point of juncture between the +Ceno and the Taro, we find Fornovo. Beyond the village the valley +broadens out once more, disclosing Apennines capped with winter snow. +To the right descends the Ceno. To the left foams the Taro, following +whose rocky channel we should come at last to Pontremoli and the +Tyrrhenian sea beside Sarzana. On a May-day of sunshine like the +present, the Taro is a gentle stream. A waggon drawn by two white oxen +has just entered its channel, guided by a contadino with goat-skin +leggings, wielding a long goad. The patient creatures stem the water, +which rises to the peasant's thighs and ripples round the creaking +wheels. Swaying to and fro, as the shingles shift upon the river-bed, +they make their way across; and now they have emerged upon the stones; +and now we lose them in a flood of sunlight. + +It was by this pass that Charles VIII. in 1495 returned from Tuscany, +when the army of the League was drawn up waiting to intercept and +crush him in the mousetrap of Fornovo. No road remained for Charles +and his troops but the rocky bed of the Taro, running, as I have +described it, between the spurs of steep hills. It is true that the +valley of the Baganza leads, from a little higher up among the +mountains, into Lombardy. But this pass runs straight to Parma; and to +follow it would have brought the French upon the walls of a strong +city. Charles could not do otherwise than descend upon the village of +Fornovo, and cut his way thence in the teeth of the Italian army over +stream and boulder between the gorges of throttling mountain. The +failure of the Italians to achieve what here upon the ground appears +so simple, delivered Italy hand-bound to strangers. Had they but +succeeded in arresting Charles and destroying his forces at Fornovo, +it is just possible that then--even then, at the eleventh hour--Italy +might have gained the sense of national coherence, or at least have +proved herself capable of holding by her leagues the foreigner at bay. +As it was, the battle of Fornovo, in spite of Venetian bonfires and +Mantuan Madonnas of Victory, made her conscious of incompetence and +convicted her of cowardice. After Fornovo, her sons scarcely dared to +hold their heads up in the field against invaders; and the battles +fought upon her soil were duels among aliens for the prize of Italy. + +In order to comprehend the battle of Fornovo in its bearings on +Italian history, we must go back to the year 1492, and understand the +conditions of the various States of Italy at that date. On April 8 in +that year, Lorenzo de' Medici, who had succeeded in maintaining a +political equilibrium in the peninsula, expired, and was succeeded by +his son Piero, a vain and foolhardy young man, from whom no guidance +could be expected. On July 25, Innocent VIII. died, and was succeeded +by the very worst Pope who has ever occupied S. Peter's chair, +Roderigo Borgia, Alexander VI. It was felt at once that the old order +of things had somehow ended, and that a new era, the destinies of +which as yet remained incalculable, was opening for Italy. The chief +Italian powers, hitherto kept in equipoise by the diplomacy of Lorenzo +de' Medici, were these--the Duchy of Milan, the Republic of Venice, +the Republic of Florence, the Papacy, and the kingdom of Naples. +Minor States, such as the Republics of Genoa and Siena, the Duchies of +Urbino and Ferrara, the Marquisate of Mantua, the petty tyrannies of +Romagna, and the wealthy city of Bologna, were sufficiently important +to affect the balance of power, and to produce new combinations. For +the present purpose it is, however, enough to consider the five great +Powers. + +After the peace of Constance, which freed the Lombard Communes from +Imperial interference in the year 1183, Milan, by her geographical +position, rose rapidly to be the first city of North Italy. Without +narrating the changes by which she lost her freedom as a Commune, it +is enough to state that, earliest of all Italian cities, Milan passed +into the hands of a single family. The Visconti managed to convert +this flourishing commonwealth, with all its dependencies, into their +private property, ruling it exclusively for their own profit, using +its municipal institutions as the machinery of administration, and +employing the taxes which they raised upon its wealth for purely +selfish ends. When the line of the Visconti ended in the year 1447, +their tyranny was continued by Francesco Sforza, the son of a poor +soldier of adventure, who had raised himself by his military genius, +and had married Bianca, the illegitimate daughter of the last +Visconti. On the death of Francesco Sforza in 1466, he left two sons, +Galeazzo Maria and Lodovico, surnamed Il Moro, both of whom were +destined to play a prominent part in history. Galeazzo Maria, +dissolute, vicious, and cruel to the core, was murdered by his injured +subjects in the year 1476. His son, Giovanni Galeazzo, aged eight, +would in course of time have succeeded to the Duchy, had it not been +for the ambition of his uncle Lodovico. Lodovico contrived to name +himself as Regent for his nephew, whom he kept, long after he had come +of age, in a kind of honourable prison. Virtual master in Milan, but +without a legal title to the throne, unrecognised in his authority by +the Italian powers, and holding it from day to day by craft and fraud, +Lodovico at last found his situation untenable; and it was this +difficulty of an usurper to maintain himself in his despotism which, +as we shall see, brought the French into Italy. + +Venice, the neighbour and constant foe of Milan, had become a close +oligarchy by a process of gradual constitutional development, which +threw her government into the hands of a few nobles. She was +practically ruled by the hereditary members of the Grand Council. Ever +since the year 1453, when Constantinople fell beneath the Turk, the +Venetians had been more and more straitened in their Oriental +commerce, and were thrown back upon the policy of territorial +aggrandisement in Italy, from which they had hitherto refrained as +alien to the temperament of the Republic. At the end of the fifteenth +century Venice therefore became an object of envy and terror to the +Italian States. They envied her because she alone was tranquil, +wealthy, powerful, and free. They feared her because they had good +reason to suspect her of encroachment; and it was foreseen that if she +got the upper hand in Italy, all Italy would be the property of the +families inscribed upon the Golden Book. It was thus alone that the +Italians comprehended government. The principle of representation +being utterly unknown, and the privileged burghers in each city being +regarded as absolute and lawful owners of the city and of everything +belonging to it, the conquest of a town by a republic implied the +political extinction of that town and the disfranchisement of its +inhabitants in favour of the conquerors. + +Florence at this epoch still called itself a Republic; and of all +Italian commonwealths it was by far the most democratic. Its history, +unlike that of Venice, had been the history of continual and brusque +changes, resulting in the destruction of the old nobility, in the +equalisation of the burghers, and in the formation of a new +aristocracy of wealth. Prom this class of _bourgeois_ nobles sprang +the Medici, who, by careful manipulation of the State machinery, by +the creation of a powerful party devoted to their interests, by +flattery of the people, by corruption, by taxation, and by constant +scheming, raised themselves to the first place in the commonwealth, +and became its virtual masters. In the year 1492 Lorenzo de' Medici, +the most remarkable chief of this despotic family, died, bequeathing +his supremacy in the Republic to a son of marked incompetence. + +Since the Pontificate of Nicholas V. the See of Rome had entered upon +a new period of existence. The Popes no longer dreaded to reside in +Rome, but were bent upon making the metropolis of Christendom both +splendid as a seat of art and learning, and also potent as the capital +of a secular kingdom. Though their fiefs in Romagna and the March were +still held but loosely, though their provinces swarmed with petty +despots who defied the Papal authority, and though the princely Roman +houses of Colonna and Orsini were still strong enough to terrorise the +Holy Father in the Vatican, it was now clear that the Papal See must +in the end get the better of its adversaries, and consolidate itself +into a first-rate Power. The internal spirit of the Papacy at this +time corresponded to its external policy. It was thoroughly +secularised by a series of worldly and vicious pontiffs, who had clean +forgotten what their title, Vicar of Christ, implied. They +consistently used their religious prestige to enforce their secular +authority, while by their temporal power they caused their religious +claims to be respected. Corrupt and shameless, they indulged +themselves in every vice, openly acknowledged their children, and +turned Italy upside down in order to establish favourites and bastards +in the principalities they seized as spoils of war. + +The kingdom of Naples differed from any other state of Italy. Subject +continually to foreign rulers since the decay of the Greek Empire, +governed in succession by the Normans, the Hohenstauffens, and the +House of Anjou, it had never enjoyed the real independence, or the +free institutions, of the northern provinces; nor had it been +Italianised in the same sense as the rest of the peninsula. Despotism, +which assumed so many forms in Italy, was here neither the tyranny of +a noble house, nor the masked autocracy of a burgher, nor yet the +forceful sway of a condottiere. It had a dynastic character, +resembling the monarchy of one of the great European nations, but +modified by the peculiar conditions of Italian statecraft. Owing to +this dynastic and monarchical complexion of the Neapolitan kingdom, +semi-feudal customs flourished in the south far more than in the north +of Italy. The barons were more powerful; and the destinies of the +Regno often turned upon their feuds and quarrels with the Crown. At +the same time the Neapolitan despots shared the uneasy circumstances +of all Italian potentates, owing to the uncertainty of their tenure, +both as conquerors and aliens, and also as the nominal vassals of the +Holy See. The rights of suzerainty which the Normans had yielded to +the Papacy over their southern conquests, and which the Popes had +arbitrarily exercised in favour of the Angevine princes, proved a +constant source of peril to the rest of Italy by rendering the +succession to the crown of Naples doubtful. On the extinction of the +Angevine line, however, the throne was occupied by a prince who had no +valid title but that of the sword to its possession. Alfonso of Aragon +conquered Naples in 1442, and neglecting his hereditary dominion, +settled in his Italian capital. Possessed with the enthusiasm for +literature which was then the ruling passion of the Italians, and very +liberal to men of learning, Alfonso won for himself the surname of +Magnanimous. On his death, in 1458, he bequeathed his Spanish +kingdom, together with Sicily and Sardinia, to his brother, and left +the fruits of his Italian conquest to his bastard, Ferdinand. This +Ferdinand, whose birth was buried in profound obscurity, was the +reigning sovereign in the year 1492. Of a cruel and sombre +temperament, traitorous and tyrannical, Ferdinand was hated by his +subjects as much as Alfonso had been loved. He possessed, however, to +a remarkable degree, the qualities which at that epoch constituted a +consummate statesman; and though the history of his reign is the +history of plots and conspiracies, of judicial murders and forcible +assassinations, of famines produced by iniquitous taxation, and of +every kind of diabolical tyranny, Ferdinand contrived to hold his own, +in the teeth of a rebellious baronage or a maddened population. His +political sagacity amounted almost to a prophetic instinct in the last +years of his life, when he became aware that the old order was +breaking up in Italy, and had cause to dread that Charles VIII. of +France would prove his title to the kingdom of Naples by force of +arms.[13] + +Such were the component parts of the Italian body politic, with the +addition of numerous petty principalities and powers, adhering more or +less consistently to one or other of the greater States. The whole +complex machine was bound together by no sense of common interest, +animated by no common purpose, amenable to no central authority. Even +such community of feeling as one spoken language gives, was lacking. +And yet Italy distinguished herself clearly from the rest of Europe, +not merely as a geographical fact, but also as a people intellectually +and spiritually one. The rapid rise of humanism had aided in producing +this national self-consciousness. Every State and every city was +absorbed in the recovery of culture and in the development of art and +literature. Far in advance of the other European nations, the Italians +regarded the rest of the world as barbarous, priding themselves the +while, in spite of mutual jealousies and hatreds, on their Italic +civilisation. They were enormously wealthy. The resources of the Papal +treasury, the private fortunes of the Florentine bankers, the riches +of the Venetian merchants might have purchased all that France or +Germany possessed of value. The single Duchy of Milan yielded to its +masters 700,000 golden florins of revenue, according to the +computation of De Comines. In default of a confederative system, the +several States were held in equilibrium by diplomacy. By far the most +important people, next to the despots and the captains of adventure, +were ambassadors and orators. War itself had become a matter of +arrangement, bargain, and diplomacy. The game of stratagem was played +by generals who had been friends yesterday and might be friends again +to-morrow, with troops who felt no loyalty whatever for the standards +under which they listed. To avoid slaughter and to achieve the ends of +warfare by parade and demonstration was the interest of every one +concerned. Looking back upon Italy of the fifteenth century, taking +account of her religious deadness and moral corruption, estimating the +absence of political vigour in the republics and the noxious tyranny +of the despots, analysing her lack of national spirit, and comparing +her splendid life of cultivated ease with the want of martial energy, +we can see but too plainly that contact with a simpler and stronger +people could not but produce a terrible catastrophe. The Italians +themselves, however, were far from comprehending this. Centuries of +undisturbed internal intrigue had accustomed them to play the game of +forfeits with each other, and nothing warned them that the time was +come at which diplomacy, finesse, and craft would stand them in ill +stead against rapacious conquerors. + +The storm which began to gather over Italy in the year 1492 had its +first beginning in the North. Lodovico Sforza's position in the Duchy +of Milan was becoming every day more difficult, when a slight and to +all appearances insignificant incident converted his apprehension of +danger into panic. It was customary for the States of Italy to +congratulate a new Pope on his election by their ambassadors; and this +ceremony had now to be performed for Roderigo Borgia. Lodovico +proposed that his envoys should go to Rome together with those of +Venice, Naples, and Florence; but Piero de' Medici, whose vanity made +him wish to send an embassy in his own name, contrived that Lodovico's +proposal should be rejected both by Florence and the King of Naples. +So strained was the situation of Italian affairs that Lodovico saw in +this repulse a menace to his own usurped authority. Feeling himself +isolated among the princes of his country, rebuffed by the Medici, and +coldly treated by the King of Naples, he turned in his anxiety to +France, and advised the young king, Charles VIII., to make good his +claim upon the Regno. It was a bold move to bring the foreigner thus +into Italy; and even Lodovico, who prided himself upon his sagacity, +could not see how things would end. He thought his situation so +hazardous, however, that any change must be for the better. Moreover, +a French invasion of Naples would tie the hands of his natural foe, +King Ferdinand, whose granddaughter, Isabella of Aragon, had married +Giovanni Galeazzo Sforza, and was now the rightful Duchess of Milan. +When the Florentine ambassador at Milan asked him how he had the +courage to expose Italy to such peril, his reply betrayed the egotism +of his policy: 'You talk to me of Italy; but when have I looked Italy +in the face? No one ever gave a thought to my affairs. I have, +therefore, had to give them such security as I could.' + +Charles VIII. was young, light-brained, romantic, and ruled by +_parvenus_, who had an interest in disturbing the old order of the +monarchy. He lent a willing ear to Lodovico's invitation, backed as +this was by the eloquence and passion of numerous Italian refugees and +exiles. Against the advice of his more prudent counsellors, he taxed +all the resources of his kingdom, and concluded treaties on +disadvantageous terms with England, Germany, and Spain, in order that +he might be able to concentrate all his attention upon the Italian +expedition. At the end of the year 1493, it was known that the +invasion was resolved upon. Gentile Becchi, the Florentine envoy at +the Court of France, wrote to Piero de' Medici: 'If the King succeeds, +it is all over with Italy--_tutta a bordello._' The extraordinary +selfishness of the several Italian States at this critical moment +deserves to be noticed. The Venetians, as Paolo Antonio Soderini +described them to Piero de' Medici, 'are of opinion that to keep +quiet, and to see other potentates of Italy spending and suffering, +cannot but be to their advantage. They trust no one, and feel sure +they have enough money to be able at any moment to raise sufficient +troops, and so to guide events according to their inclinations.' As +the invasion was directed against Naples, Ferdinand of Aragon +displayed the acutest sense of the situation. 'Frenchmen,' he +exclaimed, in what appears like a prophetic passion when contrasted +with the cold indifference of others no less really menaced, 'have +never come into Italy without inflicting ruin; and this invasion, if +rightly considered, cannot but bring universal ruin, although it seems +to menace us alone.' In his agony Ferdinand applied to Alexander VI. +But the Pope looked coldly upon him, because the King of Naples, with +rare perspicacity, had predicted that his elevation to the Papacy +would prove disastrous to Christendom. Alexander preferred to ally +himself with Venice and Milan. Upon this Ferdinand wrote as follows: +'It seems fated that the Popes should leave no peace in Italy. We are +compelled to fight; but the Duke of Bari (_i.e._ Lodovico Sforza) +should think what may ensue from the tumult he is stirring up. He who +raises this wind will not be able to lay the tempest when he likes. +Let him look to the past, and he will see how every time that our +internal quarrels have brought Powers from beyond the Alps into Italy, +these have oppressed and lorded over her.' + +Terribly verified as these words were destined to be,--and they were +no less prophetic in their political sagacity than Savonarola's +prediction of the Sword and bloody Scourge,--it was now too late to +avert the coming ruin. On March 1, 1494, Charles was with his army at +Lyons. Early in September he had crossed the pass of Mont Genêvre and +taken up his quarters in the town of Asti. There is no need to +describe in detail the holiday march of the French troops through +Lombardy, Tuscany, and Rome, until, without having struck a blow of +consequence, the gates of Naples opened to receive the conqueror upon +February 22, 1495. Philippe de Comines, who parted from the King at +Asti and passed the winter as his envoy at Venice, has more than once +recorded his belief that nothing but the direct interposition of +Providence could have brought so mad an expedition to so successful a +conclusion. 'Dieu monstroit conduire l'entreprise,' No sooner, +however, was Charles installed in Naples than the States of Italy +began to combine against him. Lodovico Sforza had availed himself of +the general confusion consequent upon the first appearance of the +French, to poison his nephew. He was, therefore, now the titular, as +well as virtual, Lord of Milan. So far, he had achieved what he +desired, and had no further need of Charles. The overtures he now made +to the Venetians and the Pope terminated in a League between these +Powers for the expulsion of the French from Italy. Germany and Spain +entered into the same alliance; and De Comines, finding himself +treated with marked coldness by the Signory of Venice, despatched a +courier to warn Charles in Naples of the coming danger. After a stay +of only fifty days in his new capital, the French King hurried +northward. Moving quickly through the Papal States and Tuscany, he +engaged his troops in the passes of the Apennines near Pontremoli, and +on July 5, 1495, took up his quarters in the village of Fornovo. De +Comines reckons that his whole fighting force at this time did not +exceed 9,000 men, with fourteen pieces of artillery. Against him at +the opening of the valley was the army of the League, numbering some +35,000 men, of whom three-fourths were supplied by Venice, the rest by +Lodovico Sforza and the German Emperor. Francesco Gonzaga, Marquis of +Mantua, was the general of the Venetian forces; and on him, therefore, +fell the real responsibility of the battle. + +De Comines remarks on the imprudence of the allies, who allowed +Charles to advance as far as Fornovo, when it was their obvious policy +to have established themselves in the village and so have caught the +French troops in a trap. It was a Sunday when the French marched down +upon Fornovo. Before them spread the plain of Lombardy, and beyond it +the white crests of the Alps. 'We were,' says De Comines, 'in a valley +between two little mountain flanks, and in that valley ran a river +which could easily be forded on foot, except when it is swelled with +sudden rains. The whole valley was a bed of gravel and big stones, +very difficult for horses, about a quarter of a league in breadth, and +on the right bank lodged our enemies.' Any one who has visited Fornovo +can understand the situation of the two armies. Charles occupied the +village on the right bank of the Taro. On the same bank, extending +downward toward the plain, lay the host of the allies; and in order +that Charles should escape them, it was necessary that he should cross +the Taro, just below its junction with the Ceno, and reach Lombardy by +marching in a parallel line with his foes. + +All through the night of Sunday it thundered and rained incessantly; +so that on the Monday morning the Taro was considerably swollen. At +seven o'clock the King sent for De Comines, who found him already +armed and mounted on the finest horse he had ever seen. The name of +this charger was _Savoy_. He was black, one-eyed, and of middling +height; and to his great courage, as we shall see, Charles owed life +upon that day. The French army, ready for the march, now took to the +gravelly bed of the Taro, passing the river at a distance of about a +quarter of a league from the allies. As the French left Fornovo, the +light cavalry of their enemies entered the village and began to attack +the baggage. At the same time the Marquis of Mantua, with the flower +of his men-at-arms, crossed the Taro and harassed the rear of the +French host; while raids from the right bank to the left were +constantly being made by sharpshooters and flying squadrons. 'At this +moment,' says De Comines, 'not a single man of us could have escaped +if our ranks had once been broken.' The French army was divided into +three main bodies. The vanguard consisted of some 350 men-at-arms, +3000 Switzers, 300 archers of the Guard, a few mounted crossbow-men, +and the artillery. Next came the Battle, and after this the rearguard. +At the time when the Marquis of Mantua made his attack, the French +rearguard had not yet crossed the river. Charles quitted the van, put +himself at the head of his chivalry, and charged the Italian horsemen, +driving them back, some to the village and others to their camp. De +Comines observes, that had the Italian knights been supported in this +passage of arms by the light cavalry of the Venetian force, called +Stradiots, the French must have been outnumbered, thrown into +confusion, and defeated. As it was, these Stradiots were engaged in +plundering the baggage of the French; and the Italians, accustomed to +bloodless encounters, did not venture, in spite of their immense +superiority of numbers, to renew the charge. In the pursuit of +Gonzaga's horsemen Charles outstripped his staff, and was left almost +alone to grapple with a little band of mounted foemen. It was here +that his noble horse, Savoy, saved his person by plunging and charging +till assistance came up from the French, and enabled the King to +regain his van. + +It is incredible, considering the nature of the ground and the number +of the troops engaged, that the allies should not have returned to the +attack and have made the passage of the French into the plain +impossible. De Comines, however, assures us that the actual engagement +only lasted a quarter of an hour, and the pursuit of the Italians +three quarters of an hour. After they had once resolved to fly, they +threw away their lances and betook themselves to Reggio and Parma. So +complete was their discomfiture, that De Comines gravely blames the +want of military genius and adventure in the French host. If, instead +of advancing along the left bank of the Taro and there taking up his +quarters for the night, Charles had recrossed the stream and pursued +the army of the allies, he would have had the whole of Lombardy at his +discretion. As it was, the French army encamped not far from the scene +of the action in great discomfort and anxiety. De Comines had to +bivouac in a vineyard, without even a mantle to wrap round him, having +lent his cloak to the King in the morning; and as it had been pouring +all day, the ground could not have afforded very luxurious quarters. +The same extraordinary luck which had attended the French in their +whole expedition, now favoured their retreat; and the same +pusillanimity which the allies had shown at Fornovo, prevented them +from re-forming and engaging with the army of Charles upon the plain. +One hour before daybreak on Tuesday morning, the French broke up their +camp and succeeded in clearing the valley. That night they lodged at +Fiorenzuola, the next at Piacenza, and so on; till on the eighth day +they arrived at Asti without having been so much as incommoded by the +army of the allies in their rear. + +Although the field of Fornovo was in reality so disgraceful to the +Italians, they reckoned it a victory upon the technical pretence that +the camp and baggage of the French had been seized. Illuminations and +rejoicings made the piazza of S. Mark in Venice gay, and Francesco da +Gonzaga had the glorious Madonna della Vittoria painted for him by +Mantegna, in commemoration of what ought only to have been remembered +with shame. + +A fitting conclusion to this sketch, connecting its close with the +commencement, may be found in some remarks upon the manner of warfare +to which the Italians of the Renaissance had become accustomed, and +which proved so futile on the field of Fornovo. During the middle +ages, and in the days of the Communes, the whole male population of +Italy had fought light-armed on foot. Merchant and artisan left the +counting-house and the workshop, took shield and pike, and sallied +forth to attack the barons in their castles, or to meet the Emperor's +troops upon the field. It was with this national militia that the +citizens of Florence freed their _Contado_ of the nobles, and the +burghers of Lombardy gained the battle of Legnano. In course of time, +by a process of change which it is not very easy to trace, heavily +armed cavalry began to take the place of infantry in mediæval warfare. +Men-at-arms, as they were called, encased from head to foot in iron, +and mounted upon chargers no less solidly caparisoned, drove the +foot-soldiers before them at the points of their long lances. Nowhere +in Italy do they seem to have met with the fierce resistance which the +bears of the Swiss Oberland and the bulls of Uri offered to the +knights of Burgundy. No Tuscan Arnold von Winkelried clasped a dozen +lances to his bosom that the foeman's ranks might thus be broken at +the cost of his own life; nor did it occur to the Italian burghers to +meet the charge of the horsemen with squares protected by bristling +spears. They seem, on the contrary, to have abandoned military service +with the readiness of men whose energies were already absorbed in the +affairs of peace. To become a practised and efficient man-at-arms +required long training and a life's devotion. So much time the +burghers of the free towns could not spare to military service, while +the petty nobles were only too glad to devote themselves to so +honourable a calling. Thus it came to pass that a class of +professional fighting-men was gradually formed in Italy, whose +services the burghers and the princes bought, and by whom the wars of +the peninsula were regularly farmed by contract. Wealth and luxury in +the great cities continued to increase; and as the burghers grew more +comfortable, they were less inclined to take the field in their own +persons, and more disposed to vote large sums of money for the +purchase of necessary aid. At the same time this system suited the +despots, since it spared them the peril of arming their own subjects, +while they taxed them to pay the services of foreign captains. War +thus became a commerce. Romagna, the Marches of Ancona, and other +parts of the Papal dominions, supplied a number of petty nobles whose +whole business in life it was to form companies of trained horsemen, +and with these bands to hire themselves out to the republics and the +despots. Gain was the sole purpose of these captains. They sold their +service to the highest bidder, fighting irrespectively of principle or +patriotism, and passing with the coldest equanimity from the camp of +one master to that of his worst foe. It was impossible that true +military spirit should survive this prostitution of the art of war. A +species of mock warfare prevailed in Italy. Battles were fought with a +view to booty more than victory; prisoners were taken for the sake of +ransom; bloodshed was carefully avoided, for the men who fought on +either side in any pitched field had been comrades with their present +foemen in the last encounter, and who could tell how soon the general +of the one host might not need his rival's troops to recruit his own +ranks? Like every genuine institution of the Italian Renaissance, +warfare was thus a work of fine art, a masterpiece of intellectual +subtlety; and like the Renaissance itself, this peculiar form of +warfare was essentially transitional. The cannon and the musket were +already in use; and it only required one blast of gunpowder to turn +the sham-fight of courtly, traitorous, finessing captains of adventure +into something terribly more real. To men like the Marquis of Mantua +war had been a highly profitable game of skill; to men like the +Maréchal de Gié it was a murderous horseplay; and this difference the +Italians were not slow to perceive. When they cast away their lances +at Fornovo, and fled--in spite of their superior numbers--never to +return, one fair-seeming sham of the fifteenth century became a vision +of the past. + + * * * * * + + + + +_FLORENCE AND THE MEDICI_ + + Di Firenze in prima si divisono intra loro i nobili, dipoi i + nobili e il popolo, e in ultimo il popolo e la plebe; e + molte volte occorse che una di queste parti rimasa + superiore, si divise in due.--MACHIAVELLI. + + +I + +Florence, like all Italian cities, owed her independence to the duel +of the Papacy and Empire. The transference of the imperial authority +beyond the Alps had enabled the burghs of Lombardy and Tuscany to +establish a form of self-government. This government was based upon +the old municipal organisation of duumvirs and decemvirs. It was, in +fact, nothing more or less than a survival from the ancient Roman +system. The proof of this was, that while vindicating their rights as +towns, the free cities never questioned the validity of the imperial +title. Even after the peace of Constance in 1183, when Frederick +Barbarossa acknowledged their autonomy, they received within their +walls a supreme magistrate, with power of life and death and ultimate +appeal in all decisive questions, whose title of Potestà indicated +that he represented the imperial power--Potestas. It was not by the +assertion of any right, so much as by the growth of custom, and by the +weakness of the Emperors, that in course of time each city became a +sovereign State. The theoretical supremacy of the Empire prevented any +other authority from taking the first place in Italy. On the other +hand, the practical inefficiency of the Emperors to play their part +encouraged the establishment of numerous minor powers amenable to no +controlling discipline. + +The free cities derived their strength from industry, and had nothing +in common with the nobles of the surrounding country. Broadly +speaking, the population of the towns included what remained in Italy +of the old Roman people. This Roman stock was nowhere stronger than in +Florence and Venice--Florence defended from barbarian incursions by +her mountains and marshes, Venice by the isolation of her lagoons. The +nobles, on the contrary, were mostly of foreign origin--Germans, +Franks, and Lombards, who had established themselves as feudal lords +in castles apart from the cities. The force which the burghs acquired +as industrial communities was soon turned against these nobles. The +larger cities, like Milan and Florence, began to make war upon the +lords of castles, and to absorb into their own territory the small +towns and villages around them. Thus in the social economy of the +Italians there were two antagonistic elements ready to range +themselves beneath any banners that should give the form of legitimate +warfare to their mutual hostility. It was the policy of the Church in +the twelfth century to support the cause of the cities, using them as +a weapon against the Empire, and stimulating the growing ambition of +the burghers. In this way Italy came to be divided into the two +world-famous factions known as Guelf and Ghibelline. The struggle +between Guelf and Ghibelline was the struggle of the Papacy for the +depression of the Empire, the struggle of the great burghs face to +face with feudalism, the struggle of the old Italie stock enclosed in +cities with the foreign nobles established in fortresses. When the +Church had finally triumphed by the extirpation of the House of +Hohenstaufen, this conflict of Guelf and Ghibelline was really ended. +Until the reign of Charles V. no Emperor interfered to any purpose in +Italian affairs. At the same time the Popes ceased to wield a +formidable power. Having won the battle by calling in the French, they +suffered the consequences of this policy by losing their hold on Italy +during the long period of their exile at Avignon. The Italians, left +without either Pope or Emperor, were free to pursue their course of +internal development, and to prosecute their quarrels among +themselves. But though the names of Guelf and Ghibelline lost their +old significance after the year 1266 (the date of King Manfred's +death), these two factions had so divided Italy that they continued to +play a prominent part in her annals. Guelf still meant constitutional +autonomy, meant the burgher as against the noble, meant industry as +opposed to feudal lordship. Ghibelline meant the rule of the few over +the many, meant tyranny, meant the interest of the noble as against +the merchant and the citizen. These broad distinctions must be borne +in mind, if we seek to understand how it was that a city like Florence +continued to be governed by parties, the European force of which had +passed away. + + +II + + +Florence first rose into importance during the papacy of Innocent III. +Up to this date she had been a town of second-rate distinction even in +Tuscany. Pisa was more powerful by arms and commerce. Lucca was the +old seat of the dukes and marquises of Tuscany. But between the years +1200 and 1250 Florence assumed the place she was to hold +thenceforward, by heading the league of Tuscan cities formed to +support the Guelf party against the Ghibellines. Formally adopting the +Guelf cause, the Florentines made themselves the champions of +municipal liberty in Central Italy; and while they declared war +against the Ghibelline cities, they endeavoured to stamp out the very +name of noble in their State. It is not needful to describe the +varying fortunes of the Guelfs and Ghibellines, the burghers and the +nobles, during the thirteenth and the first half of the fourteenth +centuries. Suffice it to say that through all the vicissitudes of that +stormy period the name Guelf became more and more associated with +republican freedom in Florence. At last, after the final triumph of +that party in 1253, the Guelfs remained victors in the city. +Associating the glory of their independence with Guelf principles, the +citizens of Florence perpetuated within their State a faction that, in +its turn, was destined to prove perilous to liberty. + +When it became clear that the republic was to rule itself henceforth +untrammelled by imperial interference, the people divided themselves +into six districts, and chose for each district two Ancients, who +administered the government in concert with the Potestà and the +Captain of the People. The Ancients were a relic of the old Roman +municipal organisation. The Potestà who was invariably a noble +foreigner selected by the people, represented the extinct imperial +right, and exercised the power of life and death within the city. The +Captain of the People, who was also a foreigner, headed the burghers +in their military capacity, for at that period the troops were levied +from the citizens themselves in twenty companies. The body of the +citizens, or the _popolo_, were ultimately sovereigns in the State. +Assembled under the banners of their several companies, they formed a +_parlamento_ for delegating their own power to each successive +government. Their representatives, again, arranged in two councils, +called the Council of the People and the Council of the Commune, under +the presidency of the Captain of the People and the Potestà, ratified +the measures which had previously been proposed and carried by the +executive authority or Signoria. Under this simple State system the +Florentines placed themselves at the head of the Tuscan League, fought +the battles of the Church, asserted their sovereignty by issuing the +golden florin of the republic, and flourished until 1266. + + +III + + +In that year an important change was effected in the Constitution. +The whole population of Florence consisted, on the one hand, of nobles +or Grandi, as they were called in Tuscany, and on the other hand of +working people. The latter, divided into traders and handicraftsmen, +were distributed in guilds called Arti; and at that time there were +seven Greater and five Lesser Arti, the most influential of all being +the Guild of the Wool Merchants. These guilds had their halls for +meeting, their colleges of chief officers, their heads, called Consoli +or Priors, and their flags. In 1266 it was decided that the +administration of the commonwealth should be placed simply and wholly +in the hands of the Arti, and the Priors of these industrial companies +became the lords or Signory of Florence. No inhabitant of the city who +had not enrolled himself as a craftsman in one of the guilds could +exercise any function of burghership. To be _scioperato_, or without +industry, was to be without power, without rank or place of honour in +the State. The revolution which placed the Arts at the head of the +republic had the practical effect of excluding the Grandi altogether +from the government. Violent efforts were made by these noble +families, potent through their territorial possessions and foreign +connections, and trained from boyhood in the use of arms, to recover +the place from which the new laws thrust them: but their menacing +attitude, instead of intimidating the burghers, roused their anger and +drove them to the passing of still more stringent laws. In 1293, after +the Ghibellines had been defeated in the great battle of Campaldino, a +series of severe enactments, called the Ordinances of Justice, were +decreed against the unruly Grandi. All civic rights were taken from +them; the severest penalties were attached to their slightest +infringement of municipal law; their titles to land were limited; the +privilege of living within the city walls was allowed them only under +galling restrictions; and, last not least, a supreme magistrate, named +the Gonfalonier of Justice, was created for the special purpose of +watching them and carrying out the penal code against them. +Henceforward Florence was governed exclusively by merchants and +artisans. The Grandi hastened to enrol themselves in the guilds, +exchanging their former titles and dignities for the solid privilege +of burghership. The exact parallel to this industrial constitution for +a commonwealth, carrying on wars with emperors and princes, holding +haughty captains in its pay, and dictating laws to subject cities, +cannot, I think, be elsewhere found in history. It is as unique as the +Florence of Dante and Giotto is unique. While the people was guarding +itself thus stringently against the Grandi, a separate body was +created for the special purpose of extirpating the Ghibellines. A +permanent committee of vigilance, called the College or the Captains +of the Guelf Party, was established. It was their function to +administer the forfeited possessions of Ghibelline rebels, to hunt out +suspected citizens, to prosecute them for Ghibellinism, to judge them, +and to punish them as traitors to the commonwealth. This body, like a +little State within the State, proved formidable to the republic +itself through the unlimited and undefined sway it exercised over +burghers whom it chose to tax with treason. In course of time it +became the oligarchical element within the Florentine democracy, and +threatened to change the free constitution of the city into a +government conducted by a few powerful families. + +There is no need to dwell in detail on the internal difficulties of +Florence during the first half of the fourteenth century. Two main +circumstances, however, require to be briefly noticed. These are (i) +the contest of the Blacks and Whites, so famous through the part +played in it by Dante; and (ii) the tyranny of the Duke[1] of Athens, +Walter de Brienne. The feuds of the Blacks and Whites broke up the +city into factions, and produced such anarchy that at last it was +found necessary to place the republic under the protection of foreign +potentates. Charles of Valois was first chosen, and after him the Duke +of Athens, who took up his residence in the city. Entrusted with +dictatorial authority, he used his power to form a military despotism. +Though his reign of violence lasted rather less than a year, it bore +important fruits; for the tyrant, seeking to support himself upon the +favour of the common people, gave political power to the Lesser Arts +at the expense of the Greater, and confused the old State-system by +enlarging the democracy. The net result of these events for Florence +was, first, that the city became habituated to rancorous party-strife, +involving exiles and proscriptions; and, secondly, that it lost its +primitive social hierarchy of classes. + + +IV + + +After the Guelfs had conquered the Ghibellines, and the people had +absorbed the Grandi in their guilds, the next chapter in the troubled +history of Florence was the division of the Popolo against itself. +Civil strife now declared itself as a conflict between labour and +capital. The members of the Lesser Arts, craftsmen who plied trades +subordinate to those of the Greater Arts, rose up against their social +and political superiors, demanding a larger share in the government, a +more equal distribution of profits, higher wages, and privileges that +should place them on an absolute equality with the wealthy merchants. +It was in the year 1378 that the proletariate broke out into +rebellion. Previous events had prepared the way for this revolt. First +of all, the republic had been democratised through the destruction of +the Grandi and through the popular policy pursued to gain his own ends +by the Duke of Athens. Secondly, society had been shaken to its very +foundation by the great plague of 1348. Both Boccaccio and Matteo +Villani draw lively pictures of the relaxed morality and loss of order +consequent upon this terrible disaster; nor had thirty years sufficed +to restore their relative position to grades and ranks confounded by +an overwhelming calamity. We may therefore reckon the great plague of +1348 among the causes which produced the anarchy of 1378. Rising in a +mass to claim their privileges, the artisans ejected the Signory from +the Public Palace, and for awhile Florence was at the mercy of the +mob. It is worthy of notice that the Medici, whose name is scarcely +known before this epoch, now came for one moment to the front. +Salvestro de' Medici was Gonfalonier of Justice at the time when the +tumult first broke out. He followed the faction of the handicraftsmen, +and became the hero of the day. I cannot discover that he did more +than extend a sort of passive protection to their cause. Yet there is +no doubt that the attachment of the working classes to the House of +Medici dates from this period. The rebellion of 1378 is known in +Florentine history as the Tumult of the Ciompi. The name Ciompi +strictly means the Wool-Carders. One set of operatives in the city, +and that the largest, gave its title to the whole body of the +labourers. For some months these craftsmen governed the republic, +appointing their own Signory and passing laws in their own interest; +but, as is usual, the proletariate found itself incapable of sustained +government. The ambition and discontent of the Ciompi foamed +themselves away, and industrious working men began to see that trade +was languishing and credit on the wane. By their own act at last they +restored the government to the Priors of the Greater Arti. Still the +movement had not been without grave consequences. It completed the +levelling of classes, which had been steadily advancing from the first +in Florence. After the Ciompi riot there was no longer not only any +distinction between noble and burgher, but the distinction between +greater and lesser guilds was practically swept away. The classes, +parties, and degrees in the republic were so broken up, ground down, +and mingled, that thenceforth the true source of power in the State +was wealth combined with personal ability. In other words, the proper +political conditions had been formed for unscrupulous adventurers. +Florence had become a democracy without social organisation, which +might fall a prey to oligarchs or despots. What remained of deeply +rooted feuds or factions--animosities against the Grandi, hatred for +the Ghibellines, jealousy of labour and capital--offered so many +points of leverage for stirring the passions of the people and for +covering personal ambition with a cloak of public zeal. The time was +come for the Albizzi to attempt an oligarchy, and for the Medici to +begin the enslavement of the State. + + +V + + +The Constitution of Florence offered many points of weakness to the +attacks of such intriguers. In the first place it was in its origin +not a political but an industrial organisation--a simple group of +guilds invested with the sovereign authority. Its two most powerful +engines, the Gonfalonier of Justice and the Guelf College, had been +formed, not with a view to the preservation of the government, but +with the purpose of quelling the nobles and excluding a detested +faction. It had no permanent head, like the Doge of Venice; no fixed +senate like the Venetian Grand Council; its chief magistrates, the +Signory, were elected for short periods of two months, and their mode +of election was open to the gravest criticism. Supposed to be chosen +by lot, they were really selected from lists drawn up by the factions +in power from time to time. These factions contrived to exclude the +names of all but their adherents from the bags, or _borse_, in which +the burghers eligible for election had to be inscribed. Furthermore, +it was not possible for this shifting Signory to conduct affairs +requiring sustained effort and secret deliberation; therefore recourse +was being continually had to dictatorial Commissions. The people, +summoned in parliament upon the Great Square, were asked to confer +plenipotentiary authority upon a committee called _Balia_, who +proceeded to do what they chose in the State, and who retained power +after the emergency for which they were created passed away. The same +instability in the supreme magistracy led to the appointment of +special commissioners for war, and special councils, or _Pratiche_, +for the management of each department. Such supplementary commissions +not only proved the weakness of the central authority, but they were +always liable to be made the instruments of party warfare. The Guelf +College was another and a different source of danger to the State. Not +acting under the control of the Signory, but using its own initiative, +this powerful body could proscribe and punish burghers on the mere +suspicion of Ghibellinism. Though the Ghibelline faction had become an +empty name, the Guelf College excluded from the franchise all and +every whom they chose on any pretext to admonish. Under this mild +phrase, _to admonish_, was concealed a cruel exercise of tyranny--it +meant to warn a man that he was suspected of treason, and that he had +better relinquish the exercise of his burghership. By free use of this +engine of Admonition, the Guelf College rendered their enemies +voiceless in the State, and were able to pack the Signory and the +councils with their own creatures. Another important defect in the +Florentine Constitution was the method of imposing taxes. This was +done by no regular system. The party in power made what estimate it +chose of a man's capacity to bear taxation, and called upon him for +extraordinary loans. In this way citizens were frequently driven into +bankruptcy and exile; and since to be a debtor to the State deprived a +burgher of his civic rights, severe taxation was one of the best ways +of silencing and neutralising a dissentient. + +I have enumerated these several causes of weakness in the Florentine +State-system, partly because they show how irregularly the +Constitution had been formed by the patching and extension of a simple +industrial machine to suit the needs of a great commonwealth; partly +because it was through these defects that the democracy merged +gradually into a despotism. The art of the Medici consisted in a +scientific comprehension of these very imperfections, a methodic use +of them for their own purposes, and a steady opposition to any +attempts made to substitute a stricter system. The Florentines had +determined to be an industrial community, governing themselves on the +co-operative principle, dividing profits, sharing losses, and exposing +their magistrates to rigid scrutiny. All this in theory was excellent. +Had they remained an unambitious and peaceful commonwealth, engaged in +the wool and silk trade, it might have answered. Modern Europe might +have admired the model of a communistic and commercial democracy. But +when they engaged in aggressive wars, and sought to enslave +sister-cities like Pisa and Lucca, it was soon found that their simple +trading constitution would not serve. They had to piece it out with +subordinate machinery, cumbrous, difficult to manage, ill-adapted to +the original structure. Each limb of this subordinate machinery, +moreover, was a _point d'appui_ for insidious and self-seeking party +leaders. + +Florence, in the middle of the fourteenth century, was a vast beehive +of industry. Distinctions of rank among burghers, qualified to vote +and hold office, were theoretically unknown. Highly educated men, of +more than princely wealth, spent their time in shops and +counting-houses, and trained their sons to follow trades. Military +service at this period was abandoned by the citizens; they preferred +to pay mercenary troops for the conduct of their wars. Nor was there, +as in Venice, any outlet for their energies upon the seas. Florence +had no navy, no great port--she only kept a small fleet for the +protection of her commerce. Thus the vigour of the commonwealth was +concentrated on itself; while the influence of the citizens, through +their affiliated trading-houses, correspondents, and agents, extended +like a network over Europe. In a community of this kind it was natural +that wealth--rank and titles being absent--should alone confer +distinction. Accordingly we find that out of the very bosom of the +people a new plutocratic aristocracy begins to rise. The Grandi are +no more; but certain families achieve distinction by their riches, +their numbers, their high spirit, and their ancient place of honour in +the State. These nobles of the purse obtained the name of _Popolani +Nobili_; and it was they who now began to play at high stakes for the +supreme power. In all the subsequent vicissitudes of Florence every +change takes place by intrigue and by clever manipulation of the +political machine. Recourse is rarely had to violence of any kind, and +the leaders of revolutions are men of the yard-measure, never of the +sword. The despotism to which the republic eventually succumbed was no +less commercial than the democracy had been. Florence in the days of +her slavery remained a _Popolo_. + + +VI + + +The opening of the second half of the fourteenth century had been +signalised by the feuds of two great houses, both risen from the +people. These were the Albizzi and the Ricci. At this epoch there had +been a formal closing of the lists of burghers;--henceforth no new +families who might settle in the city could claim the franchise, vote +in the assemblies, or hold magistracies. The Guelf College used their +old engine of admonition to persecute _novi homines_, whom they +dreaded as opponents. At the head of this formidable organisation the +Albizzi placed themselves, and worked it with such skill that they +succeeded in driving the Ricci out of all participation in the +government. The tumult of the Ciompi formed but an episode in their +career toward oligarchy; indeed, that revolution only rendered the +political material of the Florentine republic more plastic in the +hands of intriguers, by removing the last vestiges of class +distinctions and by confusing the old parties of the State. + +When the Florentines in 1387 engaged in their long duel with Gian +Galeazzo Visconti, the difficulty of conducting this war without some +permanent central authority still further confirmed the power of the +rising oligarchs. The Albizzi became daily more autocratic, until in +1393 their chief, Maso degli Albizzi, a man of strong will and prudent +policy, was chosen Gonfalonier of Justice. Assuming the sway of a +dictator he revised the list of burghers capable of holding office, +struck out the private opponents of his house, and excluded all names +but those of powerful families who were well affected towards an +aristocratic government. The great house of the Alberti were exiled in +a body, declared rebels, and deprived of their possessions, for no +reason except that they seemed dangerous to the Albizzi. It was in +vain that the people murmured against these arbitrary acts. The new +rulers were omnipotent in the Signory, which they packed with their +own men, in the great guilds, and in the Guelf College. All the +machinery invented by the industrial community for its self-management +and self-defence was controlled and manipulated by a close body of +aristocrats, with the Albizzi at their head. It seemed as though +Florence, without any visible alteration in her forms of government, +was rapidly becoming an oligarchy even less open than the Venetian +republic. Meanwhile the affairs of the State were most flourishing. +The strong-handed masters of the city not only held the Duke of Milan +in check, and prevented him from turning Italy into a kingdom; they +furthermore acquired the cities of Pisa, Livorno, Arezzo, +Montepulciano, and Cortona, for Florence, making her the mistress of +all Tuscany, with the exception of Siena, Lucca, and Volterra. Maso +degli Albizzi was the ruling spirit of the commonwealth, spending the +enormous sum of 11,500,000 golden florins on war, raising sumptuous +edifices, protecting the arts, and acting in general like a powerful +and irresponsible prince. + +In spite of public prosperity there were signs, however, that this +rule of a few families could not last. Their government was only +maintained by continual revision of the lists of burghers, by +elimination of the disaffected, and by unremitting personal industry. +They introduced no new machinery into the Constitution whereby the +people might be deprived of its titular sovereignty, or their own +dictatorship might be continued with a semblance of legality. Again, +they neglected to win over the new nobles (_nobili popolani_) in a +body to their cause; and thus they were surrounded by rivals ready to +spring upon them when a false step should be made. The Albizzi +oligarchy was a masterpiece of art, without any force to sustain it +but the craft and energy of its constructors. It had not grown up, +like the Venetian oligarchy, by the gradual assimilation to itself of +all the vigour in the State. It was bound, sooner or later, to yield +to the renascent impulse of democracy inherent in Florentine +institutions. + + +VII + + +Maso degli Albizzi died in 1417. He was succeeded in the government by +his old friend, Niccolo da Uzzano, a man of great eloquence and +wisdom, whose single word swayed the councils of the people as he +listed. Together with him acted Maso's son, Rinaldo, a youth of even +more brilliant talents than his father, frank, noble, and +high-spirited, but far less cautious. + +The oligarchy, which these two men undertook to manage, had +accumulated against itself the discontent of overtaxed, disfranchised, +jealous burghers. The times, too, were bad. Pursuing the policy of +Maso, the Albizzi engaged the city in a tedious and unsuccessful war +with Filippo Maria Visconti, which cost 350,000 golden florins, and +brought no credit. In order to meet extraordinary expenses they raised +new public loans, thereby depreciating the value of the old Florentine +funds. "What was worse, they imposed forced subsidies with grievous +inequality upon the burghers, passing over their friends and +adherents, and burdening their opponents with more than could be +borne. This imprudent financial policy began the ruin of the Albizzi. +It caused a clamour in the city for a new system of more just +taxation, which was too powerful to be resisted. The voice of the +people made itself loudly heard; and with the people on this occasion +sided Giovanni de' Medici. This was in 1427. + +It is here that the Medici appear upon that memorable scene where in +the future they are to play the first part. Giovanni de' Medici did +not belong to the same branch of his family as the Salvestro who +favoured the people at the time of the Ciompi Tumult. But he adopted +the same popular policy. To his sons Cosimo and Lorenzo he bequeathed +on his deathbed the rule that they should invariably adhere to the +cause of the multitude, found their influence on that, and avoid the +arts of factious and ambitious leaders. In his own life he had pursued +this course of conduct, acquiring a reputation for civic moderation +and impartiality that endeared him to the people and stood his +children in good stead. Early in his youth Giovanni found himself +almost destitute by reason of the imposts charged upon him by the +oligarchs. He possessed, however, the genius for money-making to a +rare degree, and passed his manhood as a banker, amassing the largest +fortune of any private citizen in Italy. In his old age he devoted +himself to the organisation of his colossal trading business, and +abstained, as far as possible, from political intrigues. Men observed +that they rarely met him in the Public Palace or on the Great Square. + +Cosimo de' Medici was thirty years old when his father Giovanni died, +in 1429. During his youth he had devoted all his time and energy to +business, mastering the complicated affairs of Giovanni's +banking-house, and travelling far and wide through Europe to extend +its connections. This education made him a consummate financier; and +those who knew him best were convinced that his ambition was set on +great things. However quietly he might begin, it was clear that he +intended to match himself, as a leader of the plebeians, against the +Albizzi. The foundations he prepared for future action were equally +characteristic of the man, of Florence, and of the age. Commanding the +enormous capital of the Medicean bank he contrived, at any sacrifice +of temporary convenience, to lend money to the State for war expenses, +engrossing in his own hands a large portion of the public debt of +Florence. At the same time his agencies in various European capitals +enabled him to keep his own wealth floating far beyond the reach of +foes within the city. A few years of this system ended in so complete +a confusion between Cosimo's trade and the finances of Florence that +the bankruptcy of the Medici, however caused, would have compromised +the credit of the State and the fortunes of the fund-holders. Cosimo, +in a word, made himself necessary to Florence by the wise use of his +riches. Furthermore, he kept his eye upon the list of burghers, +lending money to needy citizens, putting good things in the way of +struggling traders, building up the fortunes of men who were disposed +to favour his party in the State, ruining his opponents by the +legitimate process of commercial competition, and, when occasion +offered, introducing new voters into the Florentine Council by paying +off the debts of those who were disqualified by poverty from using the +franchise. While his capital was continually increasing he lived +frugally, and employed his wealth solely for the consolidation of his +political influence. By these arts Cosimo became formidable to the +oligarchs and beloved by the people. His supporters were numerous, and +held together by the bonds of immediate necessity or personal +cupidity. The plebeians and the merchants were all on his side. The +Grandi and the Ammoniti, excluded from the State by the practices of +the Albizzi, had more to hope from the Medicean party than from the +few families who still contrived to hold the reins of government. It +was clear that a conflict to the death must soon commence between the +oligarchy and this new faction. + + +VIII + + +At last, in 1433, war was declared. The first blow was struck by +Rinaldo degli Albizzi, who put himself in the wrong by attacking a +citizen indispensable to the people at large, and guilty of no +unconstitutional act. On September 7th of that year, a year decisive +for the future destinies of Florence, he summoned Cosimo to the Public +Palace, which he had previously occupied with troops at his command. +There he declared him a rebel to the State, and had him imprisoned in +a little square room in the central tower. The tocsin was sounded; the +people were assembled in parliament upon the piazza. The Albizzi held +the main streets with armed men, and forced the Florentines to place +plenipotentiary power for the administration of the commonwealth at +this crisis in the hands of a Balia, or committee selected by +themselves. It was always thus that acts of high tyranny were effected +in Florence. A show of legality was secured by gaining the compulsory +sanction of the people, driven by soldiery into the public square, and +hastily ordered to recognise the authority of their oppressors. + +The bill of indictment against the Medici accused them of sedition in +the year 1378--that is, in the year of the Ciompi Tumult--and of +treasonable practice during the whole course of the Albizzi +administration. It also strove to fix upon them the odium of the +unsuccessful war against the town of Lucca. As soon as the Albizzi had +unmasked their batteries, Lorenzo de' Medici managed to escape from +the city, and took with him his brother Cosimo's children to Venice. +Cosimo remained shut up within the little room called Barberia in +Arnolfo's tower. From that high eagle's nest the sight can range +Valdarno far and wide. Florence with her towers and domes lies below; +and the blue peaks of Carrara close a prospect westward than +which, with its villa-jewelled slopes and fertile gardens, there is +nought more beautiful upon the face of earth. The prisoner can have +paid but little heed to this fair landscape. He heard the frequent +ringing of the great bell that called the Florentines to council, the +tramp of armed men on the piazza, the coming and going of the burghers +in the palace halls beneath. On all sides lurked anxiety and fear of +death. Each mouthful he tasted might be poisoned. For many days he +partook of only bread and water, till his gaoler restored his +confidence by sharing all his meals. In this peril he abode +twenty-four days. The Albizzi, in concert with the Balia they had +formed, were consulting what they might venture to do with him. Some +voted for his execution. Others feared the popular favour, and thought +that if they killed Cosimo this act would ruin their own power. The +nobler natures among them determined to proceed by constitutional +measures. At last, upon September 29th, it was settled that Cosimo +should be exiled to Padua for ten years. The Medici were declared +Grandi, by way of excluding them from political rights. But their +property remained untouched; and on October 3rd, Cosimo was released. + +On the same day Cosimo took his departure. His journey northward +resembled a triumphant progress. He left Florence a simple burgher; he +entered Venice a powerful prince. Though the Albizzi seemed to have +gained the day, they had really cut away the ground beneath their +feet. They committed the fatal mistake of doing both too much and too +little--too much because they declared war against an innocent man, +and roused the sympathies of the whole people in his behalf; too +little, because they had not the nerve to complete their act by +killing him outright and extirpating his party. Machiavelli, in one of +his profoundest and most cynical critiques, remarks that few men know +how to be thoroughly bad with honour to themselves. Their will is +evil; but the grain of good in them--some fear of public opinion, +some repugnance to committing a signal crime--paralyses their arm at +the moment when it ought to have been raised to strike. He instances +Gian Paolo Baglioni's omission to murder Julius II., when that Pope +placed himself within his clutches at Perugia. He might also have +instanced Rinaldo degli Albizzi's refusal to push things to +extremities by murdering Cosimo. It was the combination of despotic +violence in the exile of Cosimo with constitutional moderation in the +preservation of his life, that betrayed the weakness of the oligarchs +and restored confidence to the Medicean party. + + +IX + + +In the course of the year 1434 this party began to hold up its head. +Powerful as the Albizzi were, they only retained the government by +artifice; and now they had done a deed which put at nought their +former arts and intrigues. A Signory favourable to the Medici came +into office, and on September 26th, 1434, Rinaldo in his turn was +summoned to the palace and declared a rebel. He strove to raise the +forces of his party, and entered the piazza at the head of eight +hundred men. The menacing attitude of the people, however, made +resistance perilous. Rinaldo disbanded his troops, and placed himself +under the protection of Pope Eugenius IV., who was then resident in +Florence. This act of submission proved that Rinaldo had not the +courage or the cruelty to try the chance of civil war. Whatever his +motives may have been, he lost his hold upon the State beyond +recovery. On September 29th, a new parliament was summoned; on October +2nd, Cosimo was recalled from exile and the Albizzi were banished. The +intercession of the Pope procured for them nothing but the liberty to +leave Florence unmolested. Einaldo turned his back upon the city he +had governed, never to set foot in it again. On October 6th, Cosimo, +having passed through Padua, Ferrara, and Modena like a conqueror, +reentered the town amid the plaudits of the people, and took up his +dwelling as an honoured guest in the Palace of the Republic. The +subsequent history of Florence is the history of his family. In after +years the Medici loved to remember this return of Cosimo. His +triumphal reception was painted in fresco on the walls of their villa +at Cajano under the transparent allegory of Cicero's entrance into +Rome. + + +X + + +By their brief exile the Medici had gained the credit of injured +innocence, the fame of martyrdom in the popular cause. Their foes had +struck the first blow, and in striking at them had seemed to aim +against the liberties of the republic. The mere failure of their +adversaries to hold the power they had acquired, handed over this +power to the Medici; and the reprisals which the Medici began to take +had the show of justice, not of personal hatred, or petty vengeance. +Cosimo was a true Florentine. He disliked violence, because he knew +that blood spilt cries for blood. His passions, too, were cool and +temperate. No gust of anger, no intoxication of success, destroyed his +balance. His one object, the consolidation of power for his family on +the basis of popular favour, was kept steadily in view; and he would +do nothing that might compromise that end. Yet he was neither generous +nor merciful. We therefore find that from the first moment of his +return to Florence he instituted a system of pitiless and unforgiving +persecution against his old opponents. The Albizzi were banished, root +and branch, with all their followers, consigned to lonely and often to +unwholesome stations through the length and breadth of Italy. If they +broke the bonds assigned them, they were forthwith declared traitors +and their property was confiscated. After a long series of years, by +merely keeping in force the first sentence pronounced upon them, +Cosimo had the cruel satisfaction of seeing the whole of that proud +oligarchy die out by slow degrees in the insufferable tedium of +solitude and exile. Even the high-souled Palla degli Strozzi, who had +striven to remain neutral, and whose wealth and talents were devoted +to the revival of classical studies, was proscribed because to Cosimo +he seemed too powerful. Separated from his children, he died in +banishment at Padua. In this way the return of the Medici involved the +loss to Florence of some noble citizens, who might perchance have +checked the Medicean tyranny if they had stayed to guide the State. +The plebeians, raised to wealth and influence by Cosimo before his +exile, now took the lead in the republic. He used these men as +catspaws, rarely putting himself forward or allowing his own name to +appear, but pulling the wires of government in privacy by means of +intermediate agents. The Medicean party was called at first _Puccini_ +from a certain Puccio, whose name was better known in caucus or +committee than that of his real master. + +To rule through these creatures of his own making taxed all the +ingenuity of Cosimo; but his profound and subtle intellect was suited +to the task, and he found unlimited pleasure in the exercise of his +consummate craft. We have already seen to what extent he used his +riches for the acquisition of political influence. Now that he had +come to power, he continued the same method, packing the Signory and +the Councils with men whom he could hold by debt between his thumb and +finger. His command of the public moneys enabled him to wink at +peculation in State offices; it was part of his system to bind +magistrates and secretaries to his interest by their consciousness of +guilt condoned but not forgotten. Not a few, moreover, owed their +living to the appointments he procured for them. While he thus +controlled the wheel-work of the commonwealth by means of organised +corruption, he borrowed the arts of his old enemies to oppress +dissentient citizens. If a man took an independent line in voting, +and refused allegiance to the Medicean party, he was marked out for +persecution. No violence was used; but he found himself hampered in +his commerce--money, plentiful for others, became scarce for him; his +competitors in trade were subsidised to undersell him. And while the +avenues of industry were closed, his fortune was taxed above its +value, until he had to sell at a loss in order to discharge his public +obligations. In the first twenty years of the Medicean rule, seventy +families had to pay 4,875,000 golden florins of extraordinary imposts, +fixed by arbitrary assessment. + +The more patriotic members of his party looked with dread and loathing +on this system of corruption and exclusion. To their remonstrances +Cosimo replied in four memorable sayings: 'Better the State spoiled +than the State not ours.' 'Governments cannot be carried on with +paternosters.' 'An ell of scarlet makes a burgher.' 'I aim at finite +ends.' These maxims represent the whole man,--first, in his egotism, +eager to gain Florence for his family, at any risk of her ruin; +secondly, in his cynical acceptance of base means to selfish ends; +thirdly, in his bourgeois belief that money makes a man, and fine +clothes suffice for a citizen; fourthly, in his worldly ambition bent +on positive success. It was, in fact, his policy to reduce Florence to +the condition of a rotten borough: nor did this policy fail. One +notable sign of the influence he exercised was the change which now +came over the foreign relations of the republic. Up to the date of his +dictatorship Florence had uniformly fought the battle of freedom in +Italy. It was the chief merit of the Albizzi oligarchy that they +continued the traditions of the mediæval State, and by their vigorous +action checked the growth of the Visconti. Though they engrossed the +government they never forgot that they were first of all things +Florentines, and only in the second place men who owed their power and +influence to office. In a word, they acted like patriotic Tories, like +republican patricians. Therefore they would not ally themselves with +tyrants or countenance the enslavement of free cities by armed +despots. Their subjugation of the Tuscan burghs to Florence was itself +part of a grand republican policy. Cosimo changed all this. When the +Visconti dynasty ended by the death of Filippo Maria in 1447, there +was a chance of restoring the independence of Lombardy. Milan in +effect declared herself a republic, and by the aid of Florence she +might at this moment have maintained her liberty. Cosimo, however, +entered into treaty with Francesco Sforza, supplied him with money, +guaranteed him against Florentine interference, and saw with +satisfaction how he reduced the duchy to his military tyranny. The +Medici were conscious that they, selfishly, had most to gain by +supporting despots who in time of need might help them to confirm +their own authority. With the same end in view, when the legitimate +line of the Bentivogli was extinguished, Cosimo hunted out a bastard +pretender of that family, presented him to the chiefs of the +Bentivogli faction, and had him placed upon the seat of his supposed +ancestors at Bologna. This young man, a certain Santi da Cascese, +presumed to be the son of Ercole de' Bentivogli, was an artisan in a +wool factory when Cosimo set eyes upon him. At first Santi refused the +dangerous honour of governing a proud republic; but the intrigues of +Cosimo prevailed, and the obscure craftsman ended his days a powerful +prince. + +By the arts I have attempted to describe, Cosimo in the course of his +long life absorbed the forces of the republic into himself. While he +shunned the external signs of despotic power he made himself the +master of the State. His complexion was of a pale olive; his stature +short; abstemious and simple in his habits, affable in conversation, +sparing of speech, he knew how to combine that burgher-like civility +for which the Romans praised Augustus, with the reality of a despotism +all the more difficult to combat because it seemed nowhere and was +everywhere. When he died, at the age of seventy-five, in 1464, the +people whom he had enslaved, but whom he had neither injured nor +insulted, honoured him with the title of _Pater Patriæ_. This was +inscribed upon his tomb in S. Lorenzo. He left to posterity the fame +of a great and generous patron,[14] the infamy of a cynical, +self-seeking, bourgeois tyrant. Such combinations of contradictory +qualities were common enough at the time of the Renaissance. Did not +Machiavelli spend his days in tavern-brawls and low amours, his nights +among the mighty spirits of the dead, with whom, when he had changed +his country suit of homespun for the habit of the Court, he found +himself an honoured equal? + + +XI + + +Cosimo had shown consummate skill by governing Florence through a +party created and raised to influence by himself. The jealousy of +these adherents formed the chief difficulty with which his son Piero +had to contend. Unless the Medici could manage to kick down the ladder +whereby they had risen, they ran the risk of losing all. As on a +former occasion, so now they profited by the mistakes of their +antagonists. Three chief men of their own party, Diotisalvi Neroni, +Agnolo Acciaiuoli, and Luca Pitti, determined to shake off the yoke of +their masters, and to repay the Medici for what they owed by leading +them to ruin. Niccolo Soderini, a patriot, indignant at the slow +enslavement of his country, joined them. At first they strove to +undermine the credit of the Medici with the Florentines by inducing +Piero to call in the moneys placed at interest by his father in the +hands of private citizens. This act was unpopular; but it did not +suffice to move a revolution. To proceed by constitutional measures +against the Medici was judged impolitic. Therefore the conspirators +decided to take, if possible, Piero's life. The plot failed, chiefly +owing to the coolness and the cunning of the young Lorenzo, Piero's +eldest son. Public sympathy was strongly excited against the +aggressors. Neroni, Acciaiuoli, and Soderini were exiled. Pitti was +allowed to stay, dishonoured, powerless, and penniless, in Florence. +Meanwhile, the failure of their foes had only served to strengthen the +position of the Medici. The ladder had saved them the trouble of +kicking it down. + +The congratulations addressed on this occasion to Piero and Lorenzo by +the ruling powers of Italy show that the Medici were already regarded +as princes outside Florence. Lorenzo and Giuliano, the two sons of +Piero, travelled abroad to the Courts of Milan and Ferrara with the +style and state of more than simple citizens. At home they occupied +the first place on all occasions of public ceremony, receiving royal +visitors on terms of equality, and performing the hospitalities of the +republic like men who had been born to represent its dignities. +Lorenzo's marriage to Clarice Orsini, of the noble Roman house, was +another sign that the Medici were advancing on the way toward +despotism. Cosimo had avoided foreign alliances for his children. His +descendants now judged themselves firmly planted enough to risk the +odium of a princely match for the sake of the support outside the city +they might win. + + +XII + + + +Piero de' Medici died in December 1469. His son Lorenzo was then +barely twenty-two years of age. The chiefs of the Medicean party, +all-powerful in the State, held a council, in which they resolved to +place him in the same position as his father and grandfather. This +resolve seems to have been formed after mature deliberation, on the +ground that the existing conditions of Italian politics rendered it +impossible to conduct the government without a presidential head. +Florence, though still a democracy, required a permanent chief to +treat on an equality with the princes of the leading cities. Here we +may note the prudence of Cosimo's foreign policy. When he helped to +establish despots in Milan and Bologna he was rendering the presidency +of his own family in Florence necessary. + +Lorenzo, having received this invitation, called attention to his +youth and inexperience. Yet he did not refuse it; and, after a +graceful display of diffidence, he accepted the charge, entering thus +upon that famous political career, in the course of which he not only +established and maintained a balance of power in Italy, with Florence +for the central city, but also contrived to remodel the government of +the republic in the interest of his own family and to strengthen the +Medici by relations with the Papal See. + +The extraordinary versatility of this man's intellectual and social +gifts, his participation in all the literary and philosophical +interests of his century, his large and liberal patronage of art, and +the gaiety with which he joined the people of Florence in their +pastimes--Mayday games and Carnival festivities--strengthened his hold +upon the city in an age devoted to culture and refined pleasure. +Whatever was most brilliant in the spirit of the Italian Benaissance +seemed to be incarnate in Lorenzo. Not merely as a patron and a +dilettante, but as a poet and a critic, a philosopher and scholar, he +proved himself adequate to the varied intellectual ambitions of his +country. Penetrated with the passion for erudition which distinguished +Florence in the fifteenth century, familiar with her painters and her +sculptors, deeply read in the works of her great poets, he conceived +the ideal of infusing the spirit of antique civility into modern life, +and of effecting for society what the artists were performing in their +own sphere. To preserve the native character of the Florentine genius, +while he added the grace of classic form, was the aim to which his +tastes and instincts led him. At the same time, while he made himself +the master of Florentine revels and the Augustus of Renaissance +literature, he took care that beneath his carnival masks and +ball-dress should be concealed the chains which he was forging for the +republic. + +What he lacked, with so much mental brilliancy, was moral greatness. +The age he lived in was an age of selfish despots, treacherous +generals, godless priests. It was an age of intellectual vigour and +artistic creativeness; but it was also an age of mean ambition, sordid +policy, and vitiated principles. Lorenzo remained true in all respects +to the genius of this age: true to its enthusiasm for antique culture, +true to its passion for art, true to its refined love of pleasure; but +true also to its petty political intrigues, to its cynical +selfishness, to its lack of heroism. For Florence he looked no higher +and saw no further than Cosimo had done. If culture was his pastime, +the enslavement of the city by bribery and corruption was the hard +work of his manhood. As is the case with much Renaissance art, his +life was worth more for its decorative detail than for its +constructive design. In richness, versatility, variety, and +exquisiteness of execution, it left little to be desired; yet, viewed +at a distance, and as a whole, it does not inspire us with a sense of +architectonic majesty. + + +XIII + + +Lorenzo's chief difficulties arose from the necessity under which, +like Cosimo, he laboured of governing the city through its old +institutions by means of a party. To keep the members of this party in +good temper, and to gain their approval for the alterations he +effected in the State machinery of Florence, was the problem of his +life. The successful solution of this problem was easier now, after +two generations of the Medicean ascendency, than it had been at first. +Meanwhile the people were maintained in good humour by public shows, +ease, plenty, and a general laxity of discipline. The splendour of +Lorenzo's foreign alliances and the consideration he received from all +the Courts of Italy contributed in no small measure to his popularity +and security at home. By using his authority over Florence to inspire +respect abroad, and by using his foreign credit to impose upon the +burghers, Lorenzo displayed the tact of a true Italian diplomatist. +His genius for statecraft, as then understood, was indeed of a rare +order, equally adapted to the conduct of a complicated foreign policy +and to the control of a suspicious and variable Commonwealth. In one +point alone he was inferior to his grandfather. He neglected commerce, +and allowed his banking business to fall into disorder so hopeless +that in course of time he ceased to be solvent. Meanwhile his personal +expenses, both as a prince in his own palace, and as the +representative of majesty in Florence, continually increased. The +bankruptcy of the Medici, it had long been foreseen, would involve the +public finances in serious confusion. And now, in order to retrieve +his fortunes, Lorenzo was not only obliged to repudiate his debts to +the exchequer, but had also to gain complete disposal of the State +purse. It was this necessity that drove him to effect the +constitutional revolution of 1480, by which he substituted a Privy +Council of seventy members for the old Councils of the State, +absorbing the chief functions of the commonwealth into this single +body, whom he practically nominated at pleasure. The same want of +money led to the great scandal of his reign--the plundering of the +Monte delle Doti, or State Insurance Office Fund for securing dowers +to the children of its creditors. + + +XIV + + +While tracing the salient points of Lorenzo de' Medici's +administration I have omitted to mention the important events which +followed shortly after his accession to power in 1469. What happened +between that date and 1480 was not only decisive for the future +fortunes of the Casa Medici, but it was also eminently characteristic +of the perils and the difficulties which beset Italian despots. The +year 1471 was signalised by a visit by the Duke Galeazzo Maria Sforza +of Milan, and his wife Bona of Savoy, to the Medici in Florence. They +came attended by their whole Court--body guards on horse and foot, +ushers, pages, falconers, grooms, kennel-varlets, and huntsmen. +Omitting the mere baggage service, their train counted two thousand +horses. To mention this incident would be superfluous, had not so +acute an observer as Machiavelli marked it out as a turning-point in +Florentine history. Now, for the first time, the democratic +commonwealth saw its streets filled with a mob of courtiers. Masques, +balls, and tournaments succeeded each other with magnificent variety; +and all the arts of Florence were pressed into the service of these +festivals. Machiavelli says that the burghers lost the last remnant of +their old austerity of manners, and became, like the degenerate +Romans, ready to obey the masters who provided them with brilliant +spectacles. They gazed with admiration on the pomp of Italian +princes, their dissolute and godless living, their luxury and prodigal +expenditure; and when the Medici affected similar habits in the next +generation, the people had no courage to resist the invasion of their +pleasant vices. + +In the same year, 1471, Volterra was reconquered for the Florentines +by Frederick of Urbino. The honours of this victory, disgraced by a +brutal sack of the conquered city, in violation of its articles of +capitulation, were reserved for Lorenzo, who returned in triumph to +Florence. More than ever he assumed the prince, and in his person +undertook to represent the State. + +In the same year, 1471, Francesco della Rovere was raised to the +Papacy with the memorable name of Sixtus IV. Sixtus was a man of +violent temper and fierce passions, restless and impatiently +ambitious, bent on the aggrandisement of the beautiful and wanton +youths, his nephews. Of these the most aspiring was Girolamo Riario, +for whom Sixtus bought the town of Imola from Taddeo Manfredi, in +order that he might possess the title of count and the nucleus of a +tyranny in the Romagna. This purchase thwarted the plans of Lorenzo, +who wished to secure the same advantages for Florence. Smarting with +the sense of disappointment, he forbade the Roman banker, Francesco +Pazzi, to guarantee the purchase-money. By this act Lorenzo made two +mortal foes--the Pope and Francesco Pazzi. Francesco was a thin, pale, +atrabilious fanatic, all nerve and passion, with a monomaniac +intensity of purpose, and a will inflamed and guided by imagination--a +man formed by nature for conspiracy, such a man, in fact, as Shakspere +drew in Cassius. Maddened by Lorenzo's prohibition, he conceived the +notion of overthrowing the Medici in Florence by a violent blow. +Girolamo Riario entered into his views. So did Francesco Salviati, +Archbishop of Pisa, who had private reasons for hostility. These men +found no difficulty in winning over Sixtus to their plot; nor is it +possible to purge the Pope of participation in what followed. I need +not describe by what means Francesco drew the other members of his +family into the scheme, and how he secured the assistance of armed +cut-throats. Suffice it to say that the chief conspirators, with the +exception of the Count Girolamo, betook themselves to Florence, and +there, after the failure of other attempts, decided to murder Lorenzo +and his brother Giuliano in the cathedral on Sunday, April 26th, 1478. +The moment when the priest at the high altar finished the mass, was +fixed for the assassination. Everything was ready. The conspirators, +by Judas kisses and embracements, had discovered that the young men +wore no protective armour under their silken doublets. Pacing the +aisle behind the choir, they feared no treason. And now the lives of +both might easily have been secured, if at the last moment the courage +of the hired assassins had not failed them. Murder, they said, was +well enough; but they could not bring themselves to stab men before +the newly consecrated body of Christ. In this extremity a priest was +found who, 'being accustomed to churches,' had no scruples. He and +another reprobate were told off to Lorenzo. Francesco de' Pazzi +himself undertook Giuliano. The moment for attack arrived. Francesco +plunged his dagger into the heart of Giuliano. Then, not satisfied +with this death-blow, he struck again, and in his heat of passion +wounded his own thigh. Lorenzo escaped with a flesh-wound from the +poniard of the priest, and rushed into the sacristy, where his friend +Poliziano shut and held the brazen door. The plot had failed; for +Giuliano, of the two brothers, was the one whom the conspirators would +the more willingly have spared. The whole church was in an uproar. The +city rose in tumult. Rage and horror took possession of the people. +They flew to the Palazzo Pubblico and to the houses of the Pazzi, +hunted the conspirators from place to place, hung the archbishop by +the neck from the palace windows, and, as they found fresh victims +for their fury, strung them one by one in a ghastly row at his side +above the Square. About one hundred in all were killed. None who had +joined in the plot escaped; for Lorenzo had long arms, and one man, +who fled to Constantinople, was delivered over to his agents by the +Sultan. Out of the whole Pazzi family only Guglielmo, the husband of +Bianca de' Medici, was spared. When the tumult was over, Andrea del +Castagno painted the portraits of the traitors head-downwards upon the +walls of the Bargello Palace, in order that all men might know what +fate awaited the foes of the Medici and of the State of Florence.[15] +Meanwhile a bastard son of Giuliano's was received into the Medicean +household, to perpetuate his lineage. This child, named Giulio, was +destined to be famous in the annals of Italy and Florence under the +title of Pope Clement VII. + + +XV + + +As is usual when such plots miss their mark, the passions excited +redounded to the profit of the injured party. The commonwealth felt +that the blow struck at Lorenzo had been aimed at their majesty. +Sixtus, on the other hand, could not contain his rage at the failure +of so ably planned a _coup de main_. Ignoring that he had sanctioned +the treason, that a priest had put his hand to the dagger, that the +impious deed had been attempted in a church before the very Sacrament +of Christ, whose vicar on earth he was, the Pope now excommunicated +the republic. The reason he alleged was, that the Florentines had +dared to hang an archbishop. + +Thus began a war to the death between Sixtus and Florence. The Pope +inflamed the whole of Italy, and carried on a ruinous campaign in +Tuscany. It seemed as though the republic might lose her subject +cities, always ready to revolt when danger threatened the sovereign +State. Lorenzo's position became critical. Sixtus made no secret of +the hatred he bore him personally, declaring that he fought less with +Florence than with the Medici. To support the odium of this long war +and this heavy interdict alone, was more than he could do. His allies +forsook him. Naples was enlisted on the Pope's side. Milan and the +other States of Lombardy were occupied with their own affairs, and +held aloof. In this extremity he saw that nothing but a bold step +could save him. The league formed by Sixtus must be broken up at any +risk, and, if possible, by his own ability. On December 6th, 1479, +Lorenzo left Florence, unarmed and unattended, took ship at Leghorn, +and proceeded to the court of the enemy, King Ferdinand, at Naples. +Ferdinand was a cruel and treacherous sovereign, who had murdered his +guest, Jacopo Piccinino, at a banquet given in his honour. But +Ferdinand was the son of Alfonso, who, by address and eloquence, had +gained a kingdom from his foe and jailor, Filippo Maria Visconti. +Lorenzo calculated that he too, following Alfonso's policy, might +prove to Ferdinand how little there was to gain from an alliance with +Rome, how much Naples and Florence, firmly united together for offence +and defence, might effect in Italy. + +Only a student of those perilous times can appreciate the courage and +the genius, the audacity combined with diplomatic penetration, +displayed by Lorenzo at this crisis. He calmly walked into the lion's +den, trusting he could tame the lion and teach it, and all in a few +days. Nor did his expectation fail. Though Lorenzo was rather ugly +than handsome, with a dark skin, heavy brows, powerful jaws, and nose +sharp in the bridge and broad at the nostrils, without grace of +carriage or melody of voice, he possessed what makes up for personal +defects--the winning charm of eloquence in conversation, a subtle wit, +profound knowledge of men, and tact allied to sympathy, which placed +him always at the centre of the situation. Ferdinand received him +kindly. The Neapolitan nobles admired his courage and were fascinated +by his social talents. On March 1st, 1480, he left Naples again, +having won over the King by his arguments. When he reached Florence he +was able to declare that he brought home a treaty of peace and +alliance signed by the most powerful foe of the republic. The success +of this bold enterprise endeared Lorenzo more than ever to his +countrymen. In the same year they concluded a treaty with Sixtus, who +was forced against his will to lay down arms by the capture of Otranto +and the extreme peril of Turkish invasion. After the year 1480 Lorenzo +remained sole master in Florence, the arbiter and peacemaker of the +rest of Italy. + + +XVI + + +The conjuration of the Pazzi was only one in a long series of similar +conspiracies. Italian despots gained their power by violence and +wielded it with craft. Violence and craft were therefore used against +them. When the study of the classics had penetrated the nation with +antique ideas of heroism, tyrannicide became a virtue. Princes were +murdered with frightful frequency. Thus Gian Maria Visconti was put to +death at Milan in 1412; Galeazzo Maria Sforza in 1484; the Chiarelli +of Fabriano were massacred in 1435; the Baglioni of Perugia in 1500; +Girolamo Gentile planned the assassination of Galeazzo Sforza at Genoa +in 1476; Niccolo d'Este conspired against his uncle Ercole in 1476; +Stefano Porcari attempted the life of Nicholas V. at Rome in 1453; +Lodovico Sforza narrowly escaped a violent death in 1453. I might +multiply these instances beyond satiety. As it is, I have selected +but a few examples falling, all but one, within the second half of the +fifteenth century. Nearly all these attempts upon the lives of princes +were made in church during the celebration of sacred offices. There +was no superfluity of naughtiness, no wilful sacrilege, in this choice +of an occasion. It only testified to the continual suspicion and +guarded watchfulness maintained by tyrants. To strike at them except +in church was almost impossible. Meanwhile the fate of the +tyrannicides was uniform. Successful or not, they perished. Yet so +grievous was the pressure of Italian despotism, so glorious was the +ideal of Greek and Roman heroism, so passionate the temper of the +people, that to kill a prince at any cost to self appeared the crown +of manliness. This bloodshed exercised a delirious fascination: pure +and base, personal and patriotic motives combined to add intensity of +fixed and fiery purpose to the murderous impulse. Those then who, like +the Medici, aspired to tyranny and sought to found a dynasty of +princes, entered the arena against a host of unknown and unseen +gladiators. + + +XVII + + +On his deathbed, in 1492, Lorenzo lay between two men--Angelo +Poliziano and Girolamo Savonarola. Poliziano incarnated the genial, +radiant, godless spirit of fifteenth-century humanism. Savonarola +represented the conscience of Italy, self-convicted, amid all her +greatness, of crimes that called for punishment. It is said that when +Lorenzo asked the monk for absolution, Savonarola bade him first +restore freedom to Florence. Lorenzo, turned his face to the wall and +was silent. How indeed could he make this city in a moment free, after +sixty years of slow and systematic corruption? Savonarola left him, +and he died unshriven. This legend is doubtful, though it rests on +excellent if somewhat partial authority. It has, at any rate, the +value of a mythus, since it epitomises the attitude assumed by the +great preacher to the prince. Florence enslaved, the soul of Lorenzo +cannot lay its burden down, but must go with all its sins upon it to +the throne of God. + +The year 1492 was a memorable year for Italy. In this year Lorenzo's +death removed the keystone of the arch that had sustained the fabric +of Italian federation. In this year Roderigo Borgia was elected Pope. +In this year Columbus discovered America; Vasco de Gama soon after +opened a new way to the Indies, and thus the commerce of the world +passed from Italy to other nations. In this year the conquest of +Granada gave unity to the Spanish nation. In this year France, through +the lifelong craft of Louis XI., was for the first time united under a +young hot-headed sovereign. On every side of the political horizon +storms threatened. It was clear that a new chapter of European history +had been opened. Then Savonarola raised his voice, and cried that the +crimes of Italy, the abominations of the Church, would speedily be +punished. Events led rapidly to the fulfilment of this prophecy. +Lorenzo's successor, Piero de' Medici, was a vain, irresolute, and +hasty princeling, fond of display, proud of his skill in fencing and +football-playing, with too much of the Orsini blood in his hot veins, +with too little of the Medicean craft in his weak head. The Italian +despots felt they could not trust Piero, and this want of confidence +was probably the first motive that impelled Lodovico Sforza to call +Charles VIII. into Italy in 1494. + +It will not be necessary to dwell upon this invasion of the French, +except in so far as it affected Florence. Charles passed rapidly +through Lombardy, engaged his army in the passes of the Apennines, and +debouched upon the coast where the Magra divided Tuscany from Liguria. +Here the fortresses of Sarzana and Pietra Santa, between the marble +bulwark of Carrara and the Tuscan sea, stopped his further progress. +The keys were held by the Florentines. To force these strong positions +and to pass beyond them seemed impossible. It might have been +impossible if Piero de' Medici had possessed a firmer will. As it was, +he rode off to the French camp, delivered up the forts to Charles, +bound the King by no engagements, and returned not otherwise than +proud of his folly to Florence. A terrible reception awaited him. The +Florentines, in their fury, had risen and sacked the Medicean palace. +It was as much as Piero, with his brothers, could do to escape beyond +the hills to Venice. The despotism of the Medici, so carefully built +up, so artfully sustained and strengthened, was overthrown in a single +day. + + +XVIII + + +Before considering what happened in Florence after the expulsion of +the Medici, it will be well to pause a moment and review the state in +which Lorenzo had left his family. Piero, his eldest son, recognised +as chief of the republic after his father's death, was married to +Alfonsina Orsini, and was in his twenty-second year. Giovanni, his +second son, a youth of seventeen, had just been made cardinal. This +honour, of vast importance for the Casa Medici in the future, he owed +to his sister Maddalena's marriage to Franceschetto Cybo, son of +Innocent VIII. The third of Lorenzo's sons, named Giuliano, was a boy +of thirteen. Giulio, the bastard son of the elder Giuliano, was +fourteen. These four princes formed the efficient strength of the +Medici, the hope of the house; and for each of them, with the +exception of Piero, who died in exile, and of whom no more notice need +be taken, a brilliant destiny was still in store. In the year 1495, +however, they now wandered, homeless and helpless, through the cities +of Italy, each of which was shaken to its foundations by the French +invasion. + + +XIX + + +Florence, left without the Medici, deprived of Pisa and other subject +cities by the passage of the French army, with no leader but the monk +Savonarola, now sought to reconstitute her liberties. During the +domination of the Albizzi and the Medici the old order of the +commonwealth had been completely broken up. The Arti had lost their +primitive importance. The distinctions between the Grandi and the +Popolani had practically passed away. In a democracy that has +submitted to a lengthened course of tyranny, such extinction of its +old life is inevitable. Yet the passion for liberty was still +powerful; and the busy brains of the Florentines were stored with +experience gained from their previous vicissitudes, from \ the study +of antique history, and from the observation of existing constitutions +in the towns of Italy. They now determined to reorganise the State +upon the model of the Venetian republic. The Signory was to remain, +with its old institution of Priors, Gonfalonier, and College, elected +for brief periods. These magistrates were to take the initiative in +debate, to propose measures, and to consider plans of action. The real +power of the State, for voting supplies and ratifying the measures of +the Signory, was vested in a senate of one thousand members, called +the Grand Council, from whom a smaller body of forty, acting as +intermediates between the Council and the Signory, were elected. It is +said that the plan of this constitution originated with Savonarola; +nor is there any doubt that he used all his influence in the pulpit of +the Duomo to render it acceptable to the people. Whoever may have been +responsible for its formation, the new government was carried in +1495, and a large hall for the assembly of the Grand Council was +opened in the Public Palace. + +Savonarola, meanwhile, had become the ruling spirit of Florence. He +gained his great power as a preacher: he used it like a monk. The +motive principle of his action was the passion for reform. To bring +the Church back to its pristine state of purity, without altering its +doctrine or suggesting any new form of creed; to purge Italy of +ungodly customs; to overthrow the tyrants who encouraged evil living, +and to place the power of the State in the hands of sober citizens: +these were his objects. Though he set himself in bold opposition to +the reigning Pope, he had no desire to destroy the spiritual supremacy +of S. Peter's see. Though he burned with an enthusiastic zeal for +liberty, and displayed rare genius for administration, he had no +ambition to rule Florence like a dictator. Savonarola was neither a +reformer in the northern sense of the word, nor yet a political +demagogue. His sole wish was to see purity of manners and freedom of +self-government re-established. With this end in view he bade the +Florentines elect Christ as their supreme chief; and they did so. For +the same end he abstained from appearing in the State Councils, and +left the Constitution to work by its own laws. His personal influence +he reserved for the pulpit; and here he was omnipotent. The people +believed in him as a prophet. They turned to him as the man who knew +what he wanted--as the voice of liberty, the soul of the new régime, +the genius who could breathe into the commonwealth a breath of fresh +vitality. When, therefore, Savonarola preached a reform of manners, he +was at once obeyed. Strict laws were passed enforcing sobriety, +condemning trades of pleasure, reducing the gay customs of Florence to +puritanical austerity. + +Great stress has been laid upon this reaction of the monk-led populace +against the vices of the past. Yet the historian is bound to pronounce +that the reform effected by Savonarola was rather picturesque than +vital. Like all violent revivals of pietism, it produced a no less +violent reaction. The parties within the city who resented the +interference of a preaching friar, joined with the Pope in Rome, who +hated a contumacious schismatic in Savonarola. Assailed by these two +forces at the same moment, and driven upon perilous ground by his own +febrile enthusiasm, Savonarola succumbed. He was imprisoned, tortured, +and burned upon the public square in 1498. + +What Savonarola really achieved for Florence was not a permanent +reform of morality, but a resuscitation of the spirit of freedom. His +followers, called in contempt _I Piagnoni_, or the Weepers, formed the +path of the commonwealth in future; and the memory of their martyr +served as a common bond of sympathy to unite them in times of trial. +It was a necessary consequence of the peculiar part he played that the +city was henceforth divided into factions representing mutually +antagonistic principles. These factions were not created by +Savonarola; but his extraordinary influence accentuated, as it were, +the humours that lay dormant in the State. Families favourable to the +Medici took the name of _Palleschi_. Men who chafed against +puritanical reform, and who were eager for any government that should +secure them their old licence, were known as _Compagnacci_. Meanwhile +the oligarchs, who disliked a democratic Constitution, and thought it +possible to found an aristocracy without the intervention of the +Medici, came to be known as _Gli Ottimati_. Florence held within +itself, from this epoch forward to the final extinction of liberty, +four great parties: the _Piagnoni_, passionate for political freedom +and austerity of life; the _Palleschi_, favourable to the Medicean +cause, and regretful of Lorenzo's pleasant rule; the _Compagnacci_, +intolerant of the reformed republic, neither hostile nor loyal to the +Medici, but desirous of personal licence; the _Ottimati_, astute and +selfish, watching their own advantage, ever-mindful to form a narrow +government of privileged families, disinclined to the Medici, except +when they thought the Medici might be employed as instruments in their +intrigues. + + +XX + + +During the short period of Savonarola's ascendency, Florence was in +form at least a Theocracy, without any titular head but Christ; and as +long as the enthusiasm inspired by the monk lasted, as long as his +personal influence endured, the Constitution of the Grand Council +worked well. After his death it was found that the machinery was too +cumbrous. While adopting the Venetian form of government, the +Florentines had omitted one essential element--the Doge. By referring +measures of immediate necessity to the Grand Council, the republic +lost precious time. Dangerous publicity, moreover, was incurred; and +so large a body often came to no firm resolution. There was no +permanent authority in the State; no security that what had been +deliberated would be carried out with energy; no titular chief, who +could transact affairs with foreign potentates and their ambassadors. +Accordingly, in 1502, it was decreed that the Gonfalonier should hold +office for life--should be in fact a Doge. To this important post of +permanent president Piero Soderini was appointed; and in his hands +were placed the chief affairs of the republic. + +At this point Florence, after all her vicissitudes, had won her way to +something really similar to the Venetian Constitution. Yet the +similarity existed more in form than in fact. The government of +burghers in a Grand Council, with a Senate of forty, and a Gonfalonier +for life, had not grown up gradually and absorbed into itself the +vital forces of the commonwealth. It was a creation of inventive +intelligence, not of national development, in Florence. It had against +it the jealousy of the Ottimati, who felt themselves overshadowed by +the Gonfalonier; the hatred of the Palleschi, who yearned for the +Medici; the discontent of the working classes, who thought the +presence of a Court in Florence would improve trade; last, but not +least, the disaffection of the Compagnacci, who felt they could not +flourish to their heart's content in a free commonwealth. Moreover, +though the name of liberty was on every lip, though the Florentines +talked, wrote, and speculated more about constitutional independence +than they had ever done, the true energy of free institutions had +passed from the city. The corrupt government of Cosimo and Lorenzo +bore its natural fruit now. Egotistic ambition and avarice supplanted +patriotism and industry. It is necessary to comprehend these +circumstances, in order that the next revolution may be clearly +understood. + + +XXI + + +During the ten years which elapsed between 1502 and 1512, Piero +Soderini administered Florence with an outward show of great +prosperity. He regained Pisa, and maintained an honourable foreign +policy in the midst of the wars stirred up by the League of Cambray. +Meanwhile the young princes of the House of Medici had grown to +manhood in exile. The Cardinal Giovanni was thirty-seven in 1512. His +brother Giuliano was thirty-three. Both of these men were better +fitted than their brother Piero to fight the battles of the family. +Giovanni, in particular, had inherited no small portion of the +Medicean craft. During the troubled reign of Julius II. he kept very +quiet, cementing his connections with powerful men in Rome, but making +no effort to regain his hold on Florence. Now the moment for striking +a decisive blow had come. After the battle of Ravenna in 1512, the +French were driven out of Italy, and the Sforzas returned to Milan; +the Spanish troops, under the Viceroy Cardona, remained masters of the +country. Following the camp of these Spaniards, Giovanni de' Medici +entered Tuscany in August, and caused the restoration of the Medici +to be announced in Florence. The people, assembled by Soderini, +resolved to resist to the uttermost. No foreign army should force them +to receive the masters whom they had expelled. Yet their courage +failed on August 29th, when news reached them of the capture and the +sack of Prato. Prato is a sunny little city a few miles distant from +the walls of Florence, famous for the beauty of its women, the +richness of its gardens, and the grace of its buildings. Into this gem +of cities the savage soldiery of Spain marched in the bright autumnal +weather, and turned the paradise into a hell. It is even now +impossible to read of what they did in Prato without shuddering.[16] +Cruelty and lust, sordid greed for gold, and cold delight in +bloodshed, could go no further. Giovanni de' Medici, by nature mild +and voluptuous, averse to violence of all kinds, had to smile +approval, while the Spanish Viceroy knocked thus with mailed hand for +him at the door of Florence. The Florentines were paralysed with +terror. They deposed Soderini and received the Medici. Giovanni and +Giuliano entered their devastated palace in the Via Larga, abolished +the Grand Council, and dealt with the republic as they listed. + + +XXII + + +There was no longer any medium in Florence possible between either +tyranny or some such government as the Medici had now destroyed. The +State was too rotten to recover even the modified despotism of +Lorenzo's days. Each transformation had impaired some portion of its +framework, broken down some of its traditions, and sowed new seeds of +egotism in citizens who saw all things round them change but +self-advantage. Therefore Giovanni and Giuliano felt themselves secure +in flattering the popular vanity by an empty parade of the old +institutions. They restored the Signory and the Gonfalonier, elected +for intervals of two months by officers appointed for this purpose by +the Medici. Florence had the show of a free government. But the Medici +managed all things; and soldiers, commanded by their creature, Paolo +Vettori, held the Palace and the Public Square. The tyranny thus +established was less secure, inasmuch as it openly rested upon +violence, than Lorenzo's power had been; nor were there signs wanting +that the burghers could ill brook their servitude. The conspiracy of +Pietro Paolo Boscoli and Agostino Capponi proved that the Medicean +brothers ran daily risk of life. Indeed, it is not likely that they +would have succeeded in maintaining their authority--for they were +poor and ill-supported by friends outside the city--except for one +most lucky circumstance: that was the election of Giovanni de' Medici +to the Papacy in 1513. + +The creation of Leo X. spread satisfaction throughout Italy. +Politicians trusted that he would display some portion of his father's +ability, and restore peace to the nation. Men of arts and letters +expected everything from a Medicean Pope, who had already acquired the +reputation of polite culture and open-handed generosity. They at any +rate were not deceived. Leo's first words on taking his place in the +Vatican were addressed to his brother Giuliano: 'Let us enjoy the +Papacy, now that God has given it to us;' and his notion of enjoyment +was to surround himself with court-poets, jesters, and musicians, to +adorn his Roman palaces with frescoes, to collect statues and +inscriptions, to listen to Latin speeches, and to pass judgment upon +scholarly compositions. Any one and every one who gave him sensual or +intellectual pleasure, found his purse always open. He lived in the +utmost magnificence, and made Rome the Paris of the Renaissance for +brilliance, immorality, and self-indulgent ease. The politicians had +less reason to be satisfied. Instead of uniting the Italians and +keeping the great Powers of Europe in check, Leo carried on a series +of disastrous petty wars, chiefly with the purpose of establishing the +Medici as princes. He squandered the revenues of the Church, and left +enormous debts behind him--an exchequer ruined and a foreign policy so +confused that peace for Italy could only be obtained by servitude. + +Florence shared in the general rejoicing which greeted Leo's accession +to the Papacy. He was the first Florentine citizen who had received +the tiara, and the popular vanity was flattered by this honour to the +republic. Political theorists, meanwhile, began to speculate what +greatness Florence, in combination with Rome, might rise to. The Pope +was young; he ruled a large territory, reduced to order by his warlike +predecessors. It seemed as though the republic, swayed by him, might +make herself the first city in Italy, and restore the glories of her +Guelf ascendency upon the platform of Renaissance statecraft. There +was now no overt opposition to the Medici in Florence. How to govern +the city from Rome, and how to advance the fortunes of his brother +Giuliano and his nephew Lorenzo (Piero's son, a young man of +twenty-one), occupied the Pope's most serious attention. For Lorenzo +Leo obtained the Duchy of Urbino and the hand of a French princess. +Giuliano was named Gonfalonier of the Church. He also received the +French title of Duke of Nemours and the hand of Filiberta, Princess of +Savoy. Leo entertained a further project of acquiring the crown of +Southern Italy for his brother, and thus of uniting Rome, Florence, +and Naples under the headship of his house. Nor were the Medicean +interests neglected in the Church. Giulio, the Pope's bastard cousin, +was made cardinal. He remained in Rome, acting as vice-chancellor and +doing the hard work of the Papal Government for the pleasure-loving +pontiff. + +To Lorenzo, Duke of Urbino, the titular head of the family, was +committed the government of Florence. During their exile, wandering +from court to court in Italy, the Medici had forgotten what it was to +be burghers, and had acquired the manners of princes. Leo alone +retained enough of caution to warn his nephew that the Florentines +must still be treated as free people. He confirmed the constitution of +the Signory and the Privy Council of seventy established by his +father, bidding Lorenzo, while he ruled this sham republic, to avoid +the outer signs of tyranny. The young duke at first behaved with +moderation, but he could not cast aside his habits of a great lord. +Florence now for the first time saw a regular court established in her +midst, with a prince, who, though he bore a foreign title, was in fact +her master. The joyous days of Lorenzo the Magnificent returned. +Masquerades and triumphs filled the public squares. Two clubs of +pleasure, called the Diamond and the Branch--badges adopted by the +Medici to signify their firmness in disaster and their power of +self-recovery--were formed to lead the revels. The best sculptors and +painters devoted their genius to the invention of costumes and cars. +The city affected to believe that the age of gold had come again. + + +XXIII + + +Fortune had been very favourable to the Medici. They had returned as +princes to Florence. Giovanni was Pope. Giuliano was Gonfalonier of +the Church. Giulio was Cardinal and Archbishop of Florence. Lorenzo +ruled the city like a sovereign. But this prosperity was no less brief +than it was brilliant. A few years sufficed to sweep off all the +chiefs of the great house. Giuliano died in 1516, leaving only a +bastard son Ippolito. Lorenzo died in 1519, leaving a bastard son +Alessandro, and a daughter, six days old, who lived to be the Queen of +France. Leo died in 1521. There remained now no legitimate male +descendants from the stock of Cosimo. The honours and pretensions of +the Medici devolved upon three bastards--on the Cardinal Giulio, and +the two boys, Alessandro and Ippolito. Of these, Alessandro was a +mulatto, his mother having been a Moorish slave in the Palace of +Urbino; and whether his father was Giulio, or Giuliano, or a base +groom, was not known for certain. To such extremities were the Medici +reduced. In order to keep their house alive, they were obliged to +adopt this foundling. It is true that the younger branch of the +family, descended from Lorenzo, the brother of Cosimo, still +flourished. At this epoch it was represented by Giovanni, the great +general known as the Invincible, whose bust so strikingly resembles +that of Napoleon. But between this line of the Medici and the elder +branch there had never been true cordiality. The Cardinal mistrusted +Giovanni. It may, moreover, be added, that Giovanni was himself doomed +to death in the year 1526. + +Giulio de' Medici was left in 1521 to administer the State of Florence +single-handed. He was archbishop, and he resided in the city, holding +it with the grasp of an absolute ruler. Yet he felt his position +insecure. The republic had no longer any forms of self-government; nor +was there a magistracy to whom the despot could delegate his power in +his absence. Giulio's ambition was fixed upon the Papal crown. The +bastards he was rearing were but children. Florence had therefore to +be furnished with some political machinery that should work of itself. +The Cardinal did not wish to give freedom to the city, but clockwork. +He was in the perilous situation of having to rule a commonwealth +without life, without elasticity, without capacity of self-movement, +yet full of such material as, left alone, might ferment, and breed a +revolution. In this perplexity, he had recourse to advisers. The most +experienced politicians, philosophical theorists, practical +diplomatists, and students of antique history were requested to +furnish him with plans for a new constitution, just as you ask an +architect to give you the plan of a new house. This was the field-day +of the doctrinaires. Now was seen how much political sagacity the +Florentines had gained while they were losing liberty. We possess +these several drafts of constitutions. Some recommend tyranny; some +incline to aristocracy, or what Italians called _Governo Stretto_; +some to democracy, or _Governo Largo_; some to an eclectic compound of +the other forms, or _Governo Misto_. More consummate masterpieces of +constructive ingenuity can hardly be imagined. What is omitted in all, +is just what no doctrinaire, no nostrum can communicate--the breath of +life, the principle of organic growth. Things had come, indeed, to a +melancholy pass for Florence when her tyrant, in order to confirm his +hold upon her, had to devise these springs and irons to support her +tottering limbs. + + +XXIV + + +While the archbishop and the doctors were debating, a plot was +hatching in the Rucellai Gardens. It was here that the Florentine +Academy now held their meetings. For this society Machiavelli wrote +his 'Treatise on the Art of War,' and his 'Discourses upon Livy.' The +former was an exposition of Machiavelli's scheme for creating a +national militia, as the only safeguard for Italy, exposed at this +period to the invasions of great foreign armies. The latter is one of +the three or four masterpieces produced by the Florentine school of +critical historians. Stimulated by the daring speculations of +Machiavelli, and fired to enthusiasm by their study of antiquity, the +younger academicians formed a conspiracy for murdering Giulio de' +Medici, and restoring the republic on a Roman model. An intercepted +letter betrayed their plans. Two of the conspirators were taken and +beheaded. Others escaped. But the discovery of this conjuration put a +stop to Giulio's scheme of reforming the State. Henceforth he ruled +Florence like a despot, mild in manners, cautious in the exercise of +arbitrary power, but firm in his autocracy. The Condottiere. +Alessandro Vitelli, with a company of soldiers, was taken into service +for the protection of his person and the intimidation of the citizens. + +In 1523, the Pope, Adrian VI., expired after a short papacy, from +which he gained no honour and Italy no profit. Giulio hurried to Rome, +and, by the clever use of his large influence, caused himself to be +elected with the title of Clement VII. In Florence he left Silvio +Passerini, Cardinal of Cortona, as his vicegerent and the guardian of +the two boys Alessandro and Ippolito. The discipline of many years had +accustomed the Florentines to a government of priests. Still the +burghers, mindful of their ancient liberties, were galled by the yoke +of a Cortonese, sprung up from one of their subject cities; nor could +they bear the bastards who were being reared to rule them. Foreigners +threw it in their teeth that Florence, the city glorious of art and +freedom, was become a stable for mules--_stalla da muli_, in the +expressive language of popular sarcasm. Bastardy, it may be said in +passing, carried with it small dishonour among the Italians. The +Estensi were all illegitimate; the Aragonese house in Naples sprang +from Alfonso's natural son; and children of Popes ranked among the +princes. Yet the uncertainty of Alessandro's birth and the base +condition of his mother made the prospect of this tyrant peculiarly +odious; while the primacy of a foreign cardinal in the midst of +citizens whose spirit was still unbroken, embittered the cup of +humiliation. The Casa Medici held its authority by a slender thread, +and depended more upon the disunion of the burghers than on any power +of its own. It could always reckon on the favour of the lower +populace, who gained profit and amusement from the presence of a +court. The Ottimati again hoped more from a weak despotism than from a +commonwealth, where their privileges would have been merged in the +mass of the Grand Council. Thus the sympathies of the plebeians and +the selfishness of the rich patricians prevented the republic from +asserting itself. On this meagre basis of personal cupidity the Medici +sustained themselves. What made the situation still more delicate, and +at the same time protracted the feeble rule of Clement, was that +neither the Florentines nor the Medici had any army. Face to face with +a potentate so considerable as the Pope, a free State could not be +established without military force. On the other hand, the Medici, +supported by a mere handful of mercenaries, had no power to resist a +popular rising if any external event should inspire the middle classes +with a hope of liberty. + + +XXV + + +Clement assumed the tiara at a moment of great difficulty. Leo had +ruined the finance of Rome. France and Spain were still contending for +the possession of Italy. While acting as Vice-Chancellor, Giulio de' +Medici had seemed to hold the reins with a firm grasp, and men +expected that he would prove a powerful Pope; but in those days he had +Leo to help him; and Leo, though indolent, was an abler man than his +cousin. He planned, and Giulio executed. Obliged to act now for +himself, Clement revealed the weakness of his nature. That weakness +was irresolution, craft without wisdom, diplomacy without knowledge of +men. He raised the storm, and showed himself incapable of guiding it. +This is not the place to tell by what a series of crooked schemes and +cross purposes he brought upon himself the ruin of the Church and +Rome, to relate his disagreement with the Emperor, or to describe +again the sack of the Eternal City by the rabble of the Constable de +Bourbon's army. That wreck of Rome in 1527 was the closing scene of +the Italian Renaissance--the last of the Apocalyptic tragedies +foretold by Savonarola--the death of the old age. + +When the Florentines knew what was happening in Rome, they rose and +forced the Cardinal Passerini to depart with the Medicean bastards +from the city. The youth demanded arms for the defence of the town, +and they received them. The whole male population was enrolled in a +militia. The Grand Council was reformed, and the republic was restored +upon the basis of 1495. Niccolo Capponi was elected Gonfalonier. The +name of Christ was again registered as chief of the commonwealth--to +such an extent did the memory of Savonarola still sway the popular +imagination. The new State hastened to form an alliance with France, +and Malatesta Baglioni was chosen as military Commander-in-Chief. +Meanwhile the city armed itself for siege--Michel Angelo Buonarroti +and Francesco da San Gallo undertaking the construction of new forts +and ramparts. These measures were adopted with sudden decision, +because it was soon known that Clement had made peace with the +Emperor, and that the army which had sacked Rome was going to be +marched on Florence. + + +XXVI + + +In the month of August 1529 the Prince of Orange assembled his forces +at Terni, and thence advanced by easy stages into Tuscany. As he +approached, the Florentines laid waste their suburbs, and threw down +their wreath of towers, in order that the enemy might have no +harbourage or points of vantage for attack. Their troops were +concentrated within the city, where a new Gonfalonier, Francesco +Carducci, furiously opposed to the Medici, and attached to the +Piagnoni party, now ruled. On September 4th the Prince of Orange +appeared before the walls, and opened the memorable siege. It lasted +eight months, at the end of which time, betrayed by their generals, +divided among themselves, and worn out with delays, the Florentines +capitulated. Florence was paid as compensation for the insult offered +to the pontiff in the sack of Rome. + +The long yoke of the Medici had undermined the character of the +Florentines. This, their last glorious struggle for liberty, was but a +flash in the pan--a final flare-up of the dying lamp. The city was not +satisfied with slavery; but it had no capacity for united action. The +Ottimati were egotistic and jealous of the people. The Palleschi +desired to restore the Medici at any price--some of them frankly +wishing for a principality, others trusting that the old +quasi-republican government might still be reinstated. The Red +Republicans, styled Libertini and Arrabbiati, clung together in blind +hatred of the Medicean party; but they had no further policy to guide +them. The Piagnoni, or Frateschi, stuck to the memory of Savonarola, +and believed that angels would descend to guard the battlements when +human help had failed. These enthusiasts still formed the true nerve +of the nation--the class that might have saved the State, if salvation +had been possible. Even as it was, the energy of their fanaticism +prolonged the siege until resistance seemed no longer physically +possible. The hero developed by the crisis was Francesco Ferrucci, a +plebeian who had passed his youth in manual labour, and who now +displayed rare military genius. He fell fighting outside the walls of +Florence. Had he commanded the troops from the beginning, and remained +inside the city, it is just possible that the fate of the war might +have been less disastrous. As it was, Malatesta Baglioni, the +Commander-in-Chief, turned out an arrant scoundrel. He held secret +correspondence with Clement and the Prince of Orange. It was he who +finally sold Florence to her foes, 'putting on his head,' as the Doge +of Venice said before the Senate, 'the cap of the biggest traitor upon +record.' + + +XXVII + + +What remains of Florentine history may be briefly told. Clement, now +the undisputed arbiter of power and honour in the city, chose +Alessandro de' Medici to be prince. Alessandro was created Duke of +Cività di Penna, and married to a natural daughter of Charles V. +Ippolito was made a cardinal. Ippolito would have preferred a secular +to a priestly kingdom; nor did he conceal his jealousy for his cousin. +Therefore Alessandro had him poisoned. Alessandro in his turn was +murdered by his kinsman, Lorenzino de' Medici. Lorenzino paid the +usual penalty of tyrannicide some years later. When Alessandro was +killed in 1539, Clement had himself been dead five years. Thus the +whole posterity of Cosimo de' Medici, with the exception of Catherine, +Queen of France, was utterly extinguished. But the Medici had struck +root so firmly in the State, and had so remodelled it upon the type of +tyranny, that the Florentines were no longer able to do without them. +The chiefs of the Ottimati selected Cosimo, the representative of +Giovanni the Invincible, for their prince, and thus the line of the +elder Lorenzo came at last to power. This Cosimo was a boy of +eighteen, fond of field-sports, and unused to party intrigues. When +Francesco Guicciardini offered him a privy purse of one hundred and +twenty thousand ducats annually, together with the presidency of +Florence, this wily politician hoped that he would rule the State +through Cosimo, and realise at last that dream of the Ottimati, a +_Governo Stretto_ or _di Pochi_. He was notably mistaken in his +calculations. The first days of Cosimo's administration showed that +he possessed the craft of his family and the vigour of his immediate +progenitors, and that he meant to be sole master in Florence. He it +was who obtained the title of Grand Duke of Tuscany from the Pope--a +title confirmed by the Emperor, fortified by Austrian alliances, and +transmitted through his heirs to the present century. + + +XXVIII + + +In this sketch of Florentine history, I have purposely omitted all +details that did not bear upon the constitutional history of the +republic, or on the growth of the Medici as despots; because I wanted +to present a picture of the process whereby that family contrived to +fasten itself upon the freest and most cultivated State in Italy. This +success the Medici owed mainly to their own obstinacy, and to the +weakness of republican institutions in Florence. Their power was +founded upon wealth in the first instance, and upon the ingenuity with +which they turned the favour of the proletariate to use. It was +confirmed by the mistakes and failures of their enemies, by Rinaldo +degli Albizzi's attack on Cosimo, by the conspiracy of Neroni and +Pitti against Piero, and by Francesco de' Pazzi's attempt to +assassinate Lorenzo. It was still further strengthened by the Medicean +sympathy for arts and letters--a sympathy which placed both Cosimo and +Lorenzo at the head of the Renaissance movement, and made them worthy +to represent Florence, the city of genius, in the fifteenth century. +While thus founding and cementing their dynastic influence upon the +basis of a widespread popularity, the Medici employed persistent +cunning in the enfeeblement of the Republic. It was their policy not +to plant themselves by force or acts of overt tyranny, but to corrupt +ambitious citizens, to secure the patronage of public officers, and to +render the spontaneous working of the State machinery impossible. By +pursuing this policy over a long series of years they made the revival +of liberty in 1494, and again in 1527, ineffectual. While exiled from +Florence, they never lost the hope of returning as masters, so long as +the passions they had excited, and they alone could gratify, remained +in full activity. These passions were avarice and egotism, the greed +of the grasping Ottimati, the jealousy of the nobles, the +self-indulgence of the proletariate. Yet it is probable they might +have failed to recover Florence, on one or other of these two +occasions, but for the accident which placed Giovanni de' Medici on +the Papal chair, and enabled him to put Giulio in the way of the same +dignity. From the accession of Leo in 1513 to the year 1527 the Medici +ruled Florence from Rome, and brought the power of the Church into the +service of their despotism. After that date they were still further +aided by the imperial policy of Charles V., who chose to govern Italy +through subject princes, bound to himself by domestic alliances and +powerful interests. One of these was Cosimo, the first Grand Duke of +Tuscany. + + * * * * * + + + + +_THE DEBT OF ENGLISH TO ITALIAN LITERATURE_ + + +To an Englishman one of the chief interests of the study of Italian +literature is derived from the fact that, between England and Italy, +an almost uninterrupted current of intellectual intercourse has been +maintained throughout the last five centuries. The English have never, +indeed, at any time been slavish imitators of the Italians; but Italy +has formed the dreamland of the English fancy, inspiring poets with +their most delightful thoughts, supplying them with subjects, and +implanting in their minds that sentiment of Southern beauty which, +engrafted on our more passionately imaginative Northern nature, has +borne rich fruit in the works of Chaucer, Spenser, Marlowe, Shakspere, +Milton, and the poets of this century. + +It is not strange that Italy should thus in matters of culture have +been the guide and mistress of England. Italy, of all the European +nations, was the first to produce high art and literature in the dawn +of modern civilisation. Italy was the first to display refinement in +domestic life, polish of manners, civilities of intercourse. In Italy +the commerce of courts first developed a society of men and women, +educated by the same traditions of humanistic culture. In Italy the +principles of government were first discussed and reduced to theory. +In Italy the zeal for the classics took its origin; and scholarship, +to which we owe our mental training, was at first the possession of +none almost but Italians. It therefore followed that during the age of +the Renaissance any man of taste or genius, who desired to share the +newly discovered privileges of learning, had to seek Italy. Every one +who wished to be initiated into the secrets of science or philosophy, +had to converse with Italians in person or through books. Every one +who was eager to polish his native language, and to render it the +proper vehicle of poetic thought, had to consult the masterpieces of +Italian literature. To Italians the courtier, the diplomatist, the +artist, the student of statecraft and of military tactics, the +political theorist, the merchant, the man of laws, the man of arms, +and the churchman turned for precedents and precepts. The nations of +the North, still torpid and somnolent in their semi-barbarism, needed +the magnetic touch of Italy before they could awake to intellectual +life. Nor was this all. Long before the thirst for culture possessed +the English mind, Italy had appropriated and assimilated all that +Latin literature contained of strong or splendid to arouse the thought +and fancy of the modern world; Greek, too, was rapidly becoming the +possession of the scholars of Florence and Rome; so that English men +of letters found the spirit of the ancients infused into a modern +literature; models of correct and elegant composition existed for them +in a language easy, harmonious, and not dissimilar in usage to their +own. + +The importance of this service, rendered by Italians to the rest of +Europe, cannot be exaggerated. By exploring, digesting, and +reproducing the classics, Italy made the labour of scholarship +comparatively light for the Northern nations, and extended to us the +privilege of culture without the peril of losing originality in the +enthusiasm for erudition. Our great poets could handle lightly, and +yet profitably, those masterpieces of Greece and Rome, beneath the +weight of which, when first discovered, the genius of the Italians had +wavered. To the originality of Shakspere an accession of wealth +without weakness was brought by the perusal of Italian works, in which +the spirit of the antique was seen as in a modern mirror. Then, in +addition to this benefit of instruction, Italy gave to England a gift +of pure beauty, the influence of which, in refining our national +taste, harmonising the roughness of our manners and our language, and +stimulating our imagination, has been incalculable. It was a not +unfrequent custom for young men of ability to study at the Italian +universities, or at least to undertake a journey to the principal +Italian cities. From their sojourn in that land of loveliness and +intellectual life they returned with their Northern brains most +powerfully stimulated. To produce, by masterpieces of the imagination, +some work of style that should remain as a memento of that glorious +country, and should vie on English soil with the art of Italy, was +their generous ambition. Consequently the substance of the stories +versified by our poets, the forms of our metres, and the cadences of +our prose periods reveal a close attention to Italian originals. + +This debt of England to Italy in the matter of our literature began +with Chaucer. Truly original and national as was the framework of the +'Canterbury Tales,' we can hardly doubt but that Chaucer was +determined in the form adopted for his poem by the example of +Boccaccio. The subject-matter, also, of many of his tales was taken +from Boccaccio's prose or verse. For example, the story of Patient +Grizzel is founded upon one of the legends of the 'Decameron,' while +the Knight's Tale is almost translated from the 'Teseide' of +Boccaccio, and Troilus and Creseide is derived from the 'Filostrato' +of the same author. The Franklin's Tale and the Reeve's Tale +are also based either on stories of Boccaccio or else on French +'Fabliaux,' to which Chaucer, as well as Boccaccio, had access. I do +not wish to lay too much stress upon Chaucer's direct obligations to +Boccaccio, because it is incontestable that the French 'Fabliaux,' +which supplied them both with subjects, were the common property of +the mediæval nations. But his indirect debt in all that concerns +elegant handling of material, and in the fusion of the romantic with +the classic spirit, which forms the chief charm of such tales as the +Palamon and Arcite, can hardly be exaggerated. Lastly, the seven-lined +stanza, called _rime royal_, which Chaucer used with so much effect in +narrative poetry, was probably borrowed from the earlier Florentine +'Ballata,' the last line rhyming with its predecessor being +substituted for the recurrent refrain. Indeed, the stanza itself, as +used by our earliest poets, may be found in Guido Cavalcanti's +'Ballatetta,' beginning, _Posso degli occhi miei_. + +Between Chaucer and Surrey the Muse of England fell asleep; but when +in the latter half of the reign of Henry VIII. she awoke again, it was +as a conscious pupil of the Italian that she attempted new strains and +essayed fresh metres. 'In the latter end of Henry VIII.'s reign,' says +Puttenham, 'sprang up a new company of courtly makers, of whom Sir T. +Wyatt the elder, and Henry Earl of Surrey, were the two chieftains, +who, having travelled into Italy, and there tasted the sweet and +stately measures and style of the Italian poesy, as novices newly +crept out of the schools of Dante, Ariosto, and Petrarch, they greatly +polished our rude and homely manner of vulgar poesy, from that it had +been before, and for that cause may justly be said the first reformers +of our English metre and style.' The chief point in which Surrey +imitated his 'master, Francis Petrarcha,' was in the use of the +sonnet. He introduced this elaborate form of poetry into our +literature; and how it has thriven with us, the masterpieces of +Spenser, Shakspere, Milton, Wordsworth, Keats, Rossetti attest. As +practised by Dante and Petrarch, the sonnet is a poem of fourteen +lines, divided into two quatrains and two triplets, so arranged that +the two quatrains repeat one pair of rhymes, while the two triplets +repeat another pair. Thus an Italian sonnet of the strictest form is +composed upon four rhymes, interlaced with great art. But much +divergence from this rigid scheme of rhyming was admitted even by +Petrarch, who not unfrequently divided the six final lines of the +sonnet into three couplets, interwoven in such a way that the two last +lines never rhymed.[17] + +It has been necessary to say thus much about the structure of the +Italian sonnet, in order to make clear the task which lay before +Surrey and Wyatt, when they sought to transplant it into English. +Surrey did not adhere to the strict fashion of Petrarch: his sonnets +consist either of three regular quatrains concluded with a couplet, +or else of twelve lines rhyming alternately and concluded with a +couplet. Wyatt attempted to follow the order and interlacement of the +Italian rhymes more closely, but he too concluded his sonnet with a +couplet. This introduction of the final couplet was a violation of the +Italian rule, which may be fairly considered as prejudicial to the +harmony of the whole structure, and which has insensibly caused the +English sonnet to terminate in an epigram. The famous sonnet of Surrey +on his love, Geraldine, is an excellent example of the metrical +structure as adapted to the supposed necessities of English rhyming, +and as afterwards adhered to by Shakspere in his long series of +love-poems. Surrey, while adopting the form of the sonnet, kept quite +clear of the Petrarchist's mannerism. His language is simple and +direct: there is no subtilising upon far-fetched conceits, no +wire-drawing of exquisite sentimentalism, although he celebrates in +this, as in his other sonnets, a lady for whom he appears to have +entertained no more than a Platonic or imaginary passion. Surrey was a +great experimentalist in metre. Besides the sonnet, he introduced into +England blank verse, which he borrowed from the Italian _versi +sciolti_, fixing that decasyllable iambic rhythm for English +versification in which our greatest poetical triumphs have been +achieved. + +Before quitting the subject of the sonnet it would, however, be well +to mention the changes which were wrought in its structure by early +poets desirous of emulating the Italians. Shakspere, as already +hinted, adhered to the simple form introduced by Surrey: his stanzas +invariably consist of three separate quatrains followed by a couplet. +But Sir Philip Sidney, whose familiarity with Italian literature was +intimate, and who had resided long in Italy, perceived that without a +greater complexity and interweaving of rhymes the beauty of the poem +was considerably impaired. He therefore combined the rhymes of the two +quatrains, as the Italians had done, leaving himself free to follow +the Italian fashion in the conclusion, or else to wind up after +English usage with a couplet. Spenser and Drummond follow the rule of +Sidney; Drayton and Daniel, that of Surrey and Shakspere. It was not +until Milton that an English poet preserved the form of the Italian +sonnet in its strictness; but, after Milton, the greatest +sonnet-writers--Wordsworth, Keats, and Rossetti--have aimed at +producing stanzas as regular as those of Petrarch. + +The great age of our literature--the age of Elizabeth--was essentially +one of Italian influence. In Italy the Renaissance had reached its +height: England, feeling the new life which had been infused into arts +and letters, turned instinctively to Italy, and adopted her canons of +taste. 'Euphues' has a distinct connection with the Italian discourses +of polite culture. Sidney's 'Arcadia' is a copy of what Boccaccio had +attempted in his classical romances, and Sanazzaro in his +pastorals.[18] Spenser approached the subject of the 'Faery Queen' +with his head full of Ariosto and the romantic poets of Italy. His +sonnets are Italian; his odes embody the Platonic philosophy of the +Italians.[19] The extent of Spenser's deference to the Italians in +matters of poetic art may be gathered from this passage in the +dedication to Sir Walter Raleigh of the 'Faery Queen:' + + I have followed all the antique poets historical: first + Homer, who in the persons of Agamemnon and Ulysses hath + ensampled a good governor and a virtuous man, the one in his + Ilias, the other in his Odysseis; then Virgil, whose like + intention was to do in the person of Æneas; after him + Ariosto comprised them both in his Orlando; and lately Tasso + dissevered them again, and formed both parts in two persons, + namely, that part which they in Philosophy call Ethice, or + virtues of a private man, coloured in his Rinaldo, the other + named Politico in his Goffredo. + +From this it is clear that, to the mind of Spenser, both Ariosto and +Tasso were authorities of hardly less gravity than Homer and Virgil. +Raleigh, in the splendid sonnet with which he responds to this +dedication, enhances the fame of Spenser by affecting to believe that +the great Italian, Petrarch, will be jealous of him in the grave. To +such an extent were the thoughts of the English poets occupied with +their Italian masters in the art of song. + +It was at this time, again, that English literature was enriched by +translations of Ariosto and Tasso--the one from the pen of Sir John +Harrington, the other from that of Fairfax. Both were produced in the +metre of the original--the octave stanza, which, however, did not at +that period take root in England. At the same period the works of many +of the Italian novelists, especially Bandello and Cinthio and +Boccaccio, were translated into English; Painter's 'Palace of +Pleasure' being a treasure-house of Italian works of fiction. Thomas +Hoby translated Castiglione's 'Courtier' in 1561. As a proof of the +extent to which Italian books were read in England at the end of the +sixteenth century, we may take a stray sentence from a letter of +Harvey, in which he disparages the works of Robert Greene:--'Even +Guicciardine's silver histories and Ariosto's golden cantos grow out +of request: and the Countess of Pembroke's "Arcadia" is not green +enough for queasy stomachs; but they must have seen Greene's +"Arcadia," and I believe most eagerly longed for Greene's "Faery +Queen."' + +Still more may be gathered on the same topic from the indignant +protest uttered by Roger Ascham in his 'Schoolmaster' (pp. 78-91, date +1570) against the prevalence of Italian customs, the habit of Italian +travel, and the reading of Italian books translated into English. +Selections of Italian stories rendered into English were extremely +popular; and Greene's tales, which had such vogue that Nash says of +them, 'glad was that printer that might be so blest to pay him dear +for the very dregs of his wit,' were all modelled on the Italian. The +education of a young man of good family was not thought complete +unless he had spent some time in Italy, studied its literature, +admired its arts, and caught at least some tincture of its manners. +Our rude ancestors brought back with them from these journeys many +Southern vices, together with the culture they had gone to seek. The +contrast between the plain dealing of the North and the refined +Machiavellism of the South, between Protestant earnestness in religion +and Popish scepticism, between the homely virtues of England and the +courtly libertinism of Venice or Florence, blunted the moral sense, +while it stimulated the intellectual activity of the English +travellers, and too often communicated a fatal shock to their +principles. _Inglese Italianato è un diavolo incarnato_ passed into a +proverb: we find it on the lips of Parker, of Howell, of Sidney, of +Greene, and of Ascham; while Italy itself was styled by severe +moralists the court of Circe. In James Howell's 'Instructions for +forreine travell' we find this pregnant sentence: 'And being now in +Italy, that great limbique of working braines, he must be very +circumspect in his carriage, for she is able to turne a Saint into a +devill, and deprave the best natures, if one will abandon himselfe, +and become a prey to dissolut courses and wantonesse.' Italy, in +truth, had already become corrupt, and the fruit of her contact with +the nations of the North was seen in the lives of such scholars as +Robert Greene, who confessed that he returned from his travels +instructed 'in all the villanies under the sun.' Many of the scandals +of the Court of James might be ascribed to this aping of Southern +manners. + +Yet, together with the evil of depraved morality, the advantage of +improved culture was imported from Italy into England; and the +constitution of the English genius was young and healthy enough to +purge off the mischief, while it assimilated what was beneficial. This +is very manifest in the history of our drama, which, taking it +altogether, is at the same time the purest and the most varied that +exists in literature; while it may be affirmed without exaggeration +that one of the main impulses to free dramatic composition in England +was communicated by the attraction everything Italian possessed for +the English fancy. It was in the drama that the English displayed the +richness and the splendour of the Renaissance, which had blazed so +gorgeously and at times so balefully below the Alps. The Italy of the +Renaissance fascinated our dramatists with a strange wild glamour--the +contrast of external pageant and internal tragedy, the alternations of +radiance and gloom, the terrible examples of bloodshed, treason, and +heroism emergent from ghastly crimes. Our drama began with a +translation of Ariosto's 'Suppositi' and ended with Davenant's 'Just +Italian.' In the very dawn of tragic composition Greene versified a +portion of the 'Orlando Furioso,' and Marlowe devoted one of his most +brilliant studies to the villanies of a Maltese Jew. Of Shakspere's +plays five are incontestably Italian: several of the rest are +furnished with Italian names to suit the popular taste. Ben Jonson +laid the scene of his most subtle comedy of manners, 'Volpone,' in +Venice, and sketched the first cast of 'Every Man in his Humour' for +Italian characters. Tourneur, Ford, and Webster were so dazzled by the +tragic lustre of the wickedness of Italy that their finest dramas, +without exception, are minute and carefully studied psychological +analyses of great Italian tales of crime. The same, in a less degree, +is true of Middleton and Dekker. Massinger makes a story of the Sforza +family the subject of one of his best plays. Beaumont and Fletcher +draw the subjects of comedies and tragedies alike from the Italian +novelists. Fletcher in his 'Faithful Shepherdess' transfers the +pastoral style of Tasso and Guarini to the North. So close is the +connection between our tragedy and Italian novels that Marston and +Ford think fit to introduce passages of Italian dialogue into the +plays of 'Giovanni and Annabella' and 'Antonio and Mellida.' But the +best proof of the extent to which Italian life and literature had +influenced our dramatists, may be easily obtained by taking down +Halliwell's 'Dictionary of Old Plays,' and noticing that about every +third drama has an Italian title. Meanwhile the poems composed by the +chief dramatists--Shakspere's 'Venus and Adonis,' Marlowe's 'Hero and +Leander,' Marston's 'Pygmalion,' and Beaumont's 'Hermaphrodite'--are +all of them conceived in the Italian style, by men who had either +studied Southern literature, or had submitted to its powerful æsthetic +influences. The Masques, moreover, of Jonson, of Lyly, of Fletcher, +and of Chapman are exact reproductions upon the English court theatres +of such festival pageants as were presented to the Medici at Florence +or to the Este family at Ferrara.[20] Throughout our drama the +influence of Italy, direct or indirect, either as supplying our +playwrights with subjects or as stimulating their imagination, may +thus be traced. Yet the Elizabethan drama is in the highest sense +original. As a work of art pregnant with deepest wisdom, and +splendidly illustrative of the age which gave it birth, it far +transcends anything that Italy produced in the same department. Our +poets have a more masculine judgment, more fiery fancy, nobler +sentiment, than the Italians of any age but that of Dante. What Italy +gave, was the impulse toward creation, not patterns to be +imitated--the excitement of the imagination by a spectacle of so much +grandeur, not rules and precepts for production--the keen sense of +tragic beauty, not any tradition of accomplished art. + +The Elizabethan period of our literature was, in fact, the period +during which we derived most from the Italian nation. + +The study of the Italian language went hand in hand with the study of +Greek and Latin, so that the three together contributed to form the +English taste. Between us and the ancient world stood the genius of +Italy as an interpreter. Nor was this connection broken until far on +into the reign of Charles II. What Milton owed to Italy is clear not +only from his Italian sonnets, but also from the frequent mention of +Dante and Petrarch in his prose works, from his allusions to Boiardo +and Ariosto in the 'Paradise Lost,' and from the hints which he +probably derived from Pulci, Tasso and Andreini. It would, indeed, be +easy throughout his works to trace a continuous vein of Italian +influence in detail. But, more than this, Milton's poetical taste in +general seems to have been formed and ripened by familiarity with the +harmonies of the Italian language. In his Tractate on Education +addressed to Mr. Hartlib, he recommends that boys should be instructed +in the Italian pronunciation of vowel sounds, in order to give +sonorousness and dignity to elocution. This slight indication supplies +us with a key to the method of melodious structure employed by Milton +in his blank verse. Those who have carefully studied the harmonies of +the 'Paradise Lost,' know how all-important are the assonances of the +vowel sounds of _o_ and _a_ in its most musical passages. It is just +this attention to the liquid and sonorous recurrences of open vowels +that we should expect from a poet who proposed to assimilate his +diction to that of the Italians. + +After the age of Milton the connection between Italy and England is +interrupted. In the seventeenth century Italy herself had sunk into +comparative stupor, and her literature was trivial. France not only +swayed the political destinies of Europe, but also took the lead in +intellectual culture. Consequently, our poets turned from Italy to +France, and the French spirit pervaded English literature throughout +the period of the Restoration and the reigns of William and Queen Anne. +Yet during this prolonged reaction against the earlier movement of +English literature, as manifested in Elizabethanism, the influence of +Italy was not wholly extinct. Dryden's 'Tales from Boccaccio' are no +insignificant contribution to our poetry, and his 'Palamon and +Arcite,' through Chaucer, returns to the same source. But when, at the +beginning of this century, the Elizabethan tradition was revived, then +the Italian influence reappeared more vigorous than ever. The metre of +'Don Juan,' first practised by Frere and then adopted by Lord Byron, +is Pulci's octave stanza; the manner is that of Berni, Folengo, and +the Abbé Casti, fused and heightened by the brilliance of Byron's +genius into a new form. The subject of Shelley's strongest work of art +is Beatrice Cenci. Rogers's poem is styled 'Italy.' Byron's dramas are +chiefly Italian. Leigh Hunt repeats the tale of Francesca da Rimini. +Keats versifies Boccaccio's 'Isabella.' Passing to contemporary poets, +Rossetti has acclimatised in English the metres and the manner of the +earliest Italian lyrists. Swinburne dedicates his noblest song to the +spirit of liberty in Italy. Even George Eliot and Tennyson have each +of them turned stories of Boccaccio into verse. The best of Mrs. +Browning's poems, 'Casa Guidi Windows' and 'Aurora Leigh,' are steeped +in Italian thought and Italian imagery. Browning's longest poem is a +tale of Italian crime; his finest studies in the 'Men and Women' are +portraits of Italian character of the Renaissance period. But there is +more than any mere enumeration of poets and their work can set forth, +in the connection between Italy and England. That connection, so far +as the poetical imagination is concerned, is vital. As poets in the +truest sense of the word, we English live and breathe through sympathy +with the Italians. The magnetic touch which is required to inflame the +imagination of the North, is derived from Italy. The nightingales of +English song who make our oak and beech copses resonant in spring with +purest melody, are migratory birds, who have charged their souls in +the South with the spirit of beauty, and who return to warble native +wood-notes in a tongue which is their own. + +What has hitherto been said about the debt of the English poets to +Italy, may seem to imply that our literature can be regarded as to +some extent a parasite on that of the Italians. Against such a +conclusion no protest too energetic could be uttered. What we have +derived directly from the Italian poets are, first, some +metres--especially the sonnet and the octave stanza, though the latter +has never taken firm root in England. 'Terza rima,' attempted by +Shelley, Byron, Morris, and Mrs. Browning, has not yet become +acclimatised. Blank verse, although originally remodelled by Surrey +upon the _versi sciolti_ of the Italians, has departed widely from +Italian precedent, first by its decasyllabic structure, whereas +Italian verse consists of hendecasyllables; and, secondly, by its +greater force, plasticity, and freedom. The Spenserian stanza, again, +is a new and original metre peculiar to our literature; though it is +possible that but for the complex structures of Italian lyric verse, +it might not have been fashioned for the 'Faery Queen.' Lastly, the +so-called heroic couplet is native to England; at any rate, it is in +no way related to Italian metre. Therefore the only true Italian +exotic adopted without modification into our literature is the sonnet. + +In the next place, we owe to the Italians the subject-matter of many +of our most famous dramas and our most delightful tales in verse. But +the English treatment of these histories and fables has been uniformly +independent and original. Comparing Shakspere's 'Romeo and Juliet' +with Bandello's tale, Webster's 'Duchess of Malfy' with the version +given from the Italian in Painter's 'Palace of Pleasure,' and +Chaucer's Knight's Tale with the 'Teseide' of Boccaccio, we perceive +at once that the English poets have used their Italian models merely +as outlines to be filled in with freedom, as the canvas to be +embroidered with a tapestry of vivid groups. Nothing is more manifest +than the superiority of the English genius over the Italian in all +dramatic qualities of intense passion, profound analysis, and living +portrayal of character in action. The mere rough detail of Shakspere's +'Othello' is to be found in Cinthio's Collection of Novelle; but let +an unprejudiced reader peruse the original, and he will be no more +deeply affected by it than by any touching story of treachery, +jealousy, and hapless innocence. The wily subtleties of Iago, the +soldierly frankness of Cassio, the turbulent and volcanic passions of +Othello, the charm of Desdemona, and the whole tissue of vivid +incidents which make 'Othello' one of the most tremendous extant +tragedies of characters in combat, are Shakspere's, and only +Shakspere's. This instance, indeed, enables us exactly to indicate +what the English owed to Italy and what was essentially their own. +From that Southern land of Circe about which they dreamed, and which +now and then they visited, came to their imaginations a +spirit-stirring breath of inspiration. It was to them the country of +marvels, of mysterious crimes, of luxurious gardens and splendid +skies, where love was more passionate and life more picturesque, and +hate more bloody and treachery more black, than in our Northern +climes. Italy was a spacious grove of wizardry, which mighty poets, on +the quest of fanciful adventure, trod with fascinated senses and +quickened pulses. But the strong brain which converted what they heard +and read and saw of that charmed land into the stuff of golden romance +or sable tragedy, was their own. + +English literature has been defined a literature of genius. + +Our greatest work in art has been achieved not so much by inspiration, +subordinate to sentiments of exquisite good taste or guided by +observance of classical models, as by audacious sallies of pure +inventive power. This is true as a judgment of that constellation +which we call our drama, of the meteor Byron, of Milton and Dryden, +who are the Jupiter and Mars of our poetic system, and of the stars +which stud our literary firmament under the names of Shelley, Keats, +Wordsworth, Chatterton, Scott, Coleridge, Clough, Blake, Browning, +Swinburne, Tennyson. There are only a very few of the English poets, +Pope and Gray, for example, in whom the free instincts of genius are +kept systematically in check by the laws of the reflective +understanding. Now Italian literature is in this respect all unlike +our own. It began, indeed, with Dante, as a literature pre-eminently +of genius; but the spirit of scholarship assumed the sway as early as +the days of Petrarch and Boccaccio, and after them Italian has been +consistently a literature of taste. By this I mean that even the +greatest Italian poets have sought to render their style correct, have +endeavoured to subordinate their inspiration to what they considered +the rules of sound criticism, and have paid serious attention to their +manner as independent of the matter they wished to express. The +passion for antiquity, so early developed in Italy, delivered the +later Italian poets bound hand and foot into the hands of Horace. +Poliziano was content to reproduce the classic authors in a mosaic +work of exquisite translations. Tasso was essentially a man of talent, +producing work of chastened beauty by diligent attention to the rule +and method of his art. Even Ariosto submitted the liberty of his swift +spirit to canons of prescribed elegance. While our English poets have +conceived and executed without regard for the opinion of the learned +and without obedience to the usages of language--Shakspere, for +example, producing tragedies which set Aristotle at defiance, and +Milton engrafting Latinisms on the native idiom--the Italian poets +thought and wrote with the fear of Academies before their eyes, and +studied before all things to maintain the purity of the Tuscan tongue. +The consequence is that the Italian and English literatures are +eminent for very different excellences. All that is forcible in the +dramatic presentation of life and character and action, all that is +audacious in imagination and capricious in fancy, whatever strength +style can gain from the sallies of original and untrammelled +eloquence, whatever beauty is derived from spontaneity and native +grace, belong in abundant richness to the English. On the other hand, +the Italian poets present us with masterpieces of correct and studied +diction, with carefully elaborated machinery, and with a style +maintained at a uniform level of dignified correctness. The weakness +of the English proceeds from inequality and extravagance; it is the +weakness of self-confident vigour, intolerant of rule, rejoicing in +its own exuberant resources. The weakness of the Italian is due to +timidity and moderation; it is the weakness that springs not so much +from a lack of native strength as from the over-anxious expenditure of +strength upon the attainment of finish, polish, and correctness. Hence +the two nations have everything to learn from one another. Modern +Italian poets may seek by contact with Shakspere and Milton to gain a +freedom from the trammels imposed upon them by the slavish followers +of Petrarch; while the attentive perusal of Tasso should be +recommended to all English people who have no ready access to the +masterpieces of Greek and Latin literature. + +Another point of view may be gained by noticing the pre-dominant tone +of the two literatures. Whenever English poetry is really great, it +approximates to the tragic and the stately; whereas the Italians are +peculiarly felicitous in the smooth and pleasant style, which combines +pathos with amusement, and which does not trespass beyond the region +of beauty into the domain of sublimity or terror. Italian poetry is +analogous to Italian painting and Italian music: it bathes the soul in +a plenitude of charms, investing even the most solemn subjects with +loveliness. Rembrandt and Albert Dürer depict the tragedies of the +Sacred History with a serious and awful reality: Italian painters, +with a few rare but illustrious exceptions, shrink from approaching +them from any point of view but that of harmonious melancholy. Even so +the English poets stir the soul to its very depths by their profound +and earnest delineations of the stern and bitter truths of the world: +Italian poets environ all things with the golden haze of an artistic +harmony; so that the soul is agitated by no pain at strife with the +persuasions of pure beauty. + + * * * * * + + + + +_POPULAR SONGS OF TUSCANY_ + + +It is a noticeable fact about the popular songs of Tuscany that they +are almost exclusively devoted to love. The Italians in general have +no ballad literature resembling that of our Border or that of Spain. +The tragic histories of their noble families, the great deeds of their +national heroes, and the sufferings of their country during centuries +of warfare, have left but few traces in their rustic poetry. It is +true that some districts are less utterly barren than others in these +records of the past. The Sicilian people's poetry, for example, +preserves a memory of the famous Vespers; and one or two terrible +stories of domestic tragedy, like the tale of Rosmunda in 'La Donna +Lombarda,' the romance of the Baronessa di Carini, and the so-called +Caso di Sciacca, may still be heard upon the lips of the people. But +these exceptions are insignificant in comparison with the vast mass of +songs which deal with love; and I cannot find that Tuscany, where the +language of this minstrelsy is purest, and where the artistic +instincts of the race are strongest, has anything at all approaching +to our ballads.[21] Though the Tuscan contadini are always singing, it +rarely happens that + + The plaintive numbers flow + For old, unhappy, far-off things, + And battles long ago. + +On the contrary, we may be sure, when we hear their voices ringing +through the olive-groves or macchi, that they are chanting + + Some more humble lay, + Familiar matter of to-day,-- + Some natural sorrow, loss, or pain, + That has been, and may be again; + +or else, since their melodies are by no means uniformly sad, some +ditty of the joyousness of springtime or the ecstasy of love. + +This defect of anything corresponding to our ballads of 'Chevy Chase,' +or 'Sir Patrick Spens,' or 'Gil Morrice,' in a poetry which is still +so vital with the life of past centuries, is all the more remarkable +because Italian history is distinguished above that of other nations +by tragic episodes peculiarly suited to poetic treatment. Many of +these received commemoration in the fourteenth century from Dante; +others were embodied in the _novelle_ of Boccaccio and Cinthio and +Bandello, whence they passed into the dramas of Shakspere, Webster, +Ford, and their contemporaries. But scarcely an echo can be traced +through all the volumes of the recently collected popular songs. We +must seek for an explanation of this fact partly in the conditions of +Italian life, and partly in the nature of the Italian imagination. +Nowhere in Italy do we observe that intimate connection between the +people at large and the great nobles which generates the sympathy of +clanship. Politics in most parts of the peninsula fell at a very +early period into the hands either of irresponsible princes, who ruled +like despots, or else of burghers, who administered the state within +the walls of their Palazzo Pubblico. The people remained passive +spectators of contemporary history. The loyalty of subjects to their +sovereign which animates the Spanish ballads, the loyalty of retainers +to their chief which gives life to the tragic ballads of the Border, +did not exist in Italy. Country-folk felt no interest in the doings of +Visconti or Medici or Malatesti sufficient to arouse the enthusiasm of +local bards or to call forth the celebration of their princely +tragedies in verse. Amid the miseries of foreign wars and home +oppression, it seemed better to demand from verse and song some +mitigation of the woes of life, some expression of personal emotion, +than to record the disasters which to us at a distance appear poetic +in their grandeur. + +These conditions of popular life, although unfavourable to the +production of ballad poetry, would not, however, have been sufficient +by themselves to check its growth, if the Italians had been strongly +impelled to literature of this type by their nature. The real reason +why their _Volkslieder_ are amorous and personal is to be found in the +quality of their imagination. The Italian genius is not creatively +imaginative in the highest sense. The Italians have never, either in +the ancient or the modern age, produced a great drama or a national +epic, the 'Æneid' and the 'Divine Comedy' being obviously of different +species from the 'Iliad' or the 'Nibelungen Lied.' Modern Italians, +again, are distinguished from the French, the Germans, and the English +in being the conscious inheritors of an older, august, and strictly +classical civilisation. The great memories of Rome weigh down their +faculties of invention. It would also seem as though they shrank in +their poetry from the representation of what is tragic and +spirit-stirring. They incline to what is cheerful, brilliant, or +pathetic. The dramatic element in human life, external to the +personality of the poet, which exercised so strong a fascination over +our ballad-bards and playwrights, has but little attraction for the +Italian. When he sings, he seeks to express his own individual +emotions--his love, his joy, his jealousy, his anger, his despair. The +language which he uses is at the same time direct in its intensity, +and hyperbolical in its display of fancy; but it lacks those +imaginative touches which exalt the poetry of personal passion into a +sublimer region. Again, the Italians are deficient in a sense of the +supernatural. The wraiths that cannot rest because their love is still +unsatisfied, the voices which cry by night over field and fell, the +water-spirits and forest fairies, the second-sight of coming woes, the +presentiment of death, the warnings and the charms and spells, which +fill the popular poetry of all Northern nations, are absent in Italian +songs. In the whole of Tigri's collection I only remember one mention +of a ghost. It is not that the Italians are deficient in superstitions +of all kinds. Every one has heard of their belief in the evil eye, for +instance. But they do not connect this kind of fetichism with their +poetry; and even their greatest poets, with the exception of Dante, +have shown no capacity or no inclination for enhancing the imaginative +effect of their creations by an appeal to the instinct of mysterious +awe. + +The truth is that the Italians as a race are distinguished as much by +a firm grasp upon the practical realities of existence as by powerful +emotions. They have but little of that dreamy _Schwärmerei_ with which +the people of the North are largely gifted. The true sphere of their +genius is painting. What appeals to the imagination through the eyes, +they have expressed far better than any other modern nation. But +their poetry, like their music, is deficient in tragic sublimity and +in the higher qualities of imaginative creation. + +It may seem paradoxical to say this of the nation which produced +Dante. But we must remember not to judge races by single and +exceptional men of genius. Petrarch, the Troubadour of exquisite +emotions, Boccaccio, who touches all the keys of life so lightly, +Ariosto, with the smile of everlasting April on his lips, and Tasso, +excellent alone when he confines himself to pathos or the picturesque, +are no exceptions to what I have just said. Yet these poets pursued +their art with conscious purpose. The tragic splendour of Greece, the +majesty of Rome, were not unknown to them. Far more is it true that +popular poetry in Italy, proceeding from the hearts of uncultivated +peasants and expressing the national character in its simplicity, +displays none of the stuff from which the greatest works of art in +verse, epics and dramas, can be wrought. But within its own sphere of +personal emotion, this popular poetry is exquisitely melodious, +inexhaustibly rich, unique in modern literature for the direct +expression which it has given to every shade of passion. + +Signor Tigri's collection,[22] to which I shall confine my attention +in this paper, consists of eleven hundred and eighty-five _rispetti_, +with the addition of four hundred and sixty-one _stornelli_. Rispetto, +it may be said in passing, is the name commonly given throughout Italy +to short poems, varying from six to twelve lines, constructed on the +principle of the octave stanza. That is to say, the first part of the +rispetto consists of four or six lines with alternate rhymes, while +one or more couplets, called the _ripresa_, complete the poem.[23] +The stornello, or ritournelle, never exceeds three lines, and owes +its name to the return which it makes at the end of the last line to +the rhyme given by the emphatic word of the first. Browning, in his +poem of 'Fra Lippo Lippi,' has accustomed English ears to one common +species of the stornello,[24] which sets out with the name of a +flower, and rhymes with it, as thus: + + Fior di narciso. + Prigionero d'amore mi son reso, + Nel rimirare il tuo leggiadro viso. + +The divisions of those two sorts of songs, to which Tigri gives names +like The Beauty of Women, The Beauty of Men, Falling in Love, +Serenades, Happy Love, Unhappy Love, Parting, Absence, Letters, Return +to Home, Anger and Jealousy, Promises, Entreaties and Reproaches, +Indifference, Treachery and Abandonment, prove with what fulness the +various phases of the tender passion are treated. Through the whole +fifteen hundred the one theme of Love is never relinquished. Only two +persons, 'I' and 'thou,' appear upon the scene; yet so fresh and so +various are the moods of feeling, that one can read them from first to +last without too much satiety. + +To seek for the authors of these ditties would be useless. Some of +them may be as old as the fourteenth century; others may have been +made yesterday. Some are the native product of the Tuscan mountain +villages, especially of the regions round Pistoja and Siena, where on +the spurs of the Apennines the purest Italian is vernacular. Some, +again, are importations from other provinces, especially from Sicily +and Naples, caught up by the peasants of Tuscany and adapted to their +taste and style; for nothing travels faster than a _Volkslied_. Born +some morning in a noisy street of Naples, or on the solitary slopes of +Radicofani, before the week is out, a hundred voices are repeating it. +Waggoners and pedlars carry it across the hills to distant towns. It +floats with the fishermen from bay to bay, and marches with the +conscript to his barrack in a far-off province. Who was the first to +give it shape and form? No one asks, and no one cares. A student well +acquainted with the habits of the people in these matters says, 'If +they knew the author of a ditty, they would not learn it, far less if +they discovered that it was a scholar's.' If the cadence takes their +ear, they consecrate the song at once by placing it upon the honoured +list of 'ancient lays.' Passing from lip to lip and from district to +district, it receives additions and alterations, and becomes the +property of a score of provinces. Meanwhile the poet from whose soul +it blossomed that first morning like a flower, remains contented with +obscurity. The wind has carried from his lips the thistledown of song, +and sown it on a hundred hills and meadows, far and wide. After such +wise is the birth of all truly popular compositions. Who knows, for +instance, the veritable author of many of those mighty German chorals +which sprang into being at the period of the Reformation? The first +inspiration was given, probably, to a single mind; but the melody, as +it has reached us, is the product of a thousand. This accounts for the +variations which in different dialects and districts the same song +presents. Meanwhile, it is sometimes possible to trace the authorship +of a ballad with marked local character to an improvisatore famous in +his village, or to one of those professional rhymesters whom the +country-folk employ in the composition of love-letters to their +sweethearts at a distance.[25] Tommaseo, in the preface to his 'Canti +Popolari,' mentions in particular a Beatrice di Pian degli Ontani, +whose poetry was famous through the mountains of Pistoja; and Tigri +records by name a little girl called Cherubina, who made rispetti by +the dozen as she watched her sheep upon the hills. One of the songs in +his collection (p. 181) contains a direct reference to the village +letter-writer:-- + + Salutatemi, bella, lo scrivano; + Non lo conosco e non so chi si sia. + A me mi pare un poeta sovrano, + Tanto gli è sperto nella poesia.[26] + +While I am writing thus about the production and dissemination of +these love-songs, I cannot help remembering three days and nights +which I once spent at sea between Genoa and Palermo, in the company of +some conscripts who were going to join their regiment in Sicily. They +were lads from the Milanese and Liguria, and they spent a great +portion of their time in composing and singing poetry. One of them had +a fine baritone voice; and when the sun had set, his comrades gathered +round him and begged him to sing to them 'Con quella patetica tua +voce.' Then followed hours of singing, the low monotonous melodies of +his ditties harmonising wonderfully with the tranquillity of night, so +clear and calm that the sky and all its stars were mirrored on the +sea, through which we moved as if in a dream. Sometimes the songs +provoked conversation, which, as is usual in Italy, turned mostly upon +'le bellezze delle donne.' I remember that once an animated discussion +about the relative merits of blondes and brunettes nearly ended in a +quarrel, when the youngest of the whole band, a boy of about +seventeen, put a stop to the dispute by theatrically raising his eyes +and arms to heaven and crying, 'Tu sei innamorato d' una grande Diana +cacciatrice nera, ed io d' una bella Venere bionda.' Though they were +but village lads, they supported their several opinions with arguments +not unworthy of Firenzuola, and showed the greatest delicacy of +feeling in the treatment of a subject which could scarcely have failed +to reveal any latent coarseness. + +The purity of all the Italian love-songs collected by Tigri is very +remarkable.[27] Although the passion expressed in them is Oriental in +its vehemence, not a word falls which could offend a virgin's ear. The +one desire of lovers is lifelong union in marriage. The _damo_--for so +a sweetheart is termed in Tuscany--trembles until he has gained the +approval of his future mother-in-law, and forbids the girl he is +courting to leave her house to talk to him at night:-- + + Dice che tu tì affacci alia finestra; + Ma non tì dice che tu vada fuora, + Perchè, la notte, è cosa disonesta. + +All the language of his love is respectful. _Signore_, or master of my +soul, _madonna, anima mia, dolce mio ben, nobil persona,_ are the +terms of adoration with which he approaches his mistress. The +elevation of feeling and perfect breeding which Manzoni has so well +delineated in the loves of Renzo and Lucia are traditional among +Italian country-folk. They are conscious that true gentleness is no +matter of birth or fortune:-- + + E tu non mi lasciar per poverezza, + Chè povertà non guasta gentilezza.[28] + + +This in itself constitutes an important element of culture, and +explains to some extent the high romantic qualities of their +impassioned poetry. The beauty of their land reveals still more. 'O +fortunatos nimium sua si bona norint!' Virgil's exclamation is as true +now as it was when he sang the labours of Italian country-folk some +nineteen centuries ago. To a traveller from the north there is a +pathos even in the contrast between the country in which these +children of a happier climate toil, and those bleak, winter-beaten +fields where our own peasants pass their lives. The cold nights and +warm days of Tuscan springtime are like a Swiss summer. They make rich +pasture and a hardy race of men. Tracts of corn and oats and rye +alternate with patches of flax in full flower, with meadows yellow +with buttercups or pink with ragged robin; the young vines, running +from bough to bough of elm and mulberry, are just coming into leaf. +The poplars are fresh with bright green foliage. On the verge of this +blooming plain stand ancient cities ringed with hills, some rising to +snowy Apennines, some covered with white convents and sparkling with +villas. Cypresses shoot, black and spirelike, amid grey clouds of +olive-boughs upon the slopes; and above, where vegetation borders on +the barren rock, are masses of ilex and arbutus interspersed with +chestnut-trees not yet in leaf. Men and women are everywhere at work, +ploughing with great white oxen, or tilling the soil with spades six +feet in length--Sabellian ligones. The songs of nightingales among +acacia-trees, and the sharp scream of swallows wheeling in air, mingle +with the monotonous chant that always rises from the country-people at +their toil. Here and there on points of vantage, where the hill-slopes +sink into the plain, cluster white villages with flower-like +campanili. It is there that the veglia, or evening rendezvous of +lovers, the serenades and balls and feste, of which one hears so much +in the popular minstrelsy, take place. Of course it would not be +difficult to paint the darker shades of this picture. Autumn comes, +when the contadini of Lucca and Siena and Pistoja go forth to work in +the unwholesome marshes of the Maremma, or of Corsica and Sardinia. +Dismal superstitions and hereditary hatreds cast their blight over a +life externally so fair. The bad government of centuries has perverted +in many ways the instincts of a people naturally mild and cheerful and +peace-loving. But as far as nature can make men happy, these +husbandmen are surely to be reckoned fortunate, and in their songs we +find little to remind us of what is otherwise than sunny in their lot. + +A translator of these _Volkslieder_ has to contend with difficulties +of no ordinary kind. The freshness of their phrases, the spontaneity +of their sentiments, and the melody of their unstudied cadences, are +inimitable. So again is the peculiar effect of their frequent +transitions from the most fanciful imagery to the language of prose. +No mere student can hope to rival, far less to reproduce, in a foreign +tongue, the charm of verse which sprang untaught from the hearts of +simple folk, which lives unwritten on the lips of lovers, and which +should never be dissociated from singing.[29] There are, besides, +peculiarities in the very structure of the popular rispetto. The +constant repetition of the same phrase with slight variations, +especially in the closing lines of the _ripresa_ of the Tuscan +rispetto, gives an antique force and flavour to these ditties, like +that which we appreciate in our own ballads, but which may easily, in +the translation, degenerate into weakness and insipidity. The Tuscan +rhymester, again, allows himself the utmost licence. It is usual to +find mere assonances like _bene_ and _piacere, oro_ and _volo, ala_ +and _alata_, in the place of rhymes; while such remote resemblances of +sound as _colli_ and _poggi_, _lascia_ and _piazza_, are far from +uncommon. To match these rhymes by joining 'home' and 'alone,' 'time' +and 'shine,' &c, would of course be a matter of no difficulty; but it +has seemed to me on the whole best to preserve, with some exceptions, +such accuracy as the English ear requires. I fear, however, that, +after all, these wild-flowers of song, transplanted to another climate +and placed in a hothouse, will appear but pale and hectic by the side +of their robuster brethren of the Tuscan hills. + +In the following serenade many of the peculiarities which +I have just noticed occur. I have also adhered to the irregularity of +rhyme which may be usually observed about the middle of the poem (p. +103):-- + + Sleeping or waking, thou sweet face, + Lift up thy fair and tender brow: + List to thy love in this still place; + He calls thee to thy window now: + But bids thee not the house to quit, + Since in the night this were not meet. + Come to thy window, stay within; + I stand without, and sing and sing: + Come to thy window, stay at home; + I stand without, and make my moan. + +Here is a serenade of a more impassioned character (p. 99):-- + + I come to visit thee, my beauteous queen, + Thee and the house where thou art harboured: + All the long way upon my knees, my queen, + I kiss the earth where'er thy footsteps tread. + I kiss the earth, and gaze upon the wall, + Whereby thou goest, maid imperial! + I kiss the earth, and gaze upon the house, + Whereby thou farest, queen most beauteous! + +In the next the lover, who has passed the whole night beneath his +sweetheart's window, takes leave at the break of day. The feeling of +the half-hour before dawn, when the sound of bells rises to meet the +growing light, and both form a prelude to the glare and noise of day, +is expressed with much unconscious poetry (p. 105):-- + + I see the dawn e'en now begin to peer: + Therefore I take my leave, and cease to sing, + See how the windows open far and near, + And hear the bells of morning, how they ring! + Through heaven and earth the sounds of ringing swell; + Therefore, bright jasmine flower, sweet maid, farewell! + Through heaven and Rome the sound of ringing goes; + Farewell, bright jasmine flower, sweet maiden rose! +The next is more quaint (p. 99):-- + + I come by night, I come, my soul aflame; + I come in this fair hour of your sweet sleep; + And should I wake you up, it were a shame. + I cannot sleep, and lo! I break your sleep. + To wake you were a shame from your deep rest; + Love never sleeps, nor they whom Love hath blest. + +A very great many rispetti are simple panegyrics of the beloved, to +find similitude for whose beauty heaven and earth are ransacked. The +compliment of the first line in the following song is perfect (p. +23):-- + + Beauty was born with you, fair maid: + The sun and moon inclined to you; + On you the snow her whiteness laid + The rose her rich and radiant hue: + Saint Magdalen her hair unbound, + And Cupid taught you how to wound-- + How to wound hearts Dan Cupid taught: + Your beauty drives me love-distraught. + +The lady in the next was December's child (p. 25):-- + + O beauty, born in winter's night, + Born in the month of spotless snow: + Your face is like a rose so bright; + Your mother may be proud of you! + She may be proud, lady of love, + Such sunlight shines her house above: + She may be proud, lady of heaven, + Such sunlight to her home is given. + +The sea wind is the source of beauty to another (p. 16):-- + + Nay, marvel not you are so fair; + For you beside the sea were born: + The sea-waves keep you fresh and fair, + Like roses on their leafy thorn. + If roses grow on the rose-bush, + Your roses through midwinter blush; + If roses bloom on the rose-bed, + Your face can show both white and red. + +The eyes of a fourth are compared, after quite a new and original +fashion, to stars (p. 210):-- + + The moon hath risen her plaint to lay + Before the face of Love Divine. + Saying in heaven she will not stay, + Since you have stolen what made her shine: + Aloud she wails with sorrow wan,-- + She told her stars and two are gone: + They are not there; you have them now; + They are the eyes in your bright brow. + +Nor are girls less ready to praise their lovers, but that they do not +dwell so much on physical perfection. Here is a pleasant greeting (p. +124):-- + + O welcome, welcome, lily white, + Thou fairest youth of all the valley! + When I'm with you, my soul is light; + I chase away dull melancholy. + I chase all sadness from my heart: + Then welcome, dearest that thou art! + I chase all sadness from my side: + Then welcome, O my love, my pride! + I chase all sadness far away: + Then welcome, welcome, love, to-day! + +The image of a lily is very prettily treated in the next (p 79):-- + + I planted a lily yestreen at my window; + I set it yestreen, and to-day it sprang up: + When I opened the latch and leaned out of my window, + It shadowed my face with its beautiful cup. + O lily, my lily, how tall you are grown! + Remember how dearly I loved you, my own. + O lily, my lily, you'll grow to the sky! + Remember I love you for ever and aye. + +The same thought of love growing like a flower receives another turn +(p. 69):-- + + On yonder hill I saw a flower; + And, could it thence be hither borne, + I'd plant it here within my bower, + And water it both eve and morn. + Small water wants the stem so straight; + 'Tis a love-lily stout as fate. + Small water wants the root so strong: + 'Tis a love-lily lasting long. + Small water wants the flower so sheen: + 'Tis a love-lily ever green. + +Envious tongues have told a girl that her complexion is not good. She +replies, with imagery like that of Virgil's 'Alba ligustra cadunt, +vaccinia nigra leguntur' (p. 31):-- + + Think it no grief that I am brown, + For all brunettes are born to reign: + White is the snow, yet trodden down; + Black pepper kings need not disdain: + White snow lies mounded on the vales + Black pepper's weighed in brazen scales. + +Another song runs on the same subject (p. 38):-- + + The whole world tells me that I'm brown, + The brown earth gives us goodly corn: + The clove-pink too, however brown, + Yet proudly in the hand 'tis borne. + They say my love is black, but he + Shines like an angel-form to me: + They say my love is dark as night; + To me he seems a shape of light. + +The freshness of the following spring song recalls the ballads of the +Val de Vire in Normandy (p. 85):-- + + It was the morning of the first of May, + Into the close I went to pluck a flower; + And there I found a bird of woodland gay, + Who whiled with songs of love the silent hour. + O bird, who fliest from fair Florence, how + Dear love begins, I prithee teach me now!-- + Love it begins with music and with song, + And ends with sorrow and with sighs ere long. + +Love at first sight is described (p. 79):-- + + The very moment that we met, + That moment love began to beat: + One glance of love we gave, and swore + Never to part for evermore; + We swore together, sighing deep, + Never to part till Death's long sleep. + +Here too is a memory of the first days of love (p. 79):-- + + If I remember, it was May + When love began between us two: + The roses in the close were gay, + The cherries blackened on the bough. + O cherries black and pears so green! + Of maidens fair you are the queen. + Fruit of black cherry and sweet pear! + Of sweethearts you're the queen, I swear. + +The troth is plighted with such promises as these (p. 230):-- + + Or ere I leave you, love divine, + Dead tongues shall stir and utter speech, + And running rivers flow with wine, + And fishes swim upon the beach; + Or ere I leave or shun you, these + Lemons shall grow on orange-trees. + +The girl confesses her love after this fashion (p. 86):-- + + Passing across the billowy sea, + I let, alas, my poor heart fall; + I bade the sailors bring it me; + They said they had not seen it fall. + I asked the sailors, one and two; + They said that I had given it you. + I asked the sailors, two and three; + They said that I had given it thee. +It is not uncommon to speak of love as a sea. Here is a curious play +upon this image (p. 227):-- + + Ho, Cupid! Sailor Cupid, ho! + Lend me awhile that bark of thine; + For on the billows I will go, + To find my love who once was mine: + And if I find her, she shall wear + A chain around her neck so fair, + Around her neck a glittering bond, + Four stars, a lily, a diamond. + +It is also possible that the same thought may occur in the second line +of the next ditty (p. 120):-- + + Beneath the earth I'll make a way + To pass the sea and come to you. + People will think I'm gone away; + But, dear, I shall be seeing you. + People will say that I am dead; + But we'll pluck roses white and red: + People will think I'm lost for aye; + But we'll pluck roses, you and I. + +All the little daily incidents are beautified by love. Here is a +lover who thanks the mason for making his window so close upon the +road that he can see his sweetheart as she passes (p. 118):-- + + Blest be the mason's hand who built + This house of mine by the roadside, + And made my window low and wide + For me to watch my love go by. + And if I knew when she went by, + My window should be fairly gilt; + And if I knew what time she went, + My window should be flower-besprent. + +Here is a conceit which reminds one of the pretty epistle of +Philostratus, in which the footsteps of the beloved are called +_[Greek: erêreismena philêmpta]_ (p. 117):-- + + What time I see you passing by; + I sit and count the steps you take: + You take the steps; I sit and sigh: + Step after step, my sighs awake. + Tell me, dear love, which more abound, + My sighs or your steps on the ground? + Tell me, dear love, which are the most, + Your light steps or the sighs they cost? + +A girl complains that she cannot see her lover's house (p. 117):- + + I lean upon the lattice, and look forth + To see the house where my lover dwells. + There grows an envious tree that spoils my mirth: + Cursed be the man who set it on these hills! + But when those jealous boughs are all unclad, + I then shall see the cottage of my lad: + When once that tree is rooted from the hills, + I'll see the house wherein my lover dwells. + +In the same mood a girl who has just parted from her sweetheart is +angry with the hill beyond which he is travelling (p. 167):-- + + I see and see, yet see not what I would: + I see the leaves atremble on the tree: + I saw my love where on the hill he stood, + Yet see him not drop downward to the lea. + O traitor hill, what will you do? + I ask him, live or dead, from you. + O traitor hill, what shall it be? + I ask him, live or dead, from thee. + +All the songs of love in absence are very quaint. Here is one which +calls our nursery rhymes to mind (p. 119):-- + +I would I were a bird so free, +That I had wings to fly away: +Unto that window I would flee, +Where stands my love and grinds all day. +Grind, miller, grind; the water's deep! +I cannot grind; love makes me weep. +Grind, miller, grind; the waters flow! +I cannot grind; love wastes me so. + +The next begins after the same fashion, but breaks into a very shower +of benedictions (p. 118):-- + + Would God I were a swallow free, + That I had wings to fly away: + Upon the miller's door I'd be, + Where stands my love and grinds all day: + Upon the door, upon the sill, + Where stays my love;--God bless him still! + God bless my love, and blessed be + His house, and bless my house for me; + Yea, blest be both, and ever blest + My lover's house, and all the rest! + +The girl alone at home in her garden sees a wood-dove flying by and +calls to it (p. 179):-- + + O dove, who fliest far to yonder hill, + Dear dove, who in the rock hast made thy nest, + Let me a feather from thy pinion pull, + For I will write to him who loves me best. + And when I've written it and made it clear, + I'll give thee back thy feather, dove so dear: + And when I've written it and sealed it, then + I'll give thee back thy feather love-laden. + +A swallow is asked to lend the same kind service (p. 179):-- + + O swallow, swallow, flying through the air, + Turn, turn, I prithee, from thy flight above! + Give me one feather from thy wing so fair, + For I will write a letter to my love. + When I have written it and made it clear, + I'll give thee back thy feather, swallow dear; + When I have written it on paper white, + I'll make, I swear, thy missing feather right; + When once 'tis written on fair leaves of gold, + I'll give thee back thy wing and flight so bold. + + +Long before Tennyson's song in the 'Princess,' it would seem that +swallows were favourite messengers of love. In the next song which I +translate, the repetition of one thought with delicate variation is +full of character (p. 178):-- + + O swallow, flying over hill and plain, + If thou shouldst find my love, oh bid him come! + And tell him, on these mountains I remain + Even as a lamb who cannot find her home: + And tell him, I am left all, all alone, + Even as a tree whose flowers are overblown: + And tell him, I am left without a mate + Even as a tree whose boughs are desolate: + And tell him, I am left uncomforted + Even as the grass upon the meadows dead. + +The following is spoken by a girl who has been watching the lads of +the village returning from their autumn service in the plain, and +whose damo comes the last of all (p. 240):-- + + O dear my love, you come too late! + What found you by the way to do? + I saw your comrades pass the gate, + But yet not you, dear heart, not you! + If but a little more you'd stayed, + With sighs you would have found me dead; + If but a while you'd keep me crying, + With sighs you would have found me dying. + +The _amantium irae_ find a place too in these rustic ditties. A girl +explains to her sweetheart (p. 240):-- + + 'Twas told me and vouchsafed for true, + Your kin are wroth as wroth can be; + For loving me they swear at you, + They swear at you because of me; + Your father, mother, all your folk, + Because you love me, chafe and choke! + Then set your kith and kin at ease; + Set them at ease and let me die: + Set the whole clan of them at ease; + Set them at ease and see me die! + +Another suspects that her damo has paid his suit to a rival (p. +200):-- + + On Sunday morning well I knew + Where gaily dressed you turned your feet; + And there were many saw it too, + And came to tell me through the street: + And when they spoke, I smiled, ah me! + But in my room wept privately; + And when they spoke, I sang for pride, + But in my room alone I sighed. + +Then come reconciliations (p. 223):-- + + Let us make peace, my love, my bliss! + For cruel strife can last no more. + If you say nay, yet I say yes: + 'Twixt me and you there is no war. + Princes and mighty lords make peace; + And so may lovers twain, I wis: + Princes and soldiers sign a truce; + And so may two sweethearts like us: + Princes and potentates agree; + And so may friends like you and me. + +There is much character about the following, which is spoken by the +damo (p. 223):-- + + As yonder mountain height I trod, + I chanced to think of your dear name; + I knelt with clasped hands on the sod, + And thought of my neglect with shame: + I knelt upon the stone, and swore + Our love should bloom as heretofore. + +Sometimes the language of affection takes a more imaginative tone, as +in the following (p. 232):-- + + Dearest, what time you mount to heaven above, + I'll meet you holding in my hand my heart: + You to your breast shall clasp me full of love, + And I will lead you to our Lord apart. + + Our Lord, when he our love so true hath known, + Shall make of our two hearts one heart alone; + One heart shall make of our two hearts, to rest + In heaven amid the splendours of the blest. + +This was the woman's. Here is the man's (p. 113):-- + + If I were master of all loveliness, + I'd make thee still more lovely than thou art: + If I were master of all wealthiness, + Much gold and silver should be thine, sweetheart: + If I were master of the house of hell, + I'd bar the brazen gates in thy sweet face; + Or ruled the place where purging spirits dwell, + I'd free thee from that punishment apace. + Were I in paradise and thou shouldst come, + I'd stand aside, my love, to make thee room; + Were I in paradise, well seated there, + I'd quit my place to give it thee, my fair! + +Sometimes, but very rarely, weird images are sought to clothe passion, +as in the following (p. 136):-- + + Down into hell I went and thence returned: + Ah me! alas! the people that were there! + I found a room where many candles burned, + And saw within my love that languished there. + When as she saw me, she was glad of cheer, + And at the last she said: Sweet soul of mine; + Dost thou recall the time long past, so dear, + When thou didst say to me, Sweet soul of mine? + Now kiss me on the mouth, my dearest, here; + Kiss me that I for once may cease to pine! + So sweet, ah me, is thy dear mouth, so dear, + That of thy mercy prithee sweeten mine! + Now, love, that thou hast kissed me, now, I say, + Look not to leave this place again for aye. + +Or again in this (p. 232):-- + + Methinks I hear, I hear a voice that cries: + Beyond the hill it floats upon the air. + It is my lover come to bid me rise, + If I am fain forthwith toward heaven to fare. + But I have answered him, and said him No! + I've given my paradise, my heaven, for you: + Till we together go to paradise, + I'll stay on earth and love your beauteous eyes. + +But it is not with such remote and eerie thoughts that the rustic muse +of Italy can deal successfully. Far better is the following +half-playful description of love-sadness (p. 71):-- + + Ah me, alas! who know not how to sigh! + Of sighs I now full well have learned the art: + Sighing at table when to eat I try, + Sighing within my little room apart, + Sighing when jests and laughter round me fly, + Sighing with her and her who know my heart: + I sigh at first, and then I go on sighing; + 'Tis for your eyes that I am ever sighing: + I sigh at first, and sigh the whole year through; + And 'tis your eyes that keep me sighing so. + +The next two rispetti, delicious in their naïveté, might seem to have +been extracted from the libretto of an opera, but that they lack the +sympathising chorus, who should have stood at hand, ready to chime in +with 'he,' 'she,' and 'they,' to the 'I,' 'you,' and 'we' of the +lovers (p. 123):-- + + Ah, when will dawn that glorious day + When you will softly mount my stair? + My kin shall bring you on the way; + I shall be first to greet you there. + Ah, when will dawn that day of bliss + When we before the priest say Yes? + + Ah, when will dawn that blissful day + When I shall softly mount your stair, + Your brothers meet me on the way, + And one by one I greet them there? + When comes the day, my staff, my strength, + To call your mother mine at length? + When will the day come, love of mine, + I shall be yours and you be mine? + +Hitherto the songs have told only of happy love, or of love returned. +Some of the best, however, are unhappy. Here is one, for instance, +steeped in gloom (p. 142):-- + + They have this custom in fair Naples town; + They never mourn a man when he is dead: + The mother weeps when she has reared a son + To be a serf and slave by love misled; + The mother weeps when she a son hath born + To be the serf and slave of galley scorn; + The mother weeps when she a son gives suck + To be the serf and slave of city luck. + +The following contains a fine wild image, wrought out with strange +passion in detail (p. 300):-- + + I'll spread a table brave for revelry, + And to the feast will bid sad lovers all. + For meat I'll give them my heart's misery; + For drink I'll give these briny tears that fall. + Sorrows and sighs shall be the varletry, + To serve the lovers at this festival: + The table shall be death, black death profound; + Weep, stones, and utter sighs, ye walls around! + The table shall be death, yea, sacred death; + Weep, stones, and sigh as one that sorroweth! + +Nor is the next a whit less in the vein of mad Jeronimo (p. 304):-- + + High up, high up, a house I'll rear, + High up, high up, on yonder height; + At every window set a snare, + With treason, to betray the night; + With treason, to betray the stars, + Since I'm betrayed by my false feres; + With treason, to betray the day, + Since Love betrayed me, well away! + +The vengeance of an Italian reveals itself in the energetic song which +I quote next (p. 303):-- + + I have a sword; 'twould cut a brazen bell, + Tough steel 'twould cut, if there were any need: + I've had it tempered in the streams of hell + By masters mighty in the mystic rede: + I've had it tempered by the light of stars; + Then let him come whose skin is stout as Mars; + I've had it tempered to a trenchant blade; + Then let him come who stole from me my maid. + +More mild, but brimful of the bitterness of a soul to whom the whole +world has become but ashes in the death of love, is the following +lament (p. 143):-- + + Call me the lovely Golden Locks no more, + But call me Sad Maid of the golden hair. + If there be wretched women, sure I think + I too may rank among the most forlorn. + I fling a palm into the sea; 'twill sink: + Others throw lead, and it is lightly borne. + What have I done, dear Lord, the world to cross? + Gold in my hand forthwith is turned to dross. + How have I made, dear Lord, dame Fortune wroth? + Gold in my hand forthwith is turned to froth. + What have I done, dear Lord, to fret the folk? + Gold in my hand forthwith is turned to smoke. + +Here is pathos (p. 172):-- + + The wood-dove who hath lost her mate, + She lives a dolorous life, I ween; + She seeks a stream and bathes in it, + And drinks that water foul and green: + With other birds she will not mate, + Nor haunt, I wis, the flowery treen; + She bathes her wings and strikes her breast; + Her mate is lost: oh, sore unrest! + +And here is fanciful despair (p. 168):-- + + I'll build a house of sobs and sighs, + With tears the lime I'll slack; + And there I'll dwell with weeping eyes + Until my love come back: + And there I'll stay with eyes that burn + Until I see my love return. + +The house of love has been deserted, and the lover comes to moan +beneath its silent eaves (p. 171):-- + + Dark house and window desolate! + Where is the sun which shone so fair? + 'Twas here we danced and laughed at fate: + Now the stones weep; I see them there. + They weep, and feel a grievous chill: + Dark house and widowed window-sill! + +And what can be more piteous than this prayer? (p. 809):-- + + Love, if you love me, delve a tomb, + And lay me there the earth beneath; + After a year, come see my bones, + And make them dice to play therewith. + But when you're tired of that game, + Then throw those dice into the flame; + But when you're tired of gaming free, + Then throw those dice into the sea. + +The simpler expression of sorrow to the death is, as usual, more +impressive. A girl speaks thus within sight of the grave (p. 808):-- + + Yes, I shall die: what wilt thou gain? + The cross before my bier will go; + And thou wilt hear the bells complain, + The _Misereres_ loud and low. + Midmost the church thou'lt see me lie + With folded hands and frozen eye; + Then say at last, I do repent!-- + Nought else remains when fires are spent. + +Here is a rustic Oenone (p. 307):-- + + Fell death, that fliest fraught with woe! + Thy gloomy snares the world ensphere: + Where no man calls, thou lov'st to go; + But when we call, thou wilt not hear. + Fell death, false death of treachery, + Thou makest all content but me. + +Another is less reproachful, but scarcely less sad (p. 308):-- + + Strew me with blossoms when I die, + Nor lay me 'neath the earth below; + Beyond those walls, there let me lie, + Where oftentimes we used to go. + There lay me to the wind and rain; + Dying for you, I feel no pain: + There lay me to the sun above; + Dying for you, I die of love. + +Yet another of these pitiful love-wailings displays much poetry of +expression (p. 271):-- + + I dug the sea, and delved the barren sand: + I wrote with dust and gave it to the wind: + Of melting snow, false Love, was made thy band, + Which suddenly the day's bright beams unbind. + Now am I ware, and know my own mistake-- + How false are all the promises you make; + Now am I ware, and know the fact, ah me! + That who confides in you, deceived will be. + +It would scarcely be well to pause upon these very doleful ditties. +Take, then, the following little serenade, in which the lover on his +way to visit his mistress has unconsciously fallen on the same thought +as Bion (p. 85):-- + + Yestreen I went my love to greet, + By yonder village path below: + Night in a coppice found my feet; + I called the moon her light to show-- + O moon, who needs no flame to fire thy face, + Look forth and lend me light a little space! + +Enough has been quoted to illustrate the character of the Tuscan +popular poetry. These village rispetti bear the same relation to the +canzoniere of Petrarch as the 'savage drupe' to the 'suave plum.' They +are, as it were, the wild stock of that highly artificial flower of +art. Herein lies, perhaps, their chief importance. As in our ballad +literature we may discern the stuff of the Elizabethan drama +undeveloped, so in the Tuscan people's songs we can trace the crude +form of that poetic instinct which produced the sonnets to Laura. It +is also very probable that some such rustic minstrelsy preceded the +Idylls of Theocritus and the Bucolics of Virgil; for coincidences of +thought and imagery, which can scarcely be referred to any conscious +study of the ancients, are not a few. Popular poetry has this great +value for the student of literature: it enables him to trace those +forms of fancy and of feeling which are native to the people, and +which must ultimately determine the character of national art, however +much that may be modified by culture. + + * * * * * + + + + +_POPULAR ITALIAN POETRY OF THE RENAISSANCE_ + + +The semi-popular poetry of the Italians in the fifteenth century +formed an important branch of their national literature, and +flourished independently of the courtly and scholastic studies which +gave a special character to the golden age of the revival. While the +latter tended to separate the people from the cultivated classes, the +former established a new link of connection between them, different +indeed from that which existed when smiths and carters repeated the +Canzoni of Dante by heart in the fourteenth century, but still +sufficiently real to exercise a weighty influence over the national +development. Scholars like Angelo Poliziano, princes like Lorenzo de' +Medici, men of letters like Feo Belcari and Benivieni, borrowed from +the people forms of poetry, which they handled with refined taste, and +appropriated to the uses of polite literature. The most important of +these forms, native to the people but assimilated by the learned +classes, were the Miracle Play or 'Sacra Rappresentazione;' the +'Ballata' or lyric to be sung while dancing; the 'Canto +Carnascialesco' or Carnival Chorus; the 'Rispetto' or short +love-ditty; the 'Lauda' or hymn; the 'Maggio' or May-song; and the +'Madrigale' or little part-song. + +At Florence, where even under the despotism of the Medici a show of +republican life still lingered, all classes joined in the amusements +of carnival and spring time; and this poetry of the dance, the +pageant, and the villa flourished side by side with the more serious +efforts of the humanistic muse. It is not my purpose in this place to +inquire into the origins of each lyrical type, to discuss the +alterations they may have undergone at the hands of educated +versifiers, or to define their several characteristics; but only to +offer translations of such as seem to me best suited to represent the +genius of the people and the age. + +In the composition of the poetry in question, Angelo Poliziano was +indubitably the most successful. This giant of learning, who filled +the lecture-rooms of Florence with students of all nations, and whose +critical and rhetorical labours marked an epoch in the history of +scholarship, was by temperament a poet, and a poet of the people. +Nothing was easier for him than to throw aside his professor's mantle, +and to improvise 'Ballate' for the girls to sing as they danced their +'Carola' upon the Piazza di Santa Trinità in summer evenings. The +peculiarity of this lyric is that it starts with a couplet, which also +serves as refrain, supplying the rhyme to each successive stanza. The +stanza itself is identical with our rime royal, if we count the +couplet in the place of the seventh line. The form is in itself so +graceful and is so beautifully treated by Poliziano that I cannot +content myself with fewer than four of his _Ballate_.[30] The first is +written on the world-old theme of 'Gather ye rosebuds while ye may.' + + + I went a roaming, maidens, one bright day, + In a green garden in mid month of May. + + Violets and lilies grew on every side + Mid the green grass, and young flowers wonderful, + Golden and white and red and azure-eyed; + Toward which I stretched my hands, eager to pull + Plenty to make my fair curls beautiful, + To crown my rippling curls with garlands gay. + + I went a roaming, maidens, one bright day, + In a green garden in mid month of May. + + But when my lap was full of flowers I spied + Roses at last, roses of every hue; + Therefore I ran to pluck their ruddy pride, + Because their perfume was so sweet and true + That all my soul went forth with pleasure new, + With yearning and desire too soft to say. + + I went a roaming, maidens, one bright day, + In a green garden in mid month of May. + + I gazed and gazed. Hard task it were to tell + How lovely were the roses in that hour: + One was but peeping from her verdant shell, + And some were faded, some were scarce in flower: + Then Love said: Go, pluck from the blooming bower + Those that thou seest ripe upon the spray. + + I went a roaming, maidens, one bright day, + In a green garden in mid month of May. + + For when the full rose quits her tender sheath, + When she is sweetest and most fair to see, + Then is the time to place her in thy wreath, + Before her beauty and her freshness flee. + Gather ye therefore roses with great glee, + Sweet girls, or ere their perfume pass away. + + I went a roaming, maidens, one bright day, + In a green garden in mid month of May. + +The next Ballata is less simple, but is composed with the same +intention. It may here be parenthetically mentioned that the courtly +poet, when he applied himself to this species of composition, invented +a certain rusticity of incident, scarcely in keeping with the spirit +of his art. It was in fact a conventional feature of this species of +verse that the scene should be laid in the country, where the burgher, +on a visit to his villa, is supposed to meet with a rustic beauty who +captivates his eyes and heart. Guido Cavalcanti, in his celebrated +Ballata, 'In un boschetto trovai pastorella,' struck the keynote of +this music, which, it may be reasonably conjectured, was imported into +Italy through Provençal literature from the pastorals of Northern +France. The lady so quaintly imaged by a bird in the following Ballata +of Poliziano is supposed to have been Monna Ippolita Leoncina of +Prato, white-throated, golden-haired, and dressed in crimson silk. + + I found myself one day all, all alone, + For pastime in a field with blossoms strewn. + + I do not think the world a field could show + With herbs of perfume so surpassing rare; + But when I passed beyond the green hedge-row, + A thousand flowers around me flourished fair, + White, pied and crimson, in the summer air; + Among the which I heard a sweet bird's tone. + + I found myself one day all, all alone, + For pastime in a field with blossoms strewn. + + Her song it was so tender and so clear + That all the world listened with love; then I + With stealthy feet a-tiptoe drawing near, + Her golden head and golden wings could spy, + Her plumes that flashed like rubies 'neath the sky, + Her crystal beak and throat and bosom's zone. + + I found myself one day all, all alone, + For pastime in a field with blossoms strewn. + + Fain would I snare her, smit with mighty love; + But arrow-like she soared, and through the air + Fled to her nest upon the boughs above; + Wherefore to follow her is all my care, + For haply I might lure her by some snare + Forth from the woodland wild where she is flown. + + I found myself one day all, all alone, + For pastime in a field with blossoms strewn. + + Yea, I might spread some net or woven wile; + But since of singing she doth take such pleasure, + Without or other art or other guile + I seek to win her with a tuneful measure; + Therefore in singing spend I all my leisure, + To make by singing this sweet bird my own. + + I found myself one day all, all alone, + For pastime in a field with blossoms strewn. + +The same lady is more directly celebrated in the next Ballata, where +Poliziano calls her by her name, Ippolita. I have taken the liberty of +substituting Myrrha for this somewhat unmanageable word. + + He who knows not what thing is Paradise, + Let him look fixedly on Myrrha's eyes. + + From Myrrha's eyes there flieth, girt with fire, + An angel of our lord, a laughing boy, + Who lights in frozen hearts a flaming pyre, + And with such sweetness doth the soul destroy, + That while it dies, it murmurs forth its joy; + Oh blessed am I to dwell in Paradise! + + He who knows not what thing is Paradise, + Let him look fixedly on Myrrha's eyes. + + From Myrrha's eyes a virtue still doth move, + So swift and with so fierce and strong a flight, + That it is like the lightning of high Jove, + Riving of iron and adamant the might; + Nathless the wound doth carry such delight + That he who suffers dwells in Paradise. + + He who knows not what thing is Paradise, + Let him look fixedly on Myrrha's eyes. + + From Myrrha's eyes a lovely messenger + Of joy so grave, so virtuous, doth flee, + That all proud souls are bound to bend to her; + So sweet her countenance, it turns the key + Of hard hearts locked in cold security: + Forth flies the prisoned soul to Paradise. + + He who knows not what thing is Paradise, + Let him look fixedly on Myrrha's eyes. + + In Myrrha's eyes beauty doth make her throne, + And sweetly smile and sweetly speak her mind: + Such grace in her fair eyes a man hath known + As in the whole wide world he scarce may find: + Yet if she slay him with a glance too kind, + He lives again beneath her gazing eyes. + + He who knows not what thing is Paradise, + Let him look fixedly on Myrrha's eyes. + +The fourth Ballata sets forth the fifteenth-century Italian code of +love, the code of the Novelle, very different in its avowed laxity +from the high ideal of the trecentisti poets. + + I ask no pardon if I follow Love; + Since every gentle heart is thrall thereof. + + From those who feel the fire I feel, what use + Is there in asking pardon? These are so + Gentle, kind-hearted, tender, piteous, + That they will have compassion, well I know. + From such as never felt that honeyed woe, + I seek no pardon: nought they know of Love. + + I ask no pardon if I follow Love; + Since every gentle heart is thrall thereof. + + Honour, pure love, and perfect gentleness, + Weighed in the scales of equity refined, + Are but one thing: beauty is nought or less, + Placed in a dame of proud and scornful mind. + Who can rebuke me then if I am kind + So far as honesty comports and Love? + + I ask no pardon if I follow Love; + Since every gentle heart is thrall thereof. + + Let him rebuke me whose hard heart of stone + Ne'er felt of Love the summer in his vein! + I pray to Love that who hath never known + Love's power, may ne'er be blessed with Love's great gain; + But he who serves our lord with might and main, + May dwell for ever in the fire of Love! + + I ask no pardon if I follow Love; + Since every gentle heart is thrall thereof. + + Let him rebuke me without cause who will; + For if he be not gentle, I fear nought: + My heart obedient to the same love still + Hath little heed of light words envy-fraught: + So long as life remains, it is my thought + To keep the laws of this so gentle Love. + + I ask no pardon if I follow Love; + Since every gentle heart is thrall thereof. + +This Ballata is put into a woman's mouth. Another, ascribed to Lorenzo +de' Medici, expresses the sadness of a man who has lost the favour of +his lady. It illustrates the well-known use of the word _Signore_ for +mistress in Florentine poetry. + + How can I sing light-souled and fancy-free, + When my loved lord no longer smiles on me? + + Dances and songs and merry wakes I leave + To lovers fair, more fortunate and gay; + Since to my heart so many sorrows cleave + That only doleful tears are mine for aye: + Who hath heart's ease, may carol, dance, and play + While I am fain to weep continually. + + How can I sing light-souled and fancy-free, + When my loved lord no longer smiles on me? + + I too had heart's ease once, for so Love willed, + When my lord loved me with love strong and great: + But envious fortune my life's music stilled, + And turned to sadness all my gleeful state. + Ah me! Death surely were less desolate + Than thus to live and love-neglected be! + + How can I sing light-souled and fancy-free, + When my loved lord no longer smiles on me? + + One only comfort soothes my heart's despair, + And mid this sorrow lends my soul some cheer; + Unto my lord I ever yielded fair + Service of faith untainted pure and clear; + If then I die thus guiltless, on my bier + It may be she will shed one tear for me. + + How can I sing light-souled and fancy-free, + When my loved lord no longer smiles on me? + +The Florentine _Rispetto_ was written for the most part in octave +stanzas, detached or continuous. The octave stanza in Italian +literature was an emphatically popular form; and it is still largely +used in many parts of the peninsula for the lyrical expression of +emotion.[31] Poliziano did no more than treat it with his own +facility, sacrificing the unstudied raciness of his popular models to +literary elegance. + +Here are a few of these detached stanzas or _Rispetti Spicciolati_:-- + + Upon that day when first I saw thy face, + I vowed with loyal love to worship thee. + Move, and I move; stay, and I keep my place: + Whate'er thou dost, will I do equally. + + In joy of thine I find most perfect grace, + And in thy sadness dwells my misery: + Laugh, and I laugh; weep, and I too will weep. + Thus Love commands, whose laws I loving keep. + + Nay, be not over-proud of thy great grace, + Lady! for brief time is thy thief and mine. + White will he turn those golden curls, that lace + Thy forehead and thy neck so marble-fine. + Lo! while the flower still flourisheth apace, + Pluck it: for beauty but awhile doth shine. + Fair is the rose at dawn; but long ere night + Her freshness fades, her pride hath vanished quite. + + Fire, fire! Ho, water! for my heart's afire! + Ho, neighbours! help me, or by God I die! + See, with his standard, that great lord, Desire! + He sets my heart aflame: in vain I cry. + Too late, alas! The flames mount high and higher. + Alack, good friends! I faint, I fail, I die. + Ho! water, neighbours mine! no more delay I + My heart's a cinder if you do but stay. + + Lo, may I prove to Christ a renegade, + And, dog-like, die in pagan Barbary; + Nor may God's mercy on my soul be laid, + If ere for aught I shall abandon thee: + Before all-seeing God this prayer be made-- + When I desert thee, may death feed on me: + Now if thy hard heart scorn these vows, be sure + That without faith none may abide secure. + + I ask not, Love, for any other pain + To make thy cruel foe and mine repent, + Only that thou shouldst yield her to the strain + Of these my arms, alone, for chastisement; + Then would I clasp her so with might and main, + That she should learn to pity and relent, + And, in revenge for scorn and proud despite, + A thousand times I'd kiss her forehead white. + + Not always do fierce tempests vex the sea, + Nor always clinging clouds offend the sky; + Cold snows before the sunbeams haste to flee, + Disclosing flowers that 'neath their whiteness lie; + The saints each one doth wait his day to see, + And time makes all things change; so, therefore, I + Ween that 'tis wise to wait my turn, and say, + That who subdues himself, deserves to sway. + +It will be observed that the tone of these poems is not passionate nor +elevated. Love, as understood in Florence of the fifteenth century, +was neither; nor was Poliziano the man to have revived Platonic +mysteries or chivalrous enthusiasms. When the octave stanzas, written +with this amorous intention, were strung together into a continuous +poem, this form of verse took the title of _Rispetto Gontinuato_. In +the collection of Poliziano's poems there are several examples of the +long Rispetto, carelessly enough composed, as may be gathered from the +recurrence of the same stanzas in several poems. All repeat the old +arguments, the old enticements to a less than lawful love. The one +which I have chosen for translation, styled _Serenata ovvero Lettera +in Istrambotti_, might be selected as an epitome of Florentine +convention in the matter of love-making. + + O thou of fairest fairs the first and queen, + Most courteous, kind, and honourable dame, + Thine ear unto thy servant's singing lean, + Who loves thee more than health, or wealth, or fame; + For thou his shining planet still hast been, + And day and night he calls on thy fair name: + First wishing thee all good the world can give, + Next praying in thy gentle thoughts to live. + + He humbly prayeth that thou shouldst be kind + To think upon his pure and perfect faith, + And that such mercy in thy heart and mind + Should reign, as so much beauty argueth: + A thousand, thousand hints, or he were blind, + Of thy great courtesy he reckoneth: + Wherefore thy loyal subject now doth sue + Such guerdon only as shall prove them true. + + He knows himself unmeet for love from thee, + Unmeet for merely gazing on thine eyes; + Seeing thy comely squires so plenteous be, + That there is none but 'neath thy beauty sighs: + Yet since thou seekest fame and bravery, + Nor carest aught for gauds that others prize, + And since he strives to honour thee alway, + He still hath hope to gain thy heart one day. + + Virtue that dwells untold, unknown, unseen, + Still findeth none to love or value it; + Wherefore his faith, that hath so perfect been, + Not being known, can profit him no whit: + He would find pity in thine eyes, I ween, + If thou shouldst deign to make some proof of it; + The rest may flatter, gape, and stand agaze; + Him only faith above the crowd doth raise. + + Suppose that he might meet thee once alone, + Face unto face, without or jealousy, + Or doubt or fear from false misgiving grown, + And tell his tale of grievous pain to thee, + Sure from thy breast he'd draw full many a moan. + And make thy fair eyes weep right plenteously: + Yea, if he had but skill his heart to show, + He scarce could fail to win thee by its woe. + + Now art thou in thy beauty's blooming hour; + Thy youth is yet in pure perfection's prime: + Make it thy pride to yield thy fragile flower, + Or look to find it paled by envious time: + For none to stay the flight of years hath power, + And who culls roses caught by frosty rime? + Give therefore to thy lover, give, for they + Too late repent who act not while they may. + + Time flies: and lo! thou let'st it idly fly: + There is not in the world a thing more dear; + And if thou wait to see sweet May pass by, + Where find'st thou roses in the later year? + He never can, who lets occasion die: + Now that thou canst, stay not for doubt or fear; + But by the forelock take the flying hour, + Ere change begins, and clouds above thee lower. + + Too long 'twixt yea and nay he hath been wrung; + Whether he sleep or wake he little knows, + Or free or in the bands of bondage strung: + Nay, lady, strike, and let thy lover loose! + What joy hast thou to keep a captive hung? + Kill him at once, or cut the cruel noose: + No more, I prithee, stay; but take thy part: + Either relax the bow, or speed the dart. + + Thou feedest him on words and windiness, + On smiles, and signs, and bladders light as air; + Saying, thou fain wouldst comfort his distress, + But dar'st not, canst not: nay, dear lady fair, + All things are possible beneath the stress + Of will, that flames above the soul's despair! + Dally no longer: up, set to thy hand; + Or see his love unclothed and naked stand. + + For he hath sworn, and by this oath will bide, + E'en though his life be lost in the endeavour, + To leave no way, nor art, nor wile untried, + Until he pluck the fruit he sighs for ever: + And, though he still would spare thy honest pride, + The knot that binds him he must loose or sever; + Thou too, O lady, shouldst make sharp thy knife, + If thou art fain to end this amorous strife. + + Lo! if thou lingerest still in dubious dread, + Lest thou shouldst lose fair fame of honesty, + Here hast thou need of wile and warihead, + To test thy lover's strength in screening thee; + Indulge him, if thou find him well bestead, + Knowing that smothered love flames outwardly: + Therefore, seek means, search out some privy way; + Keep not the steed too long at idle play. + + Or if thou heedest what those friars teach, + I cannot fail, lady, to call thee fool: + Well may they blame our private sins and preach; + But ill their acts match with their spoken rule; + The same pitch clings to all men, one and each. + There, I have spoken: set the world to school + With this true proverb, too, be well acquainted + The devil's ne'er so black as he is painted. + + Nor did our good Lord give such grace to thee + That thou shouldst keep it buried in thy breast, + But to reward thy servant's constancy, + Whose love and loyal faith thou hast repressed: + Think it no sin to be some trifle free, + Because thou livest at a lord's behest; + For if he take enough to feed his fill, + To cast the rest away were surely ill. + + They find most favour in the sight of heaven + Who to the poor and hungry are most kind; + A hundred-fold shall thus to thee be given + By God, who loves the free and generous mind; + Thrice strike thy breast, with pure contrition riven, + Crying: I sinned; my sin hath made me blind!-- + He wants not much: enough if he be able + To pick up crumbs that fall beneath thy table. + + Wherefore, O lady, break the ice at length; + Make thou, too, trial of love's fruits and flowers: + When in thine arms thou feel'st thy lover's strength, + Thou wilt repent of all these wasted hours; + Husbands, they know not love, its breadth and length, + Seeing their hearts are not on fire like ours: + Things longed for give most pleasure; this I tell thee: + If still thou doubtest let the proof compel thee. + + What I have spoken is pure gospel sooth; + I have told all my mind, withholding nought: + And well, I ween, thou canst unhusk the truth, + And through the riddle read the hidden thought: + Perchance if heaven still smile upon my youth, + Some good effect for me may yet be wrought: + Then fare thee well; too many words offend: + She who is wise is quick to comprehend. + +The levity of these love-declarations and the fluency of their vows +show them to be 'false as dicers' oaths,' mere verses of the moment, +made to please a facile mistress. One long poem, which cannot be +styled a Rispetto, but is rather a Canzone of the legitimate type, +stands out with distinctness from the rest of Poliziano's love-verses. +It was written by him for Giuliano de' Medici, in praise of the fair +Simonetta. The following version attempts to repeat its metrical +effects in some measure:-- + + My task it is, since thus Love wills, who strains + And forces all the world beneath his sway, + In lowly verse to say + The great delight that in my bosom reigns. + For if perchance I took but little pains + To tell some part of all the joy I find, + I might be deem'd unkind + By one who knew my heart's deep happiness. + He feels but little bliss who hides his bliss; + Small joy hath he whose joy is never sung; + And he who curbs his tongue + Through cowardice, knows but of love the name. + Wherefore to succour and augment the fame + Of that pure, virtuous, wise, and lovely may, + Who like the star of day + Shines mid the stars, or like the rising sun, + Forth from my burning heart the words shall run. + Far, far be envy, far be jealous fear, + With discord dark and drear, + And all the choir that is of love the foe.-- + The season had returned when soft winds blow, + The season friendly to young lovers coy, + Which bids them clothe their joy + In divers garbs and many a masked disguise. + Then I to track the game 'neath April skies + Went forth in raiment strange apparellèd, + And by kind fate was led + Unto the spot where stayed my soul's desire. + The beauteous nymph who feeds my soul with fire, + I found in gentle, pure, and prudent mood, + In graceful attitude, + Loving and courteous, holy, wise, benign. + So sweet, so tender was her face divine, + So gladsome, that in those celestial eyes + Shone perfect paradise, + Yea, all the good that we poor mortals crave. + Around her was a band so nobly brave + Of beauteous dames, that as I gazed at these + Methought heaven's goddesses + That day for once had deigned to visit earth. + But she who gives my soul sorrow and mirth, + Seemed Pallas in her gait, and in her face + Venus; for every grace + And beauty of the world in her combined. + Merely to think, far more to tell my mind + Of that most wondrous sight, confoundeth me, + For mid the maidens she + Who most resembled her was found most rare. + Call ye another first among the fair; + Not first, but sole before my lady set: + Lily and violet + And all the flowers below the rose must bow. + Down from her royal head and lustrous brow + The golden curls fell sportively unpent, + While through the choir she went + With feet well lessoned to the rhythmic sound. + Her eyes, though scarcely raised above the ground, + Sent me by stealth a ray divinely fair; + But still her jealous hair + Broke the bright beam, and veiled her from my gaze. + She, born and nursed in heaven for angels' praise, + No sooner saw this wrong, than back she drew, + With hand of purest hue, + Her truant curls with kind and gentle mien. + Then from her eyes a soul so fiery keen, + So sweet a soul of love she cast on mine, + That scarce can I divine + How then I 'scaped from burning utterly. + These are the first fair signs of love to be, + That bound my heart with adamant, and these + The matchless courtesies + Which, dreamlike, still before mine eyes must hover. + This is the honeyed food she gave her lover, + To make him, so it pleased her, half-divine; + Nectar is not so fine, + Nor ambrosy, the fabled feast of Jove. + Then, yielding proofs more clear and strong of love, + As though to show the faith within her heart, + She moved, with subtle art, + Her feet accordant to the amorous air. + But while I gaze and pray to God that ne'er + Might cease that happy dance angelical, + O harsh, unkind recall! + Back to the banquet was she beckonèd. + She, with her face at first with pallor spread, + Then tinted with a blush of coral dye, + 'The ball is best!' did cry, + Gentle in tone and smiling as she spake. + But from her eyes celestial forth did break + Favour at parting; and I well could see + Young love confusedly + Enclosed within the furtive fervent gaze, + Heating his arrows at their beauteous rays, + For war with Pallas and with Dian cold. + Fairer than mortal mould, + She moved majestic with celestial gait; + And with her hand her robe in royal state + Raised, as she went with pride ineffable. + Of me I cannot tell, + Whether alive or dead I there was left. + Nay, dead, methinks! since I of thee was reft, + Light of my life! and yet, perchance, alive-- + Such virtue to revive + My lingering soul possessed thy beauteous face, + But if that powerful charm of thy great grace + Could then thy loyal lover so sustain, + Why comes there not again + More often or more soon the sweet delight? + Twice hath the wandering moon with borrowed light + Stored from her brother's rays her crescent horn, + Nor yet hath fortune borne + Me on the way to so much bliss again. + Earth smiles anew; fair spring renews her reign: + The grass and every shrub once more is green; + The amorous birds begin, + From winter loosed, to fill the field with song. + See how in loving pairs the cattle throng; + The bull, the ram, their amorous jousts enjoy: + Thou maiden, I a boy, + Shall we prove traitors to love's law for aye? + Shall we these years that are so fair let fly? + Wilt thou not put thy flower of youth to use? + Or with thy beauty choose + To make him blest who loves thee best of all? + Haply I am some hind who guards the stall, + Or of vile lineage, or with years outworn, + Poor, or a cripple born, + Or faint of spirit that you spurn me so? + Nay, but my race is noble and doth grow + With honour to our land, with pomp and power; + My youth is yet in flower, + And it may chance some maiden sighs for me. + My lot it is to deal right royally + With all the goods that fortune spreads around, + For still they more abound, + Shaken from her full lap, the more I waste. + My strength is such as whoso tries shall taste; + Circled with friends, with favours crowned am I: + Yet though I rank so high + Among the blest, as men may reckon bliss, + Still without thee, my hope, my happiness, + It seems a sad, and bitter thing to live! + Then stint me not, but give + That joy which holds all joys enclosed in one. + Let me pluck fruits at last, not flowers alone! + +With much that is frigid, artificial, and tedious in this +old-fashioned love-song, there is a curious monotony of sweetness +which commends it to our ears; and he who reads it may remember the +profile portrait of Simonetta from the hand of Piero della Francesca +in the Pitti Palace at Florence. + +It is worth comparing Poliziano's treatment of popular or semi-popular +verse-forms with his imitations of Petrarch's manner. For this purpose +I have chosen a _Canzone_, clearly written in competition with the +celebrated 'Chiare, fresche e dolci acque,' of Laura's lover. While +closely modelled upon Petrarch's form and similar in motive, this +Canzone preserves Poliziano's special qualities of fluency and +emptiness of content. + + Hills, valleys, caves and fells, + With flowers and leaves and herbage spread; + Green meadows; shadowy groves where light is low; + Lawns watered with the rills + That cruel Love hath made me shed, + Cast from these cloudy eyes so dark with woe; + Thou stream that still dost know + What fell pangs pierce my heart, + So dost thou murmur back my moan; + Lone bird that chauntest tone for tone, + While in our descant drear Love sings his part: + Nymphs, woodland wanderers, wind and air; + List to the sound out-poured from my despair! + Seven times and once more seven + The roseate dawn her beauteous brow + Enwreathed with orient jewels hath displayed; + Cynthia once more in heaven + Hath orbed her horns with silver now; + While in sea waves her brother's light was laid; + Since this high mountain glade + Felt the white footsteps fall + Of that proud lady, who to spring + Converts whatever woodland thing + She may o'ershadow, touch, or heed at all. + Here bloom the flowers, the grasses spring + From her bright eyes, and drink what mine must bring. + Yea, nourished with my tears + Is every little leaf I see, + And the stream rolls therewith a prouder wave. + Ah me! through what long years + Will she withhold her face from me, + Which stills the stormy skies howe'er they rave? + Speak! or in grove or cave + If one hath seen her stray, + Plucking amid those grasses green + Wreaths for her royal brows serene, + Flowers white and blue and red and golden gay! + Nay, prithee, speak, if pity dwell + Among these woods, within this leafy dell! + O Love! 'twas here we saw, + Beneath the new-fledged leaves that spring + From this old beech, her fair form lowly laid:-- + The thought renews my awe! + How sweetly did her tresses fling + Waves of wreathed gold unto the winds that strayed + Fire, frost within me played, + While I beheld the bloom + Of laughing flowers--O day of bliss!-- + Around those tresses meet and kiss, + And roses in her lap of Love the home! + Her grace, her port divinely fair, + Describe it, Love! myself I do not dare. + In mute intent surprise + I gazed, as when a hind is seen + To dote upon its image in a rill; + Drinking those love-lit eyes, + Those hands, that face, those words serene, + That song which with delight the heaven did fill, + That smile which thralls me still, + Which melteth stones unkind, + Which in this woodland wilderness + Tames every beast and stills the stress + Of hurrying waters. Would that I could find + Her footprints upon field or grove! + I should not then be envious of Jove. + Thou cool stream rippling by, + Where oft it pleased her to dip + Her naked foot, how blest art thou! + Ye branching trees on high, + That spread your gnarled roots on the lip + Of yonder hanging rock to drink heaven's dew! + She often leaned on you, + She who is my life's bliss! + Thou ancient beech with moss o'ergrown, + How do I envy thee thy throne, + Found worthy to receive such happiness! + Ye winds, how blissful must ye be, + Since ye have borne to heaven her harmony! + The winds that music bore, + And wafted it to God on high, + That Paradise might have the joy thereof. + Flowers here she plucked, and wore + Wild roses from the thorn hard by: + This air she lightened with her look of love: + This running stream above, + She bent her face!--Ah me! + Where am I? What sweet makes me swoon? + What calm is in the kiss of noon? + Who brought me here? Who speaks? What melody? + Whence came pure peace into my soul? + What joy hath rapt me from my own control? + +Poliziano's refrain is always: 'Gather ye rosebuds while ye may. It is +spring-time now and youth. Winter and old age are coming!' A _Maggio_, +or May-day song, describing the games, dances, and jousting matches of +the Florentine lads upon the morning of the first of May, expresses +this facile philosophy of life with a quaintness that recalls Herrick. +It will be noticed that the Maggio is built, so far as rhymes go, on +the same system as Poliziano's Ballata. It has considerable historical +interest, for the opening couplet is said to be Guido Cavalcanti's, +while the whole poem is claimed by Roscoe for Lorenzo de' Medici, and +by Carducci with better reason for Poliziano. + + Welcome in the May + And the woodland garland gay! + + Welcome in the jocund spring + Which bids all men lovers be! + Maidens, up with carolling, + With your sweethearts stout and free, + With roses and with blossoms ye + Who deck yourselves this first of May! + + Up, and forth into the pure + Meadows, mid the trees and flowers! + Every beauty is secure + With so many bachelors: + Beasts and birds amid the bowers + Burn with love this first of May. + + Maidens, who are young and fair, + Be not harsh, I counsel you; + For your youth cannot repair + Her prime of spring, as meadows do: + None be proud, but all be true + To men who love, this first of May. + + Dance and carol every one + Of our band so bright and gay! + See your sweethearts how they run + Through the jousts for you to-day! + She who saith her lover nay, + Will deflower the sweets of May, + + Lads in love take sword and shield + To make pretty girls their prize: + Yield ye, merry maidens, yield + To your lovers' vows and sighs: + Give his heart back ere it dies: + Wage not war this first of May. + + He who steals another's heart, + Let him give his own heart too: + Who's the robber? 'Tis the smart + Little cherub Cupid, who + Homage comes to pay with you, + Damsels, to the first of May. + + Love comes smiling; round his head + Lilies white and roses meet: + 'Tis for you his flight is sped. + Fair one, haste our king to greet: + Who will fling him blossoms sweet + Soonest on this first of May? + + Welcome, stranger! welcome, king! + Love, what hast thou to command? + That each girl with wreaths should ring + Her lover's hair with loving hand, + That girls small and great should band + In Love's ranks this first of May. + +The _Canto Carnascialesco_, for the final development if not for the +invention of which all credit must be given to Lorenzo de' Medici, +does not greatly differ from the Maggio in structure. It admitted, +however, of great varieties, and was generally more complex in its +interweaving of rhymes. Yet the essential principle of an exordium +which should also serve for a refrain, was rarely, if ever, departed +from. Two specimens of the Carnival Song will serve to bring into +close contrast two very different aspects of Florentine history. The +earlier was composed by Lorenzo de' Medici at the height of his power +and in the summer of Italian independence. It was sung by masquers +attired in classical costume, to represent Bacchus and his crew. + + Fair is youth and void of sorrow; + But it hourly flies away.-- + Youths and maids, enjoy to-day; + Nought ye know about to-morrow. + + This is Bacchus and the bright + Ariadne, lovers true! + They, in flying time's despite, + Each with each find pleasure new; + These their Nymphs, and all their crew + Keep perpetual holiday.-- + Youths and maids, enjoy to-day; + Nought ye know about to-morrow. + + These blithe Satyrs, wanton-eyed, + Of the Nymphs are paramours: + Through the caves and forests wide + They have snared them mid the flowers; + Warmed with Bacchus, in his bowers, + Now they dance and leap alway.-- + Youths and maids, enjoy to-day; + Nought ye know about to-morrow. + + These fair Nymphs, they are not loth + To entice their lovers' wiles. + None but thankless folk and rough + Can resist when Love beguiles. + Now enlaced, with wreathèd smiles, + All together dance and play.-- + Youths and maids, enjoy to-day; + Nought ye know about to-morrow. + + See this load behind them plodding + On the ass! Silenus he, + Old and drunken, merry, nodding, + Full of years and jollity; + Though he goes so swayingly, + Yet he laughs and quaffs alway.-- + Youths and maids, enjoy to-day; + Nought ye know about to-morrow. + + Midas treads a wearier measure: + All he touches turns to gold: + If there be no taste of pleasure, + What's the use of wealth untold? + What's the joy his fingers hold, + When he's forced to thirst for aye?-- + Youths and maids, enjoy to-day; + Nought ye know about to-morrow. + + Listen well to what we're saying; + Of to-morrow have no care! + Young and old together playing, + Boys and girls, be blithe as air! + Every sorry thought forswear! + Keep perpetual holiday.--- + Youths and maids, enjoy to-day; + Nought ye know about to-morrow. + + Ladies and gay lovers young! + Long live Bacchus, live Desire! + Dance and play; let songs be sung; + Let sweet love your bosoms fire; + In the future come what may!--- + Youths and maids, enjoy to-day! + Nought ye know about to-morrow. + + Fair is youth and void of sorrow; + But it hourly flies away. + +The next, composed by Antonio Alamanni, after Lorenzo's death and the +ominous passage of Charles VIII., was sung by masquers habited as +skeletons. The car they rode on, was a Car of Death designed by Piero +di Cosimo, and their music was purposely gloomy. If in the jovial days +of the Medici the streets of Florence had rung to the thoughtless +refrain, 'Nought ye know about to-morrow,' they now re-echoed with a +cry of 'Penitence;' for times had strangely altered, and the heedless +past had brought forth a doleful present. The last stanza of +Alamanni's chorus is a somewhat clumsy attempt to adapt the too real +moral of his subject to the customary mood of the Carnival. + + + Sorrow, tears, and penitence + Are our doom of pain for aye; + This dead concourse riding by + Hath no cry but penitence! + + E'en as you are, once were we: + You shall be as now we are: + We are dead men, as you see: + We shall see you dead men, where + Nought avails to take great care, + After sins, of penitence. + + We too in the Carnival + Sang our love-songs through the town; + Thus from sin to sin we all + Headlong, heedless, tumbled down:-- + Now we cry, the world around, + Penitence! oh, Penitence! + + Senseless, blind, and stubborn fools! + Time steals all things as he rides: + Honours, glories, states, and schools, + Pass away, and nought abides; + Till the tomb our carcase hides, + And compels this penitence. + + This sharp scythe you see us bear, + Brings the world at length to woe: + But from life to life we fare; + And that life is joy or woe: + All heaven's bliss on him doth flow + Who on earth does penitence. + + Living here, we all must die; + Dying, every soul shall live: + For the King of kings on high + This fixed ordinance doth give: + Lo, you all are fugitive! + Penitence! Cry Penitence! + + Torment great and grievous dole + Hath the thankless heart mid you; + But the man of piteous soul + Finds much honour in our crew: + Love for loving is the due + That prevents this penitence. + + Sorrow, tears, and penitence + Are our doom of pain for aye: + This dead concourse riding by + Hath no cry but Penitence! + +One song for dancing, composed less upon the type of the Ballata than +on that of the Carnival Song, may here be introduced, not only in +illustration of the varied forms assumed by this style of poetry, but +also because it is highly characteristic of Tuscan town-life. This +poem in the vulgar style has been ascribed to Lorenzo de' Medici, but +probably without due reason. It describes the manners and customs of +female street gossips. + + Since you beg with such a grace, + How can I refuse a song, + Wholesome, honest, void of wrong, + On the follies of the place? + + Courteously on you I call; + Listen well to what I sing: + For my roundelay to all + May perchance instruction bring, + And of life good lessoning.-- + When in company you meet, + Or sit spinning, all the street + Clamours like a market-place. + + Thirty of you there may be; + Twenty-nine are sure to buzz, + And the single silent she + Racks her brains about her coz:-- + Mrs. Buzz and Mrs. Huzz, + Mind your work, my ditty saith; + Do not gossip till your breath + Fails and leaves you black of face! + + Governments go out and in:-- + You the truth must needs discover. + Is a girl about to win + A brave husband in her lover?-- + Straight you set to talk him over: + 'Is he wealthy?' 'Does his coat + Fit?' 'And has he got a vote?' + 'Who's his father?' 'What's his race?' + + Out of window one head pokes; + Twenty others do the same:-- + Chatter, clatter!--creaks and croaks + All the year the same old game!-- + 'See my spinning!' cries one dame, + 'Five long ells of cloth, I trow!' + Cries another, 'Mine must go, + Drat it, to the bleaching base!' + + 'Devil take the fowl!' says one: + 'Mine are all bewitched, I guess; + Cocks and hens with vermin run, + Mangy, filthy, featherless.' + Says another: 'I confess + Every hair I drop, I keep-- + Plague upon it, in a heap + Falling off to my disgrace!' + + If you see a fellow walk + Up or down the street and back, + How you nod and wink and talk, + Hurry-skurry, cluck and clack!-- + 'What, I wonder, does he lack + Here about?'--'There's something wrong!' + Till the poor man's made a song + For the female populace. + + It were well you gave no thought + To such idle company; + Shun these gossips, care for nought + But the business that you ply. + You who chatter, you who cry, + Heed my words; be wise, I pray: + Fewer, shorter stories say: + Bide at home, and mind your place. + + Since you beg with such a grace, + How can I refuse a song, + Wholesome, honest, void of wrong, + On the follies of the place? + +The _Madrigale_, intended to be sung in parts, was another species of +popular poetry cultivated by the greatest of Italian writers. Without +seeking examples from such men as Petrarch, Michelangelo, or Tasso, +who used it as a purely literary form, I will content myself with a +few Madrigals by anonymous composers, more truly popular in style, and +more immediately intended for music.[32] The similarity both of manner +and matter, between these little poems and the Ballate, is obvious. +There is the same affectation of rusticity in both. + + _Cogliendo per un prato._ + + Plucking white lilies in a field I saw + Fair women, laden with young Love's delight: + Some sang, some danced; but all were fresh and bright. + Then by the margin of a fount they leaned, + And of those flowers made garlands for their hair-- + Wreaths for their golden tresses quaint and rare. + Forth from the field I passed, and gazed upon + Their loveliness, and lost my heart to one. + + _Togliendo l' una all' altra._ + + One from the other borrowing leaves and flowers, + I saw fair maidens 'neath the summer trees, + Weaving bright garlands with low love-ditties. + Mid that sweet sisterhood the loveliest + Turned her soft eyes to me, and whispered, 'Take!' + Love-lost I stood, and not a word I spake. + My heart she read, and her fair garland gave: + Therefore I am her servant to the grave. + + _Appress' un fiume chiaro_. + + Hard by a crystal stream + Girls and maids were dancing round + A lilac with fair blossoms crowned. + Mid these I spied out one + So tender-sweet, so love-laden, + She stole my heart with singing then: + Love in her face so lovely-kind + And eyes and hands my soul did bind. + + _Di riva in riva_. + + From lawn to lea Love led me down the valley, + Seeking my hawk, where 'neath a pleasant hill + I spied fair maidens bathing in a rill. + Lina was there all loveliness excelling; + The pleasure of her beauty made me sad, + And yet at sight of her my soul was glad. + Downward I cast mine eyes with modest seeming, + And all a tremble from the fountain fled: + For each was naked as her maidenhead. + Thence singing fared I through a flowery plain, + Where bye and bye I found my hawk again! + + _Nel chiaro fiume_. + + Down a fair streamlet crystal-clear and pleasant + I went a fishing all alone one day, + And spied three maidens bathing there at play. + Of love they told each other honeyed stories, + While with white hands they smote the stream, to wet + Their sunbright hair in the pure rivulet. + Gazing I crouched among thick flowering leafage, + Till one who spied a rustling branch on high, + Turned to her comrades with a sudden cry, + And 'Go! Nay, prithee go!' she called to me: + 'To stay were surely but scant courtesy.' + + _Quel sole che nutrica._ + + The sun which makes a lily bloom, + Leans down at times on her to gaze-- + Fairer, he deems, than his fair rays: + Then, having looked a little while, + He turns and tells the saints in bliss + How marvellous her beauty is. + Thus up in heaven with flute and string + Thy loveliness the angels sing. + + _Di novo è giunt'._ + + Lo: here hath come an errant knight + On a barbed charger clothed in mail: + His archers scatter iron hail. + At brow and breast his mace he aims; + Who therefore hath not arms of proof, + Let him live locked by door and roof; + Until Dame Summer on a day + That grisly knight return to slay. + +Poliziano's treatment of the octave stanza for Rispetti was +comparatively popular. But in his poem of 'La Giostra,' written to +commemorate the victory of Giuliano de' Medici in a tournament and to +celebrate his mistress, he gave a new and richer form to the metre +which Boccaccio had already used for epic verse. The slight and +uninteresting framework of this poem, which opened a new sphere for +Italian literature, and prepared the way for Ariosto's golden cantos, +might be compared to one of those wire baskets which children steep in +alum water, and incrust with crystals, sparkling, artificial, +beautiful with colours not their own. The mind of Poliziano held, as +it were, in solution all the images and thoughts of antiquity, all the +riches of his native literature. In that vast reservoir of poems and +mythologies and phrases, so patiently accumulated, so tenaciously +preserved, so thoroughly assimilated, he plunged the trivial subject +he had chosen, and triumphantly presented to the world the _spolia +opima_ of scholarship and taste. What mattered it that the theme was +slight? The art was perfect, the result splendid. One canto of 125 +stanzas describes the youth of Giuliano, who sought to pass his life +among the woods, a hunter dead to love, but who was doomed to be +ensnared by Cupid. The chase, the beauty of Simonetta, the palace of +Venus, these are the three subjects of a book as long as the first +Iliad. The second canto begins with dreams and prophecies of glory to +be won by Giuliano in the tournament. But it stops abruptly. The +tragic catastrophe of the Pazzi Conjuration cut short Poliziano's +panegyric by the murder of his hero. Meanwhile the poet had achieved +his purpose. His torso presented to Italy a model of style, a piece of +written art adequate to the great painting of the Renaissance period, +a double star of poetry which blent the splendours of the ancient and +the modern world. To render into worthy English the harmonies of +Poliziano is a difficult task. Yet this must be attempted if an +English reader is to gain any notion of the scope and substance of the +Italian poet's art. In the first part of the poem we are placed, as it +were, at the mid point between the 'Hippolytus' of Euripides and +Shakspere's 'Venus and Adonis.' The cold hunter Giuliano is to see +Simonetta, and seeing, is to love her. This is how he first discovers +the triumphant beauty:[33] + + White is the maid, and white the robe around her, + With buds and roses and thin grasses pied; + Enwreathèd folds of golden tresses crowned her, + Shadowing her forehead fair with modest pride: + + The wild wood smiled; the thicket where he found her, + To ease his anguish, bloomed on every side: + Serene she sits, with gesture queenly mild, + And with her brow tempers the tempests wild. + +After three stanzas of this sort, in which the poet's style is more +apparent than the object he describes, occurs this charming picture:-- + + Reclined he found her on the swarded grass + In jocund mood; and garlands she had made + Of every flower that in the meadow was, + Or on her robe of many hues displayed; + But when she saw the youth before her pass, + Raising her timid head awhile she stayed; + Then with her white hand gathered up her dress, + And stood, lap-full of flowers, in loveliness. + + Then through the dewy field with footstep slow + The lingering maid began to take her way, + Leaving her lover in great fear and woe, + For now he longs for nought but her alway: + The wretch, who cannot bear that she should go, + Strives with a whispered prayer her feet to stay; + And thus at last, all trembling, all afire, + In humble wise he breathes his soul's desire: + + 'Whoe'er thou art, maid among maidens queen, + Goddess, or nymph--nay, goddess seems most clear-- + If goddess, sure my Dian I have seen; + If mortal, let thy proper self appear! + Beyond terrestrial beauty is thy mien; + I have no merit that I should be here! + What grace of heaven, what lucky star benign + Yields me the sight of beauty so divine?' + +A conversation ensues, after which Giuliano departs utterly lovesick, +and Cupid takes wing exultingly for Cyprus, where his mother's palace +stands. In the following picture of the house of Venus, who shall say +how much of Ariosto's Alcina and Tasso's Armida is contained? Cupid +arrives, and the family of Love is filled with joy at Giuliano's +conquest. From the plan of the poem it is clear that its beauties are +chiefly those of detail. They are, however, very great. How perfect, +for example, is the richness combined with delicacy of the following +description of a country life:-- + +BOOK I. STANZAS 17-21. + + How far more safe it is, how far more fair, + To chase the flying deer along the lea; + Through ancient woods to track their hidden lair, + Far from the town, with long-drawn subtlety: + To scan the vales, the hills, the limpid air, + The grass and flowers, clear ice, and streams so free; + To hear the birds wake from their winter trance, + The wind-stirred leaves and murmuring waters dance. + + How sweet it were to watch the young goats hung + From toppling crags, cropping the tender shoot, + While in thick pleachèd shade the shepherd sung + His uncouth rural lay and woke his flute; + To mark, mid dewy grass, red apples flung, + And every bough thick set with ripening fruit, + The butting rams, kine lowing o'er the lea, + And cornfields waving like the windy sea. + + Lo! how the rugged master of the herd + Before his flock unbars the wattled cote; + Then with his rod and many a rustic word + He rules their going: or 'tis sweet to note + The delver, when his toothèd rake hath stirred + The stubborn clod, his hoe the glebe hath smote; + Barefoot the country girl, with loosened zone, + Spins, while she keeps her geese 'neath yonder stone. + + After such happy wise, in ancient years, + Dwelt the old nations in the age of gold; + Nor had the fount been stirred of mothers' tears + For sons in war's fell labour stark and cold; + Nor trusted they to ships the wild wind steers, + Nor yet had oxen groaning ploughed the wold; + Their houses were huge oaks, whose trunks had store + Of honey, and whose boughs thick acorns bore. + + Nor yet, in that glad time, the accursèd thirst + Of cruel gold had fallen on this fair earth: + Joyous in liberty they lived at first; + Unploughed the fields sent forth their teeming birth; + Till fortune, envious of such concord, burst + The bond of law, and pity banned and worth; + Within their breasts sprang luxury and that rage + Which men call love in our degenerate age. + +We need not be reminded that these stanzas are almost a cento from +Virgil, Hesiod, and Ovid. The merits of the translator, adapter, and +combiner, who knew so well how to cull their beauties and adorn them +with a perfect dress of modern diction, are so eminent that we cannot +deny him the title of a great poet. It is always in picture-painting +more than in dramatic presentation that Poliziano excels. Here is a +basrelief of Venus rising from the Ocean foam:-- + + +STANZAS 99-107. + + In Thetis' lap, upon the vexed Egean, + The seed deific from Olympus sown, + Beneath dim stars and cycling empyrean + Drifts like white foam across the salt waves blown; + Thence, born at last by movements hymenean, + Rises a maid more fair than man hath known; + Upon her shell the wanton breezes waft her; + She nears the shore, while heaven looks down with laughter + + Seeing the carved work you would cry that real + Were shell and sea, and real the winds that blow; + The lightning of the goddess' eyes you feel, + The smiling heavens, the elemental glow: + White-vested Hours across the smooth sands steal, + With loosened curls that to the breezes flow; + Like, yet unlike, are all their beauteous faces, + E'en as befits a choir of sister Graces. + + Well might you swear that on those waves were riding + The goddess with her right hand on her hair, + And with the other the sweet apple hiding; + And that beneath her feet, divinely fair, + Fresh flowers sprang forth, the barren sands dividing; + Then that, with glad smiles and enticements rare, + The three nymphs round their queen, embosoming her, + Threw the starred mantle soft as gossamer. + + The one, with hands above her head upraised, + Upon her dewy tresses fits a wreath, + With ruddy gold and orient gems emblazed; + The second hangs pure pearls her ears beneath; + The third round shoulders white and breast hath placed + Such wealth of gleaming carcanets as sheathe + Their own fair bosoms, when the Graces sing + Among the gods with dance and carolling. + + Thence might you see them rising toward the spheres, + Seated upon a cloud of silvery white; + The trembling of the cloven air appears + Wrought in the stone, and heaven serenely bright; + The gods drink in with open eyes and ears + Her beauty, and desire her bed's delight; + Each seems to marvel with a mute amaze-- + Their brows and foreheads wrinkle as they gaze. + +The next quotation shows Venus in the lap of Mars, and Visited by +Cupid:-- + + STANZAS 122--124. + + Stretched on a couch, outside the coverlid, + Love found her, scarce unloosed from Mars' embrace; + He, lying back within her bosom, fed + His eager eyes on nought but her fair face; + + Roses above them like a cloud were shed, + To reinforce them in the amorous chace; + While Venus, quick with longings unsuppressed, + A thousand times his eyes and forehead kissed. + + Above, around, young Loves on every side + Played naked, darting birdlike to and fro; + And one, whose plumes a thousand colours dyed, + Fanned the shed roses as they lay arow; + One filled his quiver with fresh flowers, and hied + To pour them on the couch that lay below; + Another, poised upon his pinions, through + The falling shower soared shaking rosy dew: + + For, as he quivered with his tremulous wing, + The wandering roses in their drift were stayed;-- + Thus none was weary of glad gambolling; + Till Cupid came, with dazzling plumes displayed, + Breathless; and round his mother's neck did fling + His languid arms, and with his winnowing made + Her heart burn:--very glad and bright of face, + But, with his flight, too tired to speak apace. + +These pictures have in them the very glow of Italian painting. +Sometimes we seem to see a quaint design of Piero di Cosimo, with +bright tints and multitudinous small figures in a spacious landscape. +Sometimes it is the languid grace of Botticelli, whose soul became +possessed of classic inspiration as it were in dreams, and who has +painted the birth of Venus almost exactly as Poliziano imagined it. +Again, we seize the broader beauties of the Venetian masters, or the +vehemence of Giulio Romano's pencil. To the last class belong the two +next extracts:-- + + STANZAS 104--107. + + + In the last square the great artificer + Had wrought himself crowned with Love's perfect palm; + Black from his forge and rough, he runs to her, + Leaving all labour for her bosom's calm: + Lips joined to lips with deep love-longing stir, + Fire in his heart, and in his spirit balm; + Far fiercer flames through breast and marrow fly + Than those which heat his forge in Sicily. + + Jove, on the other side, becomes a bull, + Goodly and white, at Love's behest, and rears + His neck beneath his rich freight beautiful: + She turns toward the shore that disappears, + With frightened gesture; and the wonderful + Gold curls about her bosom and her ears + Float in the wind; her veil waves, backward borne; + This hand still clasps his back, and that his horn. + + With naked feet close-tucked beneath her dress, + She seems to fear the sea that dares not rise: + So, imaged in a shape of drear distress, + In vain unto her comrades sweet she cries; + They left amid the meadow-flowers, no less + For lost Europa wail with weeping eyes: + Europa, sounds the shore, bring back our bliss + But the bull swims and turns her feet to kiss. + + Here Jove is made a swan, a golden shower, + Or seems a serpent, or a shepherd-swain, + To work his amorous will in secret hour; + Here, like an eagle, soars he o'er the plain, + Love-led, and bears his Ganymede, the flower + Of beauty, mid celestial peers to reign; + The boy with cypress hath his fair locks crowned, + Naked, with ivy wreathed his waist around. + + + STANZAS 110--112. + + + Lo! here again fair Ariadne lies, + And to the deaf winds of false Theseus plains. + And of the air and slumber's treacheries; + Trembling with fear even as a reed that strain. + And quivers by the mere 'neath breezy skies: + Her very speechless attitude complains-- + No beast there is so cruel as thou art, + No beast less loyal to my broken heart. + + Throned on a car, with ivy crowned and vine, + Rides Bacchus, by two champing tigers driven: + Around him on the sand deep-soaked with brine + Satyrs and Bacchantes rush; the skies are riven + With shouts and laughter; Fauns quaff bubbling wine + From horns and cymbals; Nymphs, to madness driven, + Trip, skip, and stumble; mixed in wild enlacements, + Laughing they roll or meet for glad embracements. + + Upon his ass Silenus, never sated, + With thick, black veins, wherethrough the must is soaking, + Nods his dull forehead with deep sleep belated; + His eyes are wine-inflamed, and red, and smoking: + Bold Mænads goad the ass so sorely weighted, + With stinging thyrsi; he sways feebly poking + The mane with bloated fingers; Fauns behind him, + E'en as he falls, upon the crupper bind him. + +We almost seem to be looking at the frescoes in some Trasteverine +palace, or at the canvas of one of the sensual Genoese painters. The +description of the garden of Venus has the charm of somewhat +artificial elegance, the exotic grace of style, which attracts us in +the earlier Renaissance work:-- + + The leafy tresses of that timeless garden + Nor fragile brine nor fresh snow dares to whiten; + Frore winter never comes the rills to harden, + Nor winds the tender shrubs and herbs to frighten; + Glad Spring is always here, a laughing warden; + Nor do the seasons wane, but ever brighten; + Here to the breeze young May, her curls unbinding, + With thousand flowers her wreath is ever winding. + +Indeed it may be said with truth that Poliziano's most eminent faculty +as a descriptive poet corresponded exactly to the genius of the +painters of his day. To produce pictures radiant with Renaissance +colouring, and vigorous with Renaissance passion, was the function of +his art, not to express profound thought or dramatic situations. This +remark might be extended with justice to Ariosto, and Tasso, and +Boiardo. The great narrative poets of the Renaissance in Italy were +not dramatists; nor were their poems epics: their forte lay in the +inexhaustible variety and beauty of their pictures. + +Of Poliziano's plagiarism--if this be the right word to apply to the +process of assimilation and selection, by means of which the +poet-scholar of Florence taught the Italians how to use the riches of +the ancient languages and their own literature--here are some +specimens. In stanza 42 of the 'Giostra' he says of Simonetta:-- + + E 'n lei discerne un non so che divino. + + +Dante has the line:-- + + Vostri risplende un non so che divino. + +In the 44th he speaks about the birds:-- + + E canta ogni augelletto in suo latino. + +This comes from Cavalcanti's:-- + + E cantinne gli augelli. + Ciascuno in suo latino. + +Stanza 45 is taken bodily from Claudian, Dante, and Cavalcanti. It +would seem as though Poliziano wished to show that the classic and +medieval literature of Italy was all one, and that a poet of the +Renaissance could carry on the continuous tradition in his own style. +A, line in stanza 54 seems perfectly original:-- + + E già dall'alte ville il fumo esala. + +It comes straight from Virgil:-- + + Et jam summa pocul villarum culmina fumant. + +In the next stanza the line-- + + Tal che 'l ciel tutto rasserenò d'intorno, + +is Petrarch's. So in the 56th, is the phrase 'il dolce andar +celeste.' In stanza 57-- + + Par che 'l cor del petto se gli schianti, + +belongs to Boccaccio. In stanza 60 the first line:-- + + La notte che le cose ci nasconde, + +together with its rhyme, 'sotto le amate fronde,' is borrowed from the +23rd canto of the 'Paradiso.' In the second line, 'Stellato ammanto' +is Claudian's 'stellantes sinus' applied to the heaven. When we reach +the garden of Venus we find whole passages translated from Claudian's +'Marriage of Honorius,' and from the 'Metamorphoses' of Ovid. + +Poliziano's second poem of importance, which indeed may historically +be said to take precedence of 'La Giostra,' was the so-called tragedy +of 'Orfeo.' The English version of this lyrical drama must be reserved +for a separate study: yet it belongs to the subject of this, inasmuch +as the 'Orfeo' is a classical legend treated in a form already +familiar to the Italian people. Nearly all the popular kinds of poetry +of which specimens have been translated in this chapter, will be found +combined in its six short scenes. + + * * * * * + + + + +_ORFEO_ + + +The 'Orfeo' of Messer Angelo Poliziano ranks amongst the most +important poems of the fifteenth century. It was composed at Mantua in +the short space of two days, on the occasion of Cardinal Francesco +Gonzaga's visit to his native town in 1472. But, though so hastily put +together, the 'Orfeo' marks an epoch in the evolution of Italian +poetry. It is the earliest example of a secular drama, containing +within the compass of its brief scenes the germ of the opera, the +tragedy, and the pastoral play. In form it does not greatly differ +from the 'Sacre Rappresentazioni' of the fifteenth century, as those +miracle plays were handled by popular poets of the earlier +Renaissance. But while the traditional octave stanza is used for the +main movement of the piece, Poliziano has introduced episodes of +_terza rima_, madrigals, a carnival song, a _ballata_, and, above all, +choral passages which have in them the future melodrama of the musical +Italian stage. The lyrical treatment of the fable, its capacity for +brilliant and varied scenic effects, its combination of singing with +action, and the whole artistic keeping of the piece, which never +passes into genuine tragedy, but stays within the limits of romantic +pathos, distinguish the 'Orfeo' as a typical production of Italian +genius. Thus, though little better than an improvisation, it combines +the many forms of verse developed by the Tuscans at the close of the +Middle Ages, and fixes the limits beyond which their dramatic poets, +with a few exceptions, were not destined to advance. Nor was the +choice of the fable without significance. Quitting the Bible stories +and the Legends of Saints, which supplied the mediaeval playwright +with material, Poliziano selects a classic story: and this story might +pass for an allegory of Italy, whose intellectual development the +scholar-poet ruled. Orpheus is the power of poetry and art, softening +stubborn nature, civilising men, and prevailing over Hades for a +season. He is the right hero of humanism, the genius of the +Renaissance, the tutelary god of Italy, who thought she could resist +the laws of fate by verse and elegant accomplishments. To press this +kind of allegory is unwise; for at a certain moment it breaks in our +hands. And yet in Eurydice the fancy might discover Freedom, the true +spouse of poetry and art; Orfeo's last resolve too vividly depicts the +vice of the Renaissance; and the Mænads are those barbarous armies +destined to lay waste the plains of Italy, inebriate with wine and +blood, obeying a new lord of life on whom the poet's harp exerts no +charm. But a truce to this spinning of pedantic cobwebs. Let Mercury +appear, and let the play begin. + + +_THE FABLE OF ORPHEUS_ + + MERCURY _announces the show_. + + Ho, silence! Listen! There was once a hind, + Son of Apollo, Aristaeus hight, + Who loved with so untamed and fierce a mind + Eurydice, the wife of Orpheus wight, + That chasing her one day with will unkind + He wrought her cruel death in love's despite; + For, as she fled toward the mere hard by, + A serpent stung her, and she had to die. + + Now Orpheus, singing, brought her back from hell, + But could not keep the law the fates ordain: + Poor wretch, he backward turned and broke the spell; + So that once more from him his love was ta'en. + Therefore he would no more with women dwell, + And in the end by women he was slain. + + _Enter_ A SHEPHERD, _who says_-- + + Nay, listen, friends! Fair auspices are given, + Since Mercury to earth hath come from heaven. + + + + SCENE I + + MOPSUS, _an old shepherd_. + + + Say, hast thou seen a calf of mine, all white + Save for a spot of black upon her front, + Two feet, one flank, and one knee ruddy-bright? + + ARISTAEUS, _a young shepherd_. + + Friend Mopsus, to the margin of this fount + No herds have come to drink since break of day; + Yet may'st thou hear them low on yonder mount. + Go, Thyrsis, search the upland lawn, I pray! + Thou Mopsus shalt with me the while abide; + For I would have thee listen to my lay. + + _[Exit_ THYRSIS. + + 'Twas yester morn where trees yon cavern hide, + I saw a nymph more fair than Dian, who + Had a young lusty lover at her side: + But when that more than woman met my view, + The heart within my bosom leapt outright, + And straight the madness of wild Love I knew. + Since then, dear Mopsus, I have no delight; + But weep and weep: of food and drink I tire, + And without slumber pass the weary night. + + MOPSUS. + + Friend Aristaeus, if this amorous fire + Thou dost not seek to quench as best may be, + Thy peace of soul will vanish in desire. + Thou know'st that love is no new thing to me: + I've proved how love grown old brings bitter pain: + Cure it at once, or hope no remedy; + For if thou find thee in Love's cruel chain, + Thy bees, thy blossoms will be out of mind, + Thy fields, thy vines, thy flocks, thy cotes, thy grain + + ARISTAEUS. + + Mopsus, thou speakest to the deaf and blind: + Waste not on me these wingèd words, I pray, + Lest they be scattered to the inconstant wind, + I love, and cannot wish to say love nay; + Nor seek to cure so charming a disease: + They praise Love best who most against him say. + Yet if thou fain wouldst give my heart some ease, + Forth from thy wallet take thy pipe, and we + Will sing awhile beneath the leafy trees; + For well my nymph is pleased with melody. + + THE SONG. + + Listen, ye wild woods, to my roundelay; + Since the fair nymph will hear not, though I pray. + + The lovely nymph is deaf to my lament, + Nor heeds the music of this rustic reed; + Wherefore my flocks and herds are ill content, + Nor bathe their hoof where grows the water weed, + Nor touch the tender herbage on the mead; + So sad, because their shepherd grieves, are they. + + Listen, ye wild woods, to my roundelay; + Since the fair nymph will hear not, though I pray. + + The herds are sorry for their master's moan; + The nymph heeds not her lover though he die, + The lovely nymph, whose heart is made of stone-- + Nay steel, nay adamant! She still doth fly + Far, far before me, when she sees me nigh, + Even as a lamb flies fern the wolf away. + + Listen, ye wild woods, to my roundelay; + Since the fair nymph will hear not, though I pray. + + Nay, tell her, pipe of mine, how swift doth flee + Beauty together with our years amain; + Tell her how time destroys all rarity, + Nor youth once lost can be renewed again; + Tell her to use the gifts that yet remain: + Roses and violets blossom not alway. + + Listen, ye wild woods, to my roundelay; + Since the fair nymph will hear not, though I pray. + + Carry, ye winds, these sweet words to her ears, + Unto the ears of my loved nymph, and tell + How many tears I shed, what bitter tears! + Beg her to pity one who loves so well: + Say that my life is frail and mutable, + And melts like rime before the rising day. + + Listen, ye wild woods, to my roundelay; + Since the fair nymph will hear not, though I pray. + + MOPSUS. + + Less sweet, methinks the voice of waters falling + From cliffs that echo back their murmurous song; + Less sweet the summer sound of breezes calling + Through pine-tree tops sonorous all day long; + Than are thy rhymes, the soul of grief enthralling, + Thy rhymes o'er field and forest borne along: + If she but hear them, at thy feet she'll fawn.-- + Lo, Thyrsis, hurrying homeward from the lawn! + + [_Re-enters_ THYRSIS. + + ARISTAEUS. + + What of the calf? Say, hast thou seen her now? + + THYRSIS, _the cowherd_. + + I have, and I'd as lief her throat were cut! + She almost ripped my bowels up, I vow, + Running amuck with horns well set to butt: + Nathless I've locked her in the stall below: + She's blown with grass, I tell you, saucy slut! + + ARISTAEUS. + + Now, prithee, let me hear what made you stay + So long upon the upland lawns away? + + THYRSIS. + + Walking, I spied a gentle maiden there, + Who plucked wild flowers upon the mountain side: + I scarcely think that Venus is more fair, + Of sweeter grace, most modest in her pride: + She speaks, she sings, with voice so soft and rare, + That listening streams would backward roll their tide: + Her face is snow and roses; gold her head; + All, all alone she goes, white-raimented, + + ARISTAEUS. + + Stay, Mopsus! I must follow: for 'tis she + Of whom I lately spoke. So, friend, farewell! + + MOPSUS. + + Hold, Aristaeus, lest for her or thee + Thy boldness be the cause of mischief fell! + + ARISTAEUS. + + Nay, death this day must be my destiny, + Unless I try my fate and break the spell. + Stay therefore, Mopsus, by the fountain stay! + I'll follow her, meanwhile, yon mountain way. + + [_Exit_ ARISTAEUS. + + MOPSUS. + + Thyrsis, what thinkest thou of thy loved lord? + See'st thou that all his senses are distraught? + Couldst thou not speak some seasonable word, + Tell him what shame this idle love hath wrought? + + THYRSIS. + + Free speech and servitude but ill accord, + Friend Mopsus, and the hind is folly-fraught + Who rates his lord! He's wiser far than I. + To tend these kine is all my mastery. + + + + SCENE II + + ARISTAEUS, _in pursuit of_ EURYDICE. + + Flee not from me, maiden! + Lo, I am thy friend! + Dearer far than life I hold thee. + List, thou beauty-laden, + To these prayers attend: + Flee not, let my arms enfold thee! + Neither wolf nor bear will grasp thee: + That I am thy friend I've told thee: + Stay thy course then; let me clasp thee!-- + Since thou'rt deaf and wilt not heed me, + Since thou'rt still before me flying, + While I follow panting, dying, + Lend me wings, Love, wings to speed me! + + [_Exit_ ARISTAEUS, _pursuing_ EURYDICE. + + + + SCENE III + + A DRYAD. + + Sad news of lamentation and of pain, + Dear sisters, hath my voice to bear to you: + I scarcely dare to raise the dolorous strain. + Eurydice by yonder stream lies low; + The flowers are fading round her stricken head, + And the complaining waters weep their woe. + The stranger soul from that fair house hath fled; + And she, like privet pale, or white May-bloom + Untimely plucked, lies on the meadow, dead. + Hear then the cause of her disastrous doom! + A snake stole forth and stung her suddenly. + I am so burdened with this weight of gloom + That, lo, I bid you all come weep with me! + + CHORUS OF DRYADS. + + Let the wide air with our complaint resound! + For all heaven's light is spent. + Let rivers break their bound, + Swollen with tears outpoured from our lament! + + Fell death hath ta'en their splendour from the skies: + The stars are sunk in gloom. + Stern death hath plucked the bloom + Of nymphs:--Eurydice down-trodden lies. + Weep, Love! The woodland cries. + Weep, groves and founts; + Ye craggy mounts; you leafy dell, + Beneath whose boughs she fell, + Bend every branch in time with this sad sound. + + Let the wide air with our complaint resound! + + Ah, fortune pitiless! Ah, cruel snake! + Ah, luckless doom of woes! + Like a cropped summer rose, + Or lily cut, she withers on the brake. + Her face, which once did make + Our age so bright + With beauty's light, is faint and pale; + And the clear lamp doth fail, + Which shed pure splendour all the world around + + Let the wide air with our complaint resound! + + Who e'er will sing so sweetly, now she's gone? + Her gentle voice to hear, + The wild winds dared not stir; + And now they breathe but sorrow, moan for moan: + So many joys are flown, + Such jocund days + Doth Death erase with her sweet eyes! + Bid earth's lament arise, + And make our dirge through heaven and sea rebound! + + Let the wide air with our complaint resound! + + A DRYAD. + + 'Tis surely Orpheus, who hath reached the hill, + With harp in hand, glad-eyed and light of heart! + He thinks that his dear love is living still. + My news will stab him with a sudden smart: + An unforeseen and unexpected blow + Wounds worst and stings the bosom's tenderest part. + Death hath disjoined the truest love, I know, + That nature yet to this low world revealed, + And quenched the flame in its most charming glow. + Go, sisters, hasten ye to yonder field, + Where on the sward lies slain Eurydice; + Strew her with flowers and grasses! I must yield + This man the measure of his misery. + + [_Exeunt_ DRYADS. _Enter_ ORPHEUS, _singing_. + + ORPHEUS. + + _Musa, triumphales titulos et gesta canamus + Herculis, et forti monstra subacta manu; + Ut timidae malri pressos ostenderit angues, + Intrepidusque fero riserit ore puer._ + + A DRYAD. + + Orpheus, I bring thee bitter news. Alas! + Thy nymph who was so beautiful, is slain! + flying from Aristaeus o'er the grass, + What time she reached yon stream that threads the plain, + + A snake which lurked mid flowers where she did pass, + Pierced her fair foot with his envenomed bane: + So fierce, so potent was the sting, that she + Died in mid course. Ah, woe that this should be! + + [ORPHEUS _turns to go in silence._ + + MNESILLUS, _the satyr_. + + Mark ye how sunk in woe + The poor wretch forth doth pass, + And may not answer, for his grief, one word? + On some lone shore, unheard, + Far, far away, he'll go, + And pour his heart forth to the winds, alas! + I'll follow and observe if he + Moves with his moan the hills to sympathy. + + [_Follows_ ORPHEUS. + + ORPHEUS. + + Let us lament, O lyre disconsolate! + Our wonted music is in tune no more. + Lament we while the heavens revolve, and let + The nightingale be conquered on Love's shore! + O heaven, O earth, O sea, O cruel fate! + How shall I bear a pang so passing sore? + Eurydice, my love! O life of mine! + On earth I will no more without thee pine! + I will go down unto the doors of Hell, + And see if mercy may be found below: + Perchance we shall reverse fate's spoken spell + With tearful songs and words of honeyed woe: + Perchance will Death be pitiful; for well + With singing have we turned the streams that flow; + Moved stones, together hind and tiger drawn, + And made trees dance upon the forest lawn. + + [_Passes from sight on his way to Hades._ + + MNESILLUS. + + The staff of Fate is strong + And will not lightly bend, + Nor yet the stubborn gates of steely Hell. + Nay, I can see full well + His life will not be long: + Those downward feet no more will earthward wend. + What marvel if they lose the light, + Who make blind Love their guide by day and night! + + + + SCENE IV + + ORPHEUS, _at the gate of Hell._ + + Pity, nay pity for a lover's moan! + Ye Powers of Hell, let pity reign in you! + To your dark regions led me Love alone: + Downward upon his wings of light I flew. + Hush, Cerberus! Howl not by Pluto's throne! + For when you hear my tale of misery, you, + Nor you alone, but all who here abide + In this blind world, will weep by Lethe's tide. + There is no need, ye Furies, thus to rage; + To dart those snakes that in your tresses twine: + Knew ye the cause of this my pilgrimage, + Ye would lie down and join your moans with mine. + Let this poor wretch but pass, who war doth wage + With heaven, the elements, the powers divine! + I beg for pity or for death. No more! + But open, ope Hell's adamantine door! + + [ORPHEUS _enters Hell._ + + PLUTO. + + What man is he who with his golden lyre + Hath moved the gates that never move, + While the dead folk repeat his dirge of love? + The rolling stone no more doth tire + Swart Sisyphus on yonder hill; + And Tantalus with water slakes his fire; + The groans of mangled Tityos are still; + Ixion's wheel forgets to fly; + The Danaids their urns can fill: + I hear no more the tortured spirits cry; + But all find rest in that sweet harmony. + + PROSERPINE. + + Dear consort, since, compelled by love of thee, + I left the light of heaven serene, + And came to reign in hell, a sombre queen; + The charm of tenderest sympathy + Hath never yet had power to turn + My stubborn heart, or draw forth tears from me. + Now with desire for yon sweet voice I yearn; + Nor is there aught so dear + As that delight. Nay, be not stern + To this one prayer! Relax thy brows severe, + And rest awhile with me that song to hear! + + [ORPHEUS _stands before the throne._ + + ORPHEUS. + + Ye rulers of the people lost in gloom, + Who see no more the jocund light of day! + Ye who inherit all things that the womb + Of Nature and the elements display! + Hear ye the grief that draws me to the tomb! + Love, cruel Love, hath led me on this way: + Not to chain Cerberus I hither come, + But to bring back my mistress to her home. + A serpent hidden among flowers and leaves + Stole my fair mistress--nay, my heart--from me: + Wherefore my wounded life for ever grieves, + Nor can I stand against this agony. + Still, if some fragrance lingers yet and cleaves + Of your famed love unto your memory, + If of that ancient rape you think at all, + Give back Eurydice!--On you I call. + All things ere long unto this bourne descend: + All mortal lives to you return at last: + Whate'er the moon hath circled, in the end + Must fade and perish in your empire vast: + Some sooner and some later hither wend; + Yet all upon this pathway shall have passed: + This of our footsteps is the final goal; + And then we dwell for aye in your control. + Therefore the nymph I love is left for you + When nature leads her deathward in due time: + But now you've cropped the tendrils as they grew, + The grapes unripe, while yet the sap did climb: + Who reaps the young blades wet with April dew, + Nor waits till summer hath o'erpassed her prime? + Give back, give back my hope one little day!-- + Not for a gift, but for a loan I pray. + I pray not to you by the waves forlorn + Of marshy Styx or dismal Acheron, + By Chaos where the mighty world was born, + Or by the sounding flames of Phlegethon; + But by the fruit which charmed thee on that morn + When thou didst leave our world for this dread throne! + O queen! if thou reject this pleading breath, + I will no more return, but ask for death! + + PROSERPINE. + + Husband, I never guessed + That in our realm oppressed + Pity could find a home to dwell: + But now I know that mercy teems in Hell. + I see Death weep; her breast + Is shaken by those tears that faultless fell. + Let then thy laws severe for him be swayed + By love, by song, by the just prayers he prayed! + + PLUTO. + + She's thine, but at this price: + Bend not on her thine eyes, + Till mid the souls that live she stay. + See that thou turn not back upon the way! + Check all fond thoughts that rise! + Else will thy love be torn from thee away. + I am well pleased that song so rare as thine + The might of my dread sceptre should incline. + + + + SCENE V + + ORPHEUS, _sings._ + + _Ite tritumphales circum mea tempora lauri. + Vicimus Eurydicen: reddita vita mihi est, + Haec mea praecipue victoria digna coronâ. + Oredimus? an lateri juncta puella meo?_ + + EURYDICE. + + All me! Thy love too great + Hath lost not thee alone! + I am torn from thee by strong Fate. + No more I am thine own. + In vain I stretch these arms. Back, back to Hell + I'm drawn, I'm drawn. My Orpheus, fare thee well! + + [EURYDICE _disappears._ + + ORPHEUS. + + Who hath laid laws on Love? + Will pity not be given + For one short look so full thereof? + Since I am robbed of heaven, + Since all my joy so great is turned to pain, + I will go back and plead with Death again! + + [TISIPHONE _blocks his way._ + + TISIPHONE. + + Nay, seek not back to turn! + Vain is thy weeping, all thy words are vain. + Eurydice may not complain + Of aught but thee--albeit her grief is great. + Vain are thy verses 'gainst the voice of Fate! + How vain thy song! For Death is stern! + Try not the backward path: thy feet refrain! + The laws of the abyss are fixed and firm remain. + + + + SCENE VI + + ORPHEUS. + + What sorrow-laden song shall e'er be found + To match the burden of my matchless woe? + How shall I make the fount of tears abound, + To weep apace with grief's unmeasured flow? + Salt tears I'll waste upon the barren ground, + So long as life delays me here below; + And since my fate hath wrought me wrong so sore, + I swear I'll never love a woman more! + Henceforth I'll pluck the buds of opening spring, + The bloom of youth when life is loveliest, + Ere years have spoiled the beauty which they bring: + This love, I swear, is sweetest, softest, best! + Of female charms let no one speak or sing; + Since she is slain who ruled within my breast. + He who would seek my converse, let him see + That ne'er he talk of woman's love to me! + How pitiful is he who changes mind + For woman! for her love laments or grieves! + Who suffers her in chains his will to bind, + Or trusts her words lighter than withered leaves, + Her loving looks more treacherous than the wind! + A thousand times she veers; to nothing cleaves: + Follows who flies; from him who follows, flees; + And comes and goes like waves on stormy seas! + High Jove confirms the truth of what I said, + Who, caught and bound in love's delightful snare, + Enjoys in heaven his own bright Ganymed: + Phoebus on earth had Hyacinth the fair: + Hercules, conqueror of the world, was led + Captive to Hylas by this love so rare.-- + Advice for husbands! Seek divorce, and fly + Far, far away from female company! + + [_Enter a_ MAENAD _leading a train of_ BACCHANTES. + + A MAENAD. + + Ho! Sisters! Up! Alive! + See him who doth our sex deride! + Hunt him to death, the slave! + Thou snatch the thyrsus! Thou this oak-tree rive! + Cast down this doeskin and that hide! + We'll wreak our fury on the knave! + Yea, he shall feel our wrath, the knave! + He shall yield up his hide + Riven as woodmen fir-trees rive! + No power his life can save; + Since women he hath dared deride! + Ho! To him, sisters! Ho! Alive! + + [ORPHEUS _is chased off the scene and slain: the_ MAENADS + _then return._ + + A MAENAD. + + Ho! Bacchus! Ho! I yield thee thanks for this! + Through all the woodland we the wretch have borne: + So that each root is slaked with blood of his: + Yea, limb from limb his body have we torn + Through the wild forest with a fearful bliss: + His gore hath bathed the earth by ash and thorn!-- + Go then! thy blame on lawful wedlock fling! + Ho! Bacchus! take the victim that we bring! + + CHORUS OF MAENADS. + + Bacchus! we all must follow thee! + Bacchus! Bacchus! Ohé! Ohé! + + With ivy coronals, bunch and berry, + Crown we our heads to worship thee! + Thou hast bidden us to make merry + Day and night with jollity! + Drink then! Bacchus is here! Drink free, + And hand ye the drinking-cup to me! + Bacchus! we all must follow thee! + Bacchus! Bacchus! Ohé! Ohé! + + See, I have emptied my horn already: + Stretch hither your beaker to me, I pray: + Are the hills and the lawns where we roam unsteady? + Or is it my brain that reels away? + Let every one run to and fro through the hay, + As ye see me run! Ho! after me! + Bacchus! we all must follow thee! + Bacchus! Bacchus! Ohé! Ohé! + + Methinks I am dropping in swoon or slumber: + Am I drunken or sober, yes or no? + What are these weights my feet encumber? + You too are tipsy, well I know! + Let every one do as ye see me do, + Let every one drink and quaff like me! + Bacchus! we all must follow thee! + Bacchus! Bacchus! Ohé! Ohé! + + Cry Bacchus! Cry Bacchus! Be blithe and merry, + Tossing wine down your throats away! + Let sleep then come and our gladness bury: + Drink you, and you, and you, while ye may! + Dancing is over for me to-day. + Let every one cry aloud Evohé! + Bacchus! we all must follow thee! + Bacchus! Bacchus! Ohé! Ohé! + +Though an English translation can do little toward rendering the +facile graces of Poliziano's style, that 'roseate fluency' for which +it has been praised by his Italian admirers, the main qualities of the +'Orfeo' as a composition may be traced in this rough copy. Of dramatic +power, of that mastery over the deeper springs of human nature which +distinguished the first effort of the English muse in Marlowe's +plays, there is but little. A certain adaptation of the language to +the characters, as in the rudeness of Thyrsis when contrasted with the +rustic elegance of Aristæus, a touch of simple feeling in Eurydice's +lyrical outcry of farewell, a discrimination between the tender +sympathy of Proserpine and Pluto's stern relenting, a spirited +presentation of the Bacchanalian _furore_ in the Mænads, an attempt to +model the Satyr Mnesillus as apart from human nature and yet +sympathetic to its anguish, these points constitute the chief dramatic +features of the melodrama. Orpheus himself is a purely lyrical +personage. Of character, he can scarcely be said to have anything +marked; and his part rises to its height precisely in that passage +where the lyrist has to be displayed. Before the gates of Hades and +the throne of Proserpine he sings, and his singing is the right +outpouring of a poet's soul; each octave resumes the theme of the last +stanza with a swell of utterance, a crescendo of intonation that +recalls the passionate and unpremeditated descant of a bird upon the +boughs alone. To this true quality of music is added the +persuasiveness of pleading. That the violin melody of his incomparable +song is lost, must be reckoned a great misfortune. We have good reason +to believe that the part of Orpheus was taken by Messer Baccio +Ugolini, singing to the viol. Here too it may be mentioned that a +_tondo_ in monochrome, painted by Signorelli among the arabesques at +Orvieto, shows Orpheus at the throne of Plato, habited as a poet with +the laurel crown and playing on a violin of antique form. It would be +interesting to know whether a rumour of the Mantuan pageant had +reached the ears of the Cortonese painter. + +If the whole of the 'Orfeo' had been conceived and executed with the +same artistic feeling as the chief act, it would have been a really +fine poem independently of its historical interest. But we have only +to turn the page and read the lament uttered for the loss of Eurydice, +in order to perceive Poliziano's incapacity for dealing with his hero +in a situation of greater difficulty. The pathos which might have made +us sympathise with Orpheus in his misery, the passion, approaching to +madness, which might have justified his misogyny, are absent. It is +difficult not to feel that in this climax of his anguish he was a poor +creature, and that the Mænads served him right. Nothing illustrates +the defect of real dramatic imagination better than this failure to +dignify the catastrophe. Gifted with a fine lyrical inspiration, +Poliziano seems to have already felt the Bacchic chorus which forms so +brilliant a termination to his play, and to have forgotten his duty +to the unfortunate Orpheus, whose sorrow for Eurydice is stultified +and made unmeaning by the prosaic expression of a base resolve. It may +indeed be said in general that the 'Orfeo' is a good poem only where +the situation is not so much dramatic as lyrical, and that its finest +passage--the scene in Hades--was fortunately for its author one in +which the dramatic motive had to be lyrically expressed. In this +respect, as in many others, the 'Orfeo' combines the faults and merits +of the Italian attempts at melo-tragedy. To break a butterfly upon the +wheel is, however, no fit function of criticism: and probably no one +would have smiled more than the author of this improvisation, at the +thought of its being gravely dissected just four hundred years after +the occasion it was meant to serve had long been given over to +oblivion. + +_NOTE_ + +Poliziano's 'Orfeo' was dedicated to Messer Carlo Canale, the husband +of that famous Vannozza who bore Lucrezia and Cesare Borgia to +Alexander VI. As first published in 1494, and as republished from time +to time up to the year 1776, it carried the title of 'La Favola di +Orfeo,' and was not divided into acts. Frequent stage-directions +sufficed, as in the case of Florentine 'Sacre Rappresentazioni,' for +the indication of the scenes. In this earliest redaction of the +'Orfeo' the chorus of the Dryads, the part of Mnesillus, the lyrical +speeches of Proserpine and Pluto, and the first lyric of the Mænads +are either omitted or represented by passages in _ottava rima_. In the +year 1776 the Padre Ireneo Affò printed at Venice a new version of +'Orfeo, Tragedia di Messer Angelo Poliziano,' collated by him from two +MSS. This play is divided into five acts, severally entitled +'Pastoricus,' 'Nymphas Habet,' 'Heroïcus,' 'Necromanticus,' and +'Bacchanalis.' The stage-directions are given partly in Latin, partly +in Italian; and instead of the 'Announcement of the Feast' by Mercury, +a prologue consisting of two octave stanzas is appended. A Latin +Sapphic ode in praise of the Cardinal Gonzaga, which was interpolated +in the first version, is omitted, and certain changes are made in the +last soliloquy of Orpheus. There is little doubt, I think, that the +second version, first given to the press by the Padre Affò, was +Poliziano's own recension of his earlier composition. I have therefore +followed it in the main, except that I have not thought it necessary +to observe the somewhat pedantic division into acts, and have +preferred to use the original 'Announcement of the Feast,' which +proves the integral connection between this ancient secular play and +the Florentine Mystery or 'Sacra Rappresentazione.' The last soliloquy +of Orpheus, again, has been freely translated by me from both versions +for reasons which will be obvious to students of the original. I have +yet to make a remark upon one detail of my translation. In line 390 +(part of the first lyric of the Mænads) the Italian gives us:-- + + Spezzata come il fabbro il cribro spezza. + +This means literally: 'Riven as a blacksmith rives a sieve or +boulter.' Now sieves are made in Tuscany of a plate of iron, pierced +with holes; and the image would therefore be familiar to an Italian. I +have, however, preferred to translate thus:-- + + Riven as woodmen fir-trees rive, + +instead of giving:-- + + Riven as blacksmiths boulters rive, + +because I thought that the second and faithful version would be +unintelligible as well as unpoetical for English readers. + + * * * * * + + + + +_EIGHT SONNETS OF PETRARCH_ + + +ON THE PAPAL COURT AT AVIGNON + + Fountain of woe! Harbour of endless ire! + Thou school of errors, haunt of heresies! + Once Rome, now Babylon, the world's disease, + That maddenest men with fears and fell desire! + O forge of fraud! O prison dark and dire, + Where dies the good, where evil breeds increase! + Thou living Hell! Wonders will never cease + If Christ rise not to purge thy sins with fire. + Founded in chaste and humble poverty, + Against thy founders thou dost raise thy horn, + Thou shameless harlot! And whence flows this pride? + Even from foul and loathed adultery, + The wage of lewdness. Constantine, return! + Not so: the felon world its fate must bide. + + * * * * * + + +TO STEFANO COLONNA + +WRITTEN FROM VAUCLUSE + + Glorius Colonna, thou on whose high head + Rest all our hopes and the great Latin name, + Whom from the narrow path of truth and fame + The wrath of Jove turned not with stormful dread: + Here are no palace-courts, no stage to tread; + But pines and oaks the shadowy valleys fill + Between the green fields and the neighbouring hill, + Where musing oft I climb by fancy led. + These lift from earth to heaven our soaring soul, + While the sweet nightingale, that in thick bowers + Through darkness pours her wail of tuneful woe, + Doth bend our charmed breast to love's control; + But thou alone hast marred this bliss of ours, + Since from our side, dear lord, thou needs must go. + + + +IN VITA DI MADONNA LAURA. XI + +ON LEAVING AVIGNON + + + Backward at every weary step and slow + These limbs I turn which with great pain I bear; + Then take I comfort from the fragrant air + That breathes from thee, and sighing onward go. + But when I think how joy is turned to woe, + Remembering my short life and whence I fare, + I stay my feet for anguish and despair, + And cast my tearful eyes on earth below. + At times amid the storm of misery + This doubt assails me: how frail limbs and poor + Can severed from their spirit hope to live. + Then answers Love: Hast thou no memory + How I to lovers this great guerdon give, + Free from all human bondage to endure? + + * * * * * + + +IN VITA DI MADONNA LAURA. XII + +THOUGHTS IN ABSENCE + + The wrinkled sire with hair like winter snow + Leaves the beloved spot where he hath passed his years, + Leaves wife and children, dumb with bitter tears, + To see their father's tottering steps and slow. + Dragging his aged limbs with weary woe, + In these last days of life he nothing fears, + But with stout heart his fainting spirit cheers, + And spent and wayworn forward still doth go; + Then comes to Rome, following his heart's desire, + To gaze upon the portraiture of Him + Whom yet he hopes in heaven above to see: + Thus I, alas! my seeking spirit tire, + Lady, to find in other features dim + The longed for, loved, true lineaments of thee. + + +IN VITA DI MADONNA LAURA. LII + +OH THAT I HAD WINGS LIKE A DOVE! + + I am so tired beneath the ancient load + Of my misdeeds and custom's tyranny, + That much I fear to fail upon the road + And yield my soul unto mine enemy. + 'Tis true a friend from whom all splendour flowed, + To save me came with matchless courtesy: + Then flew far up from sight to heaven's abode, + So that I strive in vain his face to see. + Yet still his voice reverberates here below: + Oh ye who labour, lo! the path is here; + Come unto me if none your going stay! + What grace, what love, what fate surpassing fear + Shall give me wings like dove's wings soft as snow, + That I may rest and raise me from the clay? + + * * * * * + +IN MORTE DI MADONNA LAURA. XXIV + + + The eyes whereof I sang my fervid song, + The arms, the hands, the feet, the face benign, + Which severed me from what was rightly mine, + And made me sole and strange amid the throng, + The crispèd curls of pure gold beautiful, + And those angelic smiles which once did shine + Imparadising earth with joy divine, + Are now a little dust--dumb, deaf, and dull. + And yet I live! wherefore I weep and wail, + Left alone without the light I loved so long, + Storm-tossed upon a bark that hath no sail. + Then let me here give o'er my amorous song; + The fountains of old inspiration fail, + And nought but woe my dolorous chords prolong. + + +IN MORTE DI MADONNA LAURA. XXXIV + + + In thought I raised me to the place where she + Whom still on earth I seek and find not, shines; + There 'mid the souls whom the third sphere confines, + More fair I found her and less proud to me. + She took my hand and said: Here shalt thou be + With me ensphered, unless desires mislead; + Lo! I am she who made thy bosom bleed, + Whose day ere eve was ended utterly: + My bliss no mortal heart can understand; + Thee only do I lack, and that which thou + So loved, now left on earth, my beauteous veil. + Ah! wherefore did she cease and loose my hand? + For at the sound of that celestial tale + I all but stayed in paradise till now. + + * * * * * + + +IN MORTE DI MADONNA LAURA. LXXIV + + + The flower of angels and the spirits blest, + Burghers of heaven, on that first day when she + Who is my lady died, around her pressed + Fulfilled with wonder and with piety. + What light is this? What beauty manifest? + Marvelling they cried: for such supremacy + Of splendour in this age to our high rest + Hath never soared from earth's obscurity. + She, glad to have exchanged her spirit's place, + Consorts with those whose virtues most exceed; + At times the while she backward turns her face + To see me follow--seems to wait and plead: + Therefore toward heaven my will and soul I raise, + Because I hear her praying me to speed. + + * * * * * + + FOOTNOTES: + + + [Footnote 1: We may compare with Venice what is known about + the ancient Hellenic city of Sybaris. Sybaris and Ravenna + were the Greek and Roman Venice of antiquity.] + + [Footnote 2: His first wife was a daughter of the great + general of the Venetians against Francesco Sforza. Whether + Sigismondo murdered her, as Sansovino seems to imply in his + _Famiglie Illustri_, or whether he only repudiated her after + her father's execution on the Piazza di San Marco, admits of + doubt. About the question of Sigismondo's marriage with + Isotta there is also some uncertainty. At any rate she had + been some time his mistress before she became his wife.] + + [Footnote 3: For the place occupied in the evolution of + Italian scholarship by this Greek sage, see my 'Revival of + Learning,' _Renaissance in Italy_, part 2.] + + [Footnote 4: The account of this church given by Æneas + Sylvius Piccolomini (Pii Secondi, Comment., ii. 92) + deserves quotation: 'Ædificavit tamen nobile templum + Arimini in honorem divi Francisci, verum ita gentilibus + operibus implevit, ut non tam Christianorum quam infidelium + dæmones adorantium templum esse videatur.'] + + [Footnote 5: Almost all the facts of Alberti's life are to + be found in the Latin biography included in Muratori. It has + been conjectured, and not without plausibility, by the last + editor of Alberti's complete works, Bonucci, that this Latin + life was penned by Alberti himself.] + + [Footnote 6: There is in reality no doubt or problem about + this Saint Clair. She was born in 1275, and joined the + Augustinian Sisterhood, dying young, in 1308, as Abbess of + her convent. Continual and impassioned meditation on the + Passion of our Lord impressed her heart with the signs of + His suffering which have been described above. I owe this + note to the kindness of an anonymous correspondent, whom I + here thank.] + + [Footnote 7: The balance of probability leans against + Isabella in this affair. At the licentious court of the + Medici she lived with unpardonable freedom. Troilo Orsini + was himself assassinated in Paris by Bracciano's orders a + few years afterwards.] + + [Footnote 8: I have amplified and corrected this chronicle + by the light of Professor Gnoli's monograph, _Vittoria + Accoramboni_, published by Le Monnier at Florence in 1870.] + + [Footnote 9: In dealing with Webster's tragedy, I have + adhered to his use and spelling of names.] + + [Footnote 10: The fresco of the Coronation of the Virgin + upon the semi-dome of S. Giovanni is the work of a copyist, + Cesare Aretusi. But part of the original fresco, which was + removed in 1684, exists in a good state of preservation at + the end of the long gallery of the library.] + + [Footnote 11: See the chapter on Euripides in my _Studies of + Greek Poets_, First Series, for a further development of + this view of artistic evolution.] + + [Footnote 12: I find that this story is common in the + country round Canossa. It is mentioned by Professor A. + Ferretti in his monograph entitled _Canossa, Studi e + Ricerche_, Reggio, 1876, a work to which I am indebted, and + which will repay careful study.] + + [Footnote 13: Charles claimed under the will of René of + Anjou, who in turn claimed under the will of Joan II.] + + [Footnote 14: For an estimate of Cosimo's services to art + and literature, his collection of libraries, his great + buildings, his generosity to scholars, and his promotion of + Greek studies, I may refer to my _Renaissance in Italy_: + 'The Revival of Learning,' chap. iv.] + + [Footnote 15: Giottino had painted the Duke of Athens, in + like manner, on the same walls.] + + [Footnote 16: See _Archivio Storico_.] + + [Footnote 17: The order of rhymes runs thus: _a, b, b, a, a, + b, b, a, c, d, c, d, c, d_; or in the terzets, _c, d, e, c, + d, e_, or _c, d, e, d, c, e_, and so forth.] + + [Footnote 18: It has extraordinary interest for the student + of our literary development, inasmuch as it is full of + experiments in metres, which have never thriven on English + soil. Not to mention the attempt to write in asclepiads and + other classical rhythms, we might point to Sidney's _terza + rima_, poems with _sdrucciolo_ or treble rhymes. This + peculiar and painful form he borrowed from Ariosto and + Sanazzaro; but even in Italian it cannot be handled without + sacrifice of variety, without impeding the metrical movement + and marring the sense.] + + [Footnote 19: The stately structure of the _Prothalamion_ + and _Epithalamion_ is a rebuilding of the Italian Canzone. + His Eclogues, with their allegories, repeat the manner of + Petrarch's minor Latin poems.] + + [Footnote 20: Marlowe makes Gaveston talk of 'Italian + masques.' At the same time, in the prologue to + _Tamburlaine_, he shows that he was conscious of the new and + nobler direction followed by the drama in England.] + + [Footnote 21: This sentence requires some qualification. In + his _Poesia Popolare Italiana_, 1878, Professor d'Ancona + prints a Pisan, a Venetian, and two Lombard versions of our + Border ballad 'Where hae ye been, Lord Randal, my son,' so + close in general type and minor details to the English, + German, Swedish, and Finnish versions of this Volkslied as + to suggest a very ancient community of origin. It remains as + yet, however, an isolated fact in the history of Italian + popular poetry.] + + [Footnote 22: _Canti Popolari Toscani_, raccolti e annotati + da Giuseppe Tigri. Volume unico. Firenze: G. Barbèra, 1869.] + + [Footnote 23: This is a description of the Tuscan rispetto. + In Sicily the stanza generally consists of eight lines + rhyming alternately throughout, while in the North of Italy + it is normally a simple quatrain. The same poetical material + assumes in Northern, Central, and Southern Italy these + diverge but associated forms.] + + [Footnote 24: This song, called Ciure (Sicilian for _fiore_) + in Sicily, is said by Signor Pitré to be in disrepute there. + He once asked an old dame of Palermo to repeat him some of + these ditties. Her answer was, 'You must get them from light + women; I do not know any. They sing them in bad houses and + prisons, where, God be praised, I have never been.' In + Tuscany there does not appear to be so marked a distinction + between the flower song and the rispetto.] + + [Footnote 25: Much light has lately been thrown on the + popular poetry of Italy; and it appears that contemporary + improvisatori trust more to their richly stocked memories + and to their power of recombination than to original or + novel inspiration. It is in Sicily that the vein of truly + creative lyric utterance is said to flow most freely and + most copiously at the present time.] + + [Footnote 26: 'Remember me, fair one, to the scrivener. I do + not know him or who he is, but he seems to me a sovereign + poet, so cunning is he in his use of verse.'] + + [Footnote 27: It must be remarked that Tigri draws a strong + contrast in this respect between the songs of the mountain + districts which he has printed and those of the towns, and + that Pitrè, in his edition of Sicilian _Volkslieder_, + expressly alludes to the coarseness of a whole class which + he had omitted. The MSS. of Sicilian and Tuscan songs, + dating from the fifteenth century and earlier, yield a fair + proportion of decidedly obscene compositions. Yet the fact + stated above is integrally correct. When acclimatised in the + large towns, the rustic Muse not unfrequently assumes a garb + of grossness. At home, among the fields and on the + mountains, she remains chaste and romantic.] + + [Footnote 28: In a rispetto, of which I subjoin a + translation, sung by a poor lad to a mistress of higher + rank, love itself is pleaded as the sign of a gentle soul:-- + + My state is poor: I am not meet + To court so nobly born a love; + For poverty hath tied my feet, + Trying to climb too far above. + Yet am I gentle, loving thee; + Nor need thou shun my poverty. + + [Footnote 29: When the Cherubina, of whom mention has been + made above, was asked by Signor Tigri to dictate some of her + rispetti, she answered, 'O signore! ne dico tanti quando li + canto! . . . ma ora . . . bisognerebbe averli tutti in + visione; se no, proprio non vengono.'] + + [Footnote 30: I need hardly guard myself against being + supposed to mean that the form of _Ballata_ in question was + the only one of its kind in Italy.] + + [Footnote 31: See my _Sketches in Italy and Greece_, p. + 114.] + + [Footnote 32: The originals will be found in Carducci's + _Studi Letterari_, p. 273 _et seq._ I have preserved their + rhyming structure.] + + [Footnote 33: Stanza XLIII. All references are made to + Carducci's excellent edition, _Le Stanze, l'Orfeo e le Rime + di Messer Angelo Ambrogini Poliziano._ Firenze: G. Barbéra. + 1863.] + + + + + +End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of Sketches and Studies in Italy and +Greece, Second Series, by John Addington Symonds + +*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK ITALY AND GREECE *** + +***** This file should be named 14634-8.txt or 14634-8.zip ***** +This and all associated files of various formats will be found in: + https://www.gutenberg.org/1/4/6/3/14634/ + +Produced by Ted Garvin, Jayam and the PG Online Distributed +Proofreading Team + + +Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions +will be renamed. + +Creating the works from public domain print editions means that no +one owns a United States copyright in these works, so the Foundation +(and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United States without +permission and without paying copyright royalties. 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You may copy it, give it away or +re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included +with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org + + +Title: Sketches and Studies in Italy and Greece, Second Series + +Author: John Addington Symonds + +Release Date: January 7, 2005 [EBook #14634] + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1 + +*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK ITALY AND GREECE *** + + + + +Produced by Ted Garvin, Jayam and the PG Online Distributed +Proofreading Team + + + + + + +</pre> + + + + + +<div style= +" background-color: white; color: black; border-style: ridge;"> + +<center> +<h1>SKETCHES AND STUDIES <br /> + +IN<br /> + +ITALY AND GREECE</h1> +</center> +</div> + +<h3>BY</h3> +<h2>JOHN ADDINGTON SYMONDS</h2> + + + + + +<br /> +<br /> +<br /> +<br /> +<h3><a href="#CONTENTS">CONTENTS</a></h3> +<br /> +<br /> +<br /> +<br /> +<br /> +<h4>AUTHOR OF "RENAISSANCE IN ITALY", "STUDIES OF THE GREEK POETS," ETC</h4> +<br /> +<br /> +<br /> +<br /> +<br /> +<h4>SECOND SERIES</h4> +<br /> +<br /> +<br /> +<br /> +<br /> +<h3>LONDON<br /> +JOHN MURRAY, ALBEMARLE STREET, W.<br /> +<br /> +1914</h3> +<br /> +<br /> +<br /> +<h5><i>All rights reserved</i></h5> +<br /> +<br /> +<br /> +<br /> +<br /> +<br /> + +<table summary="printing history"> + +<tr> +<td> FIRST EDITION </td><td>(<i>Smith, Elder & co.</i>)</td> +<td align="left"><i>October, 1898</i></td> +</tr> + +<tr> +<td><i>Reprinted</i></td><td></td> +<td align="left"><i>May, 1900</i></td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td><i>Reprinted</i></td><td></td> +<td align="left"><i>June, 1902</i></td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td><i>Reprinted</i></td><td></td> +<td align="left"><i>November, 1905</i></td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td><i>Reprinted</i></td><td></td> +<td align="left"><i>December, 1907</i></td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td><i>Reprinted</i></td><td></td> +<td align="left"><i>February, 1914</i></td> +</tr> + +<tr> +<td><i>Taken over by John Murray</i> </td><td></td> +<td align="left"><i>January, 1917</i></td> +</tr> + +</table> +<br /> +<br /> +<br /> +<br /> +<br /> + + +<h6><i>Printed in Great Britain at</i><br /> +<b>THE BALLANTYNE PRESS</b> +<i>by</i> +<b>SPOTTISWOODE,<br /> +BALLANTYNE & co. LTD.</b> +<i>Colchester, London & Eton</i></h6> +<br /> +<br /> +<br /> +<br /> +<br /> + +<a name="CONTENTS"><b>CONTENTS</b></a> +<br /> +<br /> +<table summary="toc"> +<tr> +<td>CHAPTER</td> +<td align="left"> PAGE</td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td>RAVENNA</td> +<td align="left"><a href="#RAVENNA"><b>1</b></a></td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td>RIMINI</td> +<td align="left"><a href="#RIMINI"><b>14</b></a></td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td>MAY IN UMBRIA</td> +<td align="left"><a href="#MAY_IN_UMBRIA"><b>32</b></a></td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td>THE PALACE OF URBINO</td> +<td align="left"><a href="#THE_PALACE_OF_URBINO"><b>50</b></a></td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td>VITTORIA ACCORAMBONI</td> +<td align="left"><a href="#VITTORIA_ACCORAMBONI"><b>88</b></a></td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td>AUTUMN WANDERINGS</td> +<td align="left"><a href="#AUTUMN_WANDERINGS"><b>127</b></a></td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td>PARMA</td> +<td align="left"><a href="#PARMA"><b>147</b></a></td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td>CANOSSA</td> +<td align="left"><a href="#CANOSSA"><b>163</b></a></td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td>FORNOVO</td> +<td align="left"><a href="#FORNOVO"><b>180</b></a></td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td>FLORENCE AND THE MEDICI</td> +<td align="left"><a href="#FLORENCE_AND_THE_MEDICI"><b>201</b></a></td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td>THE DEBT OF ENGLISH TO ITALIAN LITERATURE</td> +<td align="left"><a href="#THE_DEBT_OF_ENGLISH_TO_ITALIAN_LITERATURE"><b>258</b></a></td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td>POPULAR SONGS OF TUSCANY</td> +<td align="left"><a href="#POPULAR_SONGS_OF_TUSCANY"><b>276</b></a></td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td>POPULAR ITALIAN POETRY OF THE RENAISSANCE</td> +<td align="left"><a href="#POPULAR_ITALIAN_POETRY_OF_THE_RENAISSANCE"><b>305</b></a></td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td>THE 'ORFEO' OF POLIZIANO</td> +<td align="left"><a href="#ORFEO"><b>345</b></a></td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td>EIGHT SONNETS OF PETRARCH</td> +<td align="left"><a href="#EIGHT_SONNETS_OF_PETRARCH"><b>365</b></a></td> +</tr> + +<tr> +<td><a href="#FOOTNOTES">FOOTNOTES</a><td align="left"></td> +</tr> +</table> +<br /> +<br /> +<br /> +<br /> +<br /> +<h2>SKETCHES AND STUDIES IN ITALY AND GREECE</h2> + + + + + +<br /><br /><br /> +<hr style="width: 100%;" /> +<h2><a name="RAVENNA" id="RAVENNA" /><i>RAVENNA</i></a></h2> +<hr style="width: 100%;" /> +<br /> +<p>The Emperor Augustus chose Ravenna for one of his two naval stations, +and in course of time a new city arose by the sea-shore, which +received the name of Portus Classis. Between this harbour and the +mother city a third town sprang up, and was called Cæsarea. Time and +neglect, the ravages of war, and the encroaching powers of Nature have +destroyed these settlements, and nothing now remains of the three +cities but Ravenna. It would seem that in classical times Ravenna +stood, like modern Venice, in the centre of a huge lagune, the fresh +waters of the Ronco and the Po mixing with the salt waves of the +Adriatic round its very walls. The houses of the city were built on +piles; canals instead of streets formed the means of communication, +and these were always filled with water artificially conducted from +the southern estuary of the Po. Round Ravenna extended a vast morass, +for the most part under shallow water, but rising at intervals into +low islands like the Lido or Murano or Torcello which surround Venice. +These islands were celebrated for their fertility: the vines and +fig-trees and pomegranates, springing from a fat and fruitful soil, +watered with constant moisture, and fostered by a mild sea-wind and +liberal sunshine, yielded crops that for luxuriance and quality +surpassed the harvests of any orchards on the mainland. All the +conditions of life in old Ravenna seem to have resembled those of +modern Venice; the people went about in gondolas, and in the early +morning barges laden with fresh fruit or meat and vegetables flocked +from all quarters to the city of the sea.[1] Water also had to be +procured from the neighbouring shore, for, as Martial says, a well at +Ravenna was more valuable than a vineyard. Again, between the city and +the mainland ran a long low causeway all across the lagune like that +on which the trains now glide into Venice. Strange to say, the air of +Ravenna was remarkably salubrious: this fact, and the ease of life +that prevailed there, and the security afforded by the situation of +the town, rendered it a most desirable retreat for the monarchs of +Italy during those troublous times in which the empire nodded to its +fall. Honorius retired to its lagunes for safety; Odoacer, who +dethroned the last Cæsar of the West, succeeded him; and was in turn, +supplanted by Theodoric the Ostrogoth. Ravenna, as we see it now, +recalls the peaceful and half-Roman rule of the great Gothic king. His +palace, his churches, and the mausoleums in which his daughter +Amalasuntha laid the hero's bones, have survived the sieges of +Belisarius and Astolphus, the conquest of Pepin, the bloody quarrels +of Iconoclasts with the children of the Roman Church, the mediæval +wars of Italy, the victory of Gaston de Foix, and still stand gorgeous +with marbles and mosaics in spite of time and the decay of all around +them.</p> + +<p>As early as the sixth century, the sea had already retreated to such a +distance from Ravenna that orchards and gardens were cultivated on +the spot where once the galleys of the Cæsars rode at anchor. Groves +of pines sprang up along the shore, and in their lofty tops the music +of the wind moved like the ghost of waves and breakers plunging upon +distant sands. This Pinetum stretches along the shore of the Adriatic +for about forty miles, forming a belt of variable width between the +great marsh and the tumbling sea. From a distance the bare stems and +velvet crowns of the pine-trees stand up like palms that cover an +oasis on Arabian sands; but at a nearer view the trunks detach +themselves from an inferior forest-growth of juniper and thorn and ash +and oak, the tall roofs of the stately firs shooting their breadth of +sheltering greenery above the lower and less sturdy brushwood. It is +hardly possible to imagine a more beautiful and impressive scene than +that presented by these long alleys of imperial pines. They grow so +thickly one behind another, that we might compare them to the pipes of +a great organ, or the pillars of a Gothic church, or the basaltic +columns of the Giant's Causeway. Their tops are evergreen and laden +with the heavy cones, from which Ravenna draws considerable wealth. +Scores of peasants are quartered on the outskirts of the forest, whose +business it is to scale the pines and rob them of their fruit at +certain seasons of the year. Afterwards they dry the fir-cones in the +sun, until the nuts which they contain fall out. The empty husks are +sold for firewood, and the kernels in their stony shells reserved for +exportation. You may see the peasants, men, women, and boys, sorting +them by millions, drying and sifting them upon the open spaces of the +wood, and packing them in sacks to send abroad through Italy. The +<i>pinocchi</i> or kernels of the stone-pine are largely used in cookery, +and those of Ravenna are prized for their good quality and aromatic +flavour. When roasted or pounded, they taste like a softer and more +mealy kind of almonds. The task of gathering this harvest is not a +little dangerous. Men have to cut notches in the straight shafts, and +having climbed, often to the height of eighty feet, to lean upon the +branches, and detach the fir-cones with a pole—and this for every +tree. Some lives, they say, are yearly lost in the business.</p> + +<p>As may be imagined, the spaces of this great forest form the haunt of +innumerable living creatures. Lizards run about by myriads in the +grass. Doves coo among the branches of the pines, and nightingales +pour their full-throated music all day and night from thickets of +white-thorn and acacia. The air is sweet with aromatic scents: the +resin of the pine and juniper, the mayflowers and acacia-blossoms, the +violets that spring by thousands in the moss, the wild roses and faint +honeysuckles which throw fragrant arms from bough to bough of ash or +maple, join to make one most delicious perfume. And though the air +upon the neighbouring marsh is poisonous, here it is dry, and spreads +a genial health. The sea-wind murmuring through these thickets at +nightfall or misty sunrise, conveys no fever to the peasants stretched +among their flowers. They watch the red rays of sunset flaming through +the columns of the leafy hall, and flaring on its fretted rafters of +entangled boughs; they see the stars come out, and Hesper gleam, an +eye of brightness, among dewy branches; the moon walks silver-footed +on the velvet tree-tops, while they sleep beside the camp-fires; fresh +morning wakes them to the sound of birds and scent of thyme and +twinkling of dewdrops on the grass around. Meanwhile ague, fever, and +death have been stalking all night long about the plain, within a few +yards of their couch, and not one pestilential breath has reached the +charmed precincts of the forest.</p> + +<p>You may ride or drive for miles along green aisles between the pines +in perfect solitude; and yet the creatures of the wood, the sunlight +and the birds, the flowers and tall majestic columns at your side, +prevent all sense of loneliness or fear. Huge oxen haunt the +wilderness—grey creatures, with mild eyes and spreading horns and +stealthy tread. Some are patriarchs of the forest, the fathers and +the mothers of many generations who have been carried from their sides +to serve in ploughs or waggons on the Lombard plain. Others are +yearling calves, intractable and ignorant of labour. In order to +subdue them to the yoke, it is requisite to take them very early from +their native glades, or else they chafe and pine away with weariness. +Then there is a sullen canal, which flows through the forest from the +marshes to the sea; it is alive with frogs and newts and snakes. You +may see these serpents basking on the surface among thickets of the +flowering rush, or coiled about the lily leaves and flowers—lithe +monsters, slippery and speckled, the tyrants of the fen.</p> + +<p>It is said that when Dante was living at Ravenna he would spend whole +days alone among the forest glades, thinking of Florence and her civil +wars, and meditating cantos of his poem. Nor have the influences of +the pine-wood failed to leave their trace upon his verse. The charm of +its summer solitude seems to have sunk into his soul; for when he +describes the whispering of winds and singing birds among the boughs +of his terrestrial paradise, he says:—</p> + +<p> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Non però dal lor esser dritto sparte</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">Tanto, che gli augelletti per le cime</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">Lasciasser d' operare ogni lor arte:</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Ma con piena letizia l' aure prime,</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">Cantando, ricevano intra le foglie,</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">Che tenevan bordone alle sue rime</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Tal, qual di ramo in ramo si raccoglie</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">Per la pineta in sul lito di Chiassi</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">Quand' Eolo Scirocco fuor discioglie.</span><br /> +</p> + +<p>With these verses in our minds, while wandering down the grassy +aisles, beside the waters of the solitary place, we seem to meet that +lady singing as she went, and plucking flower by flower, 'like +Proserpine when Ceres lost a daughter, and she lost her spring.' +There, too, the vision of the griffin and the car, of singing +maidens, and of Beatrice descending to the sound of Benedictus and of +falling flowers, her flaming robe and mantle green as grass, and veil +of white, and olive crown, all flashed upon the poet's inner eye, and +he remembered how he bowed before her when a boy. There is yet another +passage in which it is difficult to believe that Dante had not the +pine-forest in his mind. When Virgil and the poet were waiting in +anxiety before the gates of Dis, when the Furies on the wall were +tearing their breasts and crying, 'Venga Medusa, e si 'l farem di +smalto,' suddenly across the hideous river came a sound like that +which whirlwinds make among the shattered branches and bruised stems +of forest-trees; and Dante, looking out with fear upon the foam and +spray and vapour of the flood, saw thousands of the damned flying +before the face of one who forded Styx with feet unwet. 'Like frogs,' +he says, 'they fled, who scurry through the water at the sight of +their foe, the serpent, till each squats and hides himself close to +the ground.' The picture of the storm among the trees might well have +occurred to Dante's mind beneath the roof of pine-boughs. Nor is there +any place in which the simile of the frogs and water-snake attains +such dignity and grandeur. I must confess that till I saw the ponds +and marshes of Ravenna, I used to fancy that the comparison was +somewhat below the greatness of the subject; but there so grave a note +of solemnity and desolation is struck, the scale of Nature is so +large, and the serpents coiling in and out among the lily leaves and +flowers are so much in their right place, that they suggest a scene by +no means unworthy of Dante's conception.</p> + +<p>Nor is Dante the only singer who has invested this wood with poetical +associations. It is well known that Boccaccio laid his story of +'Honoria' in the pine-forest, and every student of English literature +must be familiar with the noble tale in verse which Dryden has founded +on this part of the 'Decameron.' We all of us have followed Theodore, +and watched with him the tempest swelling in the grove, and seen the +hapless ghost pursued by demon hounds and hunter down the glades. This +story should be read while storms are gathering upon the distant sea, +or thunderclouds descending from the Apennines, and when the pines +begin to rock and surge beneath the stress of labouring winds. Then +runs the sudden flash of lightning like a rapier through the boughs, +the rain streams hissing down, and the thunder 'breaks like a whole +sea overhead.'</p> + +<p>With the Pinetum the name of Byron will be for ever associated. During +his two years' residence in Ravenna he used to haunt its wilderness, +riding alone or in the company of friends. The inscription placed +above the entrance to the house he occupied alludes to it as one of +the objects which principally attracted the poet to the neighbourhood +of Ravenna: 'Impaziente di visitare l' antica selva, che inspirò già +il Divino e Giovanni Boccaccio.' We know, however, that a more +powerful attraction, in the person of the Countess Guiccioli, +maintained his fidelity to 'that place of old renown, once in the +Adrian Sea, Ravenna.'</p> + +<p>Between the Bosco, as the people of Ravenna call this pine-wood, and +the city, the marsh stretches for a distance of about three miles. It +is a plain intersected by dykes and ditches, and mapped out into +innumerable rice-fields. For more than half a year it lies under +water, and during the other months exhales a pestilential vapour, +which renders it as uninhabitable as the Roman Campagna; yet in +springtime this dreary flat is even beautiful. The young blades of the +rice shoot up above the water, delicately green and tender. The +ditches are lined with flowering rush and golden flags, while white +and yellow lilies sleep in myriads upon the silent pools. Tamarisks +wave their pink and silver tresses by the road, and wherever a plot of +mossy earth emerges from the marsh, it gleams with purple orchises and +flaming marigolds; but the soil beneath is so treacherous and spongy, +that these splendid blossoms grow like flowers in dreams or fairy +stories. You try in vain to pick them; they elude your grasp, and +flourish in security beyond the reach of arm or stick.</p> + +<p>Such is the sight of the old town of Classis. Not a vestige of the +Roman city remains, not a dwelling or a ruined tower, nothing but the +ancient church of S. Apollinare in Classe. Of all desolate buildings +this is the most desolate. Not even the deserted grandeur of S. Paolo +beyond the walls of Rome can equal it. Its bare round campanile gazes +at the sky, which here vaults only sea and plain—a perfect dome, +star-spangled like the roof of Galla Placidia's tomb. Ravenna lies low +to west, the pine-wood stretches away in long monotony to east. There +is nothing else to be seen except the spreading marsh, bounded by dim +snowy Alps and purple Apennines, so very far away that the level rack +of summer clouds seem more attainable and real. What sunsets and +sunrises that tower must see; what glaring lurid afterglows in August, +when the red light scowls upon the pestilential fen; what sheets of +sullen vapour rolling over it in autumn; what breathless heats, and +rainclouds big with thunder; what silences; what unimpeded blasts of +winter winds! One old monk tends this deserted spot. He has the huge +church, with its echoing aisles and marble columns and giddy +bell-tower and cloistered corridors, all to himself. At rare +intervals, priests from Ravenna come to sing some special mass at +these cold altars; pious folk make vows to pray upon their mouldy +steps and kiss the relics which are shown on great occasions. But no +one stays; they hurry, after muttering their prayers, from the +fever-stricken spot, reserving their domestic pieties and customary +devotions for the brighter and newer chapels of the fashionable +churches in Ravenna. So the old monk is left alone to sweep the marsh +water from his church floor, and to keep the green moss from growing +too thickly on its monuments. A clammy conferva covers everything +except the mosaics upon tribune, roof, and clerestory, which defy the +course of age. Christ on His throne <i>sedet aternumque sedebit: </i> the +saints around him glitter with their pitiless uncompromising eyes and +wooden gestures, as if twelve centuries had not passed over them, and +they were nightmares only dreamed last night, and rooted in a sick +man's memory. For those gaunt and solemn forms there is no change of +life or end of days. No fever touches them; no dampness of the wind +and rain loosens their firm cement. They stare with senseless faces in +bitter mockery of men who live and die and moulder away beneath. Their +poor old guardian told us it was a weary life. He has had the fever +three times, and does not hope to survive many more Septembers. The +very water that he drinks is brought him from Ravenna; for the vast +fen, though it pours its overflow upon the church floor, and spreads +like a lake around, is death to drink. The monk had a gentle woman's +voice and mild brown eyes. What terrible crime had consigned him to +this living tomb? For what past sorrow is he weary of his life? What +anguish of remorse has driven him to such a solitude? Yet he looked +simple and placid; his melancholy was subdued and calm, as if life +were over for him, and he were waiting for death to come with a +friend's greeting upon noiseless wings some summer night across the +fen-lands in a cloud of soft destructive fever-mist.</p> + +<p>Another monument upon the plain is worthy of a visit. It is the +so-called Colonna dei Francesi, a <i>cinquecento</i> pillar of Ionic +design, erected on the spot where Gaston de Foix expired victorious +after one of the bloodiest battles ever fought. The Ronco, a straight +sluggish stream, flows by the lonely spot; mason bees have covered +with laborious stucco-work the scrolls and leafage of its ornaments, +confounding epitaphs and trophies under their mud houses. A few +cypress-trees stand round it, and the dogs and chickens of a +neighbouring farmyard make it their rendezvous. Those mason bees are +like posterity, which settles down upon the ruins of a Baalbec or a +Luxor, setting up its tents, and filling the fair spaces of Hellenic +or Egyptian temples with clay hovels. Nothing differs but the scale; +and while the bees content themselves with filling up and covering, +man destroys the silent places of the past which he appropriates.</p> + +<p>In Ravenna itself, perhaps what strikes us most is the abrupt +transition everywhere discernible from monuments of vast antiquity to +buildings of quite modern date. There seems to be no interval between +the marbles and mosaics of Justinian or Theodoric and the +insignificant frippery of the last century. The churches of +Ravenna—S. Vitale, S. Apollinare, and the rest—are too well known, +and have been too often described by enthusiastic antiquaries, to need +a detailed notice in this place. Every one is aware that the +ecclesiastical customs and architecture of the early Church can be +studied in greater perfection here than elsewhere. Not even the +basilicas and mosaics of Rome, nor those of Palermo and Monreale, are +equal for historical interest to those of Ravenna. Yet there is not +one single church which remains entirely unaltered and unspoiled. The +imagination has to supply the atrium or outer portico from one +building, the vaulted baptistery with its marble font from another, +the pulpits and ambones from a third the tribune from a fourth, the +round brick bell-tower from a fifth, and then to cover all the concave +roofs and chapel walls with grave and glittering mosaics.</p> + +<p>There is nothing more beautiful in decorative art than the mosaics of +such tiny buildings as the tomb of Galla Placidia or the chapel of the +Bishop's Palace. They are like jewelled and enamelled cases; not an +inch of wall can be seen which is not covered with elaborate patterns +of the brightest colours. Tall date-palms spring from the floor with +fruit and birds among their branches, and between them stand the +pillars and apostles of the Church. In the spandrels and lunettes +above the arches and the windows angels fly with white extended wings. +On every vacant place are scrolls and arabesques of foliage,—birds +and beasts, doves drinking from the vase, and peacocks spreading +gorgeous plumes—a maze of green and gold and blue. Overhead, the +vault is powdered with stars gleaming upon the deepest azure, and in +the midst is set an aureole embracing the majestic head of Christ, or +else the symbol of the sacred fish, or the hand of the Creator +pointing from a cloud. In Galla Placidia's tomb these storied vaults +spring above the sarcophagi of empresses and emperors, each lying in +the place where he was laid more than twelve centuries ago. The light +which struggles through the narrow windows serves to harmonise the +brilliant hues and make a gorgeous gloom.</p> + +<p>Besides these more general and decorative subjects, many of the +churches are adorned with historical mosaics, setting forth the Bible +narrative or incidents from the life of Christian emperors and kings. +In S. Apollinare Nuovo there is a most interesting treble series of +such mosaics extending over both walls of the nave. On the left hand, +as we enter, we see the town of Classis; on the right the palace of +Theodoric, its doors and loggie rich with curtains, and its friezes +blazing with coloured ornaments. From the city gate of Classis virgins +issue, and proceed in a long line until they reach Madonna seated on a +throne, with Christ upon her knees, and the three kings in adoration +at her feet. From Theodoric's palace door a similar procession of +saints and martyrs carry us to Christ surrounded by archangels. Above +this double row of saints and virgins stand the fathers and prophets +of the Church, and highest underneath the roof are pictures from the +life of our Lord. It will be remembered in connection with these +subjects that the women sat upon the left and the men upon the right +side of the church. Above the tribune, at the east end of the church, +it was customary to represent the Creative Hand, or the monogram of +the Saviour, or the head of Christ with the letters A and [Greek Ô]. +Moses and Elijah frequently stand on either side to symbolise the +transfiguration, while the saints and bishops specially connected with +the church appeared upon a lower row. Then on the side walls were +depicted such subjects as Justinian and Theodora among their +courtiers, or the grant of the privileges of the church to its first +founder from imperial patrons, with symbols of the old Hebraic +ritual—Abel's lamb, the sacrifice of Isaac, Melchisedec's offering of +bread and wine,—which were regarded as the types of Christian +ceremonies. The baptistery was adorned with appropriate mosaics +representing Christ's baptism in Jordan.</p> + +<p>Generally speaking, one is struck with the dignity of these designs, +and especially with the combined majesty and sweetness of the face of +Christ. The sense for harmony of hue displayed in their composition is +marvellous. It would be curious to trace in detail the remnants of +classical treatment which may be discerned—Jordan, for instance, +pours his water from an urn like a river-god crowned with sedge—or to +show what points of ecclesiastical tradition are established these +ancient monuments. We find Mariolatry already imminent, the names of +the three kings, Kaspar, Melchior, and Balthazar, the four evangelists +as we now recognise them, and many of the rites and vestments which +Ritualists of all denominations regard with superstitious reverence.</p> + +<p>There are two sepulchral monuments in Ravenna which cannot be passed +over unnoticed. The one is that of Theodoric the Goth, crowned by its +semisphere of solid stone, a mighty tomb, well worthy of the conqueror +and king. It stands in a green field, surrounded by acacias, where the +nightingales sing ceaselessly in May. The mason bees have covered it, +and the water has invaded its sepulchral vaults. In spite of many +trials, it seems that human art is unable to pump out the pond and +clear the frogs and efts from the chamber where the great Goth was +laid by Amalasuntha.</p> + +<p>The other is Dante's temple, with its basrelief and withered garlands. +The story of his burial, and of the discovery of his real tomb, is +fresh in the memory of every one. But the 'little cupola, more neat +than solemn,' of which Lord Byron speaks, will continue to be the goal +of many a pilgrimage. For myself—though I remember Chateaubriand's +bareheaded genuflection on its threshold, Alfieri's passionate +prostration at the altar-tomb, and Byron's offering of poems on the +poet's shrine—I confess that a single canto of the 'Inferno,' a +single passage of the 'Vita Nuova,' seems more full of soul-stirring +associations than the place where, centuries ago, the mighty dust was +laid. It is the spirit that lives and makes alive. And Dante's spirit +seems more present with us under the pine-branches of the Bosco than +beside his real or fancied tomb. 'He is risen,'—'Lo, I am with you +alway'—these are the words that ought to haunt us in a +burying-ground. There is something affected and self-conscious in +overpowering grief or enthusiasm or humiliation at a tomb.</p> + + +<h5><a href="#CONTENTS">CONTENTS</a></h5> +<br /><br /> +<hr style="width: 100%;" /> +<h2><a name="RIMINI" id="RIMINI" /><i>RIMINI</i></a></h2> +<hr style="width: 100%;" /> +<br /> +<p>SIGISMONDO PANDOLFO MALATESTA AND LEO BATTISTA ALBERTI</p> +<br /><br /> + +<p>Rimini is a city of about 18,000 souls, famous for its Stabilmento de' +Bagni and its antiquities, seated upon the coast of the Adriatic, a +little to the south-east of the world-historical Rubicon. It is our +duty to mention the baths first among its claims to distinction, +since the prosperity and cheerfulness of the little town depend on +them in a great measure. But visitors from the north will fly from +these, to marvel at the bridge which Augustus built and Tiberius +completed, and which still spans the Marecchia with five gigantic +arches of white Istrian limestone, as solidly as if it had not borne +the tramplings of at least three conquests. The triumphal arch, too, +erected in honour of Augustus, is a notable monument of Roman +architecture. Broad, ponderous, substantial, tufted here and there +with flowering weeds, and surmounted with mediaeval machicolations, +proving it to have sometimes stood for city gate or fortress, it +contrasts most favourably with the slight and somewhat gimcrack arch +of Trajan in the sister city of Ancona. Yet these remains of the +imperial pontifices, mighty and interesting as they are, sink into +comparative insignificance beside the one great wonder of Rimini, the +cathedral remodelled for Sigismondo Pandolfo Malatesta by Leo Battista +Alberti in 1450. This strange church, one of the earliest extant +buildings in which the Neopaganism of the Renaissance showed itself in +full force, brings together before our memory two men who might be +chosen as typical in their contrasted characters of the transitional +age which gave them birth.</p> + +<p>No one with any tincture of literary knowledge is ignorant of the fame +at least of the great Malatesta family—the house of the Wrongheads, +as they were rightly called by some prevision of their future part in +Lombard history. The readers of the twenty-seventh and twenty-eighth +cantos of the 'Inferno' have all heard of</p> + +<p> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">E il mastin vecchio e il nuovo da Verucchio</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 3em;">Che fecer di Montagna il mal governo,</span><br /> +</p> + +<p>while the story of Francesca da Polenta, who was wedded to the +hunchback Giovanni Malatesta and murdered by him with her lover Paolo, +is known not merely to students of Dante, but to readers of Byron and +Leigh Hunt, to admirers of Flaxman, Ary Scheffer, Doré—to all, in +fact, who have of art and letters any love.</p> + +<p>The history of these Malatesti, from their first establishment under +Otho III. as lieutenants for the Empire in the Marches of Ancona, down +to their final subjugation by the Papacy in the age of the +Renaissance, is made up of all the vicissitudes which could befall a +mediaeval Italian despotism. Acquiring an unlawful right over the +towns of Rimini, Cesena, Sogliano, Ghiacciuolo, they ruled their petty +principalities like tyrants by the help of the Guelf and Ghibelline +factions, inclining to the one or the other as it suited their humour +or their interest, wrangling among themselves, transmitting the +succession of their dynasty through bastards and by deeds of force, +quarrelling with their neighbours the Counts of Urbino, alternately +defying and submitting to the Papal legates in Romagna, serving as +condottieri in the wars of the Visconti and the state of Venice, and +by their restlessness and genius for military intrigues contributing +in no slight measure to the general disturbance of Italy. The +Malatesti were a race of strongly marked character: more, perhaps, +than any other house of Italian tyrants, they combined for generations +those qualities of the fox and the lion, which Machiavelli thought +indispensable to a successful despot. Son after son, brother with +brother, they continued to be fierce and valiant soldiers, cruel in +peace, hardy in war, but treasonable and suspicious in all +transactions that could not be settled by the sword. Want of union, +with them as with the Baglioni and many other of the minor noble +families in Italy, prevented their founding a substantial dynasty. +Their power, based on force, was maintained by craft and crime, and +transmitted through tortuous channels by intrigue. While false in +their dealings with the world at large, they were diabolical in the +perfidy with which they treated one another. No feudal custom, no +standard of hereditary right, ruled the succession in their family. +Therefore the ablest Malatesta for the moment clutched what he could +of the domains that owned his house for masters. Partitions among sons +or brothers, mutually hostile and suspicious, weakened the whole +stock. Yet they were great enough to hold their own for centuries +among the many tyrants who infested Lombardy. That the other princely +families of Romagna, Emilia, and the March were in the same state of +internal discord and dismemberment, was probably one reason why the +Malatesti stood their ground so firmly as they did.</p> + +<p>So far as Rimini is concerned, the house of Malatesta culminated in +Sigismondo Pandolfo, son of Gian Galeazzo Visconti's general, the +perfidious Pandolfo. It was he who built the Rocca, or castle of the +despots, which stands a little way outside the town, commanding a fair +view of Apennine tossed hill-tops and broad Lombard plain, and who +remodelled the Cathedral of S. Francis on a plan suggested by the +greatest genius of the age. Sigismondo Pandolfo Malatesta was one of +the strangest products of the earlier Renaissance. To enumerate the +crimes which he committed within the sphere of his own family, +mysterious and inhuman outrages which render the tale of the Cenci +credible, would violate the decencies of literature. A thoroughly +bestial nature gains thus much with posterity that its worst qualities +must be passed by in silence. It is enough to mention that he murdered +three wives in succession,<a name="FNanchor_2_2" id="FNanchor_2_2" /></a><a href="#Footnote_2_2" class="fnanchor">[2]</a> Bussoni di Carmagnuola, Guinipera +d'Este, and Polissena Sforza, on various pretexts of infidelity, and +carved horns upon his own tomb with this fantastic legend +underneath:—</p> + +<p> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Porto le corna ch' ognuno le vede,</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">E tal le porta che non se lo crede.</span><br /> +</p> + +<p>He died in wedlock with the beautiful and learned Isotta degli Atti, +who had for some time been his mistress. But, like most of the +Malatesti, he left no legitimate offspring. Throughout his life he was +distinguished for bravery and cunning, for endurance of fatigue and +rapidity of action, for an almost fretful rashness in the execution of +his schemes, and for a character terrible in its violence. He was +acknowledged as a great general; yet nothing succeeded with him. The +long warfare which he carried on against the Duke of Montefeltro ended +in his discomfiture. Having begun by defying the Holy See, he was +impeached at Rome for heresy, parricide, incest, adultery, rape, and +sacrilege, burned in effigy by Pope Pius II., and finally restored to +the bosom of the Church, after suffering the despoliation of almost +all his territories, in 1463. The occasion on which this fierce and +turbulent despiser of laws human and divine was forced to kneel as a +penitent before the Papal legate in the gorgeous temple dedicated to +his own pride, in order that the ban of excommunication might be +removed from Rimini, was one of those petty triumphs, interesting +chiefly for their picturesqueness, by which the Popes confirmed their +questionable rights over the cities of Romagna. Sigismondo, shorn of +his sovereignty, took the command of the Venetian troops against the +Turks in the Morea, and returned in 1465, crowned with laurels, to die +at Rimini in the scene of his old splendour.</p> + +<p>A very characteristic incident belongs to this last act of his life. +Dissolute, treacherous, and inhuman as he was, the tyrant of Rimini +had always encouraged literature, and delighted in the society of +artists. He who could brook no contradiction from a prince or soldier, +allowed the pedantic scholars of the sixteenth century to dictate to +him in matters of taste, and sat with exemplary humility at the feet +of Latinists like Porcellio, Basinio, and Trebanio. Valturio, the +engineer, and Alberti, the architect, were his familiar friends; and +the best hours of his life were spent in conversation with these men. +Now that he found himself upon the sacred soil of Greece, he was +determined not to return to Italy empty-handed. Should he bring +manuscripts or marbles, precious vases or inscriptions in half-legible +Greek character? These relics were greedily sought for by the +potentates of Italian cities; and no doubt Sigismondo enriched his +library with some such treasures. But he obtained a nobler +prize—nothing less than the body of a saint of scholarship, the +authentic bones of the great Platonist, Gemisthus Pletho.<a name="FNanchor_3_3" id="FNanchor_3_3" /></a><a href="#Footnote_3_3" class="fnanchor">[3]</a> These he +exhumed from their Greek grave and caused them to be deposited in a +stone sarcophagus outside the cathedral of his building in Rimini. The +Venetians, when they stole the body of S. Mark from Alexandria, were +scarcely more pleased than was Sigismondo with the acquisition of this +Father of the Neopagan faith. Upon the tomb we still may read this +legend: 'Jemisthii Bizantii philosopher sua temp principis reliquum +Sig. Pan. Mal. Pan. F. belli Pelop adversus Turcor regem Imp ob +ingentem eruditorum quo flagrat amorem huc afferendum introque +mittendum curavit MCCCCLXVI.' Of the Latinity of the inscription much +cannot be said; but it means that 'Sigismondo Pandolfo Malatesta, +having served as general against the Turks in the Morea, induced by +the great love with which he burns for all learned men, brought and +placed here the remains of Gemisthus of Byzantium, the prince of the +philosophers of his day.'</p> + +<p>Sigismondo's portrait, engraved on medals, and sculptured upon every +frieze and point of vantage in the Cathedral of Rimini, well denotes +the man. His face is seen in profile. The head, which is low and flat +above the forehead, rising swiftly backward from the crown, carries a +thick bushy shock of hair curling at the ends, such as the Italians +call a <i>zazzera</i>. The eye is deeply sunk, with long venomous flat +eyelids, like those which Leonardo gives to his most wicked faces. The +nose is long and crooked, curved like a vulture's over a petulant +mouth, with lips deliberately pressed together, as though it were +necessary to control some nervous twitching. The cheek is broad, and +its bone is strongly marked. Looking at these features in repose, we +cannot but picture to our fancy what expression they might assume +under a sudden fit of fury, when the sinews of the face were +contracted with quivering spasms, and the lips writhed in sympathy +with knit forehead and wrinkled eyelids.</p> + +<p>Allusion has been made to the Cathedral of S. Francis at Rimini, as +the great ornament of the town, and the chief monument of Sigismondo's +fame. It is here that all the Malatesti lie. Here too is the chapel +consecrated to Isotta, 'Divæ Isottæ Sacrum;' and the tombs of the +Malatesta ladies, 'Malatestorum domûs heroidum sepulchrum;' and +Sigismondo's own grave with the cuckold's horns and scornful epitaph. +Nothing but the fact that the church is duly dedicated to S. Francis, +and that its outer shell of classic marble encases an old Gothic +edifice, remains to remind us that it is a Christian place of +worship.<a name="FNanchor_4_4" id="FNanchor_4_4" /></a><a href="#Footnote_4_4" class="fnanchor">[4]</a> It has no sanctity, no spirit of piety. The pride of the +tyrant whose legend—'Sigismundus Pandulphus Malatesta Pan. F. Fecit +Anno Gratiæ MCCCCL'—occupies every arch and stringcourse of the +architecture, and whose coat-of-arms and portrait in medallion, with +his cipher and his emblems of an elephant and a rose, are wrought in +every piece of sculptured work throughout the building, seems so to +fill this house of prayer that there is no room left for God. Yet the +Cathedral of Rimini remains a monument of first-rate importance for +all students who seek to penetrate the revived Paganism of the +fifteenth century. It serves also to bring a far more interesting +Italian of that period than the tyrant of Rimini himself, before our +notice.</p> + +<p>In the execution of his design, Sigismondo received the assistance of +one of the most remarkable men of this or any other age. Leo Battista +Alberti, a scion of the noble Florentine house of that name, born +during the exile of his parents, and educated in the Venetian +territory, was endowed by nature with aptitudes, faculties, and +sensibilities so varied, as to deserve the name of universal genius. +Italy in the Renaissance period was rich in natures of this sort, to +whom nothing that is strange or beautiful seemed unfamiliar, and who, +gifted with a kind of divination, penetrated the secrets of the world +by sympathy. To Pico della Mirandola, Lionardo da Vinci, and Michel +Agnolo Buonarroti may be added Leo Battista Alberti. That he achieved +less than his great compeers, and that he now exists as the shadow of +a mighty name, was the effect of circumstances. He came half a century +too early into the world, and worked as a pioneer rather than a +settler of the realm which Lionardo ruled as his demesne. Very early +in his boyhood Alberti showed the versatility of his talents. The use +of arms, the management of horses, music, painting, modelling for +sculpture, mathematics, classical and modern literature, physical +science as then comprehended, and all the bodily exercises proper to +the estate of a young nobleman, were at his command. His biographer +asserts that he was never idle, never subject to ennui or fatigue. He +used to say that books at times gave him the same pleasure as +brilliant jewels or perfumed flowers: hunger and sleep could not keep +him from them then. At other times the letters on the page appeared to +him like twining and contorted scorpions, so that he preferred to gaze +on anything but written scrolls. He would then turn to music or +painting, or to the physical sports in which he excelled. The language +in which this alternation of passion and disgust for study is +expressed, bears on it the stamp of Alberti's peculiar temperament, +his fervid and imaginative genius, instinct with subtle sympathies and +strange repugnances. Flying from his study, he would then betake +himself to the open air. No one surpassed him in running, in +wrestling, in the force with which he cast his javelin or discharged +his arrows. So sure was his aim and so skilful his cast, that he could +fling a farthing from the pavement of the square, and make it ring +against a church roof far above. When he chose to jump, he put his +feet together and bounded over the shoulders of men standing erect +upon the ground. On horseback he maintained perfect equilibrium, and +seemed incapable of fatigue. The most restive and vicious animals +trembled under him and became like lambs. There was a kind of +magnetism in the man. We read, besides these feats of strength and +skill, that he took pleasure in climbing mountains, for no other +purpose apparently than for the joy of being close to nature.</p> + +<p>In this, as in many other of his instincts, Alberti was before his +age. To care for the beauties of landscape unadorned by art, and to +sympathise with sublime or rugged scenery, was not in the spirit of +the Renaissance. Humanity occupied the attention of poets and +painters; and the age was yet far distant when the pantheistic feeling +for the world should produce the art of Wordsworth and of Turner. Yet +a few great natures even then began to comprehend the charm and +mystery which the Greeks had imaged in their Pan, the sense of an +all-pervasive spirit in wild places, the feeling of a hidden want, the +invisible tie which makes man a part of rocks and woods and streams +around him. Petrarch had already ascended the summit of Mont Ventoux, +to meditate, with an exaltation of the soul he scarcely understood, +upon the scene spread at his feet and above his head. Æneas Sylvius +Piccolomini delighted in wild places for no mere pleasure of the +chase, but for the joy he took in communing with nature. How S. +Francis found God in the sun and the air, the water and the stars, we +know by his celebrated hymn; and of Dante's acute observation, every +canto of the 'Divine Comedy' is witness.</p> + +<p>Leo Alberti was touched in spirit by even a deeper and a stranger +pathos than any of these men: 'In the early spring, when he beheld the +meadows and hills covered with flowers, and saw the trees and plants +of all kinds bearing promise of fruit, his heart became exceeding +sorrowful; and when in autumn he looked on fields heavy with harvest +and orchards apple-laden, he felt such grief that many even saw him +weep for the sadness of his soul.' It would seem that he scarcely +understood the source of this sweet trouble: for at such times he +compared the sloth and inutility of men with the industry and +fertility of nature; as though this were the secret of his melancholy. +A poet of our century has noted the same stirring of the spirit, and +has striven to account for it:—</p> + +<p> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Tears from the depth of some divine despair</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Rise in the heart, and gather to the eyes,</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">In looking on the happy autumn fields,</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">And thinking of the days that are no more.</span><br /> +</p> + +<p>Both Alberti and Tennyson have connected the <i>mal du pays</i> of the +human soul for that ancient country of its birth, the mild Saturnian +earth from which we sprang, with a sense of loss. It is the waste of +human energy that affects Alberti; the waste of human life touches the +modern poet. Yet both perhaps have scarcely interpreted their own +spirit; for is not the true source of tears deeper and more secret? +Man is a child of nature in the simplest sense; and the stirrings of +the secular breasts that gave him suck, and on which he even now must +hang, have potent influences over his emotions.</p> + +<p>Of Alberti's extraordinary sensitiveness to all such impressions many +curious tales are told. The sight of refulgent jewels, of flowers, and +of fair landscapes, had the same effect upon his nerves as the sound +of the Dorian mood upon the youths whom Pythagoras cured of passion by +music. He found in them an anodyne for pain, a restoration from +sickness. Like Walt Whitman, who adheres to nature by closer and more +vital sympathy than any other poet of the modern world, Alberti felt +the charm of excellent old age no less than that of florid youth. 'On +old men gifted with a noble presence and hale and vigorous, he gazed +again and again, and said that he revered in them the delights of +nature (<i>naturæ delitias</i>).' Beasts and birds and all living creatures +moved him to admiration for the grace with which they had been gifted, +each in his own kind. It is even said that he composed a funeral +oration for a dog which he had loved and which died.</p> + +<p>To this sensibility for all fair things in nature, Alberti added the +charm of a singularly sweet temper and graceful conversation. The +activity of his mind, which was always being exercised on subjects of +grave speculation, removed him from the noise and bustle of +commonplace society. He was somewhat silent, inclined to solitude, +and of a pensive countenance; yet no man found him difficult of +access: his courtesy was exquisite, and among familiar friends he was +noted for the flashes of a delicate and subtle wit. Collections were +made of his apophthegms by friends, and some are recorded by his +anonymous biographer.<a name="FNanchor_5_5" id="FNanchor_5_5" /></a><a href="#Footnote_5_5" class="fnanchor">[5]</a> Their finer perfume, as almost always happens +with good sayings which do not certain the full pith of a proverb, but +owe their force, in part at least, to the personality of their author, +and to the happy moment of their production, has evanesced. Here, +however, is one which seems still to bear the impress of Alberti's +genius: 'Gold is the soul of labour, and labour the slave of +pleasure.' Of women he used to say that their inconstancy was an +antidote to their falseness; for if a woman could but persevere in +what she undertook, all the fair works of men would be ruined. One of +his strongest moral sentences is aimed at envy, from which he suffered +much in his own life, and against which he guarded with a curious +amount of caution. His own family grudged the distinction which his +talents gained for him, and a dark story is told of a secret attempt +made by them to assassinate him through his servants. Alberti met +these ignoble jealousies with a stately calm and a sweet dignity of +demeanour, never condescending to accuse his relatives, never seeking +to retaliate, but acting always for the honour of his illustrious +house. In the same spirit of generosity he refused to enter into wordy +warfare with detractors and calumniators, sparing the reputation even +of his worst enemy when chance had placed him in his power. This +moderation both of speech and conduct was especially distinguished in +an age which tolerated the fierce invectives of Filelfo, and applauded +the vindictive courage of Cellini. To money Alberti showed a calm +indifference. He committed his property to his friends and shared with +them in common. Nor was he less careless about vulgar fame, spending +far more pains in the invention of machinery and the discovery of +laws, than in their publication to the world. His service was to +knowledge, not to glory. Self-control was another of his eminent +qualities. With the natural impetuosity of a large heart, and the +vivacity of a trained athlete, he yet never allowed himself to be +subdued by anger or by sensual impulses, but took pains to preserve +his character unstained and dignified before the eyes of men. A story +is told of him which may remind us of Goethe's determination to +overcome his giddiness. In his youth his head was singularly sensitive +to changes of temperature; but by gradual habituation he brought +himself at last to endure the extremes of heat and cold bareheaded. In +like manner he had a constitutional disgust for onions and honey; so +powerful, that the very sight of these things made him sick. Yet by +constantly viewing and touching what was disagreeable, he conquered +these dislikes; and proved that men have a complete mastery over what +is merely instinctive in their nature. His courage corresponded to his +splendid physical development. When a boy of fifteen, he severely +wounded himself in the foot. The gash had to be probed and then sewn +up. Alberti not only bore the pain of this operation without a groan, +but helped the surgeon with his own hands; and effected a cure of the +fever which succeeded by the solace of singing to his cithern. For +music he had a genius of the rarest order; and in painting he is said +to have achieved success. Nothing, however, remains of his work and +from what Vasari says of it, we may fairly conclude that he gave less +care to the execution of finished pictures, than to drawings +subsidiary to architectural and mechanical designs. His biographer +relates that when he had completed a painting, he called children and +asked them what it meant. If they did not know, he reckoned it a +failure. He was also in the habit of painting from memory. While at +Venice, he put on canvas the faces of friends at Florence whom he had +not seen for months. That the art of painting was subservient in his +estimation to mechanics, is indicated by what we hear about the +camera, in which he showed landscapes by day and the revolutions of +the stars by night, so lively drawn that the spectators were affected +with amazement. The semi-scientific impulse to extend man's mastery +over nature, the magician's desire to penetrate secrets, which so +powerfully influenced the development of Lionardo's genius, seems to +have overcome the purely æsthetic instincts of Alberti, so that he +became in the end neither a great artist like Raphael, nor a great +discoverer like Galileo, but rather a clairvoyant to whom the miracles +of nature and of art lie open.</p> + +<p>After the first period of youth was over, Leo Battista Alberti devoted +his great faculties and all his wealth of genius to the study of the +law—then, as now, the quicksand of the noblest natures. The industry +with which he applied himself to the civil and ecclesiastical codes +broke his health. For recreation he composed a Latin comedy called +'Philodoxeos,' which imposed upon the judgment of scholars, and was +ascribed as a genuine antique to Lepidus, the comic poet. Feeling +stronger, Alberti returned at the age of twenty to his law studies, +and pursued them in the teeth of disadvantages. His health was still +uncertain, and the fortune of an exile reduced him to the utmost want. +It was no wonder that under these untoward circumstances even his +Herculean strength gave way. Emaciated and exhausted, he lost the +clearness of his eyesight, and became subject to arterial +disturbances, which filled his ears with painful sounds. This nervous +illness is not dissimilar to that which Rousseau describes in the +confessions of his youth. In vain, however, his physicians warned +Alberti of impending peril. A man of so much stanchness, accustomed +to control his nature with an iron will, is not ready to accept +advice. Alberti persevered in his studies, until at last the very seat +of intellect was invaded. His memory began to fail him for names, +while he still retained with wonderful accuracy whatever he had seen +with his eyes. It was now impossible to think of law as a profession. +Yet since he could not live without severe mental exercise, he had +recourse to studies which tax the verbal memory less than the +intuitive faculties of the reason. Physics and mathematics became his +chief resource; and he devoted his energies to literature. His +'Treatise on the Family' may be numbered among the best of those +compositions on social and speculative subjects in which the Italians +of the Renaissance sought to rival Cicero. His essays on the arts are +mentioned by Vasari with sincere approbation. Comedies, interludes, +orations, dialogues, and poems flowed with abundance from his facile +pen. Some were written in Latin, which he commanded more than fairly; +some in the Tuscan tongue, of which owing to the long exile of his +family in Lombardy, he is said to have been less a master. It was +owing to this youthful illness, from which apparently his constitution +never wholly recovered, that Alberti's genius was directed to +architecture.</p> + +<p>Through his friendship with Flavio Biondo, the famous Roman antiquary, +Alberti received an introduction to Nicholas V. at the time when this, +the first great Pope of the Renaissance, was engaged in rebuilding the +palaces and fortifications of Rome. Nicholas discerned the genius of +the man, and employed him as his chief counsellor in all matters of +architecture. When the Pope died, he was able, while reciting his long +Latin will upon his deathbed, to boast that he had restored the Holy +See to its due dignity, and the Eternal City to the splendour worthy +of the seat of Christendom. The accomplishment of the second part of +his work he owed to the genius of Alberti. After doing thus much for +Rome under Thomas of Sarzana, and before beginning to beautify +Florence at the instance of the Rucellai family, Alberti entered the +service of the Malatesta, and undertook to remodel the Cathedral of S. +Francis at Rimini. He found it a plain Gothic structure with apse and +side chapels. Such churches are common enough in Italy, where pointed +architecture never developed its true character of complexity and +richness, but was doomed to the vast vacuity exemplified in S. +Petronio of Bologna. He left it a strange medley of mediæval and +Renaissance work, a symbol of that dissolving scene in the world's +pantomime, when the spirit of classic art, as yet but little +comprehended, was encroaching on the early Christian taste. Perhaps +the mixture of styles so startling in S. Francesco ought not to be +laid to the charge of Alberti, who had to execute the task of turning +a Gothic into a classic building. All that he could do was to alter +the whole exterior of the church, by affixing a screen-work of Roman +arches and Corinthian pilasters, so as to hide the old design and yet +to leave the main features of the fabric, the windows and doors +especially, <i>in statu quo</i>. With the interior he dealt upon the same +general principle, by not disturbing its structure, while he covered +every available square inch of surface with decorations alien to the +Gothic manner. Externally, S. Francesco is perhaps the most original +and graceful of the many attempts made by Italian builders to fuse the +mediæval and the classic styles. For Alberti attempted nothing less. A +century elapsed before Palladio, approaching the problem from a +different point of view, restored the antique in its purity, and +erected in the Palazzo della Ragione of Vicenza an almost unique +specimen of resuscitated Roman art.</p> + +<p>Internally, the beauty of the church is wholly due to its exquisite +wall-ornaments. These consist for the most part of low reliefs in a +soft white stone, many of them thrown out upon a blue ground in the +style of Della Robbia. Allegorical figures designed with the purity of +outline we admire in Botticelli, draperies that Burne-Jones might +copy, troops of singing boys in the manner of Donatello, great angels +traced upon the stone so delicately that they seem to be rather drawn +than sculptured, statuettes in niches, personifications of all arts +and sciences alternating with half-bestial shapes of satyrs and +sea-children:—such are the forms which fill the spaces of the chapel +walls, and climb the pilasters, and fret the arches, in such abundance +that had the whole church been finished as it was designed, it would +have presented one splendid though bizarre effect of incrustation. +Heavy screens of Verona marble, emblazoned in open arabesques with the +ciphers of Sigismondo and Isotta, with coats-of-arms, emblems, and +medallion portraits, shut the chapels from the nave. Who produced all +this sculpture it is difficult to say. Some of it is very good: much +is indifferent. We may hazard the opinion that, besides Bernardo +Ciuffagni, of whom Vasari speaks, some pupils of Donatello and +Benedetto da Majano worked at it. The influence of the sculptors of +Florence is everywhere perceptible.</p> + +<p>Whatever be the merit of these reliefs, there is no doubt that they +fairly represent one of the most interesting moments in the history of +modern art. Gothic inspiration had failed; the early Tuscan style of +the Pisani had been worked out; Michelangelo was yet far distant, and +the abundance of classic models had not overwhelmed originality. The +sculptors of the school of Ghiberti and Donatello, who are represented +in this church, were essentially pictorial, preferring low to high +relief, and relief in general to detached figures. Their style, like +the style of Boiardo in poetry, of Botticelli in painting, is specific +to Italy in the middle of the fifteenth century. Mediæval standards of +taste were giving way to classical, Christian sentiment to Pagan; yet +the imitation of the antique had not been carried so far as to efface +the spontaneity of the artist, and enough remained of Christian +feeling to tinge the fancy with a grave and sweet romance. The +sculptor had the skill and mastery to express his slightest shade of +thought with freedom, spirit, and precision. Yet his work showed no +sign of conventionality, no adherence to prescribed rules. Every +outline, every fold of drapery, every attitude was pregnant, to the +artist's own mind at any rate, with meaning. In spite of its +symbolism, what he wrought was never mechanically figurative, but +gifted with the independence of its own beauty, vital with an +inbreathed spirit of life. It was a happy moment, when art had reached +consciousness, and the artist had not yet become self-conscious. The +hand and the brain then really worked together for the procreation of +new forms of grace, not for the repetition of old models, or for the +invention of the strange and startling. 'Delicate, sweet, and +captivating,' are good adjectives to express the effect produced upon +the mind by the contemplation even of the average work of this period.</p> + +<p>To study the flowing lines of the great angels traced upon the walls +of the Chapel of S. Sigismund in the Cathedral of Rimini, to follow +the undulations of their drapery that seems to float, to feel the +dignified urbanity of all their gestures, is like listening to one of +those clear early Italian compositions for the voice, which surpasses +in suavity of tone and grace of movement all that Music in her +full-grown vigour has produced. There is indeed something infinitely +charming in the crepuscular moments of the human mind. Whether it be +the rathe loveliness of an art still immature, or the beauty of art +upon the wane—whether, in fact, the twilight be of morning or of +evening, we find in the masterpieces of such periods a placid calm and +chastened pathos, as of a spirit self-withdrawn from vulgar cares, +which in the full light of meridian splendour is lacking. In the +Church of S. Francesco at Rimini the tempered clearness of the dawn is +just about to broaden into day.</p> + +<h5><a href="#CONTENTS">CONTENTS</a></h5> +<br /><br /> +<hr style="width: 100%;" /> +<h2><a name="MAY_IN_UMBRIA" id="MAY_IN_UMBRIA" /><i>MAY IN UMBRIA</i></a></h2> +<hr style="width: 100%;" /> +<br /> +<p>FROM ROME TO TERNI</p> +<br /><br /> + +<p>We left Rome in clear sunset light. The Alban Hills defined themselves +like a cameo of amethyst upon a pale blue distance; and over the +Sabine Mountains soared immeasurable moulded domes of alabaster +thunderclouds, casting deep shadows, purple and violet, across the +slopes of Tivoli. To westward the whole sky was lucid, like some +half-transparent topaz, flooded with slowly yellowing sunbeams. The +Campagna has often been called a garden of wild-flowers. Just now +poppy and aster, gladiolus and thistle, embroider it with patterns +infinite and intricate beyond the power of art. They have already mown +the hay in part; and the billowy tracts of greyish green, where no +flowers are now in bloom, supply a restful groundwork to those +brilliant patches of diapered <i>fioriture</i>. These are like +praying-carpets spread for devotees upon the pavement of a mosque +whose roof is heaven. In the level light the scythes of the mowers +flash as we move past. From their bronzed foreheads the men toss +masses of dark curls. Their muscular flanks and shoulders sway +sideways from firm yet pliant reins. On one hill, fronting the sunset, +there stands a herd of some thirty huge grey oxen, feeding and raising +their heads to look at us, with just a flush of crimson on their +horns and dewlaps. This is the scale of Mason's and of Costa's +colouring. This is the breadth and magnitude of Rome.</p> + +<p>Thus, through dells of ilex and oak, yielding now a glimpse of Tiber +and S. Peter's, now opening on a purple section of the distant Sabine +Hills, we came to Monte Rotondo. The sun sank; and from the flames +where he had perished, Hesper and the thin moon, very white and keen, +grew slowly into sight. Now we follow the Tiber, a swollen, hurrying, +turbid river, in which the mellowing Western sky reflects itself. This +changeful mirror of swift waters spreads a dazzling foreground to +valley, hill, and lustrous heaven. There is orange on the far horizon, +and a green ocean above, in which sea-monsters fashioned from the +clouds are floating. Yonder swims an elf with luminous hair astride +upon a sea-horse, and followed by a dolphin plunging through the fiery +waves. The orange deepens into dying red. The green divides into +daffodil and beryl. The blue above grows fainter, and the moon and +stars shine stronger.</p> + +<p>Through these celestial changes we glide into a landscape fit for +Francia and the early Umbrian painters. Low hills to right and left; +suavely modelled heights in the far distance; a very quiet width of +plain, with slender trees ascending into the pellucid air; and down in +the mystery of the middle distance a glimpse of heaven-reflecting +water. The magic of the moon and stars lends enchantment to this +scene. No painting could convey their influences. Sometimes both +luminaries tremble, all dispersed and broken, on the swirling river. +Sometimes they sleep above the calm cool reaches of a rush-grown mere. +And here and there a ruined turret, with a broken window and a tuft +of shrubs upon the rifted battlement, gives value to the fading pallor +of the West. The last phase in the sunset is a change to blue-grey +monochrome, faintly silvered with starlight; hills, Tiber, fields and +woods, all floating in aërial twilight. There is no definition of +outline now. The daffodil of the horizon has faded into scarcely +perceptible pale greenish yellow.</p> + +<p>We have passed Stimigliano. Through the mystery of darkness we hurry +past the bridges of Augustus and the lights of Narni.</p> + + +<p>THE CASCADES OF TERNI</p> + + +<p>The Velino is a river of considerable volume which rises in the +highest region of the Abruzzi, threads the upland valley of Rieti, and +precipitates itself by an artificial channel over cliffs about seven +hundred feet in height into the Nera. The water is densely charged +with particles of lime. This calcareous matter not only tends +continually to choke its bed, but clothes the precipices over which +the torrent thunders with fantastic drapery of stalactite; and, +carried on the wind in foam, incrusts the forests that surround the +falls with fine white dust. These famous cascades are undoubtedly the +most sublime and beautiful which Europe boasts; and their situation is +worthy of so great a natural wonder. We reach them through a noble +mid-Italian landscape, where the mountain forms are austere and boldly +modelled, but the vegetation, both wild and cultivated, has something +of the South-Italian richness. The hillsides are a labyrinth of box +and arbutus, with coronilla in golden bloom. The turf is starred with +cyclamens and orchises. Climbing the staircase paths beside the falls +in morning sunlight, or stationed on the points of vantage that +command their successive cataracts, we enjoyed a spectacle which might +be compared in its effect upon the mind to the impression left by a +symphony or a tumultuous lyric. The turbulence and splendour, the +swiftness and resonance, the veiling of the scene in smoke of +shattered water-masses, the withdrawal of these veils according as the +volume of the river slightly shifted in its fall, the rainbows +shimmering on the silver spray, the shivering of poplars hung above +impendent precipices, the stationary grandeur of the mountains keeping +watch around, the hurry and the incoherence of the cataracts, the +immobility of force and changeful changelessness in nature, were all +for me the elements of one stupendous poem. It was like an ode of +Shelley translated into symbolism, more vivid through inarticulate +appeal to primitive emotion than any words could be.</p> + + +<p>MONTEFALCO</p> + + +<p>The rich land of the Clitumnus is divided into meadows by transparent +watercourses, gliding with a glassy current over swaying reeds. +Through this we pass, and leave Bevagna to the right, and ascend one +of those long gradual roads which climb the hills where all the cities +of the Umbrians perch. The view expands, revealing Spello, Assisi, +Perugia on its mountain buttress, and the far reaches northward of the +Tiber valley. Then Trevi and Spoleto came into sight, and the severe +hill-country above Gubbio in part disclosed itself. Over Spoleto the +fierce witch-haunted heights of Norcia rose forbidding. This is the +kind of panorama that dilates the soul. It is so large, so dignified, +so beautiful in tranquil form. The opulent abundance of the plain +contrasts with the severity of mountain ranges desolately grand; and +the name of each of all those cities thrills the heart with memories.</p> + +<p>The main object of a visit to Montefalco is to inspect its many +excellent frescoes; painted histories of S. Francis and S. Jerome, by +Benozzo Gozzoli; saints, angels, and Scripture episodes by the gentle +Tiberio d'Assisi. Full justice had been done to these, when a little +boy, seeing us lingering outside the church of S. Chiara, asked +whether we should not like to view the body of the saint. This +privilege could be purchased at the price of a small fee. It was only +necessary to call the guardian of her shrine at the high altar. +Indolent, and in compliant mood, with languid curiosity and half an +hour to spare, we assented. A handsome young man appeared, who +conducted us with decent gravity into a little darkened chamber behind +the altar. There he lighted wax tapers, opened sliding doors in what +looked like a long coffin, and drew curtains. Before us in the dim +light there lay a woman covered with a black nun's dress. Only her +hands, and the exquisitely beautiful pale contour of her face +(forehead, nose, mouth, and chin, modelled in purest outline, as +though the injury of death had never touched her) were visible. Her +closed eyes seemed to sleep. She had the perfect peace of Luini's S. +Catherine borne by the angels to her grave on Sinai. I have rarely +seen anything which surprised and touched me more. The religious +earnestness of the young custode, the hushed adoration of the +country-folk who had silently assembled round us, intensified the +sympathy-inspiring beauty of the slumbering girl. Could Julia, +daughter of Claudius, have been fairer than this maiden, when the +Lombard workmen found her in her Latin tomb, and brought her to be +worshipped on the Capitol? S. Chiara's shrine was hung round with her +relics; and among these the heart extracted from her body was +suspended. Upon it, apparently wrought into the very substance of the +mummied flesh, were impressed a figure of the crucified Christ, the +scourge, and the five stigmata. The guardian's faith in this +miraculous witness to her sainthood, the gentle piety of the men and +women who knelt before it, checked all expressions of incredulity. We +abandoned ourselves to the genius of the place; forgot even to ask +what Santa Chiara was sleeping here; and withdrew, toned to a not +unpleasing melancholy. The world-famous S. Clair, the spiritual sister +of S. Francis, lies in Assisi. I have often asked myself, Who, then, +was this nun? What history had she? And I think now of this girl as of +a damsel of romance, a Sleeping Beauty in the wood of time, secluded +from intrusive elements of fact, and folded in the love and faith of +her own simple worshippers. Among the hollows of Arcadia, how many +rustic shrines in ancient days held saints of Hellas, apocryphal, +perhaps, like this, but hallowed by tradition and enduring homage!<a name="FNanchor_6_6" id="FNanchor_6_6" /></a><a href="#Footnote_6_6" class="fnanchor">[6]</a></p> + + +<p>FOLIGNO</p> + + +<p>In the landscape of Raphael's votive picture, known as the Madonna di +Foligno, there is a town with a few towers, placed upon a broad plain +at the edge of some blue hills. Allowing for that license as to +details which imaginative masters permitted themselves in matters of +subordinate importance, Raphael's sketch is still true to Foligno. The +place has not materially changed since the beginning of the sixteenth +century. Indeed, relatively to the state of Italy at large, it is +still the same as in the days of ancient Rome. Foligno forms a station +of commanding interest between Rome and the Adriatic upon the great +Flaminian Way. At Foligno the passes of the Apennines debouch into the +Umbrian plain, which slopes gradually toward the valley of the Tiber, +and from it the valley of the Nera is reached by an easy ascent +beneath the walls of Spoleto. An army advancing from the north by the +Metaurus and the Furlo Pass must find itself at Foligno; and the level +champaign round the city is well adapted to the maintenance and +exercises of a garrison. In the days of the Republic and the Empire, +the value of this position was well understood; but Foligno's +importance, as the key to the Flaminian Way, was eclipsed by two +flourishing cities in its immediate vicinity, Hispellum and Mevania, +the modern Spello and Bevagna. We might hazard a conjecture that the +Lombards, when they ruled the Duchy of Spoleto, following their usual +policy of opposing new military centres to the ancient Roman +municipia, encouraged Fulginium at the expense of her two neighbours. +But of this there is no certainty to build upon. All that can be +affirmed with accuracy is that in the Middle Ages, while Spello and +Bevagna declined into the inferiority of dependent burghs, Foligno +grew in power and became the chief commune of this part of Umbria. It +was famous during the last centuries of struggle between the Italian +burghers and their native despots, for peculiar ferocity in civil +strife. Some of the bloodiest pages in mediæval Italian history are +those which relate the vicissitudes of the Trinci family, the +exhaustion of Foligno by internal discord, and its final submission to +the Papal power. Since railways have been carried from Rome through +Narni and Spoleto to Ancona and Perugia, Foligno has gained +considerably in commercial and military status. It is the point of +intersection for three lines; the Italian government has made it a +great cavalry depôt, and there are signs of reviving traffic in its +decayed streets. Whether the presence of a large garrison has already +modified the population, or whether we may ascribe something to the +absence of Roman municipal institutions in the far past, and to the +savagery of the mediæval period, it is difficult to say. Yet the +impression left by Foligno upon the mind is different from that of +Assisi, Spello, and Montefalco, which are distinguished for a certain +grace and gentleness in their inhabitants.</p> + +<p>My window in the city wall looks southward across the plain to +Spoleto, with Montefalco perched aloft upon the right, and Trevi on +its mountain-bracket to the left. From the topmost peaks of the Sabine +Apennines, gradual tender sloping lines descend to find their quiet in +the valley of Clitumnus. The space between me and that distance is +infinitely rich with every sort of greenery, dotted here and there +with towers and relics of baronial houses. The little town is in +commotion; for the working men of Foligno and its neighbourhood have +resolved to spend their earnings on a splendid festa—horse-races, and +two nights of fireworks. The acacias and paulownias on the ramparts +are in full bloom of creamy white and lilac. In the glare of Bengal +lights these trees, with all their pendulous blossoms, surpassed the +most fantastic of artificial decorations. The rockets sent aloft into +the sky amid that solemn Umbrian landscape were nowise out of harmony +with nature. I never sympathised with critics who resent the intrusion +of fireworks upon scenes of natural beauty. The Giessbach, lighted up +at so much per head on stated evenings, with a band playing and a +crowd of cockneys staring, presents perhaps an incongruous spectacle. +But where, as here at Foligno, a whole city has made itself a +festival, where there are multitudes of citizens and soldiers and +country-people slowly moving and gravely admiring, with the decency +and order characteristic of an Italian crowd, I have nothing but a +sense of satisfaction.</p> + +<p>It is sometimes the traveller's good fortune in some remote place to +meet with an inhabitant who incarnates and interprets for him the +<i>genius loci</i> as he has conceived it. Though his own subjectivity will +assuredly play a considerable part in such an encounter, transferring +to his chance acquaintance qualities he may not possess, and +connecting this personality in some purely imaginative manner with +thoughts derived from study, or impressions made by nature; yet the +stranger will henceforth become the meeting-point of many memories, +the central figure in a composition which derives from him its +vividness. Unconsciously and innocently he has lent himself to the +creation of a picture, and round him, as around the hero of a myth, +have gathered thoughts and sentiments of which he had himself no +knowledge. On one of these nights I had been threading the aisles of +acacia-trees, now glaring red, now azure, as the Bengal lights kept +changing. My mind instinctively went back to scenes of treachery and +bloodshed in the olden time, when Gorrado Trinci paraded the mangled +remnants of three hundred of his victims, heaped on mule-back, through +Foligno, for a warning to the citizens. As the procession moved along +the ramparts, I found myself in contest with a young man, who readily +fell into conversation. He was very tall, with enormous breadth of +shoulders, and long sinewy arms, like Michelangelo's favourite models. +His head was small, curled over with crisp black hair. Low forehead, +and thick level eyebrows absolutely meeting over intensely bright +fierce eyes. The nose descending straight from the brows, as in a +statue of Hadrian's age. The mouth full-lipped, petulant, and +passionate above a firm round chin. He was dressed in the shirt, white +trousers, and loose white jacket of a contadino; but he did not move +with a peasant's slouch, rather with the elasticity and alertness of +an untamed panther. He told me that he was just about to join a +cavalry regiment; and I could well imagine, when military dignity was +added to that gait, how grandly he would go. This young man, of whom I +heard nothing more after our half-hour's conversation among the +crackling fireworks and roaring cannon, left upon my mind an +indescribable impression of dangerousness—of 'something fierce and +terrible, eligible to burst forth.' Of men like this, then, were +formed the Companies of Adventure who flooded Italy with villany, +ambition, and lawlessness in the fifteenth century. Gattamelata, who +began life as a baker's boy at Narni and ended it with a bronze statue +by Donatello on the public square in Padua, was of this breed. Like +this were the Trinci and their bands of murderers. Like this were the +bravi who hunted Lorenzaccio to death at Venice. Like this was Pietro +Paolo Baglioni, whose fault, in the eyes of Machiavelli, was that he +could not succeed in being 'perfettamente tristo.' Beautiful, but +inhuman; passionate, but cold; powerful, but rendered impotent for +firm and lofty deeds by immorality and treason; how many centuries of +men like this once wasted Italy and plunged her into servitude! Yet +what material is here, under sterner discipline, and with a nobler +national ideal, for the formation of heroic armies. Of such stuff, +doubtless, were the Roman legionaries. When will the Italians learn to +use these men as Fabius or as Cæsar, not as the Vitelli and the Trinci +used them? In such meditations, deeply stirred by the meeting of my +own reflections with one who seemed to represent for me in life and +blood the spirit of the place which had provoked them, I said farewell +to Cavallucci, and returned to my bedroom on the city wall. The last +rockets had whizzed and the last cannons had thundered ere I fell +asleep.</p> + + +<p>SPELLO</p> + + +<p>Spello contains some not inconsiderable antiquities—the remains of a +Roman theatre, a Roman gate with the heads of two men and a woman +leaning over it, and some fragments of Roman sculpture scattered +through its buildings. The churches, especially those of S.M. Maggiore +and S. Francesco, are worth a visit for the sake of Pinturicchio. +Nowhere, except in the Piccolomini Library at Siena, can that +master's work in fresco be better studied than here. The satisfaction +with which he executed the wall paintings in S. Maria Maggiore is +testified by his own portrait introduced upon a panel in the +decoration of the Virgin's chamber. The scrupulously rendered details +of books, chairs, window seats, &c., which he here has copied, remind +one of Carpaccio's study of S. Benedict at Venice. It is all sweet, +tender, delicate, and carefully finished; but without depth, not even +the depth of Perugino's feeling. In S. Francesco, Pinturicchio, with +the same meticulous refinement, painted a letter addressed to him by +Gentile Baglioni. It lies on a stool before Madonna and her court of +saints. Nicety of execution, technical mastery of fresco as a medium +for Dutch detail-painting, prettiness of composition, and cheerfulness +of colouring, are noticeable throughout his work here rather than +either thought or sentiment. S. Maria Maggiore can boast a fresco of +Madonna between a young episcopal saint and Catherine of Alexandria +from the hand of Perugino. The rich yellow harmony of its tones, and +the graceful dignity of its emotion, conveyed no less by a certain +Raphaelesque pose and outline than by suavity of facial expression, +enable us to measure the distance between this painter and his +quasi-pupil Pinturicchio.</p> + +<p>We did not, however, drive to Spello to inspect either Roman +antiquities or frescoes, but to see an inscription on the city walls +about Orlando. It is a rude Latin elegiac couplet, saying that, 'from +the sign below, men may conjecture the mighty members of Roland, +nephew of Charles; his deeds are written in history.' Three agreeable +old gentlemen of Spello, who attended us with much politeness, and +were greatly interested in my researches, pointed out a mark +waist-high upon the wall, where Orlando's knee is reported to have +reached. But I could not learn anything about a phallic monolith, +which is said by Guerin or Panizzi to have been identified with the +Roland myth at Spello. Such a column either never existed here, or +had been removed before the memory of the present generation.</p> + + +<p>EASTER MORNING AT ASSISI</p> + + +<p>We are in the lower church of S. Francesco. High mass is being sung, +with orchestra and organ and a choir of many voices. Candles are +lighted on the altar, over-canopied with Giotto's allegories. From the +low southern windows slants the sun, in narrow bands, upon the +many-coloured gloom and embrowned glory of these painted aisles. Women +in bright kerchiefs kneel upon the stones, and shaggy men from the +mountains stand or lean against the wooden benches. There is no moving +from point to point. Where we have taken our station, at the +north-western angle of the transept, there we stay till mass be over. +The whole low-vaulted building glows duskily; the frescoed roof, the +stained windows, the figure-crowded pavements blending their rich but +subdued colours, like hues upon some marvellous moth's wings, or like +a deep-toned rainbow mist discerned in twilight dreams, or like such +tapestry as Eastern queens, in ancient days, wrought for the pavilion +of an empress. Forth from this maze of mingling tints, indefinite in +shade and sunbeams, lean earnest, saintly faces—ineffably +pure—adoring, pitying, pleading; raising their eyes in ecstasy to +heaven, or turning them in ruth toward earth. Men and women of whom +the world was not worthy—at the hands of those old painters they have +received the divine grace, the dovelike simplicity, whereof Italians +in the fourteenth century possessed the irrecoverable secret. Each +face is a poem; the counterpart in painting to a chapter from the +Fioretti di San Francesco. Over the whole scene—in the architecture, +in the frescoes, in the coloured windows, in the gloom, on the +people, in the incense, from the chiming bells, through the +music—broods one spirit: the spirit of him who was 'the co-espoused, +co-transforate with Christ;' the ardent, the radiant, the beautiful in +soul; the suffering, the strong, the simple, the victorious over self +and sin; the celestial who trampled upon earth and rose on wings of +ecstasy to heaven; the Christ-inebriated saint of visions supersensual +and life beyond the grave. Far down below the feet of those who +worship God through him, S. Francis sleeps; but his soul, the +incorruptible part of him, the message he gave the world, is in the +spaces round us. This is his temple. He fills it like an unseen god. +Not as Phoebus or Athene, from their marble pedestals; but as an +abiding spirit, felt everywhere, nowhere seized, absorbing in itself +all mysteries, all myths, all burning exaltations, all abasements, all +love, self-sacrifice, pain, yearning, which the thought of Christ, +sweeping the centuries, hath wrought for men. Let, therefore, choir +and congregation raise their voices on the tide of prayers and +praises; for this is Easter morning—Christ is risen! Our sister, +Death of the Body, for whom S. Francis thanked God in his hymn, is +reconciled to us this day, and takes us by the hand, and leads us to +the gate whence floods of heavenly glory issue from the faces of a +multitude of saints. Pray, ye poor people; chant and pray. If all be +but a dream, to wake from this were loss for you indeed!</p> + + +<p>PERUSIA AUGUSTA</p> + + +<p>The piazza in front of the Prefettura is my favourite resort on these +nights of full moon. The evening twilight is made up partly of sunset +fading over Thrasymene and Tuscany; partly of moonrise from the +mountains of Gubbio and the passes toward Ancona. The hills are capped +with snow, although the season is so forward. Below our parapets the +bulk of S. Domenico, with its gaunt perforated tower, and the finer +group of S. Pietro, flaunting the arrowy 'Pennacchio di Perugia,' jut +out upon the spine of hill which dominates the valley of the Tiber. As +the night gloom deepens, and the moon ascends the sky, these buildings +seem to form the sombre foreground to some French etching. Beyond them +spreads the misty moon-irradiated plain of Umbria. Over all rise +shadowy Apennines, with dim suggestions of Assisi, Spello, Foligno, +Montefalco, and Spoleto on their basements. Little thin whiffs of +breezes, very slight and searching, flit across, and shiver as they +pass from Apennine to plain. The slowly moving population—women in +veils, men winter-mantled—pass to and fro between the buildings and +the grey immensity of sky. Bells ring. The bugles of the soldiers blow +retreat in convents turned to barracks. Young men roam the streets +beneath, singing May songs. Far, far away upon the plain, red through +the vitreous moonlight ringed with thundery gauze, fires of unnamed +castelli smoulder. As we lean from ledges eighty feet in height, gas +vies with moon in chequering illuminations on the ancient walls; +Etruscan mouldings, Roman letters, high-piled hovels, suburban +world-old dwellings plastered like martins' nests against the masonry.</p> + +<p>Sunlight adds more of detail to this scene. To the right of Subasio, +where the passes go from Foligno towards Urbino and Ancona, heavy +masses of thundercloud hang every day; but the plain and +hill-buttresses are clear in transparent blueness. First comes Assisi, +with S.M. degli Angeli below; then Spello; then Foligno; then Trevi; +and, far away, Spoleto; with, reared against those misty battlements, +the village height of Montefalco—the 'ringhiera dell' Umbria,' as +they call it in this country. By daylight, the snow on yonder peaks is +clearly visible, where the Monti della Sibilla tower up above the +sources of the Nera and Velino from frigid wastes of Norcia. The lower +ranges seem as though painted, in films of airiest and palest azure, +upon china; and then comes the broad green champaign, flecked with +villages and farms. Just at the basement of Perugia winds Tiber, +through sallows and grey poplar-trees, spanned by ancient arches of +red brick, and guarded here and there by castellated towers. The mills +beneath their dams and weirs are just as Raphael drew them; and the +feeling of air and space reminds one, on each coign of vantage, of +some Umbrian picture. Every hedgerow is hoary with May-bloom and +honeysuckle. The oaks hang out their golden-dusted tassels. Wayside +shrines are decked with laburnum boughs and iris blossoms plucked from +the copse-woods, where spires of purple and pink orchis variegate the +thin, fine grass. The land waves far and wide with young corn, emerald +green beneath the olive-trees, which take upon their under-foliage +tints reflected from this verdure or red tones from the naked earth. A +fine race of <i>contadini</i>, with large, heroically graceful forms, and +beautiful dark eyes and noble faces, move about this garden, intent on +ancient, easy tillage of the kind Saturnian soil.</p> + + +<p>LA MAGIONE</p> + + +<p>On the road from Perugia to Cortona, the first stage ends at La +Magione, a high hill-village commanding the passage from the Umbrian +champaign to the lake of Thrasymene.</p> + +<p>It has a grim square fortalice above it, now in ruins, and a stately +castle to the south-east, built about the time of Braccio. Here took +place that famous diet of Cesare Borgia's enemies, when the son of +Alexander VI. was threatening Bologna with his arms, and bidding fair +to make himself supreme tyrant of Italy in 1502. It was the policy of +Cesare to fortify himself by reducing the fiefs of the Church to +submission, and by rooting out the dynasties which had acquired a +sort of tyranny in Papal cities. The Varani of Camerino and the +Manfredi of Faenza had been already extirpated. There was only too +good reason to believe that the turn of the Vitelli at Città di +Castello, of the Baglioni at Perugia, and of the Bentivogli at Bologna +would come next. Pandolfo Petrucci at Siena, surrounded on all sides +by Cesare's conquests, and specially menaced by the fortification of +Piombino, felt himself in danger. The great house of the Orsini, who +swayed a large part of the Patrimony of S. Peter's, and were closely +allied to the Vitelli, had even graver cause for anxiety. But such was +the system of Italian warfare, that nearly all these noble families +lived by the profession of arms, and most of them were in the pay of +Cesare. When, therefore, the conspirators met at La Magione, they were +plotting against a man whose money they had taken, and whom they had +hitherto aided in his career of fraud and spoliation.</p> + +<p>The diet consisted of the Cardinal Orsini, an avowed antagonist of +Alexander VI.; his brother Paolo, the chieftain of the clan; +Vitellozzo Vitelli, lord of Città di Castello; Gian-Paolo Baglioni, +made undisputed master of Perugia by the recent failure of his cousin +Grifonetto's treason; Oliverotto, who had just acquired the March of +Fermo by the murder of his uncle Giovanni da Fogliani; Ermes +Bentivoglio, the heir of Bologna; and Antonio da Venafro, the +secretary of Pandolfo Petrueci. These men vowed hostility on the basis +of common injuries and common fear against the Borgia. But they were +for the most part stained themselves with crime, and dared not trust +each other, and could not gain the confidence of any respectable power +in Italy except the exiled Duke of Urbino. Procrastination was the +first weapon used by the wily Cesare, who trusted that time would sow +among his rebel captains suspicion and dissension. He next made +overtures to the leaders separately, and so far succeeded in his +perfidious policy as to draw Vitellozzo Vitelli, Oliverotto da Fermo, +Paolo Orsini, and Francesco Orsini, Duke of Gravina, into his nets at +Sinigaglia. Under pretext of fair conference and equitable settlement +of disputed claims, he possessed himself of their persons, and had +them strangled—two upon December 31, and two upon January 18, 1503. +Of all Cesare's actions, this was the most splendid for its successful +combination of sagacity and policy in the hour of peril, of persuasive +diplomacy, and of ruthless decision when the time to strike his blow +arrived.</p> + + +<p>CORTONA</p> + + +<p>After leaving La Magione, the road descends upon the lake of +Thrasymene through oak-woods full of nightingales. The lake lay +basking, leaden-coloured, smooth and waveless, under a misty, +rain-charged, sun-irradiated sky. At Passignano, close beside its +shore, we stopped for mid-day. This is a little fishing village of +very poor people, who live entirely by labour on the waters. They +showed us huge eels coiled in tanks, and some fine specimens of the +silver carp—Reina del Lago. It was off one of the eels that we made +our lunch; and taken, as he was, alive from his cool lodging, he +furnished a series of dishes fit for a king.</p> + +<p>Climbing the hill of Cortona seemed a quite interminable business. It +poured a deluge. Our horses were tired, and one lean donkey, who, +after much trouble, was produced from a farmhouse and yoked in front +of them, rendered but little assistance.</p> + +<p>Next day we duly saw the Muse and Lamp in the Museo, the Fra +Angelicos, and all the Signorellis. One cannot help thinking that too +much fuss is made nowadays about works of art—running after them for +their own sakes, exaggerating their importance, and detaching them as +objects of study, instead of taking them with sympathy and +carelessness as pleasant or instructive adjuncts to our actual life. +Artists, historians of art, and critics are forced to isolate +pictures; and it is of profit to their souls to do so. But simple +folk, who have no aesthetic vocation, whether creative or critical, +suffer more than is good for them by compliance with mere fashion. +Sooner or later we shall return to the spirit of the ages which +produced these pictures, and which regarded them with less of an +industrious bewilderment than they evoke at present.</p> + +<p>I am far indeed from wishing to decry art, the study of art, or the +benefits to be derived from its intelligent enjoyment. I only mean to +suggest that we go the wrong way to work at present in this matter. +Picture and sculpture galleries accustom us to the separation of art +from life. Our methods of studying art, making a beginning of +art-study while traveling, tend to perpetuate this separation. It is +only on reflection, after long experience, that we come to perceive +that the most fruitful moments in our art education have been casual +and unsought, in quaint nooks and unexpected places, where nature, +art, and life are happily blent.</p> + +<p>The Palace of the Commune at Cortona is interesting because of the +shields of Florentine governors, sculptured on blocks of grey stone, +and inserted in its outer walls—Peruzzi, Albizzi, Strozzi, Salviati, +among the more ancient—de' Medici at a later epoch. The revolutions +in the Republic of Florence may be read by a herald from these +coats-of-arms and the dates beneath them.</p> + +<p>The landscape of this Tuscan highland satisfies me more and more with +sense of breadth and beauty. From S. Margherita above the town the +prospect is immense and wonderful and wild—up into those brown, +forbidding mountains; down to the vast plain; and over to the cities +of Chiusi, Montepulciano, and Foiano. The jewel of the view is +Trasimeno, a silvery shield encased with serried hills, and set upon +one corner of the scene, like a precious thing apart and meant for +separate contemplation. There is something in the singularity and +circumscribed completeness of the mountain-girded lake, diminished by +distance, which would have attracted Lionardo da Vinci's pencil, had +he seen it.</p> + +<p>Cortona seems desperately poor, and the beggars are intolerable. One +little blind boy, led by his brother, both frightfully ugly and ragged +urchins, pursued us all over the city, incessantly whining 'Signore +Padrone!' It was only on the threshold of the inn that I ventured to +give them a few coppers, for I knew well that any public beneficence +would raise the whole swarm of the begging population round us. +Sitting later in the day upon the piazza of S. Domenico, I saw the +same blind boy taken by his brother to play. The game consists, in the +little creature throwing his arms about the trunk of a big tree, and +running round and round it, clasping it. This seemed to make him quite +inexpressibly happy. His face lit up and beamed with that inner +beatitude blind people show—a kind of rapture shining over it, as +though nothing could be more altogether delightful. This little boy +had the smallpox at eight months, and has never been able to see +since. He looks sturdy, and may live to be of any age—doomed always, +is that possible, to beg?</p> + + +<p>CHIUSI</p> + + +<p>What more enjoyable dinner can be imagined than a flask of excellent +Montepulciano, a well-cooked steak, and a little goat's cheese in the +inn of the Leone d'Oro at Chiusi? The windows are open, and the sun is +setting. Monte Cetona bounds the view to the right, and the wooded +hills of Città della Pieve to the left. The deep green dimpled valley +goes stretching away toward Orvieto; and at its end a purple mountain +mass, distinct and solitary, which may peradventure be Soracte! The +near country is broken into undulating hills, forested with fine +olives and oaks; and the composition of the landscape, with its +crowning villages, is worthy of a background to an Umbrian picture. +The breadth and depth and quiet which those painters loved, the space +of lucid sky, the suggestion of winding waters in verdant fields, all +are here. The evening is beautiful—golden light streaming softly from +behind us on this prospect, and gradually mellowing to violet and blue +with stars above.</p> + +<p>At Chiusi we visited several Etruscan tombs, and saw their red and +black scrawled pictures. One of the sepulchres was a well-jointed +vault of stone with no wall-paintings. The rest had been scooped out +of the living tufa. This was the excuse for some pleasant hours spent +in walking and driving through the country. Chiusi means for me the +mingling of grey olives and green oaks in limpid sunlight; deep leafy +lanes; warm sandstone banks; copses with nightingales and cyclamens +and cuckoos; glimpses of a silvery lake; blue shadowy distances; the +bristling ridge of Monte Cetona; the conical towers, Becca di Questo +and Becca di Quello, over against each other on the borders; ways +winding among hedgerows like some bit of England in June, but not so +full of flowers. It means all this, I fear, for me far more than +theories about Lars Porsenna and Etruscan ethnology.</p> + + +<p>GUBBIO</p> + + +<p>Gubbio ranks among the most ancient of Italian hill-towns. With its +back set firm against the spine of central Apennines, and piled, house +over house, upon the rising slope, it commands a rich tract of upland +champaign, bounded southward toward Perugia and Foligno by peaked and +rolling ridges. This amphitheatre, which forms its source of wealth +and independence, is admirably protected by a chain of natural +defences; and Gubbio wears a singularly old-world aspect of antiquity +and isolation. Houses climb right to the crests of gaunt bare peaks; +and the brown mediæval walls with square towers which protected them +upon the mountain side, following the inequalities of the ground, are +still a marked feature in the landscape. It is a town of steep streets +and staircases, with quaintly framed prospects, and solemn vistas +opening at every turn across the lowland. One of these views might be +selected for especial notice. In front, irregular buildings losing +themselves in country as they straggle by the roadside; then the open +post-road with a cypress to the right; afterwards, the rich green +fields, and on a bit of rising ground an ancient farmhouse with its +brown dependencies; lastly, the blue hills above Fossato, and far away +a wrack of tumbling clouds. All this enclosed by the heavy archway of +the Porta Romana, where sunlight and shadow chequer the mellow tones +of a dim fresco, indistinct with age, but beautiful.</p> + +<p>Gubbio has not greatly altered since the middle ages. But poor people +are now living in the palaces of noblemen and merchants. These new +inhabitants have walled up the fair arched windows and slender portals +of the ancient dwellers, spoiling the beauty of the streets without +materially changing the architectural masses. In that witching hour +when the Italian sunset has faded, and a solemn grey replaces the +glowing tones of daffodil and rose, it is not difficult, here dreaming +by oneself alone, to picture the old noble life—the ladies moving +along those open loggias, the young men in plumed caps and curling +hair with one foot on those doorsteps, the knights in armour and the +sumpter mules and red-robed Cardinals defiling through those gates +into the courts within. The modern bricks and mortar with which that +picturesque scene has been overlaid, the ugly oblong windows and +bright green shutters which now interrupt the flowing lines of arch +and gallery; these disappear beneath the fine remembered touch of a +sonnet sung by Folgore, when still the Parties had their day, and this +deserted city was the centre of great aims and throbbing aspirations.</p> + +<p>The names of the chief buildings in Gubbio are strongly suggestive of +the middle ages. They abut upon a Piazza de' Signori. One of them, the +Palazzo del Municipio, is a shapeless unfinished block of masonry. It +is here that the Eugubine tables, plates of brass with Umbrian and +Roman incised characters, are shown. The Palazzo de' Consoli has +higher architectural qualities, and is indeed unique among Italian +palaces for the combination of massiveness with lightness in a +situation of unprecedented boldness. Rising from enormous +substructures mortised into the solid hillside, it rears its vast +rectangular bulk to a giddy height above the town; airy loggias +imposed on great forbidding masses of brown stone, shooting aloft into +a light aërial tower. The empty halls inside are of fair proportions +and a noble size, and the views from the open colonnades in all +directions fascinate. But the final impression made by the building is +one of square, tranquil, massive strength—perpetuity embodied in +masonry—force suggesting facility by daring and successful addition +of elegance to hugeness. Vast as it is, this pile is not forbidding, +as a similarly weighty structure in the North would be. The fine +quality of the stone and the delicate though simple mouldings of the +windows give it an Italian grace.</p> + +<p>These public palaces belong to the age of the Communes, when Gubbio +was a free town, with a policy of its own, and an important part to +play in the internecine struggles of Pope and Empire, Guelf and +Ghibelline. The ruined, deserted, degraded Palazzo Ducale reminds us +of the advent of the despots. It has been stripped of all its +tarsia-work and sculpture. Only here and there a Fe.D., with the +cupping-glass of Federigo di Montefeltro, remains to show that Gubbio +once became the fairest fief of the Urbino duchy. S. Ubaldo, who gave +his name to this duke's son, was the patron of Gubbio, and to him the +cathedral is dedicated—one low enormous vault, like a cellar or +feudal banqueting hall, roofed with a succession of solid Gothic +arches. This strange old church, and the House of Canons, buttressed +on the hill beside it, have suffered less from modernisation than most +buildings in Gubbio. The latter, in particular, helps one to +understand what this city of grave palazzi must have been, and how the +mere opening of old doors and windows would restore it to its +primitive appearance. The House of the Canons has, in fact, not yet +been given over to the use of middle-class and proletariate.</p> + +<p>At the end of a day in Gubbio, it is pleasant to take our ease in the +primitive hostelry, at the back of which foams a mountain-torrent, +rushing downward from the Apennines. The Gubbio wine is very fragrant, +and of a rich ruby colour. Those to whom the tints of wine and jewels +give a pleasure not entirely childish, will take delight in its +specific blending of tawny hues with rose. They serve the table still, +at Gubbio, after the antique Italian fashion, covering it with a +cream-coloured linen cloth bordered with coarse lace—the creases of +the press, the scent of old herbs from the wardrobe, are still upon +it—and the board is set with shallow dishes of warm, white +earthenware, basket-worked in open lattice at the edge, which contain +little separate messes of meat, vegetables, cheese, and comfits. The +wine stands in strange, slender phials of smooth glass, with stoppers; +and the amber-coloured bread lies in fair round loaves upon the cloth. +Dining thus is like sitting down to the supper at Emmaus, in some +picture of Gian Bellini or of Masolino. The very bareness of the +room—its open rafters, plastered walls, primitive settees, and +red-brick floor, on which a dog sits waiting for a bone—enhances the +impression of artistic delicacy in the table.</p> + + +<p>FROM GUBBIO TO FANO</p> + + +<p>The road from Gubbio, immediately after leaving the city, enters a +narrow Alpine ravine, where a thin stream dashes over dark, red rocks, +and pendent saxifrages wave to the winds. The carriage in which we +travelled at the end of May, one morning, had two horses, which our +driver soon supplemented with a couple of white oxen. Slowly and +toilsomely we ascended between the flanks of barren hills—gaunt +masses of crimson and grey crag, clothed at their summits with short +turf and scanty pasture. The pass leads first to the little town of +Scheggia, and is called the Monte Calvo, or bald mountain. At +Scheggia, it joins the great Flaminian Way, or North road of the Roman +armies. At the top there is a fine view over the conical hills that +dominate Gubbio, and, far away, to noble mountains above the Furlo and +the Foligno line of railway to Ancona. Range rises over range, +crossing at unexpected angles, breaking into sudden precipices, and +stretching out long, exquisitely modelled outlines, as only Apennines +can do, in silvery sobriety of colours toned by clearest air. Every +square piece of this austere, wild landscape forms a varied picture, +whereof the composition is due to subtle arrangements of lines always +delicate; and these lines seem somehow to have been determined in +their beauty by the vast antiquity of the mountain system, as though +they all had taken time to choose their place and wear down into +harmony. The effect of tempered sadness was heightened for us by +stormy lights and dun clouds, high in air, rolling vapours and flying +shadows, over all the prospect, tinted in ethereal grisaille.</p> + +<p>After Scheggia, one enters a land of meadow and oak-trees. This is the +sacred central tract of Jupiter Apenninus, whose fane—</p> + +<p> +<span style="margin-left: 4em;">Delubra Jovis saxoque minantes</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Apenninigenis cultae pastoribus arae</span><br /> +</p> + +<p>—once rose behind us on the bald Iguvian summits. A second little +pass leads from this region to the Adriatic side of the Italian +watershed, and the road now follows the Barano downward toward the +sea. The valley is fairly green with woods, where mistletoe may here +and there be seen on boughs of oak, and rich with cornfields. Cagli is +the chief town of the district, and here they show one of the best +pictures left to us by Raphael's father, Giovanni Santi. It is a +Madonna, attended by S. Peter, S. Francis, S. Dominic, S. John, and +two angels. One of the angels is traditionally supposed to have been +painted from the boy Raphael, and the face has something which reminds +us of his portraits. The whole composition, excellent in modelling, +harmonious in grouping, soberly but strongly coloured, with a peculiar +blending of dignity and sweetness, grace and vigour, makes one wonder +why Santi thought it necessary to send his son from his own workshop +to study under Perugino. He was himself a master of his art, and this, +perhaps the most agreeable of his paintings, has a masculine sincerity +which is absent from at least the later works of Perugino.</p> + +<p>Some miles beyond Cagli, the real pass of the Furlo begins. It owes +its name to a narrow tunnel bored by Vespasian in the solid rock, +where limestone crags descend on the Barano. The Romans called this +gallery Petra Pertusa, or Intercisa, or more familiarly Forulus, +whence comes the modern name. Indeed, the stations on the old +Flaminian Way are still well marked by Latin designations; for Cagli +is the ancient Calles, and Fossombrone is Forum Sempronii, and Fano +the Fanum Fortunæ. Vespasian commemorated this early achievement in +engineering by an inscription carved on the living stone, which still +remains; and Claudian, when he sang the journey of his Emperor +Honorius from Rimini to Rome, speaks thus of what was even then an +object of astonishment to travellers:—</p> + +<p> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Laetior hinc fano recipit fortuna vetusto,</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Despiciturque vagus praerupta valle Metaurus,</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Qua mons arte patens vivo se perforat arcu</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Admittitque viam sectae per viscera rupis.</span><br /> +</p> + +<p>The Forulus itself may now be matched, on any Alpine pass, by several +tunnels of far mightier dimensions; for it is narrow, and does not +extend more than 126 feet in length. But it occupies a fine position +at the end of a really imposing ravine. The whole Furlo Pass might, +without too much exaggeration, be described as a kind of Cheddar on +the scale of the Via Mala. The limestone rocks, which rise on either +hand above the gorge to an enormous height, are noble in form and +solemn, like a succession of gigantic portals, with stupendous +flanking obelisks and pyramids. Some of these crag-masses rival the +fantastic cliffs of Capri, and all consist of that southern mountain +limestone which changes from pale yellow to blue grey and dusky +orange. A river roars precipitately through the pass, and the +roadsides wave with many sorts of campanulas—a profusion of azure and +purple bells upon the hard white stone. Of Roman remains there is +still enough (in the way of Roman bridges and bits of broken masonry) +to please an antiquary's eye. But the lover of nature will dwell +chiefly on the picturesque qualities of this historic gorge, so alien +to the general character of Italian scenery, and yet so remote from +anything to which Swiss travelling accustoms one.</p> + +<p>The Furlo breaks out into a richer land of mighty oaks and waving +cornfields, a fat pastoral country, not unlike Devonshire in detail, +with green uplands, and wild-rose tangled hedgerows, and much running +water, and abundance of summer flowers. At a point above Fossombrone, +the Barano joins the Metauro, and here one has a glimpse of far-away +Urbino, high upon its mountain eyrie. It is so rare, in spite of +immemorial belief, to find in Italy a wilderness of wild flowers, that +I feel inclined to make a list of those I saw from our carriage +windows as we rolled down lazily along the road to Fossombrone. Broom, +and cytisus, and hawthorn mingled with roses, gladiolus, and sainfoin. +There were orchises, and clematis, and privet, and wild-vine, vetches +of all hues, red poppies, sky-blue cornflowers, and lilac pimpernel. +In the rougher hedges, dogwood, honeysuckle, pyracanth, and acacia +made a network of white bloom and blushes. Milk-worts of all bright +and tender tints combined with borage, iris, hawkweeds, harebells, +crimson clover, thyme, red snap-dragon, golden asters, and dreamy +love-in-a-mist, to weave a marvellous carpet such as the looms of +Shiraz or of Cashmere never spread. Rarely have I gazed on Flora in +such riot, such luxuriance, such self-abandonment to joy. The air was +filled with fragrances. Songs of cuckoos and nightingales echoed from +the copses on the hillsides. The sun was out, and dancing over all the +landscape.</p> + +<p>After all this, Fano was very restful in the quiet sunset. It has a +sandy stretch of shore, on which the long, green-yellow rollers of the +Adriatic broke into creamy foam, beneath the waning saffron light over +Pesaro and the rosy rising of a full moon. This Adriatic sea carries +an English mind home to many a little watering-place upon our coast. +In colour and the shape of waves it resembles our Channel.</p> + +<p>The sea-shore is Fano's great attraction; but the town has many +churches, and some creditable pictures, as well as Roman antiquities. +Giovanni Santi may here be seen almost as well as at Cagli; and of +Perugino there is one truly magnificent altar-piece—lunette, great +centre panel, and predella—dusty in its present condition, but +splendidly painted, and happily not yet restored or cleaned. It is +worth journeying to Fano to see this. Still better would the journey +be worth the traveller's while if he could be sure to witness such a +game of <i>Pallone</i> as we chanced upon in the Via dell' Arco di +Augusto—lads and grown-men, tightly girt, in shirt sleeves, driving +the great ball aloft into the air with cunning bias and calculation of +projecting house-eaves. I do not understand the game; but it was +clearly played something after the manner of our football, that is to +say; with sides, and front and back players so arranged as to cover +the greatest number of angles of incidence on either wall.</p> + +<p>Fano still remembers that it is the Fane of Fortune. On the fountain +in the market-place stands a bronze Fortuna, slim and airy, offering +her veil to catch the wind. May she long shower health and prosperity +upon the modern watering-place of which she is the patron saint!</p> +<h5><a href="#CONTENTS">CONTENTS</a></h5> + +<br /><br /> +<hr style="width: 100%;" /> + +<h2><a name="THE_PALACE_OF_URBINO" id="THE_PALACE_OF_URBINO" /><i>THE PALACE OF URBINO</i></a></h2> + +<hr style="width: 100%;" /> +<br /> +<p>I</p> +<br /> +<p>At Rimini, one spring, the impulse came upon my wife and me to make +our way across San Marino to Urbino. In the Piazza, called +apocryphally after Julius Cæsar, I found a proper <i>vetturino</i>, with a +good carriage and two indefatigable horses. He was a splendid fellow, +and bore a great historic name, as I discovered when our bargain was +completed. 'What are you called?' I asked him. '<i>Filippo Visconti, per +servirla!</i>' was the prompt reply. Brimming over with the darkest +memories of the Italian Renaissance, I hesitated when I heard this +answer. The associations seemed too ominous. And yet the man himself +was so attractive—tall, stalwart, and well looking—no feature of his +face or limb of his athletic form recalling the gross tyrant who +concealed worse than Caligula's ugliness from sight in secret +chambers—that I shook this preconception from my mind. As it turned +out, Filippo Visconti had nothing in common with his infamous namesake +but the name. On a long and trying journey, he showed neither sullen +nor yet ferocious tempers; nor, at the end of it, did he attempt by +any master-stroke of craft to wheedle from me more than his fair pay; +but took the meerschaum pipe I gave him for a keepsake, with the frank +goodwill of an accomplished gentleman. The only exhibition of his hot +Italian blood which I remember did his humanity credit.</p> + +<p>While we were ascending a steep hillside, he jumped from his box to +thrash a ruffian by the roadside for brutal treatment to a little boy. +He broke his whip, it is true, in this encounter; risked a dangerous +quarrel; and left his carriage, with myself and wife inside it, to the +mercy of his horses in a somewhat perilous position. But when he came +back, hot and glowing, from this deed of justice, I could only applaud +his zeal.</p> + +<p>An Italian of this type, handsome as an antique statue, with the +refinement of a modern gentleman and that intelligence which is innate +in a race of immemorial culture, is a fascinating being. He may be +absolutely ignorant in all book-learning. He may be as ignorant as a +Bersagliere from Montalcino with whom I once conversed at Rimini, who +gravely said that he could walk in three months to North America, and +thought of doing it when his term of service was accomplished. But he +will display, as this young soldier did, a grace and ease of address +which are rare in London drawing-rooms; and by his shrewd remarks upon +the cities he has visited, will show that he possesses a fine natural +taste for things of beauty. The speech of such men, drawn from the +common stock of the Italian people, is seasoned with proverbial +sayings, the wisdom of centuries condensed in a few nervous words. +When emotion fires their brain, they break into spontaneous eloquence, +or suggest the motive of a poem by phrases pregnant with imagery.</p> + +<p>For the first stage of the journey out of Rimini, Filippo's two horses +sufficed. The road led almost straight across the level between +quickset hedges in white bloom. But when we reached the long steep +hill which ascends to San Marino, the inevitable oxen were called out, +and we toiled upwards leisurely through cornfields bright with red +anemones and sweet narcissus. At this point pomegranate hedges +replaced the May-thorns of the plain. In course of time our <i>bovi</i> +brought us to the Borgo, or lower town, whence there is a further +ascent of seven hundred feet to the topmost hawk's-nest or acropolis +of the republic. These we climbed on foot, watching the view expand +around us and beneath. Crags of limestone here break down abruptly to +the rolling hills, which go to lose themselves in field and shore. +Misty reaches of the Adriatic close the world to eastward. Cesena, +Rimini, Verucchio, and countless hill-set villages, each isolated on +its tract of verdure conquered from the stern grey soil, define the +points where Montefeltri wrestled with Malatestas in long bygone +years. Around are marly mountain-flanks in wrinkles and gnarled +convolutions like some giant's brain, furrowed by rivers crawling +through dry wasteful beds of shingle. Interminable ranges of gaunt +Apennines stretch, tier by tier, beyond; and over all this landscape, +a grey-green mist of rising crops and new-fledged oak-trees lies like +a veil upon the nakedness of Nature's ruins.</p> + +<p>Nothing in Europe conveys a more striking sense of geological +antiquity than such a prospect. The denudation and abrasion of +innumerable ages, wrought by slow persistent action of weather and +water on an upheaved mountain mass, are here made visible. Every wave +in that vast sea of hills, every furrow in their worn flanks, tells +its tale of a continuous corrosion still in progress. The dominant +impression is one of melancholy. We forget how Romans, countermarching +Carthaginians, trod the land beneath us. The marvel of San Marino, +retaining independence through the drums and tramplings of the last +seven centuries, is swallowed in a deeper sense of wonder. We turn +instinctively in thought to Leopardi's musings on man's destiny at war +with unknown nature-forces and malignant rulers of the universe.</p> + + +<p> +<span style="margin-left: 7em;">Omai disprezza</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Te, la natura, il brutto</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Poter che, ascoso, a comun danno impera,</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">E l' infinita vanità del tutto.</span><br /> +</p> + +<p>And then, straining our eyes southward, we sweep the dim blue distance +for Recanati, and remember that the poet of modern despair and +discouragement was reared in even such a scene as this.</p> + +<p>The town of San Marino is grey, narrow-streeted, simple; with a great, +new, decent, Greek-porticoed cathedral, dedicated to the eponymous +saint. A certain austerity defines it from more picturesque +hill-cities with a less uniform history. There is a marble statue of +S. Marino in the choir of his church; and in his cell is shown the +stone bed and pillow on which he took austere repose. One narrow +window near the saint's abode commands a proud but melancholy +landscape of distant hills and seaboard. To this, the great absorbing +charm of San Marino, our eyes instinctively, recurrently, take +flight. It is a landscape which by variety and beauty thralls +attention, but which by its interminable sameness might grow almost +overpowering. There is no relief. The gladness shed upon far humbler +Northern lands in May is ever absent here. The German word +<i>Gemüthlichkeit</i>, the English phrase 'a home of ancient peace,' are +here alike by art and nature untranslated into visibilities. And yet +(as we who gaze upon it thus are fain to think) if peradventure the +intolerable <i>ennui</i> of this panorama should drive a citizen of San +Marino into out-lands, the same view would haunt him whithersoever he +went—the swallows of his native eyrie would shrill through his +sleep—he would yearn to breathe its fine keen air in winter, and to +watch its iris-hedges deck themselves with blue in spring;—like +Virgil's hero, dying, he would think of San Marino: <i>Aspicit, et +dulces moriens reminiscitur Argos</i>. Even a passing stranger may feel +the mingled fascination and oppression of this prospect—the monotony +which maddens, the charm which at a distance grows upon the mind, +environing it with memories.</p> + +<p>Descending to the Borgo, we found that Filippo Visconti had ordered a +luncheon of excellent white bread, pigeons, and omelette, with the +best red muscat wine I ever drank, unless the sharp air of the hills +deceived my appetite. An Italian history of San Marino, including its +statutes, in three volumes, furnished intellectual food. But I confess +to having learned from these pages little else than this: first, that +the survival of the Commonwealth through all phases of European +politics had been semi-miraculous; secondly, that the most eminent San +Marinesi had been lawyers. It is possible on a hasty deduction from +these two propositions (to which, however, I am far from wishing to +commit myself), that the latter is a sufficient explanation of the +former.</p> + +<p>From San Marino the road plunges at a break-neck pace. We are now in +the true Feltrian highlands, whence the Counts of Montefeltro issued +in the twelfth century. Yonder eyrie is San Leo, which formed the key +of entrance to the duchy of Urbino in campaigns fought many hundred +years ago. Perched on the crest of a precipitous rock, this fortress +looks as though it might defy all enemies but famine. And yet San Leo +was taken and re-taken by strategy and fraud, when Montefeltro, +Borgia, Malatesta, Rovere, contended for dominion in these valleys. +Yonder is Sta. Agata, the village to which Guidobaldo fled by night +when Valentino drove him from his dukedom. A little farther towers +Carpegna, where one branch of the Montefeltro house maintained a +countship through seven centuries, and only sold their fief to Rome in +1815. Monte Coppiolo lies behind, Pietra Rubia in front: two other +eagles' nests of the same brood. What a road it is!</p> + +<p>It beats the tracks on Exmoor. The uphill and downhill of Devonshire +scorns compromise or mitigation by <i>détour</i> and zigzag. But here +geography is on a scale so far more vast, and the roadway is so far +worse metalled than with us in England—knotty masses of talc and +nodes of sandstone cropping up at dangerous turnings—that only +Dante's words describe the journey:—</p> + +<p> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Vassi in Sanleo, e discendesi in Noli,</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Montasi su Bismantova in cacume</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Con esso i piè; ma qui convien ch' uom voli.</span><br /> +</p> + +<p>Of a truth, our horses seemed rather to fly than scramble up and down +these rugged precipices; Visconti cheerily animating them with the +brave spirit that was in him, and lending them his wary driver's help +of hand and voice at need.</p> + +<p>We were soon upon a cornice-road between the mountains and the +Adriatic: following the curves of gulch and cleft ravine; winding +round ruined castles set on points of vantage; the sea-line high +above their grass-grown battlements, the shadow-dappled champaign +girdling their bastions mortised on the naked rock. Except for the +blue lights across the distance, and the ever-present sea, these +earthy Apennines would be too grim. Infinite air and this spare veil +of spring-tide greenery on field and forest soothe their sternness. +Two rivers, swollen by late rains, had to be forded. Through one of +these, the Foglia, bare-legged peasants led the way. The horses waded +to their bellies in the tawny water. Then more hills and vales; green +nooks with rippling corn-crops; secular oaks attired in golden +leafage. The clear afternoon air rang with the voices of a thousand +larks overhead. The whole world seemed quivering with light and +delicate ethereal sound. And yet my mind turned irresistibly to +thoughts of war, violence, and pillage. How often has this +intermediate land been fought over by Montefeltro and Brancaleoni, by +Borgia and Malatesta, by Medici and Della Rovere! Its <i>contadini</i> are +robust men, almost statuesque in build, and beautiful of feature. No +wonder that the Princes of Urbino, with such materials to draw from, +sold their service and their troops to Florence, Rome, S. Mark, and +Milan. The bearing of these peasants is still soldierly and proud. Yet +they are not sullen or forbidding like the Sicilians, whose habits of +life, for the rest, much resemble theirs. The villages, there as here, +are few and far between, perched high on rocks, from which the folk +descend to till the ground and reap the harvest. But the southern +<i>brusquerie</i> and brutality are absent from this district. The men have +something of the dignity and slow-eyed mildness of their own huge +oxen. As evening fell, more solemn Apennines upreared themselves to +southward. The Monte d'Asdrubale, Monte Nerone, and Monte Catria hove +into sight. At last, when light was dim, a tower rose above the +neighbouring ridge, a broken outline of some city barred the sky-line. +Urbino stood before us. Our long day's march was at an end.</p> + +<p>The sunset was almost spent, and a four days' moon hung above the +western Apennines, when we took our first view of the palace. It is a +fancy-thralling work of wonder seen in that dim twilight; like some +castle reared by Atlante's magic for imprisonment of Ruggiero, or +palace sought in fairyland by Astolf winding his enchanted horn. Where +shall we find its like, combining, as it does, the buttressed +battlemented bulk of mediæval strongholds with the airy balconies, +suspended gardens, and fantastic turrets of Italian pleasure-houses? +This unique blending of the feudal past with the Renaissance spirit of +the time when it was built, connects it with the art of Ariosto—or +more exactly with Boiardo's epic. Duke Federigo planned his palace at +Urbino just at the moment when the Count of Scandiano had began to +chaunt his lays of Roland in the Castle of Ferrara. Chivalry, +transmuted by the Italian genius into something fanciful and quaint, +survived as a frail work of art. The men-at-arms of the Condottieri +still glittered in gilded hauberks. Their helmets waved with plumes +and bizarre crests. Their surcoats blazed with heraldries; their +velvet caps with medals bearing legendary emblems. The pomp and +circumstance of feudal war had not yet yielded to the cannon of the +Gascon or the Switzer's pike. The fatal age of foreign invasions had +not begun for Italy. Within a few years Charles VIII.'s holiday +excursion would reveal the internal rottenness and weakness of her +rival states, and the peninsula for half a century to come would be +drenched in the blood of Frenchmen, Germans, Spaniards, fighting for +her cities as their prey. But now Lorenzo de' Medici was still alive. +The famous policy which bears his name held Italy suspended for a +golden time in false tranquillity and independence. The princes who +shared his culture and his love of art were gradually passing into +modern noblemen, abandoning the savage feuds and passions of more +virile centuries, yielding to luxury and scholarly enjoyments. The +castles were becoming courts, and despotisms won by force were +settling into dynasties.</p> + +<p>It was just at this epoch that Duke Federigo built his castle at +Urbino. One of the ablest and wealthiest Condottieri of his time, one +of the best instructed and humanest of Italian princes, he combined in +himself the qualities which mark that period of transition. And these +he impressed upon his dwelling-house, which looks backward to the +mediæval fortalice and forward to the modern palace. This makes it the +just embodiment in architecture of Italian romance, the perfect +analogue of the 'Orlando Innamorato.' By comparing it with the castle +of the Estes at Ferrara and the Palazzo del Te of the Gonzagas at +Mantua, we place it in its right position between mediæval and +Renaissance Italy, between the age when principalities arose upon the +ruins of commercial independence and the age when they became dynastic +under Spain.</p> + +<p>The exigencies of the ground at his disposal forced Federigo to give +the building an irregular outline. The fine façade, with its embayed +<i>loggie</i> and flanking turrets, is placed too close upon the city +ramparts for its due effect. We are obliged to cross the deep ravine +which separates it from a lower quarter of the town, and take our +station near the Oratory of S. Giovanni Battista, before we can +appreciate the beauty of its design, or the boldness of the group it +forms with the cathedral dome and tower and the square masses of +numerous out-buildings. Yet this peculiar position of the palace, +though baffling to a close observer of its details, is one of singular +advantage to the inhabitants. Set on the verge of Urbino's towering +eminence, it fronts a wave-tossed sea of vales and mountain summits +toward the rising and the setting sun. There is nothing but +illimitable air between the terraces and loggias of the Duchess's +apartments and the spreading pyramid of Monte Catria.</p> + +<p>A nobler scene is nowhere swept from palace windows than this, which +Castiglione touched in a memorable passage at the end of his +'Cortegiano.' To one who in our day visits Urbino, it is singular how +the slight indications of this sketch, as in some silhouette, bring +back the antique life, and link the present with the past—a hint, +perhaps, for reticence in our descriptions. The gentlemen and ladies +of the court had spent a summer night in long debate on love, rising +to the height of mystical Platonic rapture on the lips of Bembo, when +one of them exclaimed, 'The day has broken!' 'He pointed to the light +which was beginning to enter by the fissures of the windows. Whereupon +we flung the casements wide upon that side of the palace which looks +toward the high peak of Monte Catria, and saw that a fair dawn of rosy +hue was born already in the eastern skies, and all the stars had +vanished except the sweet regent of the heaven of Venus, who holds the +borderlands of day and night; and from her sphere it seemed as though +a gentle wind were breathing, filling the air with eager freshness, +and waking among the numerous woods upon the neighbouring hills the +sweet-toned symphonies of joyous birds.'</p> + + +<p>II</p> + +<p>The House of Montefeltro rose into importance early in the twelfth +century. Frederick Barbarossa erected their fief into a county in +1160. Supported by imperial favour, they began to exercise an +undefined authority over the district, which they afterwards converted +into a duchy. But, though Ghibelline for several generations, the +Montefeltri were too near neighbours of the Papal power to free +themselves from ecclesiastical vassalage. Therefore in 1216 they +sought and obtained the title of Vicars of the Church. Urbino +acknowledged them as semi-despots in their double capacity of Imperial +and Papal deputies. Cagli and Gubbio followed in the fourteenth +century. In the fifteenth, Castel Durante was acquired from the +Brancaleoni by warfare, and Fossombrone from the Malatestas by +purchase. Numerous fiefs and villages fell into their hands upon the +borders of Rimini in the course of a continued struggle with the House +of Malatesta: and when Fano and Pesaro were added at the opening of +the sixteenth century, the domain over which they ruled was a compact +territory, some forty miles square, between the Adriatic and the +Apennines. From the close of the thirteenth century they bore the +title of Counts of Urbino. The famous Conte Guido, whom Dante placed +among the fraudulent in hell, supported the honours of the house and +increased its power by his political action, at this epoch. But it was +not until the year 1443 that the Montefeltri acquired their ducal +title. This was conferred by Eugenius IV. upon Oddantonio, over whose +alleged crimes and indubitable assassination a veil of mystery still +hangs. He was the son of Count Guidantonio, and at his death the +Montefeltri of Urbino were extinct in the legitimate line. A natural +son of Guidantonio had been, however, recognised in his father's +lifetime, and married to Gentile, heiress of Mercatello. This was +Federigo, a youth of great promise, who succeeded his half-brother in +1444 as Count of Urbino. It was not until 1474 that the ducal title +was revived for him.</p> + +<p>Duke Frederick was a prince remarkable among Italian despots for +private virtues and sober use of his hereditary power. He spent his +youth at Mantua, in that famous school of Vittorino da Feltre, where +the sons and daughters of the first Italian nobility received a model +education in humanities, good manners, and gentle physical +accomplishments. More than any of his fellow-students Frederick +profited by this rare scholar's discipline. On leaving school he +adopted the profession of arms, as it was then practised, and joined +the troop of the Condottiere Niccolò Piccinino. Young men of his own +rank, especially the younger sons and bastards of ruling families, +sought military service under captains of adventure. If they +succeeded they were sure to make money. The coffers of the Church and +the republics lay open to their not too scrupulous hands; the wealth +of Milan and Naples was squandered on them in retaining-fees and +salaries for active service. There was always the further possibility +of placing a coronet upon their brows before they died, if haply they +should wrest a town from their employers, or obtain the cession of a +province from a needy Pope. The neighbours of the Montefeltri in +Umbria, Romagna, and the Marches of Ancona were all of them +Condottieri. Malatestas of Rimini and Pesaro, Vitelli of Città di +Castello, Varani of Camerino, Baglioni of Perugia, to mention only a +few of the most eminent nobles, enrolled themselves under the banners +of plebeian adventurers like Piccinino and Sforza Attendolo. Though +their family connections gave them a certain advantage, the system was +essentially democratic. Gattamelata and Carmagnola sprang from +obscurity by personal address and courage to the command of armies. +Colleoni fought his way up from the grooms to princely station and the +<i>bâton</i> of S. Mark. Francesco Sforza, whose father had begun life as a +tiller of the soil, seized the ducal crown of Milan, and founded a +house which ranked among the first in Europe.</p> + +<p>It is not needful to follow Duke Frederick in his military career. We +may briefly remark that when he succeeded to Urbino by his brother's +death in 1444, he undertook generalship on a grand scale. His own +dominions supplied him with some of the best troops in Italy. He was +careful to secure the goodwill of his subjects by attending personally +to their interests, relieving them of imposts, and executing equal +justice. He gained the then unique reputation of an honest prince, +paternally disposed toward his dependents. Men flocked to his +standards willingly, and he was able to bring an important contingent +into any army. These advantages secured for him alliances with +Francesco Sforza, and brought him successively into connection with +Milan, Venice, Florence, the Church of Naples. As a tactician in the +field he held high rank among the generals of the age, and so +considerable were his engagements that he acquired great wealth in the +exercise of his profession. We find him at one time receiving 8000 +ducats a month as war-pay from Naples, with a peace pension of 6000. +While Captain-General of the League, he drew for his own use in war +45,000 ducats of annual pay. Retaining-fees and pensions in the name +of past services swelled his income, the exact extent of which has +not, so far as I am aware, been estimated, but which must have made +him one of the richest of Italian princes. All this wealth he spent +upon his duchy, fortifying and beautifying its cities, drawing youths +of promise to his court, maintaining a great train of life, and +keeping his vassals in good-humour by the lightness of a rule which +contrasted favourably with the exactions of needier despots.</p> + +<p>While fighting for the masters who offered him <i>condotta</i> in the +complicated wars of Italy, Duke Frederick used his arms, when occasion +served, in his own quarrels. Many years of his life were spent in a +prolonged struggle with his neighbour Sigismondo Pandolfo Malatesta, +the bizarre and brilliant tyrant of Rimini, who committed the fatal +error of embroiling himself beyond all hope of pardon with the Church, +and who died discomfited in the duel with his warier antagonist. +Urbino profited by each mistake of Sigismondo, and the history of this +long desultory strife with Rimini is a history of gradual +aggrandisement and consolidation for the Montefeltrian duchy.</p> + +<p>In 1459 Duke Frederick married his second wife, Battista, daughter of +Alessandro Sforza, Lord of Pesaro. Their portraits, painted by Piero +della Francesca, are to be seen in the Uffizzi at Florence. Some years +earlier, Frederick lost his right eye and had the bridge of his nose +broken in a jousting match outside the town-gate of Urbino. After this +accident, he preferred to be represented in profile—the profile so +well known to students of Italian art on medals and basreliefs. It was +not without medical aid and vows fulfilled by a mother's +self-sacrifice to death, if we may trust the diarists of Urbino, that +the ducal couple got an heir. In 1472, however, a son was born to +them, whom they christened Guido Paolo Ubaldo. He proved a youth of +excellent parts and noble nature—apt at study, perfect in all +chivalrous accomplishments. But he inherited some fatal physical +debility, and his life was marred with a constitutional disease, which +then received the name of gout, and which deprived him of the free use +of his limbs. After his father's death in 1482, Naples, Florence, and +Milan continued Frederick's war engagements to Guidobaldo. The prince +was but a boy of ten. Therefore these important <i>condotte</i> must be +regarded as compliments and pledges for the future. They prove to what +a pitch Duke Frederick had raised the credit of his state and war +establishment. Seven years later, Guidobaldo married Elisabetta, +daughter of Francesco Gonzaga, Marquis of Mantua. This union, though a +happy one, was never blessed with children; and in the certainty of +barrenness, the young Duke thought it prudent to adopt a nephew as +heir to his dominions. He had several sisters, one of whom, Giovanna, +had been married to a nephew of Sixtus IV., Giovanni della Rovere, +Lord of Sinigaglia and Prefect of Rome. They had a son, Francesco +Maria, who, after his adoption by Guidobaldo, spent his boyhood at +Urbino.</p> + +<p>The last years of the fifteenth century were marked by the sudden rise +of Cesare Borgia to a power which threatened the liberties of Italy. +Acting as General for the Church, he carried his arms against the +petty tyrants of Romagna, whom he dispossessed and extirpated. His +next move was upon Camerino and Urbino. He first acquired Camerino, +having lulled Guidobaldo into false security by treacherous +professions of goodwill. Suddenly the Duke received intelligence that +the Borgia was marching on him over Cagli. This was in the middle of +June 1502. It is difficult to comprehend the state of weakness in +which Guidobaldo was surprised, or the panic which then seized him. He +made no efforts to rouse his subjects to resistance, but fled by night +with his nephew through rough mountain roads, leaving his capital and +palace to the marauder. Cesare Borgia took possession without striking +a blow, and removed the treasures of Urbino to the Vatican. His +occupation of the duchy was not undisturbed, however; for the people +rose in several places against him, proving that Guidobaldo had +yielded too hastily to alarm. By this time the fugitive was safe in +Mantua, whence he returned, and for a short time succeeded in +establishing himself again at Urbino. But he could not hold his own +against the Borgias, and in December, by a treaty, he resigned his +claims and retired to Venice, where he lived upon the bounty of S. +Mark. It must be said, in justice to the Duke, that his constitutional +debility rendered him unfit for active operations in the field. +Perhaps he could not have done better than thus to bend beneath the +storm.</p> + +<p>The sudden death of Alexander VI. and the election of a Della Rovere +to the Papacy in 1503 changed Guidobaldo's prospects. Julius II. was +the sworn foe of the Borgias and the close kinsman of Urbino's heir. +It was therefore easy for the Duke to walk into his empty palace on +the hill, and to reinstate himself in the domains from which he had so +recently been ousted. The rest of his life was spent in the retirement +of his court, surrounded with the finest scholars and the noblest +gentlemen of Italy. The ill-health which debarred him from the active +pleasures and employments of his station, was borne with uniform +sweetness of temper and philosophy.</p> + +<p>When he died, in 1508, his nephew, Francesco Maria della Rovere, +succeeded to the duchy, and once more made the palace of Urbino the +resort of men-at-arms and captains. He was a prince of very violent +temper: of its extravagance history has recorded three remarkable +examples. He murdered the Cardinal of Pavia with his own hand in the +streets of Ravenna; stabbed a lover of his sister to death at Urbino; +and in a council of war knocked Francesco Guicciardini down with a +blow of his fist. When the history of Italy came to be written, +Guicciardini was probably mindful of that insult, for he painted +Francesco Maria's character and conduct in dark colours. At the same +time this Duke of Urbino passed for one of the first generals of the +age. The greatest stain upon his memory is his behaviour in the year +1527, when, by dilatory conduct of the campaign in Lombardy, he +suffered the passage of Frundsberg's army unopposed, and afterwards +hesitated to relieve Rome from the horrors of the sack. He was the +last Italian Condottiere of the antique type; and the vices which +Machiavelli exposed in that bad system of mercenary warfare were +illustrated on these occasions. During his lifetime, the conditions of +Italy were so changed by Charles V.'s imperial settlement in 1530, +that the occupation of Condottiere ceased to have any meaning. Strozzi +and Farnesi, who afterwards followed this profession, enlisted in the +ranks of France or Spain, and won their laurels in Northern Europe.</p> + +<p>While Leo X. held the Papal chair, the duchy of Urbino was for a while +wrested from the house of Della Rovere, and conferred upon Lorenzo de' +Medici. Francesco Maria made a better fight for his heritage than +Guidobaldo had done. Yet he could not successfully resist the power of +Rome. The Pope was ready to spend enormous sums of money on this petty +war; the Duke's purse was shorter, and the mercenary troops he was +obliged to use, proved worthless in the field. Spaniards, for the +most part, pitted against Spaniards, they suffered the campaigns to +degenerate into a guerilla warfare of pillage and reprisals. In 1517 +the duchy was formally ceded to Lorenzo. But this Medici did not live +long to enjoy it, and his only child Catherine, the future Queen of +France, never exercised the rights which had devolved upon her by +inheritance. The shifting scene of Italy beheld Francesco Maria +reinstated in Urbino after Leo's death in 1522.</p> + +<p>This Duke married Leonora Gonzaga, a princess of the House of Mantua. +Their portraits, painted by Titian, adorn the Venetian room of the +Uffizzi. Of their son, Guidobaldo II., little need be said. He was +twice married, first to Giulia Varano, Duchess by inheritance of +Camerino; secondly, to Vittoria Farnese, daughter of the Duke of +Parma. Guidobaldo spent a lifetime in petty quarrels with his +subjects, whom he treated badly, attempting to draw from their pockets +the wealth which his father and the Montefeltri had won in military +service. He intervened at an awkward period of Italian politics. The +old Italy of despots, commonwealths, and Condottieri, in which his +predecessors played substantial parts, was at an end. The new Italy of +Popes and Austro-Spanish dynasties had hardly settled into shape. +Between these epochs, Guidobaldo II., of whom we have a dim and hazy +presentation on the page of history, seems somehow to have fallen +flat. As a sign of altered circumstances, he removed his court to +Pesaro, and built the great palace of the Della Roveres upon the +public square.</p> + +<p>Guidobaldaccio, as he was called, died in 1574, leaving an only son, +Francesco Maria II., whose life and character illustrate the new age +which had begun for Italy. He was educated in Spain at the court of +Philip II., where he spent more than two years. When he returned, his +Spanish haughtiness, punctilious attention to etiquette, and +superstitious piety attracted observation. The violent temper of the +Della Roveres, which Francesco Maria I. displayed in acts of +homicide, and which had helped to win his bad name for Guidobaldaccio, +took the form of sullenness in the last Duke. The finest episode in +his life was the part he played in the battle of Lepanto, under his +old comrade, Don John of Austria. His father forced him to an +uncongenial marriage with Lucrezia d'Este, Princess of Ferrara. She +left him, and took refuge in her native city, then honoured by the +presence of Tasso and Guarini. He bore her departure with +philosophical composure, recording the event in his diary as something +to be dryly grateful for. Left alone, the Duke abandoned himself to +solitude, religious exercises, hunting, and the economy of his +impoverished dominions. He became that curious creature, a man of +narrow nature and mediocre capacity, who, dedicated to the cult of +self, is fain to pass for saint and sage in easy circumstances. He +married, for the second time, a lady, Livia della Rovere, who belonged +to his own family, but had been born in private station. She brought +him one son, the Prince Federigo-Ubaldo. This youth might have +sustained the ducal honours of Urbino, but for his sage-saint father's +want of wisdom. The boy was a spoiled child in infancy. Inflated with +Spanish vanity from the cradle, taught to regard his subjects as +dependents on a despot's will, abandoned to the caprices of his own +ungovernable temper, without substantial aid from the paternal piety +or stoicism, he rapidly became a most intolerable princeling. His +father married him, while yet a boy, to Claudia de' Medici, and +virtually abdicated in his favour. Left to his own devices, Federigo +chose companions from the troupes of players whom he drew from Venice. +He filled his palaces with harlots, and degraded himself upon the +stage in parts of mean buffoonery. The resources of the duchy were +racked to support these parasites. Spanish rules of etiquette and +ceremony were outraged by their orgies. His bride brought him one +daughter, Vittoria, who afterwards became the wife of Ferdinand, Grand +Duke of Tuscany. Then in the midst of his low dissipation and +offences against ducal dignity, he died of apoplexy at the early age +of eighteen—the victim, in the severe judgment of history, of his +father's selfishness and want of practical ability.</p> + +<p>This happened in 1623. Francesco Maria was stunned by the blow. His +withdrawal from the duties of the sovereignty in favour of such a son +had proved a constitutional unfitness for the duties of his station. +The life he loved was one of seclusion in a round of pious exercises, +petty studies, peddling economies, and mechanical amusements. A +powerful and grasping Pope was on the throne of Rome. Urban at this +juncture pressed Francesco Maria hard; and in 1624 the last Duke of +Urbino devolved his lordships to the Holy See. He survived the formal +act of abdication seven years; when he died, the Pontiff added his +duchy to the Papal States, which thenceforth stretched from Naples to +the bounds of Venice on the Po.</p> + + +<p>III</p> + +<p>Duke Frederick began the palace at Urbino in 1454, when he was still +only Count. The architect was Luziano of Lauranna, a Dalmatian; and +the beautiful white limestone, hard as marble, used in the +construction, was brought from the Dalmatian coast. This stone, like +the Istrian stone of Venetian buildings, takes and retains the chisel +mark with wonderful precision. It looks as though, when fresh, it must +have had the pliancy of clay, so delicately are the finest curves in +scroll or foliage scooped from its substance. And yet it preserves +each cusp and angle of the most elaborate pattern with the crispness +and the sharpness of a crystal.</p> + +<p>When wrought by a clever craftsman, its surface has neither the +waxiness of Parian, nor the brittle edge of Carrara marble; and it +resists weather better than marble of the choicest quality. This may +be observed in many monuments of Venice, where the stone has been long +exposed to sea-air. These qualities of the Dalmatian limestone, no +less than its agreeable creamy hue and smooth dull polish, adapt it to +decoration in low relief. The most attractive details in the palace at +Urbino are friezes carved of this material in choice designs of early +Renaissance dignity and grace. One chimney-piece in the Sala degli +Angeli deserves especial comment. A frieze of dancing Cupids, with +gilt hair and wings, their naked bodies left white on a ground of +ultramarine, is supported by broad flat pilasters. These are engraved +with children holding pots of flowers; roses on one side, carnations +on the other. Above the frieze another pair of angels, one at each +end, hold lighted torches; and the pyramidal cap of the chimney is +carved with two more, flying, and supporting the eagle of the +Montefeltri on a raised medallion. Throughout the palace we notice +emblems appropriate to the Houses of Montefeltro and Della Rovere: +their arms, three golden bends upon a field of azure: the Imperial +eagle, granted when Montefeltro was made a fief of the Empire: the +Garter of England, worn by the Dukes Federigo and Guidobaldo: the +ermine of Naples: the <i>ventosa</i>, or cupping-glass, adopted for a +private badge by Frederick: the golden oak-tree on an azure field of +Della Rovere: the palm-tree, bent beneath a block of stone, with its +accompanying motto, <i>Inclinata Resurgam</i>: the cipher, FE DX. Profile +medallions of Federigo and Guidobaldo, wrought in the lowest possible +relief, adorn the staircases. Round the great courtyard runs a frieze +of military engines and ensigns, trophies, machines, and implements of +war, alluding to Duke Frederick's profession of Condottiere. The +doorways are enriched with scrolls of heavy-headed flowers, acanthus +foliage, honeysuckles, ivy-berries, birds and boys and sphinxes, in +all the riot of Renaissance fancy.</p> + +<p>This profusion of sculptured <i>rilievo</i> is nearly all that remains to +show how rich the palace was in things of beauty. Castiglione, writing +in the reign of Guidobaldo, says that 'in the opinion of many it is +the fairest to be found in Italy; and the Duke filled it so well with +all things fitting its magnificence, that it seemed less like a palace +than a city. Not only did he collect articles of common use, vessels +of silver, and trappings for chambers of rare cloths of gold and silk, +and suchlike furniture, but he added multitudes of bronze and marble +statues, exquisite pictures, and instruments of music of all sorts. +There was nothing but was of the finest and most excellent quality to +be seen there. Moreover, he gathered together at a vast cost a large +number of the best and rarest books in Greek, Latin, and Hebrew, all +of which he adorned with gold and silver, esteeming them the chiefest +treasure of his spacious palace.' When Cesare Borgia entered Urbino as +conqueror in 1502, he is said to have carried off loot to the value of +150,000 ducats, or perhaps about a quarter of a million sterling. +Vespasiano, the Florentine bookseller, has left us a minute account of +the formation of the famous library of manuscripts, which he valued at +considerably over 30,000 ducats. Yet wandering now through these +deserted halls, we seek in vain for furniture or tapestry or works of +art. The books have been removed to Rome. The pictures are gone, no +man knows whither. The plate has long been melted down. The +instruments of music are broken. If frescoes adorned the corridors, +they have been whitewashed; the ladies' chambers have been stripped of +their rich arras. Only here and there we find a raftered ceiling, +painted in fading colours, which, taken with the stonework of the +chimney, and some fragments of inlaid panel-work on door or window, +enables us to reconstruct the former richness of these princely rooms.</p> + +<p>Exception must be made in favour of two apartments between the towers +upon the southern facade. These were apparently the private rooms of +the Duke and Duchess, and they are still approached by a great winding +staircase in one of the <i>torricini</i>. Adorned in indestructible or +irremovable materials, they retain some traces of their ancient +splendour. On the first floor, opening on the vaulted loggia, we find +a little chapel encrusted with lovely work in stucco and marble; +friezes of bulls, sphinxes, sea-horses, and foliage; with a low relief +of Madonna and Child in the manner of Mino da Fiesole. Close by is a +small study with inscriptions to the Muses and Apollo. The cabinet +connecting these two cells has a Latin legend, to say that Religion +here dwells near the temple of the liberal arts:</p> + +<p> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Bina vides parvo discrimine juncta sacella,</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">Altera pars Musis altera sacra Deo est.</span><br /> +</p> + +<p>On the floor above, corresponding in position to this apartment, is a +second, of even greater interest, since it was arranged by the Duke +Frederick for his own retreat. The study is panelled in tarsia of +beautiful design and execution. Three of the larger compartments show +Faith, Hope, and Charity; figures not unworthy of a Botticelli or a +Filippino Lippi. The occupations of the Duke are represented on a +smaller scale by armour, <i>bâtons</i> of command, scientific instruments, +lutes, viols, and books, some open and some shut. The Bible, Homer, +Virgil, Seneca, Tacitus, and Cicero, are lettered; apparently to +indicate his favourite authors. The Duke himself, arrayed in his state +robes, occupies a fourth great panel; and the whole of this elaborate +composition is harmonised by emblems, badges, and occasional devices +of birds, articles of furniture, and so forth. The tarsia, or inlaid +wood of different kinds and colours, is among the best in this kind of +art to be found in Italy, though perhaps it hardly deserves to rank +with the celebrated choir-stalls of Bergamo and Monte Oliveto. Hard by +is a chapel, adorned, like the lower one, with excellent reliefs. The +loggia to which these rooms have access looks across the Apennines, +and down on what was once a private garden. It is now enclosed and +paved for the exercise of prisoners who are confined in one part of +the desecrated palace!</p> + +<p>A portion of the pile is devoted to more worthy purposes; for the +Academy of Raphael here holds its sittings, and preserves a collection +of curiosities and books illustrative of the great painter's life and +works. They have recently placed in a tiny oratory, scooped by +Guidobaldo II. from the thickness of the wall, a cast of Raphael's +skull, which will be studied with interest and veneration. It has the +fineness of modelling combined with shapeliness of form and smallness +of scale which is said to have characterised Mozart and Shelley.</p> + +<p>The impression left upon the mind after traversing this palace in its +length and breadth is one of weariness and disappointment. How shall +we reconstruct the long-past life which filled its rooms with sound, +the splendour of its pageants, the thrill of tragedies enacted here? +It is not difficult to crowd its doors and vacant spaces with liveried +servants, slim pages in tight hose, whose well-combed hair escapes +from tiny caps upon their silken shoulders. We may even replace the +tapestries of Troy which hung one hall, and build again the sideboards +with their embossed gilded plate. But are these chambers really those +where Emilia Pia held debate on love with Bembo and Castiglione; where +Bibbiena's witticisms and Fra Serafino's pranks raised smiles on +courtly lips; where Bernardo Accolti, 'the Unique,' declaimed his +verses to applauding crowds? Is it possible that into yonder hall, +where now the lion of S. Mark looks down alone on staring desolation, +strode the Borgia in all his panoply of war, a gilded glittering +dragon, and from the dais tore the Montefeltri's throne, and from the +arras stripped their ensigns, replacing these with his own Bull and +Valentinus Dux? Here Tasso tuned his lyre for Francesco Maria's +wedding-feast, and read 'Aminta' to Lucrezia d'Este. Here Guidobaldo +listened to the jests and whispered scandals of the Aretine. Here +Titian set his easel up to paint; here the boy Raphael, cap in hand, +took signed and sealed credentials from his Duchess to the Gonfalonier +of Florence. Somewhere in these huge chambers, the courtiers sat +before a torch-lit stage, when Bibbiena's 'Calandria' and +Caetiglione's 'Tirsi,' with their miracles of masques and mummers, +whiled the night away. Somewhere, we know not where, Giuliano de' +Medici made love in these bare rooms to that mysterious mother of +ill-fated Cardinal Ippolito; somewhere, in some darker nook, the +bastard Alessandro sprang to his strange-fortuned life of tyranny and +license, which Brutus-Lorenzino cut short with a traitor's +poignard-thrust in Via Larga. How many men, illustrious for arts and +letters, memorable by their virtues or their crimes, have trod these +silent corridors, from the great Pope Julius down to James III., +self-titled King of England, who tarried here with Clementina Sobieski +through some twelve months of his ex-royal exile! The memories of all +this folk, flown guests and masters of the still-abiding +palace-chambers, haunt us as we hurry through. They are but filmy +shadows. We cannot grasp them, localise them, people surrounding +emptiness with more than withering cobweb forms.</p> + +<p>Death takes a stronger hold on us than bygone life. Therefore, +returning to the vast Throne-room, we animate it with one scene it +witnessed on an April night in 1508. Duke Guidobaldo had died at +Fossombrone, repeating to his friends around his bed these lines of +Virgil:</p> + +<div class="blockquot"><p>Me circum limus niger et deformis arundo Cocyti tardaque + palus inamabilis unda Alligat, et novies Styx interfusa + coercet.</p></div> + +<p>His body had been carried on the shoulders of servants through those +mountain ways at night, amid the lamentations of gathering multitudes +and the baying of dogs from hill-set farms alarmed by flaring +flambeaux. Now it is laid in state in the great hall. The dais and the +throne are draped in black. The arms and <i>bâtons</i> of his father hang +about the doorways. His own ensigns are displayed in groups and +trophies, with the banners of S. Mark, the Montefeltrian eagle, and +the cross keys of S. Peter. The hall itself is vacant, save for the +high-reared catafalque of sable velvet and gold damask, surrounded +with wax candles burning steadily. Round it passes a ceaseless stream +of people, coming and going, gazing at their Duke. He is attired in +crimson hose and doublet of black damask. Black velvet slippers are on +his feet, and his ducal cap is of black velvet. The mantle of the +Garter, made of dark-blue Alexandrine velvet, hooded with crimson, +lined with white silk damask, and embroidered with the badge, drapes +the stiff sleeping form.</p> + +<p>It is easier to conjure up the past of this great palace, strolling +round it in free air and twilight; perhaps because the landscape and +the life still moving on the city streets bring its exterior into +harmony with real existence. The southern façade, with its vaulted +balconies and flanking towers, takes the fancy, fascinates the eye, +and lends itself as a fit stage for puppets of the musing mind. Once +more imagination plants trim orange-trees in giant jars of Gubbio ware +upon the pavement where the garden of the Duchess lay—the pavement +paced in these bad days by convicts in grey canvas jackets—that +pavement where Monsignor Bombo courted 'dear dead women' with +Platonic phrase, smothering the Menta of his natural man in lettuce +culled from Academe and thyme of Mount Hymettus. In yonder loggia, +lifted above the garden and the court, two lovers are in earnest +converse. They lean beneath the coffered arch, against the marble of +the balustrade, he fingering his dagger under the dark velvet doublet, +she playing with a clove carnation, deep as her own shame. The man is +Giannandrea, broad-shouldered bravo of Verona, Duke Guidobaldo's +favourite and carpet-count. The lady is Madonna Maria, daughter of +Rome's Prefect, widow of Venanzio Varano, whom the Borgia strangled. +On their discourse a tale will hang of woman's frailty and man's +boldness—Camerino's Duchess yielding to a low-born suitor's stalwart +charms. And more will follow, when that lady's brother, furious +Francesco Maria della Rovere, shall stab the bravo in torch-litten +palace rooms with twenty poignard strokes 'twixt waist and throat, and +their Pandarus shall be sent down to his account by a varlet's +<i>coltellata</i> through the midriff. Imagination shifts the scene, and +shows in that same loggia Rome's warlike Pope, attended by his +cardinals and all Urbino's chivalry. The snowy beard of Julius flows +down upon his breast, where jewels clasp the crimson mantle, as in +Raphael's picture. His eyes are bright with wine; for he has come to +gaze on sunset from the banquet-chamber, and to watch the line of +lamps which soon will leap along that palace cornice in his honour. +Behind him lies Bologna humbled. The Pope returns, a conqueror, to +Rome. Yet once again imagination is at work. A gaunt, bald man, +close-habited in Spanish black, his spare, fine features carved in +purest ivory, leans from that balcony. Gazing with hollow eyes, he +tracks the swallows in their flight, and notes that winter is at hand. +This is the last Duke of Urbino, Francesco Maria II., he whose young +wife deserted him, who made for himself alone a hermit-pedant's round +of petty cares and niggard avarice and mean-brained superstition. He +drew a second consort from the convent, and raised up seed unto his +line by forethought, but beheld his princeling fade untimely in the +bloom of boyhood. Nothing is left but solitude. To the mortmain of the +Church reverts Urbino's lordship, and even now he meditates the terms +of devolution. Jesuits cluster in the rooms behind, with comfort for +the ducal soul and calculations for the interests of Holy See.</p> + +<p>A farewell to these memories of Urbino's dukedom should be taken in +the crypt of the cathedral, where Francesco Maria II., the last Duke, +buried his only son and all his temporal hopes. The place is scarcely +solemn. Its dreary <i>barocco</i> emblems mar the dignity of death. A bulky +<i>Pietà</i> by Gian Bologna, with Madonna's face unfinished, towers up and +crowds the narrow cell. Religion has evanished from this late +Renaissance art, nor has the afterglow of Guido Reni's hectic piety +yet overflushed it. Chilled by the stifling humid sense of an extinct +race here entombed in its last representative, we gladly emerge from +the sepulchral vault into the air of day.</p> + +<p>Filippo Visconti, with a smile on his handsome face, is waiting for us +at the inn. His horses, sleek, well fed, and rested, toss their heads +impatiently. We take our seats in the carriage, open wide beneath a +sparkling sky, whirl past the palace and its ghost-like recollections, +and are halfway on the road to Fossombrone in a cloud of dust and +whirr of wheels before we think of looking back to greet Urbino. There +is just time. The last decisive turning lies in front. We stand +bareheaded to salute the grey mass of buildings ridged along the sky. +Then the open road invites us with its varied scenery and movement. +From the shadowy past we drive into the world of human things, for +ever changefully unchanged, unrestfully the same. This interchange +between dead memories and present life is the delight of travel.</p> +<h5><a href="#CONTENTS">CONTENTS</a></h5> +<br /><br /> +<hr style="width: 100%;" /> +<h2><a name="VITTORIA_ACCORAMBONI" id="VITTORIA_ACCORAMBONI" /><i>VITTORIA ACCORAMBONI</i></a></h2> +<hr style="width: 100%;" /> +<br /> +<h3>AND THE TRAGEDY OF WEBSTER</h3> + +<br /> +<p>I</p> +<br /> +<p>During the pontificate of Gregory XIII. (1572-85), Papal authority in +Rome reached its lowest point of weakness, and the ancient splendour +of the Papal court was well-nigh eclipsed. Art and learning had died +out. The traditions of the days of Leo, Julius, and Paul III. were +forgotten. It seemed as though the genius of the Renaissance had +migrated across the Alps. All the powers of the Papacy were directed +to the suppression of heresies and to the re-establishment of +spiritual supremacy over the intellect of Europe. Meanwhile society in +Rome returned to mediæval barbarism. The veneer of classical +refinement and humanistic urbanity, which for a time had hidden the +natural savagery of the Roman nobles, wore away. The Holy City became +a den of bandits; the territory of the Church supplied a battle-ground +for senseless party strife, which the weak old man who wore the triple +crown was quite unable to control. It is related how a robber +chieftain, Marianazzo, refused the offer of a general pardon from the +Pope, alleging that the profession of brigand was far more lucrative, +and offered greater security of life, than any trade within the walls +of Rome. The Campagna, the ruined citadels about the basements of the +Sabine and Ciminian hills, the quarters of the aristocracy within the +city, swarmed with bravos, who were protected by great nobles and fed +by decent citizens for the advantages to be derived from the +assistance of abandoned and courageous ruffians. Life, indeed, had +become impossible without fixed compact with the powers of +lawlessness. There was hardly a family in Rome which did not number +some notorious criminal among the outlaws. Murder, sacrilege, the love +of adventure, thirst for plunder, poverty, hostility to the ascendant +faction of the moment, were common causes of voluntary or involuntary +outlawry; nor did public opinion regard a bandit's calling as other +than honourable.</p> + +<p>It may readily be imagined that in such a state of society the +grisliest tragedies were common enough in Rome. The history of some of +these has been preserved to us in documents digested from public +trials and personal observation by contemporary writers. That of the +Cenci, in which a notorious act of parricide furnished the plot of a +popular novella, is well known. And such a tragedy, even more rife in +characteristic incidents, and more distinguished by the quality of its +<i>dramatis personæ</i>, is that of Vittoria Accoramboni.</p> + +<p>Vittoria was born in 1557, of a noble but impoverished family, at +Gubbio, among the hills of Umbria. Her biographers are rapturous in +their praises of her beauty, grace, and exceeding charm of manner. Not +only was her person most lovely, but her mind shone at first with all +the amiable lustre of a modest, innocent, and winning youth. Her +father, Claudio Accoramboni, removed to Rome, where his numerous +children were brought up under the care of their mother, Tarquinia, an +ambitious and unscrupulous woman, bent on rehabilitating the decayed +honours of their house. Here Vittoria in early girlhood soon became +the fashion. She exercised an irresistible influence over all who saw +her, and many were the offers of marriage she refused. At length a +suitor appeared whose condition and connection with the Roman +ecclesiastical nobility rendered him acceptable in the eyes of the +Accoramboni. Francesco Peretti was welcomed as the successful +candidate for Vittoria's hand. His mother, Camilla, was sister to +Felice, Cardinal of Montalto; and her son, Francesco Mignucci, had +changed his surname in compliment to this illustrious relative. The +Peretti were of humble origin. The cardinal himself had tended swine +in his native village; but, supported by an invincible belief in his +own destinies, and gifted with a powerful intellect and determined +character, he passed through all grades of the Franciscan Order to its +generalship, received the bishoprics of Fermo and S. Agata, and +lastly, in the year 1570, assumed the scarlet with the title of +Cardinal Montalto. He was now upon the high way to the Papacy, +amassing money by incessant care, studying the humours of surrounding +factions, effacing his own personality, and by mixing but little in +the intrigues of the court, winning the reputation of a prudent, +inoffensive old man. These were his tactics for securing the Papal +throne; nor were his expectations frustrated; for in 1585 he was +chosen Pope, the parties of the Medici and the Farnesi agreeing to +accept him as a compromise. When Sixtus V. was once firmly seated on +S. Peter's chair, he showed himself in his true colours. An implacable +administrator of severest justice, a rigorous economist, an +iconoclastic foe to paganism, the first act of his reign was to +declare a war of extirpation against the bandits who had reduced Rome +in his predecessor's rule to anarchy.</p> + +<p>It was the nephew, then, of this man, whom historians have judged the +greatest personage of his own times, that Vittoria Accoramboni married +on the 28th of June 1573. For a short while the young couple lived +happily together. According to some accounts of their married life, +the bride secured the favour of her powerful uncle-in-law, who +indulged her costly fancies to the full. It is, however, more probable +that the Cardinal Montalto treated her follies with a grudging +parsimony; for we soon find the Peretti household hopelessly involved +in debt. Discord, too, arose between Vittoria and her husband on the +score of a certain levity in her behaviour; and it was rumoured that +even during the brief space of their union she had proved a faithless +wife. Yet she contrived to keep Francesco's confidence, and it is +certain that her family profited by their connection with the Peretti. +Of her six brothers, Mario, the eldest, was a favourite courtier of +the great Cardinal d'Este. Ottavio was in orders, and through +Montalto's influence obtained the See of Fossombrone. The same +eminent protector placed Scipione in the service of the Cardinal +Sforza. Camillo, famous for his beauty and his courage, followed the +fortunes of Filibert of Savoy, and died in France. Flaminio was still +a boy, dependent, as the sequel of this story shows, upon his sister's +destiny. Of Marcello, the second in age and most important in the +action of this tragedy, it is needful to speak with more +particularity. He was young, and, like the rest of his breed, +singularly handsome—so handsome, indeed, that he is said to have +gained an infamous ascendency over the great Duke of Bracciano, whose +privy chamberlain he had become. Marcello was an outlaw for the murder +of Matteo Pallavicino, the brother of the Cardinal of that name. This +did not, however, prevent the chief of the Orsini house from making +him his favourite and confidential friend. Marcello, who seems to have +realised in actual life the worst vices of those Roman courtiers +described for us by Aretino, very soon conceived the plan of exalting +his own fortunes by trading on his sister's beauty. He worked upon the +Duke of Bracciano's mind so cleverly, that he brought this haughty +prince to the point of an insane passion for Peretti's young wife; and +meanwhile so contrived to inflame the ambition of Vittoria and her +mother, Tarquinia, that both were prepared to dare the worst of crimes +in expectation of a dukedom. The game was a difficult one to play. Not +only had Francesco Peretti first to be murdered, but the inequality of +birth and wealth and station between Vittoria and the Duke of +Bracciano rendered a marriage almost impossible. It was also an affair +of delicacy to stimulate without satisfying the Duke's passion. Yet +Marcello did not despair. The stakes were high enough to justify great +risks; and all he put in peril was his sister's honour, the fame of +the Accoramboni, and the favour of Montalto. Vittoria, for her part, +trusted in her power to ensnare and secure the noble prey both had in +view.</p> + +<p>Paolo Giordano Orsini, born about the year 1537, was reigning Duke of +Bracciano. Among Italian princes he ranked at least upon a par with +the Dukes of Urbino, and his family, by its alliances, was more +illustrious than any of that time in Italy. He was a man of gigantic +stature, prodigious corpulence, and marked personal daring; agreeable +in manners, but subject to uncontrollable fits of passion, and +incapable of self-restraint when crossed in any whim or fancy. Upon +the habit of his body it is needful to insist, in order that the part +he played in this tragedy of intrigue, crime, and passion may be well +defined. He found it difficult to procure a charger equal to his +weight, and he was so fat that a special dispensation relieved him +from the duty of genuflexion in the Papal presence. Though lord of a +large territory, yielding princely revenues, he laboured under heavy +debts; for no great noble of the period lived more splendidly, with +less regard for his finances. In the politics of that age and country, +Paolo Giordano leaned toward France. Yet he was a grandee of Spain, +and had played a distinguished part in the battle of Lepanto. Now the +Duke of Bracciano was a widower. He had been married in 1553 to +Isabella de' Medici, daughter of the Grand Duke Cosimo, sister of +Francesco, Bianca Capello's lover, and of the Cardinal Ferdinando. +Suspicion of adultery with Troilo Orsini had fallen on Isabella, and +her husband, with the full concurrence of her brothers, removed her in +1576 from this world.<a name="FNanchor_7_7" id="FNanchor_7_7" /></a><a href="#Footnote_7_7" class="fnanchor">[7]</a> No one thought the worse of Bracciano for +this murder of his wife. In those days of abandoned vice and intricate +villany, certain points of honour were maintained with scrupulous +fidelity. A wife's adultery was enough to justify the most savage and +licentious husband in an act of semi-judicial vengeance; and the shame +she brought upon his head was shared by the members of her own house, +so that they stood by, consenting to her death. Isabella, it may be +said, left one son, Virginio, who became in due time Duke of +Bracciano.</p> + +<p>It appears that in the year 1581, four years after Vittoria's +marriage, the Duke of Bracciano had satisfied Marcello of his +intention to make her his wife, and of his willingness to countenance +Francesco Peretti's murder. Marcello, feeling sure of his game, +introduced the Duke in private to his sister, and induced her to +overcome any natural repugnance she may have felt for the unwieldy and +gross lover. Having reached this point, it was imperative to push +matters quickly on toward matrimony.</p> + +<p>But how should the unfortunate Francesco be entrapped? They caught him +in a snare of peculiar atrocity, by working on the kindly feelings +which his love for Vittoria had caused him to extend to all the +Acooramboni. Marcello, the outlaw, was her favourite brother, and +Marcello at that time lay in hiding, under the suspicion of more than +ordinary crime, beyond the walls of Rome. Late in the evening of the +18th of April, while the Peretti family were retiring to bed, a +messenger from Marcello arrived, entreating Francesco to repair at +once to Monte Cavallo. Marcello had affairs of the utmost importance +to communicate, and begged his brother-in-law not to fail him at a +grievous pinch. The letter containing this request was borne by one +Dominico d'Aquaviva, <i>alias</i> Il Mancino, a confederate of Vittoria's +waiting-maid. This fellow, like Marcello, was an outlaw; but when he +ventured into Rome he frequented Peretti's house, and had made himself +familiar with its master as a trusty bravo. Neither in the message, +therefore, nor in the messenger was there much to rouse suspicion. The +time, indeed, was oddly chosen, and Marcello had never made a similar +appeal on any previous occasion. Yet his necessities might surely have +obliged him to demand some more than ordinary favour from a brother. +Francesco immediately made himself ready to set out, armed only with +his sword and attended by a single servant. It was in vain that his +wife and his mother reminded him of the dangers of the night, the +loneliness of Monte Cavallo, its ruinous palaces and robber-haunted +caves. He was resolved to undertake the adventure, and went forth, +never to return. As he ascended the hill, he fell to earth, shot with +three harquebuses. His body was afterwards found on Monte Cavallo, +stabbed through and through, without a trace that could identify the +murderers. Only, in the course of subsequent investigations, Il +Mancino (on the 24th of February 1582) made the following +statements:—That Vittoria's mother, assisted by the waiting woman, +had planned the trap; that Marchionne of Gubbio and Paolo Barca of +Bracciano, two of the Duke's men, had despatched the victim. Marcello +himself, it seems, had come from Bracciano to conduct the whole +affair. Suspicion fell immediately upon Vittoria and her kindred, +together with the Duke of Bracciano; nor was this diminished when the +Accoramboni, fearing the pursuit of justice, took refuge in a villa of +the Duke's at Magnanapoli a few days after the murder.</p> + +<p>A cardinal's nephew, even in those troublous times, was not killed +without some noise being made about the matter. Accordingly Pope +Gregory XIII. began to take measures for discovering the authors of +the crime. Strange to say, however, the Cardinal Montalto, +notwithstanding the great love he was known to bear his nephew, begged +that the investigation might be dropped. The coolness with which he +first received the news of Francesco Peretti's death, the +dissimulation with which he met the Pope's expression of sympathy in a +full consistory, his reserve in greeting friends on ceremonial visits +of condolence, and, more than all, the self-restraint he showed in the +presence of the Duke of Bracciano, impressed the society of Rome with +the belief that he was of a singularly moderate and patient temper. It +was thought that the man who could so tamely submit to his nephew's +murder, and suspend the arm of justice when already raised for +vengeance, must prove a mild and indulgent ruler. When, therefore, in +the fifth year after this event, Montalto was elected Pope, men +ascribed his elevation in no small measure to his conduct at the +present crisis. Some, indeed, attributed his extraordinary moderation +and self-control to the right cause. <i>'Veramente costui è un gran +frate!</i>' was Gregory's remark at the close of the consistory when +Montalto begged him to let the matter of Peretti's murder rest. '<i>Of a +truth, that fellow is a consummate hypocrite!</i>' How accurate this +judgment was, appeared when Sixtus V. assumed the reins of power. The +same man who, as monk and cardinal, had smiled on Bracciano, though he +knew him to be his nephew's assassin, now, as Pontiff and sovereign, +bade the chief of the Orsini purge his palace and dominions of the +scoundrels he was wont to harbour, adding significantly, that if +Felice Peretti forgave what had been done against him in a private +station, he would exact uttermost vengeance for disobedience to the +will of Sixtus. The Duke of Bracciano judged it best, after that +warning, to withdraw from Rome.</p> + +<p>Francesco Peretti had been murdered on the 16th of April 1581. Sixtus +V. was proclaimed on the 24th of April 1585. In this interval Vittoria +underwent a series of extraordinary perils and adventures. First of +all, she had been secretly married to the Duke in his gardens of +Magnanapoli at the end of April 1581. That is to say, Marcello and she +secured their prize, as well as they were able, the moment after +Francesco had been removed by murder. But no sooner had the marriage +become known, than the Pope, moved by the scandal it created, no less +than by the urgent instance of the Orsini and Medici, declared it +void. After some while spent in vain resistance, Bracciano submitted, +and sent Vittoria back to her father's house. By an order issued under +Gregory's own hand, she was next removed to the prison of Corte +Savella, thence to the monastery of S. Cecilia in Trastevere, and +finally to the Castle of S. Angelo. Here, at the end of December 1581, +she was put on trial for the murder of her first husband. In prison +she seems to have borne herself bravely, arraying her beautiful person +in delicate attire, entertaining visitors, exacting from her friends +the honours due to a duchess, and sustaining the frequent examinations +to which she was submitted with a bold, proud front. In the middle of +the month of July her constancy was sorely tried by the receipt of a +letter in the Duke's own handwriting, formally renouncing his +marriage. It was only by a lucky accident that she was prevented on +this occasion from committing suicide. The Papal court meanwhile kept +urging her either to retire to a monastery or to accept another +husband. She firmly refused to embrace the religious life, and +declared that she was already lawfully united to a living husband, the +Duke of Bracciano. It seemed impossible to deal with her; and at last, +on the 8th of November, she was released from prison under the +condition of retirement to Gubbio. The Duke had lulled his enemies to +rest by the pretence of yielding to their wishes. But Marcello was +continually beside him at Bracciano, where we read of a mysterious +Greek enchantress whom he hired to brew love-philters for the +furtherance of his ambitious plots. Whether Bracciano was stimulated +by the brother's arguments or by the witch's potions need not be too +curiously questioned. But it seems in any case certain that absence +inflamed his passion instead of cooling it.</p> + +<p>Accordingly, in September 1583, under the excuse of a pilgrimage to +Loreto, he contrived to meet Vittoria at Trevi, whence he carried her +in triumph to Bracciano. Here he openly acknowledged her as his wife, +installing her with all the splendour due to a sovereign duchess. On +the 10th of October following, he once more performed the marriage +ceremony in the principal church of his fief; and in the January of +1584 he brought her openly to Rome. This act of contumacy to the Pope, +both as feudal superior and as supreme Pontiff, roused all the former +opposition to his marriage. Once more it was declared invalid. Once +more the Duke pretended to give way. But at this juncture Gregory +died; and while the conclave was sitting for the election of the new +Pope, he resolved to take the law into his own hands, and to ratify +his union with Vittoria by a third and public marriage in Rome. On the +morning of the 24th of April 1585, their nuptials were accordingly +once more solemnised in the Orsini palace. Just one hour after the +ceremony, as appears from the marriage register, the news arrived of +Cardinal Montalto's election to the Papacy, Vittoria lost no time in +paying her respects to Camilla, sister of the new Pope, her former +mother-in-law. The Duke visited Sixtus V. in state to compliment him +on his elevation. But the reception which both received proved that +Rome was no safe place for them to live in. They consequently made up +their minds for flight.</p> + +<p>A chronic illness from which Bracciano had lately suffered furnished a +sufficient pretext. This seems to have been something of the nature of +a cancerous ulcer, which had to be treated by the application of raw +meat to open sores. Such details are only excusable in the present +narrative on the ground that Bracciano's disease considerably affects +our moral judgment of the woman who could marry a man thus physically +tainted, and with her husband's blood upon his hands. At any rate, +the Duke's <i>lupa</i> justified his trying what change of air, together +with the sulphur waters of Abano, would do for him.</p> + +<p>The Duke and Duchess arrived in safety at Venice, where they had +engaged the Dandolo palace on the Zuecca. There they only stayed a few +days, removing to Padua, where they had hired palaces of the Foscari +in the Arena and a house called De' Cavalli. At Salò, also, on the +Lake of Garda, they provided themselves with fit dwellings for their +princely state and their large retinues, intending to divide their +time between the pleasures which the capital of luxury afforded and +the simpler enjoyments of the most beautiful of the Italian lakes. But +<i>la gioia dei profani è un fumo passaggier</i>. Paolo Giordano Orsini, +Duke of Bracciano, died suddenly at Salò on the 10th of November 1585, +leaving the young and beautiful Vittoria helpless among enemies. What +was the cause of his death? It is not possible to give a clear and +certain answer. We have seen that he suffered from a horrible and +voracious disease, which after his removal from Rome seems to have +made progress. Yet though this malady may well have cut his life +short, suspicion of poison was not, in the circumstances, quite +unreasonable. The Grand Duke of Tuscany, the Pope, and the Orsini +family were all interested in his death. Anyhow, he had time to make a +will in Vittoria's favour, leaving her large sums of money, jewels, +goods, and houses—enough, in fact, to support her ducal dignity with +splendour. His hereditary fiefs and honours passed by right to his +only son, Virginio.</p> + +<p>Vittoria, accompanied by her brother, Marcello, and the whole court of +Bracciano, repaired at once to Padua, where she was soon after joined +by Flaminio, and by the Prince Lodovico Orsini. Lodovico Orsini +assumed the duty of settling Vittoria's affairs under her dead +husband's will. In life he had been the Duke's ally as well as +relative. His family pride was deeply wounded by what seemed to him an +ignoble, as it was certainly an unequal, marriage. He now showed +himself the relentless enemy of the Duchess. Disputes arose between +them as to certain details, which seem to have been legally decided in +the widow's favour. On the night of the 22nd of December, however, +forty men disguised in black and fantastically tricked out to elude +detection, surrounded her palace. Through the long galleries and +chambers hung with arras, eight of them went, bearing torches, in +search of Vittoria and her brothers. Marcello escaped, having fled the +house under suspicion of the murder of one of his own followers. +Flaminio, the innocent and young, was playing on his lute and singing +<i>Miserere</i> in the great hall of the palace. The murderers surprised +him with a shot from one of their harquebuses. He ran, wounded in the +shoulder, to his sister's room. She, it is said, was telling her beads +before retiring for the night. When three of the assassins entered, +she knelt before the crucifix, and there they stabbed her in the left +breast, turning the poignard in the wound, and asking her with savage +insults if her heart was pierced. Her last words were, 'Jesus, I +pardon you.' Then they turned to Flaminio, and left him pierced with +seventy-four stiletto wounds.</p> + +<p>The authorities of Padua identified the bodies of Vittoria and +Flaminio, and sent at once for further instructions to Venice. +Meanwhile it appears that both corpses were laid out in one open +coffin for the people to contemplate. The palace and the church of the +Eremitani, to which they had been removed, were crowded all through +the following day with a vast concourse of the Paduans. Vittoria's +wonderful dead body, pale yet sweet to look upon, the golden hair +flowing around her marble shoulders, the red wound in her breast +uncovered, the stately limbs arrayed in satin as she died, maddened +the populace with its surpassing loveliness. '<i>Dentibus fremebant</i>,' +says the chronicler, when they beheld that gracious lady stiff in +death. And of a truth, if her corpse was actually exposed in the +chapel of the Eremitani, as we have some right to assume, the +spectacle must have been impressive. Those grim gaunt frescoes of +Mantegna looked down on her as she lay stretched upon her bier, solemn +and calm, and, but for pallor, beautiful as though in life. No wonder +that the folk forgot her first husband's murder, her less than comely +marriage to the second. It was enough for them that this flower of +surpassing loveliness had been cropped by villains in its bloom. +Gathering in knots around the torches placed beside the corpse, they +vowed vengeance against the Orsini; for suspicion, not unnaturally, +fell on Prince Lodovico.</p> + +<p>The Prince was arrested and interrogated before the court of Padua. He +entered their hall attended by forty armed men, responded haughtily to +their questions, and demanded free passage for his courier to Virginio +Orsini, then at Florence. To this demand the court acceded; but the +precaution of waylaying the courier and searching his person was very +wisely taken. Besides some formal dispatches which announced +Vittoria's assassination, they found in this man's boot a compromising +letter, declaring Virginio a party to the crime, and asserting that +Lodovico had with his own poignard killed their victim. Padua placed +itself in a state of defence, and prepared to besiege the palace of +Prince Lodovico, who also got himself in readiness for battle. +Engines, culverins, and firebrands were directed against the +barricades which he had raised. The militia was called out and the +Brenta was strongly guarded. Meanwhile the Senate of S. Mark had +dispatched the Avogadore, Aloisio Bragadin, with full power to the +scene of action. Lodovico Orsini, it may be mentioned, was in their +service; and had not this affair intervened, he would in a few weeks +have entered on his duties as Governor for Venice of Corfu.</p> + +<p>The bombardment of Orsini's palace began on Christmas Day. Three of +the Prince's men were killed in the first assault; and since the +artillery brought to bear upon him threatened speedy ruin to the house +and its inhabitants, he made up his mind to surrender. 'The Prince +Luigi,' writes one-chronicler of these events, 'walked attired in +brown, his poignard at his side, and his cloak slung elegantly under +his arm. The weapon being taken from him, he leaned upon a balustrade, +and began to trim his nails with a little pair of scissors he happened +to find there.' On the 27th he was strangled in prison by order of the +Venetian Republic. His body was carried to be buried, according to his +own will, in the church of S. Maria dell' Orto at Venice. Two of his +followers were hung next day. Fifteen were executed on the following +Monday; two of these were quartered alive; one of them, the Conte +Paganello, who confessed to having slain Vittoria, had his left side +probed with his own cruel dagger. Eight were condemned to the galleys, +six to prison, and eleven were acquitted. Thus ended this terrible +affair, which brought, it is said, good credit and renown to the lords +of Venice through all nations of the civilised world. It only remains +to be added that Marcello Accoramboni was surrendered to the Pope's +vengeance and beheaded at Ancona, where also his mysterious +accomplice, the Greek sorceress, perished.</p> + + +<p>II</p> + +<p>This story of Vittoria Accoramboni's life and tragic ending is drawn, +in its main details, from a narrative published by Henri Beyle in his +'Chroniques et Novelles.'<a name="FNanchor_8_8" id="FNanchor_8_8" /></a><a href="#Footnote_8_8" class="fnanchor">[8]</a> He professes to have translated it +literally from a manuscript communicated to him by a nobleman of +Mantua; and there are strong internal evidences of the truth of this +assertion. Such compositions are frequent in Italian libraries, nor is +it rare for one of them to pass into the common market—as Mr. +Browning's famous purchase of the tale on which he based his 'Ring +and the Book' sufficiently proves. These pamphlets were produced, in +the first instance, to gratify the curiosity of the educated public in +an age which had no newspapers, and also to preserve the memory of +famous trials. How far the strict truth was represented, or whether, +as in the case of Beatrice Cenci, the pathetic aspect of the tragedy +was unduly dwelt on, depended, of course, upon the mental bias of the +scribe, upon his opportunities of obtaining exact information, and +upon the taste of the audience for whom he wrote. Therefore, in +treating such documents as historical data, we must be upon our guard. +Professor Gnoli, who has recently investigated the whole of Vittoria's +eventful story by the light of contemporary documents, informs us that +several narratives exist in manuscript, all dealing more or less +accurately with the details of the tragedy. One of these was published +in Italian at Brescia in 1586. A Frenchman, De Rosset, printed the +same story in its main outlines at Lyons in 1621. Our own dramatist, +John Webster, made it the subject of a tragedy, which he gave to the +press in 1612. What were his sources of information we do not know for +certain. But it is clear that he was well acquainted with the history. +He has changed some of the names and redistributed some of the chief +parts. Vittoria's first husband, for example, becomes Camillo; her +mother, named Cornelia instead of Tarquinia, is so far from abetting +Peretti's murder and countenancing her daughter's shame, that she acts +the <i>rôle</i> of a domestic Cassandra. Flaminio and not Marcello is made +the main instrument of Vittoria's crime and elevation. The Cardinal +Montalto is called Monticelso, and his papal title is Paul IV. instead +of Sixtus V. These are details of comparative indifference, in which +a playwright may fairly use his liberty of art. On the other hand, +Webster shows a curious knowledge of the picturesque circumstances of +the tale. The garden in which Vittoria meets Bracciano is the villa of +Magnanapoli; Zanche, the Moorish slave, combines Vittoria's +waiting-woman, Caterina, and the Greek sorceress who so mysteriously +dogged Marcello's footsteps to the death. The suspicion of Bracciano's +murder is used to introduce a quaint episode of Italian poisoning.</p> + +<p>Webster exercised the dramatist's privilege of connecting various +threads of action in one plot, disregarding chronology, and hazarding +an ethical solution of motives which mere fidelity to fact hardly +warrants. He shows us Vittoria married to Camillo, a low-born and +witless fool, whose only merit consists in being nephew to the +Cardinal Monticelso, afterwards Pope Paul IV.<a name="FNanchor_9_9" id="FNanchor_9_9" /></a><a href="#Footnote_9_9" class="fnanchor">[9]</a> Paulo Giordano +Ursini, Duke of Brachiano, loves Vittoria, and she suggests to him +that, for the furtherance of their amours, his wife, the Duchess +Isabella, sister to Francesco de' Medici, Grand Duke of Florence, +should be murdered at the same time as her own husband, Camillo. +Brachiano is struck by this plan, and with the help of Vittoria's +brother, Flamineo, he puts it at once into execution. Flamineo hires a +doctor who poisons Brachiano's portrait, so that Isabella dies after +kissing it. He also with his own hands twists Camillo's neck during a +vaulting-match, making it appear that he came by his death +accidentally. Suspicion of the murder attaches, however, to Vittoria. +She is tried for her life before Monticelso and De' Medici; acquitted, +and relegated to a house of Convertites or female reformatory. +Brachiano, on the accession of Monticelso to the Papal throne, +resolves to leave Rome with Vittoria. They escape, together with her +mother Cornelia, and her brothers Flamineo and Marcello, to Padua; and +it is here that the last scenes of the tragedy are laid.</p> + +<p>The use Webster made of Lodovico Orsini deserves particular attention. +He introduces this personage in the very first scene as a spendthrift, +who, having run through his fortune, has been outlawed. Count +Lodovico, as he is always called, has no relationship with the Orsini, +but is attached to the service of Francesco de' Medici, and is an old +lover of the Duchess Isabella. When, therefore, the Grand Duke +meditates vengeance on Brachiano, he finds a fitting instrument in the +desperate Lodovico. Together, in disguise, they repair to Padua. +Lodovico poisons the Duke of Brachiano's helmet, and has the +satisfaction of ending his last struggles by the halter. Afterwards, +with companions, habited as a masquer, he enters Vittoria's palace and +puts her to death together with her brother Flamineo. Just when the +deed of vengeance has been completed, young Giovanni Orsini, heir of +Brachiano, enters and orders the summary execution of Lodovico for +this deed of violence. Webster's invention in this plot is confined to +the fantastic incidents attending on the deaths of Isabella, Camillo, +and Brachiano, and to the murder of Marcello by his brother Flamineo, +with the further consequence of Cornelia's madness and death. He has +heightened our interest in Isabella, at the expense of Brachiano's +character, by making her an innocent and loving wife instead of an +adulteress. He has ascribed different motives from the real ones to +Lodovico in order to bring this personage into rank with the chief +actors, though this has been achieved with only moderate success. +Vittoria is abandoned to the darkest interpretation. She is a woman +who rises to eminence by crime, as an unfaithful wife, the murderess +of her husband, and an impudent defier of justice. Her brother, +Flamineo, becomes under Webster's treatment one of those worst human +infamies—a court dependent; ruffian, buffoon, pimp, murderer by +turns. Furthermore, and without any adequate object beyond that of +completing this study of a type he loved, Webster makes him murder his +own brother Marcello by treason. The part assigned to Marcello, it +should be said, is a genial and happy one; and Cornelia, the mother of +the Accoramboni, is a dignified character, pathetic in her suffering. +Webster, it may be added, treats the Cardinal Monticelso as allied in +some special way to the Medici. Yet certain traits in his character, +especially his avoidance of bloodshed and the tameness of his temper +after Camillo has been murdered, seem to have been studied from the +historical Sixtus.</p> + + +<p>III</p> + +<p>The character of the 'White Devil, or Vittoria Corombona,' is perhaps +the most masterly creation of Webster's genius. Though her history is +a true one in its leading incidents, the poet, while portraying a real +personage, has conceived an original individuality. It is impossible +to know for certain how far the actual Vittoria was guilty of her +first husband's murder. Her personality fails to detach itself from +the romance of her biography by any salient qualities. But Webster, +with true playwright's instinct, casts aside historical doubts, and +delineates in his heroine a woman of a very marked and terrible +nature. Hard as adamant, uncompromising, ruthless, Vittoria follows +ambition as the loadstar of her life. It is the ambition to reign as +Duchess, far more than any passion for a paramour, which makes her +plot Camillo's and Isabella's murders, and throws her before marriage +into Brachiano's arms. Added to this ambition, she is possessed with +the cold demon of her own imperial and victorious beauty. She has the +courage of her criminality in the fullest sense; and much of the +fascination with which Webster has invested her, depends upon her +dreadful daring. Her portrait is drawn with full and firm touches. +Although she appears but five times on the scene, she fills it from +the first line of the drama to the last. Each appearance adds +effectively to the total impression. We see her first during a +criminal interview with Brachiano, contrived by her brother Flamineo. +The plot of the tragedy is developed in this scene; Vittoria +suggesting, under the metaphor of a dream, that her lover should +compass the deaths of his duchess and her husband. The dream is told +with deadly energy and ghastly picturesqueness. The cruel sneer at its +conclusion, murmured by a voluptuous woman in the ears of an +impassioned paramour, chills us with the sense of concentrated vice. +Her next appearance is before the court, on trial for her husband's +murder. The scene is celebrated, and has been much disputed by +critics. Relying on her own dauntlessness, on her beauty, and on the +protection of Brachiano, Vittoria hardly takes the trouble to plead +innocence or to rebut charges. She stands defiant, arrogant, vigilant, +on guard; flinging the lie in the teeth of her arraigners; quick to +seize the slightest sign of feebleness in their attack; protesting her +guiltlessness so loudly that she shouts truth down by brazen strength +of lung; retiring at the close with taunts; blazing throughout with +the intolerable lustre of some baleful planet. When she enters for the +third time, it is to quarrel with her paramour. He has been stung to +jealousy by a feigned love-letter. She knows that she has given him no +cause; it is her game to lure him by fidelity to marriage. Therefore +she resolves to make his mistake the instrument of her exaltation. +Beginning with torrents of abuse, hurling reproaches at him for her +own dishonour and the murder of his wife, working herself by studied +degrees into a tempest of ungovernable rage, she flings herself upon +the bed, refuses his caresses, spurns and tramples on him, till she +has brought Brachiano, terrified, humbled, fascinated, to her feet. +Then she gradually relents beneath his passionate protestations and +repeated promises of marriage. At this point she speaks but little. +We only feel her melting humour in the air, and long to see the scene +played by such an actress as Madame Bernhardt. When Vittoria next +appears, it is as Duchess by the deathbed of the Duke, her husband. +Her attendance here is necessary, but it contributes little to the +development of her character. We have learned to know her, and expect +neither womanish tears nor signs of affection at a crisis which +touches her heart less than her self-love. Webster, among his other +excellent qualities, knew how to support character by reticence. +Vittoria's silence in this act is significant; and when she retires +exclaiming, 'O me! this place is hell!' we know that it is the outcry, +not of a woman who has lost what made life dear, but of one who sees +the fruits of crime imperilled by a fatal accident. The last scene of +the play is devoted to Vittoria. It begins with a notable altercation +between her and Flamineo. She calls him 'ruffian' and 'villain,' +refusing him the reward of his vile service. This quarrel emerges in +one of Webster's grotesque contrivances to prolong a poignant +situation. Flamineo quits the stage and reappears with pistols. He +affects a kind of madness; and after threatening Vittoria, who never +flinches, he proposes they should end their lives by suicide. She +humours him, but manages to get the first shot. Flamineo falls, +wounded apparently to death. Then Vittoria turns and tramples on him +with her feet and tongue, taunting him in his death agony with the +enumeration of his crimes. Her malice and her energy are equally +infernal. Soon, however, it appears that the whole device was but a +trick of Flamineo's to test his sister. The pistol was not loaded. He +now produces a pair which are properly charged, and proceeds in good +earnest to the assassination of Vittoria. But at this critical moment +Lodovico and his masquers appear; brother and sister both die +unrepentant, defiant to the end. Vittoria's customary pride and her +familiar sneers impress her speech in these last moments with a +trenchant truth to nature:</p> + +<span style="margin-left: 8em;"><i>You</i> my death's-man!</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Methinks thou dost not look horrid enough,</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Thou hast too good a face to be a hangman:</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">If thou be, do thy office in right form;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Fall down upon thy knees, and ask forgiveness!</span><br /> +<br /> + +<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">I will be waited on in death; my servant</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Shall never go before me.</span><br /> +<br /> + +<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 8em;">Yes, I shall welcome death</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">As princes do some great ambassadors:</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">I'll meet thy weapon half-way.</span><br /> +<br /> + +<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 8.5em;">'Twas a manly blow!</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">The next thou giv'st, murder some sucking infant;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">And then thou wilt be famous.</span><br /> + + +<p>So firmly has Webster wrought the character of this white devil, that +we seem to see her before us as in a picture. 'Beautiful as the +leprosy, dazzling as the lightning,' to use a phrase of her +enthusiastic admirer Hazlitt, she takes her station like a lady in +some portrait by Paris Bordone, with gleaming golden hair twisted into +snakelike braids about her temples, with skin white as cream, bright +cheeks, dark dauntless eyes, and on her bosom, where it has been +chafed by jewelled chains, a flush of rose. She is luxurious, but not +so abandoned to the pleasures of the sense as to forget the purpose of +her will and brain. Crime and peril add zest to her enjoyment. When +arraigned in open court before the judgment-seat of deadly and +unscrupulous foes, she conceals the consciousness of guilt, and stands +erect, with fierce front, unabashed, relying on the splendour of her +irresistible beauty and the subtlety of her piercing wit. Chafing with +rage, the blood mounts and adds a lustre to her cheek. It is no flush +of modesty, but of rebellious indignation. The Cardinal, who hates +her, brands her emotion with the name of shame. She rebukes him, +hurling a jibe at his own mother. And when they point with spiteful +eagerness to the jewels blazing on her breast, to the silks and satins +that she rustles in, her husband lying murdered, she retorts:</p> + +<div class="blockquot"><p>Had I foreknown his death, as you suggest, I would have + bespoke my mourning.</p></div> + +<p>She is condemned, but not vanquished, and leaves the court with a +stinging sarcasm. They send her to a house of Convertites:</p> + +<div class="blockquot"><p><i>V.C</i>. A house of Convertites! what's that?</p> + +<p> <i>M</i>. A house of penitent whores.</p> + +<p> <i>V.C</i>. Do the noblemen of Rome Erect it for their wives, + that I am sent To lodge there?</p></div> + +<p>Charles Lamb was certainly in error? when he described Vittoria's +attitude as one of 'innocence-resembling boldness.' In the trial +scene, no less than in the scenes of altercation with Brachiano and +Flamineo, Webster clearly intended her to pass for a magnificent +vixen, a beautiful and queenly termagant. Her boldness is the audacity +of impudence, which does not condescend to entertain the thought of +guilt. Her egotism is so hard and so profound that the very victims +whom she sacrifices to ambition seem in her sight justly punished. Of +Camillo and Isabella, her husband and his wife, she says to Brachiano:</p> + +<div class="blockquot"><p>And both were struck dead by that sacred yew, In that base + shallow grave that was their due.</p></div> + + +<p>IV</p> + + +<p>It is tempting to pass from this analysis of Vittoria's life to a +consideration of Webster's drama as a whole, especially in a book +dedicated to Italian byways. For that mysterious man of genius had +explored the dark and devious paths of Renaissance vice, and had +penetrated the secrets of Italian wickedness with truly appalling +lucidity. His tragedies, though worthless as historical documents, +have singular value as commentaries upon history, as revelations to us +of the spirit of the sixteenth century in its deepest gloom.</p> + +<p>Webster's plays, owing to the condensation of their thought and the +compression of their style, are not easy to read for the first time. +He crowds so many fantastic incidents into one action, and burdens his +discourse with so much profoundly studied matter, that we rise from +the perusal of his works with a blurred impression of the fables, a +deep sense of the poet's power and personality, and an ineffaceable +recollection of one or two resplendent scenes. His Roman history-play +of 'Appius and Virginia' proves that he understood the value of a +simple plot, and that he was able, when he chose, to work one out with +conscientious calmness. But the two Italian dramas upon which his fame +is justly founded, by right of which he stands alone among the +playwrights of all literatures, are marked by a peculiar and wayward +mannerism. Each part is etched with equal effort after luminous effect +upon a background of lurid darkness; and the whole play is made up of +these parts, without due concentration on a master-motive. The +characters are definite in outline, but, taken together in the conduct +of a single plot, they seem to stand apart, like figures in a <i>tableau +vivant</i>; nor do they act and react each upon the other in the play of +interpenetrative passions. That this mannerism was deliberately +chosen, we have a right to believe. 'Willingly, and not ignorantly, in +this kind have I faulted,' is the answer Webster gives to such as may +object that he has not constructed his plays upon the classic model. +He seems to have had a certain sombre richness of tone and intricacy +of design in view, combining sensational effect and sententious +pregnancy of diction in works of laboured art, which, when adequately +represented to the ear and eye upon the stage, might at a touch obtain +the animation they now lack for chamber-students.</p> + +<p>When familiarity has brought us acquainted with his style, when we +have disentangled the main characters and circumstances from their +adjuncts, we perceive that he treats poignant and tremendous +situations with a concentrated vigour special to his genius; that he +has studied each word and trait of character, and that he has prepared +by gradual approaches and degrees of horror for the culmination of his +tragedies. The sentences which seem at first sight copied from a +commonplace book, are found to be appropriate. Brief lightning flashes +of acute perception illuminate the midnight darkness of his all but +unimaginably depraved characters. Sharp unexpected touches evoke +humanity in the <i>fantoccini</i> of his wayward art. No dramatist has +shown more consummate ability in heightening terrific effects, in +laying bare the innermost mysteries of crime, remorse, and pain, +combined to make men miserable. It has been said of Webster that, +feeling himself deficient in the first poetic qualities, he +concentrated his powers upon one point, and achieved success by sheer +force of self-cultivation. There is perhaps some truth in this. At any +rate, his genius was of a narrow and peculiar order, and he knew well +how to make the most of its limitations. Yet we must not forget that +he felt a natural bias toward the dreadful stuff with which he deals. +The mystery of iniquity had an irresistible attraction for his mind. +He was drawn to comprehend and reproduce abnormal elements of +spiritual anguish. The materials with which he builds his tragedies +are sought for in the ruined places of lost souls, in the agonies of +madness and despair, in the sarcasms of criminal and reckless atheism, +in slow tortures, griefs beyond endurance, the tempests of remorseful +death, the spasms of fratricidal bloodshed. He is often melodramatic +in the means employed to bring these psychological conditions home to +us. He makes too free use of poisoned engines, daggers, pistols, +disguised murderers, and so forth. Yet his firm grasp upon the +essential qualities of diseased and guilty human nature saves him, +even at his wildest, from the unrealities and extravagances into which +less potent artists of the <i>drame sanglant</i>—Marston, for +example—blundered.</p> + +<p>With Webster, the tendency to brood on horrors was no result of +calculation. It belonged to his idiosyncrasy. He seems to have been +suckled from birth at the breast of that <i>Mater Tenebrarum</i>, our Lady +of Darkness, whom De Quincey in one of his 'Suspiria de Profundis' +describes among the Semnai Theai, the august goddesses, the mysterious +foster-nurses of suffering humanity. He cannot say the simplest thing +without giving it a ghastly or sinister turn. If one of his characters +draws a metaphor from pie-crust, he must needs use language of the +churchyard:</p> + +<p> +<span style="margin-left: 12.5em;">You speak as if a man</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Should know what fowl is coffined in a baked meat</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Afore you cut it open.</span><br /> +</p> + +<p>Hideous similes are heaped together in illustration of the commonest +circumstances:</p> + +<div class="blockquot"><p>Places at court are but like beds in the hospital, where + this man's head lies at that man's foot, and so lower and + lower.</p> + +<p> When knaves come to preferment, they rise as gallowses are + raised in the Low Countries, one upon another's shoulders.</p> + +<p> I would sooner eat a dead pigeon taken from the soles of the + feet of one sick of the plague than kiss one of you fasting.</p></div> + +<p>A soldier is twitted with serving his master:</p> + +<p> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">As witches do their serviceable spirits,</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Even with thy prodigal blood.</span><br /> +</p> + +<p>An adulterous couple get this curse:</p> + +<p> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Like mistletoe on sear elms spent by weather,</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Let him cleave to her, and both rot together.</span><br /> +</p> + +<p>A bravo is asked:</p> + +<p> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Dost thou imagine thou canst slide on blood,</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">And not be tainted with a shameful fall?</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Or, like the black and melancholic yew-tree,</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Dost think to root thyself in dead men's graves,</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">And yet to prosper?</span><br /> +</p> + +<p>It is dangerous to extract philosophy of life from any dramatist. Yet +Webster so often returns to dark and doleful meditations, that we may +fairly class him among constitutional pessimists. Men, according to +the grimness of his melancholy, are:</p> + + +<span style="margin-left: 5.5em;">Only like dead walls or vaulted graves,</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">That, ruined, yield no echo.</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 8em;">O this gloomy world!</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">In what a shadow or deep pit of darkness</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Doth womanish and fearful mankind live!</span><br /> +<br /> + +<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">We are merely the stars' tennis-balls, struck and banded</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Which way please them.</span><br /> +<br /> + +<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Pleasure of life! what is't? only the good hours of an ague.</span><br /> + + +<p>A Duchess is 'brought to mortification,' before her strangling by the +executioner, in this high fantastical oration:</p> + +<div class="blockquot"><p>Thou art a box of worm-seed, at best but a salvatory of + green mummy. What's this flesh? A little crudded milk, + fantastical puff-paste, &c. &c.</p></div> +<p>Man's life in its totality is summed up with monastic cynicism in +these lyric verses:</p> + +<p> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Of what is't fools make such vain keeping?</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Sin their conception, their birth weeping,</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Their life a general mist of error,</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Their death a hideous storm of terror.</span><br /> +</p> + + + +<p>The greatness of the world passes by with all its glory:</p> + +<p> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Vain the ambition of kings,</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Who seek by trophies and dead things</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">To leave a living name behind,</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">And weave but nets to catch the wind.</span><br /> +</p> + +<p>It would be easy to surfeit criticism with similar examples; where +Webster is writing in sarcastic, meditative, or deliberately +terror-stirring moods. The same dark dye of his imagination shows +itself even more significantly in circumstances where, in the work of +any other artist, it would inevitably mar the harmony of the picture. +A lady, to select one instance, encourages her lover to embrace her at +the moment of his happiness. She cries:</p> + +<p> +<span style="margin-left: 12.5em;">Sir, be confident!</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">What is't distracts you? This is flesh and blood, sir;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">'Tis not the figure cut in alabaster,</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Kneels at my husband's tomb.</span><br /> +</p> + +<p>Yet so sustained is Webster's symphony of sombre tints, that we do not +feel this sepulchral language, this 'talk fit for a charnel' (to use +one of his own phrases), to be out of keeping. It sounds like a +presentiment of coming woes, which, as the drama grows to its +conclusion, gather and darken on the wretched victims of his bloody +plot.</p> + +<p>It was with profound sagacity, or led by some deep-rooted instinct, +that Webster sought the fables of his two great tragedies, 'The White +Devil' and 'The Duchess of Malfi,' in Italian annals. Whether he had +visited Italy in his youth, we cannot say; for next to nothing is +known about Webster's life. But that he had gazed long and earnestly +into the mirror held up by that enchantress of the nations in his age, +is certain. Aghast and fascinated by the sins he saw there flaunting +in the light of day—sins on whose pernicious glamour Ascham, Greene, +and Howell have insisted with impressive vehemence—Webster discerned +in them the stuff he needed for philosophy and art. Withdrawing from +that contemplation, he was like a spirit 'loosed out of hell to speak +of horrors.' Deeper than any poet of the time, deeper than any even of +the Italians, he read the riddle of the sphinx of crime. He found +there something akin to his own imaginative mood, something which he +alone could fully comprehend and interpret. From the superficial +narratives of writers like Bandello he extracted a spiritual essence +which was, if not the literal, at least the ideal, truth involved in +them.</p> + + + + + + + + +<P>The enormous and unnatural vices, the domestic crimes of cruelty, +adultery, and bloodshed, the political scheming and the subtle arts of +<p>vengeance, the ecclesiastical tyranny and craft, the cynical +scepticism and lustre of luxurious godlessness, which made Italy in +the midst of her refinement blaze like 'a bright and ominous star' +before the nations; these were the very elements in which the genius +of Webster—salamander-like in flame—could live and flourish. Only +the incidents of Italian history, or of French history in its +Italianated epoch, were capable of supplying him with the proper type +of plot. It was in Italy alone, or in an Italianated country, such as +England for a brief space in the reign of the first Stuart threatened +to become, that the well-nigh diabolical wickedness of his characters +might have been realised. An audience familiar with Italian novels +through Belleforest and Painter, inflamed by the long struggle of the +Reformation against the scarlet abominations of the Papal See, +outraged in their moral sense by the political paradoxes of +Machiavelli, horror-stricken at the still recent misdoings of Borgias +and Medici and Farnesi, alarmed by that Italian policy which had +conceived the massacre of S. Bartholomew in France, and infuriated by +that ecclesiastical hypocrisy which triumphed in the same; such an +audience were at the right point of sympathy with a poet who undertook +to lay the springs of Southern villany before them bare in a dramatic +action. But, as the old proverb puts it, 'Inglese Italianato è un +diavolo incarnato.' 'An Englishman assuming the Italian habit is a +devil in the flesh.' The Italians were depraved, but spiritually +feeble. The English playwright, when he brought them on the stage, +arrayed with intellectual power and gleaming with the lurid splendour +of a Northern fancy, made them tenfold darker and more terrible. To +the subtlety and vices of the South he added the melancholy, +meditation, and sinister insanity of his own climate. He deepened the +complexion of crime and intensified lawlessness by robbing the Italian +character of levity. Sin, in his conception of that character, was +complicated with the sense of sin, as it never had been in a +Florentine or a Neapolitan. He had not grasped the meaning of the +Machiavellian conscience, in its cold serenity and disengagement from +the dread of moral consequence. Not only are his villains stealthy, +frigid, quick to evil, merciless, and void of honour; but they brood +upon their crimes and analyse their motives. In the midst of their +audacity they are dogged by dread of coming retribution. At the crisis +of their destiny they look back upon their better days with +intellectual remorse. In the execution of their bloodiest schemes they +groan beneath the chains of guilt they wear, and quake before the +phantoms of their haunted brains.</p> + +<p>Thus passion and reflection, superstition and profanity, deliberate +atrocity and fear of judgment, are united in the same nature; and to +make the complex still more strange, the play-wright has gifted these +tremendous personalities with his own wild humour and imaginative +irony. The result is almost monstrous, such an ideal of character as +makes earth hell. And yet it is not without justification. To the +Italian text has been added the Teutonic commentary, and both are +fused by a dramatic genius into one living whole.</p> + +<p>One of these men is Flamineo, the brother of Vittoria Corombona, upon +whose part the action of the 'White Devil' depends. He has been bred +in arts and letters at the university of Padua; but being poor and of +luxurious appetites, he chooses the path of crime in courts for his +advancement. A duke adopts him for his minion, and Flamineo acts the +pander to this great man's lust. He contrives the death of his +brother-in-law, suborns a doctor to poison the Duke's wife, and +arranges secret meetings between his sister and the paramour who is to +make her fortune and his own. His mother appears like a warning Até to +prevent her daughter's crime. In his rage he cries:</p> + +<p> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">What fury raised <i>thee</i> up? Away, away!</span><br /> +</p> + +<p>And when she pleads the honour of their house he answers:</p> + +<p> +<span style="margin-left: 12em;">Shall I,</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Having a path so open and so free</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">To my preferment, still retain your milk</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">In my pale forehead?</span><br /> +</p> + +<p>Later on, when it is necessary to remove another victim, he runs his +own brother through the body and drives his mother to madness. Yet, in +the midst of these crimes, we are unable to regard him as a simple +cut-throat. His irony and reckless courting of damnation open-eyed to +get his gust of life in this world, make him no common villain. He can +be brave as well as fierce. When the Duke insults him he bandies taunt +for taunt:</p> + +<div class="blockquot"><p><i>Brach</i>. No, you pander? + +<p> <i>Flam</i>. What, me, my lord? + Am I your dog?</p> + +<p> <i>B</i>. A bloodhound; do you brave, do you stand me?</p> + +<p> <i>F</i>. Stand you! let those that have diseases run; + I need no plasters.</p> + +<p> <i>B</i>. Would you be kicked?</p> + +<p> <i>F</i>. Would you have your neck broke? + I tell you, duke, I am not in Russia; + My shins must be kept whole.</p> + +<p> <i>B</i>. Do you know me?</p> + +<p> <i>F</i>. Oh, my lord, methodically: + As in this world there are degrees of evils, + So in this world there are degrees of devils. + You're a great duke, I your poor secretary.</p></div> + +<p>When the Duke dies and his prey escapes him, the rage of +disappointment breaks into this fierce apostrophe:</p> + +<div class="blockquot"><p>I cannot conjure; but if prayers or oaths. Will get the + speech of him, though forty devils Wait on him in his livery + of flames, I'll speak to him and shake him by the hand, + Though I be blasted.</p></div> + +<p>As crimes thicken round him, and he still despairs of the reward for +which he sold himself, conscience awakes:</p> + +<p> +<span style="margin-left: 15em;">I have lived</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2.5em;">Riotously ill, like some that live in court,</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2.5em;">And sometimes when my face was full of smiles Have felt the</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2.5em;">maze of conscience in my breast.</span><br /> +</p> + +<p>The scholar's scepticism, which lies at the root of his perversity, +finds utterance in this meditation upon death:</p> + +<div class="blockquot"><p>Whither shall I go now? O Lucian, thy ridiculous purgatory! + to find Alexander the Great cobbling shoes, Pompey tagging + points, and Julius Cæsar making hair-buttons!</p> + +<p> Whether I resolve to fire, earth, water, air, or all the + elements by scruples, I know not, nor greatly care.</p></div> + +<p>At the last moment he yet can say:</p> + +<div class="blockquot"><p>We cease to grieve, cease to be Fortune's slaves, Nay, cease + to die, by dying.</p></div> + +<p>And again, with the very yielding of his spirit:</p> + +<div class="blockquot"><p>My life was a black charnel.</p></div> + +<p>It will be seen that in no sense does Flamineo resemble Iago. He is +not a traitor working by craft and calculating ability to +well-considered ends. He is the desperado frantically clutching at an +uncertain and impossible satisfaction. Webster conceives him as a +self-abandoned atheist, who, maddened by poverty and tainted by +vicious living, takes a fury to his heart, and, because the goodness +of the world has been for ever lost to him, recklessly seeks the bad.</p> + +<p>Bosola, in the 'Duchess of Malfi,' is of the same stamp. He too has +been a scholar. He is sent to the galleys 'for a notorious murder,' +and on his release he enters the service of two brothers, the Duke of +Calabria and the Cardinal of Aragon, who place him as their +intelligencer at the court of their sister.</p> + +<div class="blockquot"><p> +<p> <i>Bos</i>. It seems you would create me<br /> + One of your familiars.</p> + +<p> <i>Ferd</i>. Familiar! what's that?</p> + +<p> <i>Bos</i>. Why, a very quaint invisible devil in flesh,<br /> + An intelligencer.</p> + +<p> <i>Ferd</i>. Such a kind of thriving thing<br /> + I would wish thee; and ere long thou may'st arrive<br /> + At a higher place by it.</p></div> + +<p>Lured by hope of preferment, Bosola undertakes the office of spy, +tormentor, and at last of executioner. For:</p> + +<p> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">Discontent and want</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Is the best clay to mould a villain of.</span><br /> +</p> + +<p>But his true self, though subdued to be what he quaintly styles 'the +devil's quilted anvil,' on which 'all sins are fashioned and the blows +never heard,' continually rebels against this destiny. Compared with +Flamineo, he is less unnaturally criminal. His melancholy is more +fantastic, his despair more noble. Throughout the course of craft and +cruelty on which he is goaded by a relentless taskmaster, his nature, +hardened as it is, revolts.</p> + +<p>At the end, when Bosola presents the body of the murdered Duchess to +her brother, Webster has wrought a scene of tragic savagery that +surpasses almost any other that the English stage can show. The +sight, of his dead sister maddens Ferdinand, who, feeling the eclipse +of reason gradually absorb his faculties, turns round with frenzied +hatred on the accomplice of his fratricide. Bosola demands the price +of guilt. Ferdinand spurns him with the concentrated eloquence of +despair and the extravagance of approaching insanity. The murderer +taunts his master coldly and laconically, like a man whose life is +wrecked, who has waded through blood to his reward, and who at the +last moment discovers the sacrifice of his conscience and masculine +freedom to be fruitless. Remorse, frustrated hopes, and thirst for +vengeance convert Bosola from this hour forward into an instrument of +retribution. The Duke and his brother the Cardinal are both brought to +bloody deaths by the hand which they had used to assassinate their +sister.</p> + +<p>It is fitting that something should be said about Webster's conception +of the Italian despot. Brachiano and Ferdinand, the employers of +Flamineo and Bosola, are tyrants such as Savonarola described, and as +we read of in the chronicles of petty Southern cities. Nothing is +suffered to stand between their lust and its accomplishment. They +override the law by violence, or pervert its action to their own +advantage:</p> + +<p> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">The law to him</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Is like a foul black cobweb to a spider;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">He makes it his dwelling and a prison</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">To entangle those shall feed him.</span><br /> +</p> + +<p>They are eaten up with parasites, accomplices, and all the creatures +of their crimes:</p> + +<div class="blockquot"><p>He and his brother are like plum-trees that grow crooked + over standing pools; they are rich and over-laden with + fruit, but none but crows, pies, and caterpillars feed on + them.</p></div> + +<p>In their lives they are without a friend; for society in guilt brings +nought of comfort, and honours are but emptiness:</p> + +<p> +<span style="margin-left: 2.5em;">Glories, like glow-worms, afar off shine bright;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2.5em;">But looked to near, have neither heat nor light.</span><br /> +</p> + +<p>Their plots and counterplots drive repose far from them:</p> + +<p> +<span style="margin-left: 2.5em;">There's but three furies found in spacious hell;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2.5em;">But in a great man's breast three thousand dwell.</span><br /> +</p> + +<p>Fearful shapes afflict their fancy; shadows of ancestral crime or +ghosts of their own raising:</p> + +<p> +<span style="margin-left: 11em;">For these many years</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">None of our family dies, but there is seen</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">The shape of an old woman; which is given</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">By tradition to us to have been murdered</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">By her nephews for her riches.</span><br /> +</p> + +<p>Apparitions haunt them:</p> + +<p> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">How tedious is a guilty conscience!</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">When I look into the fish-ponds in my garden,</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Methinks I see a thing armed with a rake</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">That seems to strike at me.</span><br /> +</p> + +<p>Continually scheming against the objects of their avarice and hatred, +preparing poisons or suborning bravoes, they know that these same arts +will be employed against them. The wine-cup hides arsenic; the +headpiece is smeared with antimony; there is a dagger behind every +arras, and each shadow is a murderer's. When death comes, they meet it +trembling. What irony Webster has condensed in Brachiano's outcry:</p> + +<p> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">On pain of death, let no man name death to me;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">It is a word infinitely horrible.</span><br /> +</p> + +<p>And how solemn are the following reflections on the death of princes:</p> + +<p> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">O thou soft natural death, that art joint-twin</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">To sweetest slumber! no rough-bearded comet</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Stares on thy mild departure; the dull owl</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Beats not against thy casement, the hoarse wolf</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Scents not thy carrion: pity winds thy corse,</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Whilst horror waits on princes.</span><br /> +</p> + +<p>After their death, this is their epitaph:</p> + +<p> +<span style="margin-left: 7.5em;">These wretched eminent things</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Leave no more fame behind'em than should one</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Fall in a frost and leave his print in snow.</span><br /> +</p> + +<p>Of Webster's despots, the finest in conception and the firmest in +execution is Ferdinand of Aragon. Jealousy of his sister and avarice +take possession of him and torment him like furies. The flash of +repentance over her strangled body is also the first flash of +insanity. He survives to present the spectacle of a crazed lunatic, +and to be run through the body by his paid assassin. In the Cardinal +of Aragon, Webster paints a profligate Churchman, no less voluptuous, +blood-guilty, and the rest of it, than his brother the Duke of +Calabria. It seems to have been the poet's purpose in each of his +Italian tragedies to unmask Rome as the Papal city really was. In the +lawless desperado, the intemperate tyrant, and the godless +ecclesiastic, he portrayed the three curses from which Italian society +was actually suffering.</p> + +<p>It has been needful to dwell upon the gloomy and fantastic side of +Webster's genius. But it must not be thought that he could touch no +finer chord. Indeed, it might be said that in the domain of pathos he +is even more powerful than in that of horror. His mastery in this +region is displayed in the creation of that dignified and beautiful +woman, the Duchess of Malfi, who, with nothing in her nature, had she +but lived prosperously, to divide her from the sisterhood of gentle +ladies, walks, shrined in love and purity and conscious rectitude, +amid the snares and pitfalls of her persecutors, to die at last the +victim of a brother's fevered avarice and a desperado's egotistical +ambition. The apparatus of infernal cruelty, the dead man's hand, the +semblances of murdered sons and husband, the masque of madmen, the +dirge and doleful emblems of the tomb with which she is environed in +her prison by the torturers who seek to goad her into lunacy, are +insufficient to disturb the tranquillity and tenderness of her nature. +When the rope is being fastened to her throat, she does not spend her +breath in recriminations, but turns to the waiting-woman and says:</p> + +<p> +<span style="margin-left: 12em;">Farewell, Cariola!</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">I pray thee look thou givest my little boy</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Some syrup for his cold, and let the girl</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Say her prayers ere she sleep.</span><br /> +</p> + +<p>In the preceding scenes we have had enough, nay, over-much, of +madness, despair, and wrestling with doom. This is the calm that comes +when death is present, when the tortured soul lays down its burden of +the flesh with gladness. But Webster has not spared another touch of +thrilling pathos.</p> + +<p>The death-struggle is over; the fratricide has rushed away, a maddened +man; the murderer is gazing with remorse upon the beautiful dead body +of his lady, wishing he had the world wherewith to buy her back to +life again; when suddenly she murmurs 'Mercy!' Our interest, already +overstrained, revives with momentary hope. But the guardians of the +grave will not be exorcised; and 'Mercy!' is the last groan of the +injured Duchess.</p> + +<p>Webster showed great skill in his delineation of the Duchess. He had +to paint a woman in a hazardous situation: a sovereign stooping in her +widowhood to wed a servant; a lady living with the mystery of this +unequal marriage round her like a veil. He dowered her with no salient +qualities of intellect or heart or will; but he sustained our sympathy +with her, and made us comprehend her. To the last she is a Duchess; +and when she has divested state and bowed her head to enter the low +gate of heaven—too low for coronets—her poet shows us, in the lines +already quoted, that the woman still survives.</p> + +<p>The same pathos surrounds the melancholy portrait of Isabella in +'Vittoria Corombona.' But Isabella, in that play, serves chiefly to +enhance the tyranny of her triumphant rival. The main difficulty under +which these scenes of rarest pathos would labour, were they brought +upon the stage, is their simplicity in contrast with the ghastly and +contorted horrors that envelop them. A dialogue abounding in the +passages I have already quoted—a dialogue which bandies 'O you +screech-owl!' and 'Thou foul black cloud!'—in which a sister's +admonition to her brother to think twice of suicide assumes a form so +weird as this:</p> + +<p> +<span style="margin-left: 8.5em;">I prithee, yet remember,</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Millions are now in graves, which at last day</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Like mandrakes shall rise shrieking.—</span><br /> +</p> + +<p>such a dialogue could not be rendered save by actors strung up to a +pitch of almost frenzied tension. To do full justice to what in +Webster's style would be spasmodic were it not so weighty, and at the +same time to maintain the purity of outline and melodious rhythm of +such characters as Isabella, demands no common histrionic power.</p> + +<p>In attempting to define Webster's touch upon Italian tragic story, I +have been led perforce to concentrate attention on what is painful and +shocking to our sense of harmony in art. He was a vigorous and +profoundly imaginative playwright. But his most enthusiastic admirers +will hardly contend that good taste or moderation determined the +movement of his genius. Nor, though his insight into the essential +dreadfulness of Italian tragedy was so deep, is it possible to +maintain that his portraiture of Italian life was true to its more +superficial aspects. What place would there be for a Correggio or a +Raphael in such a world as Webster's? Yet we know that the art of +Raphael and Correggio is in exact harmony with the Italian temperament +of the same epoch which gave birth to Cesare Borgia and Bianca +Gapello. The comparatively slighter sketch of Iachimo in 'Cymbeline' +represents the Italian as he felt and lived, better than the laboured +portrait of Flamineo. Webster's Italian tragedies are consequently +true, not so much to the actual conditions of Italy, as to the moral +impression made by those conditions on a Northern imagination.</p> + +<h5><a href="#CONTENTS">CONTENTS</a></h5> + +<br /><br /> +<hr style="width: 100%;" /> + +<h2><a name="AUTUMN_WANDERINGS" id="AUTUMN_WANDERINGS" /><i>AUTUMN WANDERINGS</i></a></h2> +<hr style="width: 100%;" /> +<br /> +<p>I.—ITALIAM PETIMUS</p> + + +<p><i>Italiam Petimus!</i> We left our upland home before daybreak on a clear +October morning. There had been a hard frost, spangling the meadows +with rime-crystals, which twinkled where the sun's rays touched them. +Men and women were mowing the frozen grass with thin short Alpine +scythes; and as the swathes fell, they gave a crisp, an almost +tinkling sound. Down into the gorge, surnamed of Avalanche, our horses +plunged; and there we lost the sunshine till we reached the Bear's +Walk, opening upon the vales of Albula, and Julier, and Schyn. But up +above, shone morning light upon fresh snow, and steep torrent-cloven +slopes reddening with a hundred fading plants; now and then it caught +the grey-green icicles that hung from cliffs where summer streams had +dripped. There is no colour lovelier than the blue of an autumn sky in +the high Alps, defining ridges powdered with light snow, and melting +imperceptibly downward into the warm yellow of the larches and the +crimson of the bilberry. Wiesen was radiantly beautiful: those aërial +ranges of the hills that separate Albula from Julier soared +crystal-clear above their forests; and for a foreground, on the green +fields starred with lilac crocuses, careered a group of children on +their sledges. Then came the row of giant peaks—Pitz d'Aela, +Tinzenhorn, and Michelhorn, above the deep ravine of Albula—all seen +across wide undulating golden swards, close-shaven and awaiting +winter. Carnations hung from cottage windows in full bloom, casting +sharp angular black shadows on white walls.</p> + +<p><i>Italiam petimus!</i> We have climbed the valley of the Julier, following +its green, transparent torrent. A night has come and gone at Mühlen. +The stream still leads us up, diminishing in volume as we rise, up +through the fleecy mists that roll asunder for the sun, disclosing +far-off snowy ridges and blocks of granite mountains. The lifeless, +soundless waste of rock, where only thin winds whistle out of silence +and fade suddenly into still air, is passed. Then comes the descent, +with its forests of larch and cembra, golden and dark green upon a +ground of grey, and in front the serried shafts of the Bernina, and +here and there a glimpse of emerald lake at turnings of the road. +Autumn is the season for this landscape. Through the fading of +innumerable leaflets, the yellowing of larches, and something +vaporous in the low sun, it gains a colour not unlike that of the +lands we seek. By the side of the lake at Silvaplana the light was +strong and warm, but mellow. Pearly clouds hung over the Maloja, and +floating overhead cast shadows on the opaque water, which may +literally be compared to chrysoprase. The breadth of golden, brown, +and russet tints upon the valley at this moment adds softness to its +lines of level strength. Devotees of the Engadine contend that it +possesses an austere charm beyond the common beauty of Swiss +landscape; but this charm is only perfected in autumn. The fresh snow +on the heights that guard it helps. And then there are the forests of +dark pines upon those many knolls and undulating mountain-flanks +beside the lakes. Sitting and dreaming there in noonday sun, I kept +repeating to myself <i>Italiam petimus!</i></p> + +<p>A hurricane blew upward from the pass as we left Silvaplana, ruffling +the lake with gusts of the Italian wind. By Silz Maria we came in +sight of a dozen Italian workmen, arm linked in arm in two rows, +tramping in rhythmic stride, and singing as they went. Two of them +were such nobly built young men, that for a moment the beauty of the +landscape faded from my sight, and I was saddened. They moved to their +singing, like some of Mason's or Frederick Walker's figures, with the +free grace of living statues, and laughed as we drove by. And yet, +with all their beauty, industry, sobriety, intelligence, these +Italians of the northern valleys serve the sterner people of the +Grisons like negroes, doing their roughest work at scanty wages.</p> + +<p>So we came to the vast Alpine wall, and stood on a bare granite slab, +and looked over into Italy, as men might lean from the battlements of +a fortress. Behind lies the Alpine valley, grim, declining slowly +northward, with wind-lashed lakes and glaciers sprawling from +storm-broken pyramids of gneiss. Below spread the unfathomable depths +that lead to Lombardy, flooded with sunlight, filled with swirling +vapour, but never wholly hidden from our sight. For the blast kept +shifting the cloud-masses, and the sun streamed through in spears and +bands of sheeny rays. Over the parapet our horses dropped, down +through sable spruce and amber larch, down between tangles of rowan +and autumnal underwood. Ever as we sank, the mountains rose—those +sharp embattled precipices, toppling spires, impendent chasms blurred +with mist, that make the entrance into Italy sublime. Nowhere do the +Alps exhibit their full stature, their commanding puissance, with such +majesty as in the gates of Italy; and of all those gates I think there +is none to compare with Maloja, none certainly to rival it in +abruptness of initiation into the Italian secret. Below Vico Soprano +we pass already into the violets and blues of Titian's landscape. Then +come the purple boulders among chestnut trees; then the double +dolomite-like peak of Pitz Badin and Promontogno.</p> + +<p>It is sad that words can do even less than painting could to bring +this window-scene at Promontogno before another eye. The casement just +frames it. In the foreground are meadow slopes, thinly, capriciously +planted with chestnut trees and walnuts, each standing with its shadow +cast upon the sward. A little farther falls the torrent, foaming down +between black jaws of rain-stained granite, with the wooden buildings +of a rustic mill set on a ledge of rock. Suddenly above this landscape +soars the valley, clothing its steep sides on either hand with pines; +and there are emerald isles of pasture on the wooded flanks; and then +cliffs, where the red-stemmed larches glow; and at the summit, +shooting into ether with a swathe of mist around their basement, soar +the double peaks, the one a pyramid, the other a bold broken crystal +not unlike the Finsteraarhorn seen from Furka. These are connected by +a snowy saddle, and snow is lying on their inaccessible crags in +powdery drifts. Sunlight pours between them into the ravine. The green +and golden forests now join from either side, and now recede, +according as the sinuous valley brings their lines together or +disparts them. There is a sound of cow-bells on the meadows; and the +roar of the stream is dulled or quickened as the gusts of this October +wind sweep by or slacken. <i>Italiam petimus!</i></p> + +<p><i>Tangimus Italiam!</i> Chiavenna is a worthy key to this great gate +Italian. We walked at night in the open galleries of the cathedral +cloister—white, smoothly curving, well-proportioned loggie, enclosing +a green space, whence soars the campanile to the stars. The moon had +sunk, but her light still silvered the mountains that stand at watch +round Chiavenna; and the castle rock was flat and black against that +dreamy background. Jupiter, who walked so lately for us on the long +ridge of the Jacobshorn above our pines, had now an ample space of sky +over Lombardy to light his lamp in. Why is it, we asked each other, as +we smoked our pipes and strolled, my friend and I;—why is it that +Italian beauty does not leave the spirit so untroubled as an Alpine +scene? Why do we here desire the flower of some emergent feeling to +grow from the air, or from the soil, or from humanity to greet us? +This sense of want evoked by Southern beauty is perhaps the antique +mythopœic yearning. But in our perplexed life it takes another form, +and seems the longing for emotion, ever fleeting, ever new, +unrealised, unreal, insatiable.</p> + + +<p>II.—OVER THE APENNINES</p> + + +<p>At Parma we slept in the Albergo della Croce Bianca, which is more a +bric-à-brac shop than an inn; and slept but badly, for the good folk +<p>of Parma twanged guitars and exercised their hoarse male voices all +night in the street below. We were glad when Christian called us, at 5 +A.M., for an early start across the Apennines. This was the day of a +right Roman journey. In thirteen and a half hours, leaving Parma at 6, +and arriving in Sarzana at 7.30, we flung ourselves across the spine +of Italy, from the plains of Eridanus to the seashore of Etruscan +Luna. I had secured a carriage and extra post-horses the night before; +therefore we found no obstacles upon the road, but eager drivers, +quick relays, obsequious postmasters, change, speed, perpetual +movement. The road itself is a noble one, and nobly entertained in all +things but accommodation for travellers. At Berceto, near the summit +of the pass, we stopped just half an hour, to lunch off a mouldy hen +and six eggs; but that was all the halt we made.</p> + +<p>As we drove out of Parma, striking across the plain to the <i>ghiara</i> of +the Taro, the sun rose over the austere autumnal landscape, with its +withered vines and crimson haws. Christian, the mountaineer, who at +home had never seen the sun rise from a flat horizon, stooped from the +box to call attention to this daily recurring miracle, which on the +plain of Lombardy is no less wonderful than on a rolling sea. From the +village of Fornovo, where the Italian League was camped awaiting +Charles VIII. upon that memorable July morn in 1495, the road strikes +suddenly aside, gains a spur of the descending Apennines, and keeps +this vantage till the pass of La Cisa is reached. Many windings are +occasioned by thus adhering to arêtes, but the total result is a +gradual ascent with free prospect over plain and mountain. The +Apennines, built up upon a smaller scale than the Alps, perplexed in +detail and entangled with cross sections and convergent systems, lend +themselves to this plan of carrying highroads along their ridges +instead of following the valley.</p> + +<p>What is beautiful in the landscape of that northern watershed is the +subtlety, delicacy, variety, and intricacy of the mountain outlines. +There is drawing wherever the eye falls. Each section of the vast +expanse is a picture of tossed crests and complicated undulations. And +over the whole sea of stationary billows, light is shed like an +ethereal raiment, with spare colour—blue and grey, and parsimonious +green—in the near foreground. The detail is somewhat dry and +monotonous; for these so finely moulded hills are made up of washed +earth, the immemorial wrecks of earlier mountain ranges. Brown +villages, not unlike those of Midland England, low houses built of +stone and tiled with stone, and square-towered churches, occur at rare +intervals in cultivated hollows, where there are fields and fruit +trees. Water is nowhere visible except in the wasteful river-beds. As +we rise, we break into a wilder country, forested with oak, where oxen +and goats are browsing. The turf is starred with lilac gentian and +crocus bells, but sparely. Then comes the highest village, Berceto, +with keen Alpine air. After that, broad rolling downs of yellowing +grass and russet beech-scrub lead onward to the pass La Cisa. The +sense of breadth in composition is continually satisfied through this +ascent by the fine-drawn lines, faint tints, and immense air-spaces of +Italian landscape. Each little piece reminds one of England; but the +geographical scale is enormously more grandiose, and the effect of +majesty proportionately greater.</p> + +<p>From La Cisa the road descends suddenly; for the southern escarpment +of the Apennine, as of the Alpine, barrier is pitched at a far steeper +angle than the northern. Yet there is no view of the sea. That is +excluded by the lower hills which hem the Magra. The upper valley is +beautiful, with verdant lawns and purple hillsides breaking down into +thick chestnut woods, through which we wound at a rapid pace for +nearly an hour. The leaves were still green, mellowing to golden; but +the fruit was ripe and heavy, ready at all points to fall. In the +still October air the husks above our heads would loosen, and the +brown nuts rustle through the foliage, and with a dull short thud, +like drops of thunder-rain, break down upon the sod. At the foot of +this rich forest, wedged in between huge buttresses, we found +Pontremoli, and changed our horses here for the last time. It was +Sunday, and the little town was alive with country-folk; tall stalwart +fellows wearing peacock's feathers in their black slouched hats, and +nut-brown maids.</p> + +<p>From this point the valley of the Magra is exceeding rich with fruit +trees, vines, and olives. The tendrils of the vine are yellow now, and +in some places hued like generous wine; through their thick leaves the +sun shot crimson. In one cool garden, as the day grew dusk, I noticed +quince trees laden with pale fruit entangled with pomegranates—green +spheres and ruddy amid burnished leaves. By the roadside too were many +berries of bright hues; the glowing red of haws and hips, the amber of +the pyracanthus, the rose tints of the spindle-wood. These make autumn +even lovelier than spring. And then there was a wood of chestnuts +carpeted with pale pinkling, a place to dream of in the twilight. But +the main motive of this landscape was the indescribable Carrara range, +an island of pure form and shooting peaks, solid marble, crystalline +in shape and texture, faintly blue against the blue sky, from which +they were but scarce divided. These mountains close the valley to +south-east, and seem as though they belonged to another and more +celestial region.</p> + +<p>Soon the sunlight was gone, and moonrise came to close the day, as we +rolled onward to Sarzana, through arundo donax and vine-girdled olive +trees and villages, where contadini lounged upon the bridges. There +was a stream of sound in our ears, and in my brain a rhythmic dance of +beauties caught through the long-drawn glorious golden autumn-day.</p> + + +<p>III.—FOSDINOVO</p> + + +<p>The hamlet and the castle of Fosdinovo stand upon a mountain-spur +above Sarzana, commanding the valley of the Magra and the plains of +Luni. This is an ancient fief of the Malaspina House, and is still in +the possession of the Marquis of that name.</p> + +<p>The road to Fosdinovo strikes across the level through an avenue of +plane trees, shedding their discoloured leaves. It then takes to the +open fields, bordered with tall reeds waving from the foss on either +hand, where grapes are hanging to the vines. The country-folk allow +their vines to climb into the olives, and these golden festoons are a +great ornament to the grey branches. The berries on the trees are +still quite green, and it is a good olive season. Leaving the main +road, we pass a villa of the Malaspini, shrouded in immense thickets +of sweet bay and ilex, forming a grove for the Nymphs or Pan. Here may +you see just such clean stems and lucid foliage as Gian Bellini +painted, inch by inch, in his Peter Martyr picture. The place is +neglected now; the semicircular seats of white Carrara marble are +stained with green mosses, the altars chipped, the fountains choked +with bay leaves; and the rose trees, escaped from what were once trim +garden alleys, have gone wandering a-riot into country hedges. There +is no demarcation between the great man's villa and the neighbouring +farms. From this point the path rises, and the barren hillside is +a-bloom with late-flowering myrtles. Why did the Greeks consecrate +these myrtle-rods to Death as well as Love? Electra complained that +her father's tomb had not received the honour of the myrtle branch; +and the Athenians wreathed their swords with myrtle in memory of +Harmodius. Thinking of these matters, I cannot but remember lines of +Greek, which have themselves the rectitude and elasticity of myrtle +wands:</p> + +<p> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">καί προσπεσών +εκλυσ΄ ε΄ρημίας +τυχών</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">σπονδάς τε +λύσας ασκόν ον +Φέρω ξένοις +</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">εσπεισα +τύμβω δ΄άμφεθηκα μυρσίνας</span><br /> +</p> + +<p>As we approach Fosdinovo, the hills above us gain sublimity; the +prospect over plain and sea—the fields where Luna was, the widening +bay of Spezzia—grows ever grander. The castle is a ruin, still +capable of partial habitation, and now undergoing repair—the state in +which a ruin looks most sordid and forlorn. How strange it is, too, +that, to enforce this sense of desolation, sad dishevelled weeds cling +ever to such antique masonry! Here are the henbane, the sow-thistle, +the wild cucumber. At Avignon, at Orvieto, at Dolce Acqua, at Les +Baux, we never missed them. And they have the dusty courtyards, the +massive portals, where portcullises still threaten, of Fosdinovo to +themselves. Over the gate, and here and there on corbels, are carved +the arms of Malaspina—a barren thorn-tree, gnarled with the +geometrical precision of heraldic irony.</p> + +<p>Leaning from the narrow windows of this castle, with the spacious view +to westward, I thought of Dante. For Dante in this castle was the +guest of Moroello Malaspina, what time he was yet finishing the +'Inferno.' There is a little old neglected garden, full to south, +enclosed upon a rampart which commands the Borgo, where we found frail +canker-roses and yellow amaryllis. Here, perhaps, he may have sat +with ladies—for this was the Marchesa's pleasaunce; or may have +watched through a short summer's night, until he saw that <i>tremolar +della marina</i>, portending dawn, which afterwards he painted in the +'Purgatory.'</p> + +<p>From Fosdinovo one can trace the Magra work its way out seaward, not +into the plain where once the <i>candentia moenia Lunae</i> flashed sunrise +from their battlements, but close beside the little hills which back +the southern arm of the Spezzian gulf. At the extreme end of that +promontory, called Del Corvo, stood the Benedictine convent of S. +Croce; and it was here in 1309, if we may trust to tradition, that +Dante, before his projected journey into France, appeared and left the +first part of his poem with the Prior. Fra Ilario, such was the good +father's name, received commission to transmit the 'Inferno' to +Uguccione della Faggiuola; and he subsequently recorded the fact of +Dante's visit in a letter which, though its genuineness has been +called in question, is far too interesting to be left without +allusion. The writer says that on occasion of a journey into lands +beyond the Riviera, Dante visited this convent, appearing silent and +unknown among the monks. To the Prior's question what he wanted, he +gazed upon the brotherhood, and only answered, 'Peace!' Afterwards, in +private conversation, he communicated his name and spoke about his +poem. A portion of the 'Divine Comedy' composed in the Italian tongue +aroused Ilario's wonder, and led him to inquire why his guest had not +followed the usual course of learned poets by committing his thoughts +to Latin. Dante replied that he had first intended to write in that +language, and that he had gone so far as to begin the poem in +Virgilian hexameters. Reflection upon the altered conditions of +society in that age led him, however, to reconsider the matter; and he +was resolved to tune another lyre, 'suited to the sense of modern +men.' 'For,' said he, 'it is idle to set solid food before the lips +of sucklings.'</p> + +<p>If we can trust Fra Ilario's letter as a genuine record, which is +unhappily a matter of some doubt, we have in this narration not only a +picturesque, almost a melodramatically picturesque glimpse of the +poet's apparition to those quiet monks in their seagirt house of +peace, but also an interesting record of the destiny which presided +over the first great work of literary art in a distinctly modern +language.</p> + + +<p>IV.—LA SPEZZIA</p> + + +<p>While we were at Fosdinovo the sky filmed over, and there came a halo +round the sun. This portended change; and by evening, after we had +reached La Spezzia, earth, sea, and air were conscious of a coming +tempest. At night I went down to the shore, and paced the sea-wall +they have lately built along the Rada. The moon was up, but overdriven +with dry smoky clouds, now thickening to blackness over the whole bay, +now leaving intervals through which the light poured fitfully and +fretfully upon the wrinkled waves; and ever and anon they shuddered +with electric gleams which were not actual lightning. Heaven seemed to +be descending on the sea; one might have fancied that some powerful +charms were drawing down the moon with influence malign upon those +still resisting billows. For not as yet the gulf was troubled to its +depth, and not as yet the breakers dashed in foam against the +moonlight-smitten promontories. There was but an uneasy murmuring of +wave to wave; a whispering of wind, that stooped its wing and hissed +along the surface, and withdrew into the mystery of clouds again; a +momentary chafing of churned water round the harbour piers, subsiding +into silence petulant and sullen. I leaned against an iron stanchion +and longed for the sea's message. But nothing came to me, and the +drowned secret of Shelley's death those waves which were his grave +revealed not.</p> + +<p> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Howler and scooper of storms! capricious and dainty sea!</span><br /> +</p> + +<p>Meanwhile the incantation swelled in shrillness, the electric shudders +deepened. Alone in this elemental overture to tempest I took no note +of time, but felt, through self-abandonment to the symphonic +influence, how sea and air, and clouds akin to both, were dealing with +each other complainingly, and in compliance to some maker of unrest +within them. A touch upon my shoulder broke this trance; I turned and +saw a boy beside me in a coastguard's uniform. Francesco was on patrol +that night; but my English accent soon assured him that I was no +<i>contrabbandiere</i>, and he too leaned against the stanchion and told me +his short story. He was in his nineteenth year, and came from +Florence, where his people live in the Borgo Ognissanti. He had all +the brightness of the Tuscan folk, a sort of innocent malice mixed +with <i>espieglerie</i>. It was diverting to see the airs he gave himself +on the strength of his new military dignity, his gun, and uniform, and +night duty on the shore. I could not help humming to myself <i>Non più +andrai</i>; for Francesco was a sort of Tuscan Cherubino. We talked about +picture galleries and libraries in Florence, and I had to hear his +favourite passages from the Italian poets. And then there came the +plots of Jules Verne's stories and marvellous narrations about <i>l' +uomo cavallo, l' uomo volante, l' uomo pesce</i>. The last of these +personages turned out to be Paolo Boÿnton (so pronounced), who had +swam the Arno in his diving dress, passing the several bridges, and +when he came to the great weir 'allora tutti stare con bocca aperta.' +Meanwhile the storm grew serious, and our conversation changed. +Francesco told me about the terrible sun-stricken sand shores of the +Riviera, burning in summer noon, over which the coast-guard has to +tramp, their perils from falling stones in storm, and the trains that +come rushing from those narrow tunnels on the midnight line of march. +It is a hard life; and the thirst for adventure which drove this +boy—'il più matto di tutta la famiglia'—to adopt it, seems well-nigh +quenched. And still, with a return to Giulio Verne, he talked +enthusiastically of deserting, of getting on board a merchant ship, +and working his way to southern islands where wonders are.</p> + +<p>A furious blast swept the whole sky for a moment almost clear. The +moonlight fell, with racing cloud-shadows, upon sea and hills, the +lights of Lerici, the great <i>fanali</i> at the entrance of the gulf, and +Francesco's upturned handsome face. Then all again was whirled in mist +and foam; one breaker smote the sea wall in a surge of froth, another +plunged upon its heels; with inconceivable swiftness came rain; +lightning deluged the expanse of surf, and showed the windy trees bent +landward by the squall. It was long past midnight now, and the storm +was on us for the space of three days.</p> + + +<p>V.—PORTO VENERE</p> + + +<p>For the next three days the wind went worrying on, and a line of surf +leapt on the sea-wall always to the same height. The hills all around +were inky black and weary.</p> + +<p>At night the wild libeccio still rose, with floods of rain and +lightning poured upon the waste. I thought of the Florentine patrol. +Is he out in it, and where?</p> + +<p>At last there came a lull. When we rose on the fourth morning, the +sky was sulky, spent and sleepy after storm—the air as soft and tepid +as boiled milk or steaming flannel. We drove along the shore to Porto +Venere, passing the arsenals and dockyards, which have changed the +face of Spezzia since Shelley knew it. This side of the gulf is not so +rich in vegetation as the other, probably because it lies open to the +winds from the Carrara mountains. The chestnuts come down to the shore +in many places, bringing with them the wild mountain-side. To make up +for this lack of luxuriance, the coast is furrowed with a succession +of tiny harbours, where the fishing-boats rest at anchor. There are +many villages upon the spurs of hills, and on the headlands naval +stations, hospitals, lazzaretti, and prisons. A prickly bindweed (the +<i>Smilax Sarsaparilla</i>) forms a feature in the near landscape, with its +creamy odoriferous blossoms, coral berries, and glossy thorned leaves.</p> + +<p>A turn of the road brought Porto Venere in sight, and on its grey +walls flashed a gleam of watery sunlight. The village consists of one +long narrow street, the houses on the left side hanging sheer above +the sea. Their doors at the back open on to cliffs which drop about +fifty feet upon the water. A line of ancient walls, with mediaeval +battlements and shells of chambers suspended midway between earth and +sky, runs up the rock behind the town; and this wall is pierced with a +deep gateway above which the inn is piled. We had our lunch in a room +opening upon the town-gate, adorned with a deep-cut Pisan arch +enclosing images and frescoes—a curious episode in a place devoted to +the jollity of smugglers and seafaring folk. The whole house was such +as Tintoretto loved to paint—huge wooden rafters; open chimneys with +pent-house canopies of stone, where the cauldrons hung above logs of +chestnut; rude low tables spread with coarse linen embroidered at the +edges, and laden with plates of fishes, fruit, quaint glass, +big-bellied jugs of earthenware, and flasks of yellow wine. The people +of the place were lounging round in lazy attitudes. There were odd +nooks and corners everywhere; unexpected staircases with windows +slanting through the thickness of the town-wall; pictures of saints; +high-zoned serving women, on whose broad shoulders lay big coral +beads; smoke-blackened roofs, and balconies that opened on the sea. +The house was inexhaustible in motives for pictures.</p> + +<p>We walked up the street, attended by a rabble rout of boys—<i>diavoli +scatenati</i>—clean, grinning, white-teethed, who kept incessantly +shouting, 'Soldo, soldo!' I do not know why these sea-urchins are so +far more irrepressible than their land brethren. But it is always thus +in Italy. They take an imperturbable delight in noise and mere +annoyance. I shall never forget the sea-roar of Porto Venere, with +that shrill obligate, 'Soldo, soldo, soldo!' rattling like a dropping +fire from lungs of brass.</p> + +<p>At the end of Porto Venere is a withered and abandoned city, climbing +the cliffs of S. Pietro; and on the headland stands the ruined church, +built by Pisans with alternate rows of white and black marble, upon +the site of an old temple of Venus. This is a modest and pure piece of +Gothic architecture, fair in desolation, refined and dignified, and +not unworthy in its grace of the dead Cyprian goddess. Through its +broken lancets the sea-wind whistles and the vast reaches of the +Tyrrhene gulf are seen. Samphire sprouts between the blocks of marble, +and in sheltered nooks the caper hangs her beautiful purpureal snowy +bloom.</p> + +<p>The headland is a bold block of white limestone stained with red. It +has the pitch of Exmoor stooping to the sea near Lynton. To north, as +one looks along the coast, the line is broken by Porto Fino's +amethystine promontory; and in the vaporous distance we could trace +the Riviera mountains, shadowy and blue. The sea came roaring, rolling +in with tawny breakers; but, far out, it sparkled in pure azure, and +the cloud-shadows over it were violet. Where Corsica should have been +seen, soared banks of fleecy, broad-domed alabaster clouds.</p> + +<p>This point, once dedicated to Venus, now to Peter—both, be it +remembered, fishers of men—is one of the most singular in Europe. The +island of Palmaria, rich in veined marbles, shelters the port; so that +outside the sea rages, while underneath the town, reached by a narrow +strait, there is a windless calm. It was not without reason that our +Lady of Beauty took this fair gulf to herself; and now that she has +long been dispossessed, her memory lingers yet in names. For Porto +Venere remembers her, and Lerici is only Eryx. There is a grotto here, +where an inscription tells us that Byron once 'tempted the Ligurian +waves.' It is just such a natural sea-cave as might have inspired +Euripides when he described the refuge of Orestes in 'Iphigenia.'</p> + + +<p>VI.—LERICI</p> + + +<p>Libeccio at last had swept the sky clear. The gulf was ridged with +foam-fleeced breakers, and the water churned into green, tawny wastes. +But overhead there flew the softest clouds, all silvery, dispersed in +flocks. It is the day for pilgrimage to what was Shelley's home.</p> + +<p>After following the shore a little way, the road to Lerici breaks into +the low hills which part La Spezzia from Sarzana. The soil is red, and +overgrown with arbutus and pinaster, like the country around Cannes. +Through the scattered trees it winds gently upwards, with frequent +views across the gulf, and then descends into a land rich with +olives—a genuine Riviera landscape, where the mountain-slopes are +hoary, and spikelets of innumerable light-flashing leaves twinkle +against a blue sea, misty-deep. The walls here are not unfrequently +adorned with basreliefs of Carrara marble—saints and madonnas very +delicately wrought, as though they were love-labours of sculptors who +had passed a summer on this shore. San Terenzio is soon discovered low +upon the sands to the right, nestling under little cliffs; and then +the high-built castle of Lerici comes in sight, looking across, the bay +to Porto Venere—one Aphrodite calling to the other, with the foam +between. The village is piled around its cove with tall and +picturesquely coloured houses; the molo and the fishing-boats lie just +beneath the castle. There is one point of the descending carriage road +where all this gracefulness is seen, framed by the boughs of olive +branches, swaying, wind-ruffled, laughing the many-twinkling smiles of +ocean back from their grey leaves. Here <i>Erycina ridens</i> is at home. +And, as we stayed to dwell upon the beauty of the scene, came women +from the bay below—barefooted, straight as willow wands, with +burnished copper bowls upon their heads. These women have the port of +goddesses, deep-bosomed, with the length of thigh and springing ankles +that betoken strength no less than elasticity and grace. The hair of +some of them was golden, rippling in little curls around brown brows +and glowing eyes. Pale lilac blent with orange on their dress, and +coral beads hung from their ears.</p> + +<p>At Lerici we took a boat and pushed into the rolling breakers. +Christian now felt the movement of the sea for the first time. This +was rather a rude trial, for the grey-maned monsters played, as it +seemed, at will with our cockle-shell, tumbling in dolphin curves to +reach the shore. Our boatmen knew all about Shelley and the Casa +Magni. It is not at Lerici, but close to San Terenzio, upon the south +side of the village. Looking across the bay from the molo, one could +clearly see its square white mass, tiled roof, and terrace built on +rude arcades with a broad orange awning. Trelawny's description hardly +prepares one for so considerable a place. I think the English exiles +of that period must have been exacting if the Casa Magni seemed to +them no better than a bathing-house.</p> + +<p>We left our boat at the jetty, and walked through some gardens to the +villa. There we were kindly entertained by the present occupiers, +who, when I asked them whether such visits as ours were not a great +annoyance, gently but feelingly replied: 'It is not so bad now as it +used to be.' The English gentleman who rents the Casa Magni has known +it uninterruptedly since Shelley's death, and has used it for +<i>villeggiatura</i> during the last thirty years. We found him in the +central sitting-room, which readers of Trelawny's 'Recollections' have +so often pictured to themselves. The large oval table, the settees +round the walls, and some of the pictures are still unchanged. As we +sat talking, I laughed to think of that luncheon party, when Shelley +lost his clothes, and came naked, dripping with sea-water, into the +room, protected by the skirts of the sympathising waiting-maid. And +then I wondered where they found him on the night when he stood +screaming in his sleep, after the vision of his veiled self, with its +question, '<i>Siete soddisfatto</i>?'</p> + +<p>There were great ilexes behind the house in Shelley's time, which have +been cut down, and near these he is said to have sat and written the +'Triumph of Life.' Some new houses, too, have been built between the +villa and the town; otherwise the place is unaltered. Only an awning +has been added to protect the terrace from the sun. I walked out on +this terrace, where Shelley used to listen to Jane's singing. The sea +was fretting at its base, just as Mrs. Shelley says it did when the +Don Juan disappeared.</p> + +<p>From San Terenzio we walked back to Lerici through olive woods, +attended by a memory which toned the almost overpowering beauty of the +place to sadness.</p> + + +<p>VII.—VIAREGGIO</p> + + +<p>The same memory drew us, a few days later, to the spot where +Shelley's body was burned. Viareggio is fast becoming a fashionable +watering-place for the people of Florence and Lucca, who seek fresher +air and simpler living than Livorno offers. It has the usual new inns +and improvised lodging-houses of such places, built on the outskirts +of a little fishing village, with a boundless stretch of noble sands. +There is a wooden pier on which we walked, watching the long roll of +waves, foam-flaked, and quivering with moonlight. The Apennines faded +into the grey sky beyond, and the sea-wind was good to breathe. There +is a feeling of 'immensity, liberty, action' here, which is not common +in Italy. It reminds us of England; and to-night the Mediterranean had +the rough force of a tidal sea.</p> + +<p>Morning revealed beauty enough in Viareggio to surprise even one who +expects from Italy all forms of loveliness. The sand-dunes stretch for +miles between the sea and a low wood of stone pines, with the Carrara +hills descending from their glittering pinnacles by long lines to the +headlands of the Spezzian Gulf. The immeasurable distance was all +painted in sky-blue and amethyst; then came the golden green of the +dwarf firs; and then dry yellow in the grasses of the dunes; and then +the many-tinted sea, with surf tossed up against the furthest cliffs. +It is a wonderful and tragic view, to which no painter but the Roman +Costa has done justice; and he, it may be said, has made this +landscape of the Carrarese his own. The space between sand and +pine-wood was covered with faint, yellow, evening primroses. They +flickered like little harmless flames in sun and shadow, and the +spires of the Carrara range were giant flames transformed to marble. +The memory of that day described by Trelawny in a passage of immortal +English prose, when he and Byron and Leigh Hunt stood beside the +funeral pyre, and libations were poured, and the 'Cor Cordium' was +found inviolate among the ashes, turned all my thoughts to flame +beneath the gentle autumn sky.</p> + +<p>Still haunted by these memories, we took the carriage road to Pisa, +over which Shelley's friends had hurried to and fro through those last +days. It passes an immense forest of stone-pines—aisles and avenues; +undergrowth of ilex, laurustinus, gorse, and myrtle; the crowded +cyclamens, the solemn silence of the trees; the winds hushed in their +velvet roof and stationary domes of verdure.</p> +<h5><a href="#CONTENTS">CONTENTS</a></h5> +<br /><br /> +<hr style="width: 100%;" /> +<h2><a name="PARMA" id="PARMA" /><i>PARMA</i></a></h2> +<hr style="width: 100%;" /> +<br /> +<p>Parma is perhaps the brightest <i>Residenzstadt</i> of the second class in +Italy. Built on a sunny and fertile tract of the Lombard plain, within +view of the Alps, and close beneath the shelter of the Apennines, it +shines like a well-set gem with stately towers and cheerful squares in +the midst of verdure. The cities of Lombardy are all like large +country houses: walking out of their gates, you seem to be stepping +from a door or window that opens on a trim and beautiful garden, where +mulberry-tree is married to mulberry by festoons of vines, and where +the maize and sunflower stand together in rows between patches of flax +and hemp. But it is not in order to survey the union of well-ordered +husbandry with the civilities of ancient city-life that we break the +journey at Parma between Milan and Bologna. We are attracted rather by +the fame of one great painter, whose work, though it may be studied +piecemeal in many galleries of Europe, in Parma has a fulness, +largeness, and mastery that can nowhere else be found. In Parma alone +Correggio challenges comparison with Raphael, with Tintoret, with all +the supreme decorative painters who have deigned to make their art the +handmaid of architecture. Yet even in the cathedral and the church of +S. Giovanni, where Correggio's frescoes cover cupola and chapel wall, +we could scarcely comprehend his greatness now—so cruelly have time +and neglect dealt with those delicate dream-shadows of celestial +fairyland—were it not for an interpreter, who consecrated a lifetime +to the task of translating his master's poetry of fresco into the +prose of engraving. That man was Paolo Toschi—a name to be ever +venerated by all lovers of the arts; since without his guidance we +should hardly know what to seek for in the ruined splendours of the +domes of Parma, or even seeking, how to find the object of our search. +Toschi's labour was more effectual than that of a restorer however +skilful, more loving than that of a follower however faithful. He +respected Correggio's handiwork with religious scrupulousness, adding +not a line or tone or touch of colour to the fading frescoes; but he +lived among them, aloft on scaffoldings, and face to face with the +originals which he designed to reproduce. By long and close +familiarity, by obstinate and patient interrogation, he divined +Correggio's secret, and was able at last to see clearly through the +mist of cobweb and mildew and altar smoke, and through the still more +cruel travesty of so-called restoration. What he discovered, he +faithfully committed first to paper in water colours, and then to +copperplate with the burin, so that we enjoy the privilege of seeing +Correggio's masterpieces as Toschi saw them, with the eyes of genius +and of love and of long scientific study. It is not too much to say +that some of Correggio's most charming compositions—for example, the +dispute of S. Augustine and S. John—have been resuscitated from the +grave by Toschi's skill. The original offers nothing but a mouldering +surface from which the painter's work has dropped in scales. The +engraving presents a design which we doubt not was Correggio's, for it +corresponds in all particulars to the style and spirit of the master. +To be critical in dealing with so successful an achievement of +restoration and translation is difficult. Yet it may be admitted once +and for all that Toschi has not unfrequently enfeebled his original. +Under his touch Correggio loses somewhat of his sensuous audacity, his +dithyrambic ecstasy, and approaches the ordinary standard of +prettiness and graceful beauty. The Diana of the Camera di S. Paolo, +for instance, has the strong calm splendour of a goddess: the same +Diana in Toschi's engraving seems about to smile with girlish joy. In +a word, the engraver was a man of a more common stamp—more timid and +more conventional than the painter. But this is after all a trifling +deduction from the value of his work.</p> + +<p>Our debt to Paolo Toschi is such that it would be ungrateful not to +seek some details of his life. The few that can be gathered even at +Parma are brief and bald enough. The newspaper articles and funeral +panegyrics which refer to him are as barren as all such occasional +notices in Italy have always been; the panegyrist seeming more anxious +about his own style than eager to communicate information. Yet a bare +outline of Toschi's biography may be supplied. He was born at Parma in +1788. His father was cashier of the post-office, and his mother's name +was Anna Maria Brest. Early in his youth he studied painting at Parma +under Biagio Martini; and in 1809 he went to Paris, where he learned +the art of engraving from Bervic and of etching from Oortman. In Paris +he contracted an intimate friendship with the painter Gérard. But +after ten years he returned to Parma, where he established a company +and school of engravers in concert with his friend Antonio Isac. Maria +Louisa, the then Duchess, under whose patronage the arts flourished at +Parma (witness Bodoni's exquisite typography), soon recognised his +merit, and appointed him Director of the Ducal Academy. He then formed +the project of engraving a series of the whole of Correggio's +frescoes. The undertaking was a vast one. Both the cupolas of S. John +and the cathedral, together with the vault of the apse of S. +Giovanni<a name="FNanchor_10_10" id="FNanchor_10_10" /></a><a href="#Footnote_10_10" class="fnanchor">[10]</a> and various portions of the side aisles, and the +so-called Camera di S. Paolo, are covered by frescoes of Correggio and +his pupil Parmegiano. These frescoes have suffered so much from +neglect and time, and from unintelligent restoration, that it is +difficult in many cases to determine their true character. Yet Toschi +did not content himself with selections, or shrink from the task of +deciphering and engraving the whole. He formed a school of disciples, +among whom were Carlo Raimondi of Milan, Antonio Costa of Venice, +Edward Eichens of Berlin, Aloisio Juvara of Naples, Antonio Dalcò, +Giuseppe Magnani, and Lodovico Bisola of Parma, and employed them as +assistants in his work. Death overtook him in 1854, before it was +finished, and now the water-colour drawings which are exhibited in the +Gallery of Parma prove to what extent the achievement fell short of +his design. Enough, however, was accomplished to place the chief +masterpieces of Correggio beyond the possibility of utter oblivion.</p> + +<p>To the piety of his pupil Carlo Raimondi, the bearer of a name +illustrious in the annals of engraving, we owe a striking portrait of +Toschi. The master is represented on his seat upon the scaffold in the +dizzy half-light of the dome. The shadowy forms of saints and angels +are around him. He has raised his eyes from his cartoon to study one +of these. In his right hand is the opera-glass with which he +scrutinises the details of distant groups. The upturned face, with its +expression of contemplative intelligence, is like that of an +astronomer accustomed to commerce with things above the sphere of +common life, and ready to give account of all that he has gathered +from his observation of a world not ours. In truth the world created +by Correggio and interpreted by Toschi is very far removed from that +of actual existence. No painter has infused a more distinct +individuality into his work, realising by imaginative force and +powerful projection an order of beauty peculiar to himself, before +which it is impossible to remain quite indifferent. We must either +admire the manner of Correggio, or else shrink from it with the +distaste which sensual art is apt to stir in natures of a severe or +simple type.</p> + +<p>What, then, is the Correggiosity of Correggio? In other words, what is +the characteristic which, proceeding from the personality of the +artist, is impressed on all his work? The answer to this question, +though by no means simple, may perhaps be won by a process of gradual +analysis. The first thing that strikes us in the art of Correggio is, +that he has aimed at the realistic representation of pure unrealities. +His saints and angels are beings the like of whom we have hardly seen +upon the earth. Yet they are displayed before us with all the movement +and the vivid truth of nature. Next we feel that what constitutes the +superhuman, visionary quality of these creatures, is their uniform +beauty of a merely sensuous type. They are all created for pleasure, +not for thought or passion or activity or heroism. The uses of their +brains, their limbs, their every feature, end in enjoyment; innocent +and radiant wantonness is the condition of their whole existence. +Correggio conceived the universe under the one mood of sensuous joy: +his world was bathed in luxurious light; its inhabitants were capable +of little beyond a soft voluptuousness. Over the domain of tragedy he +had no sway, and very rarely did he attempt to enter on it: nothing, +for example, can be feebler than his endeavour to express anguish in +the distorted features of Madonna, S. John, and the Magdalen, who are +bending over the dead body of a Christ extended in the attitude of +languid repose. In like manner he could not deal with subjects which +demand a pregnancy of intellectual meaning. He paints the three Fates +like young and joyous Bacchantes, <ins class="correction" + Title="Transcriber's note: original reads 'Place'"> +places</ins> rose-garlands and +thyrsi in their hands instead of the distaff and the thread of human +destinies, and they might figure appropriately upon the panels of a +banquet-chamber in Pompeii. In this respect Correggio might be termed +the Rossini of painting. The melodies of the 'Stabat Mater'—<i>Fac ut +portem</i> or <i>Quis est homo</i>—are the exact analogues in music of +Correggio's voluptuous renderings of grave or mysterious motives. Nor, +again, did he possess that severe and lofty art of composition which +subordinates the fancy to the reason, and which seeks for the highest +intellectual beauty in a kind of architectural harmony supreme above +the melodies of gracefulness in detail. The Florentines and those who +shared their spirit—Michelangelo and Lionardo and Raphael—deriving +this principle of design from the geometrical art of the Middle Ages, +converted it to the noblest uses in their vast well-ordered +compositions. But Correggio ignored the laws of scientific +construction. It was enough for him to produce a splendid and +brilliant effect by the life and movement of his figures, and by the +intoxicating beauty of his forms. His type of beauty, too, is by no +means elevated. Lionardo painted souls whereof the features and the +limbs are but an index. The charm of Michelangelo's ideal is like a +flower upon a tree of rugged strength. Raphael aims at the loveliness +which cannot be disjoined from goodness. But Correggio is contented +with bodies 'delicate and desirable.' His angels are genii +disimprisoned from the perfumed chalices of flowers, houris of an +erotic paradise, elemental spirits of nature wantoning in Eden in her +prime. To accuse the painter of conscious immorality or of what is +stigmatised as sensuality, would be as ridiculous as to class his +seraphic beings among the products of the Christian imagination. They +belong to the generation of the fauns; like fauns, they combine a +certain savage wildness, a dithyrambic ecstasy of inspiration, a +delight in rapid movement as they revel amid clouds or flowers, with +the permanent and all-pervading sweetness of the master's style. When +infantine or childlike, these celestial sylphs are scarcely to be +distinguished for any noble quality of beauty from Murillo's cherubs, +and are far less divine than the choir of children who attend Madonna +in Titian's 'Assumption.' But in their boyhood and their prime of +youth, they acquire a fulness of sensuous vitality and a radiance that +are peculiar to Correggio. The lily-bearer who helps to support S. +Thomas beneath the dome of the cathedral at Parma, the groups of +seraphs who crowd behind the Incoronata of S. Giovanni, and the two +wild-eyed open-mouthed S. Johns stationed at each side of the +celestial throne, are among the most splendid instances of the +adolescent loveliness conceived by Correggio. Where the painter found +their models may be questioned but not answered; for he has made them +of a different fashion from the race of mortals: no court of Roman +emperor or Turkish sultan, though stocked with the flowers of +Bithynian and Circassian youth, have seen their like. Mozart's +Cherubino seems to have sat for all of them. At any rate they +incarnate the very spirit of the songs he sings.</p> + +<p>As a consequence of this predilection for sensuous and voluptuous +forms, Correggio had no power of imagining grandly or severely. +Satisfied with material realism in his treatment even of sublime +mysteries, he converts the hosts of heaven into a 'fricassee of +frogs,' according to the old epigram. His apostles, gazing after the +Virgin who has left the earth, are thrown into attitudes so violent +and so dramatically foreshortened, that seen from below upon the +pavement of the cathedral, little of their form is distinguishable +except legs and arms in vehement commotion. Very different is Titian's +conception of this scene. To express the spiritual meaning, the +emotion of Madonna's transit, with all the pomp which colour and +splendid composition can convey, is Titian's sole care; whereas +Correggio appears to have been satisfied with realising the tumult of +heaven rushing to meet earth, and earth straining upwards to ascend to +heaven in violent commotion—a very orgasm of frenetic rapture. The +essence of the event is forgotten: its external manifestation alone is +presented to the eye; and only the accessories of beardless angels and +cloud-encumbered cherubs are really beautiful amid a surge of limbs in +restless movement. More dignified, because designed with more repose, +is the Apocalypse of S. John painted upon the cupola of S. Giovanni. +The apostles throned on clouds, with which the dome is filled, gaze +upward to one point. Their attitudes are noble; their form is heroic; +in their eyes there is the strange ecstatic look by which Correggio +interpreted his sense of supernatural vision: it is a gaze not of +contemplation or deep thought, but of wild half-savage joy, as if +these saints also had become the elemental genii of cloud and air, +spirits emergent from ether, the salamanders of an empyrean +intolerable to mortal sense. The point on which their eyes converge, +the culmination of their vision, is the figure of Christ. Here all the +weakness of Correggio's method is revealed. He had undertaken to +realise by no ideal allegorical suggestion, by no symbolism of +architectural grouping, but by actual prosaic measurement, by +corporeal form in subjection to the laws of perspective and +foreshortening, things which in their very essence admit of only a +figurative revelation. Therefore his Christ, the centre of all those +earnest eyes, is contracted to a shape in which humanity itself is +mean, a sprawling figure which irresistibly reminds one of a frog. The +clouds on which the saints repose are opaque and solid; cherubs in +countless multitudes, a swarm of merry children, crawl about upon +these feather-beds of vapour, creep between the legs of the apostles, +and play at bopeep behind their shoulders. There is no propriety in +their appearance there. They take no interest in the beatific vision. +They play no part in the celestial symphony; nor are they capable of +more than merely infantine enjoyment. Correggio has sprinkled them +lavishly like living flowers about his cloudland, because he could not +sustain a grave and solemn strain of music, but was forced by his +temperament to overlay the melody with roulades. Gazing at these +frescoes, the thought came to me that Correggio was like a man +listening to sweetest flute-playing, and translating phrase after +phrase as they passed through his fancy into laughing faces, breezy +tresses, and rolling mists. Sometimes a grander cadence reached his +ear; and then S. Peter with the keys, or S. Augustine of the mighty +brow, or the inspired eyes of S. John, took form beneath his pencil. +But the light airs returned, and rose and lily faces bloomed again for +him among the clouds. It is not therefore in dignity or sublimity that +Correggio excels, but in artless grace and melodious tenderness. The +Madonna della Scala clasping her baby with a caress which the little +child returns, S. Catherine leaning in a rapture of ecstatic love to +wed the infant Christ, S. Sebastian in the bloom of almost boyish +beauty, are the so-called sacred subjects to which the painter was +adequate, and which he has treated with the voluptuous tenderness we +find in his pictures of Leda and Danae and Io. Could these saints and +martyrs descend from Correggio's canvas, and take flesh, and breathe, +and begin to live; of what high action, of what grave passion, of what +exemplary conduct in any walk of life would they be capable? That is +the question which they irresistibly suggest; and we are forced to +answer, None! The moral and religious world did not exist for +Correggio. His art was but a way of seeing carnal beauty in a dream +that had no true relation to reality.</p> + + +<p>Correggio's sensibility to light and colour was exactly on a par with +his feeling for form. He belongs to the poets of chiaroscuro and the +poets of colouring; but in both regions he maintains the individuality +so strongly expressed in his choice of purely sensuous beauty. +Tintoretto makes use of light and shade for investing his great +compositions with dramatic intensity. Rembrandt interprets sombre and +fantastic moods of the mind by golden gloom and silvery irradiation, +translating thought into the language of penumbral mystery. Lionardo +studies the laws of light scientifically, so that the proper roundness +and effect of distance should be accurately rendered, and all the +subtleties of nature's smiles be mimicked. Correggio is content with +fixing on his canvas the ανη΄ριθμον +γέλασμα, the +many-twinkling laughter of light in motion, rained down through fleecy +clouds or trembling foliage, melting into half-shadows, bathing and +illuminating every object with a soft caress. There are no tragic +contrasts of splendour sharply defined on blackness, no mysteries of +half-felt and pervasive twilight, no studied accuracies of noonday +clearness in his work. Light and shadow are woven together on his +figures like an impalpable Coan gauze, aërial and transparent, +enhancing the palpitations of voluptuous movement which he loved. His +colouring, in like manner, has none of the superb and mundane pomp +which the Venetians affected; it does not glow or burn or beat the +fire of gems into our brain; joyous and wanton, it seems to be exactly +such a beauty-bloom as sense requires for its satiety. There is +nothing in his hues to provoke deep passion or to stimulate the +yearnings of the soul: the pure blushes of the dawn and the crimson +pyres of sunset are nowhere in the world that he has painted. But that +chord of jocund colour which may fitly be married to the smiles of +light, the blues which are found in laughing eyes, the pinks that +tinge the cheeks of early youth, and the warm yet silvery tones of +healthy flesh, mingle as in a marvellous pearl-shell on his pictures. +Both chiaroscuro and colouring have this supreme purpose in art, to +effect the sense like music, and like music to create a mood in the +soul of the spectator. Now the mood which Correggio stimulates is one +of natural and thoughtless pleasure. To feel his influence, and at the +same moment to be the subject of strong passion, or fierce lust, or +heroic resolve, or profound contemplation, or pensive melancholy, is +impossible. Wantonness, innocent because unconscious of sin, immoral +because incapable of any serious purpose, is the quality which +prevails in all that he has painted. The pantomimes of a Mohammedan +paradise might be put upon the stage after patterns supplied by this +least spiritual of painters.</p> + +<p>It follows from this analysis that the Correggiosity of Correggio, +that which sharply distinguished him from all previous artists, was +the faculty of painting a purely voluptuous dream of beautiful beings +in perpetual movement, beneath the laughter of morning light, in a +world of never-failing April hues. When he attempts to depart from the +fairyland of which he was the Prospero, and to match himself with the +masters of sublime thought or earnest passion, he proves his weakness. +But within his own magic circle he reigns supreme, no other artist +having blended the witcheries of colouring, chiaroscuro, and faunlike +loveliness of form into a harmony so perfect in its sensuous charm. +Bewitched by the strains of the siren, we pardon affectations of +expression, emptiness of meaning, feebleness of composition, +exaggerated and melodramatic attitudes. There is what Goethe called a +demonic influence in the art of Correggio: 'In poetry,' said Goethe to +Eckermann, 'especially in that which is unconscious, before which +reason and understanding fall short, and which therefore produces +effects so far surpassing all conception, there is always something +demonic.' It is not to be wondered that Correggio, possessed of this +demonic power in the highest degree, and working to a purely sensuous +end, should have exercised a fatal influence over art. His successors, +attracted by an intoxicating loveliness which they could not analyse, +which had nothing in common with the reason or the understanding, but +was like a glamour cast upon the soul in its most secret +sensibilities, threw themselves blindly into the imitation of +Correggio's faults. His affectation, his want of earnest thought, his +neglect of composition, his sensuous realism, his all-pervading +sweetness, his infantine prettiness, his substitution of +thaumaturgical effects for conscientious labour, admitted only too +easy imitation, and were but too congenial with the spirit of the late +Renaissance. Cupolas through the length and breadth of Italy began to +be covered with clouds and simpering cherubs in the convulsions of +artificial ecstasy. The attenuated elegance of Parmigiano, the +attitudinising of Anselmi's saints and angels, and a general sacrifice +of what is solid and enduring to sentimental gewgaws on the part of +all painters who had submitted to the magic of Correggio, proved how +easy it was to go astray with the great master. Meanwhile no one could +approach him in that which was truly his own—the delineation of a +transient moment in the life of sensuous beauty, the painting of a +smile on Nature's face, when light and colour tremble in harmony with +the movement of joyous living creatures. Another demonic nature of a +far more powerful type contributed his share to the ruin of art in +Italy. Michelangelo's constrained attitudes and muscular anatomy were +imitated by painters and sculptors, who thought that the grand style +lay in the presentation of theatrical athletes, but who could not +seize the secret whereby the great master made even the bodies of men +and women—colossal trunks and writhen limbs—interpret the meanings +of his deep and melancholy soul.</p> + +<p>It is a sad law of progress in art, that when the æsthetic impulse is +on the wane, artists should perforce select to follow the weakness +rather than the vigour, of their predecessors. While painting was in +the ascendant, Raphael could take the best of Perugino and discard the +worst; in its decadence Parmigiano reproduces the affectations of +Correggio, and Bernini carries the exaggerations of Michelangelo to +absurdity. All arts describe a parabola. The force which produces +them causes them to rise throughout their growth up to a certain +point, and then to descend more gradually in a long and slanting line +of regular declension. There is no real break of continuity. The end +is the result of simple exhaustion. Thus the last of our Elizabethan +dramatists, Shirley and Crowne and Killigrew, pushed to its ultimate +conclusion the principle inherent in Marlowe, not attempting to break +new ground, nor imitating the excellences so much as the defects of +their forerunners. Thus too the Pointed style of architecture in +England gave birth first to what is called the Decorated, next to the +Perpendicular, and finally expired in the Tudor. Each step was a step +of progress—at first for the better—at last for the worse—but +logical, continuous, necessitated.<a name="FNanchor_11_11" id="FNanchor_11_11" /></a><a href="#Footnote_11_11" class="fnanchor">[11]</a></p> + +<p>It is difficult to leave Correggio without at least posing the +question of the difference between moralised and merely sensual art. +Is all art excellent in itself and good in its effect that is +beautiful and earnest? There is no doubt that Correggio's work is in a +way most beautiful; and it bears unmistakable signs of the master +having given himself with single-hearted devotion to the expression of +that phase of loveliness which he could apprehend. In so far we must +admit that his art is both excellent and solid. Yet we are unable to +conceive that any human being could be made better—stronger for +endurance, more fitted for the uses of the world, more sensitive to +what is noble in nature—by its contemplation. At the best Correggio +does but please us in our lighter moments, and we are apt to feel that +the pleasure he has given is of an enervating kind. To expect obvious +morality of any artist is confessedly absurd. It is not the artist's +province to preach, or even to teach, except by remote suggestion. Yet +the mind of the artist may be highly moralised, and then he takes rank +not merely with the ministers to refined pleasure, but also with the +educators of the world. He may, for example, be penetrated with a just +sense of humanity like Shakspere, or with a sublime temperance like +Sophocles, instinct with prophetic intuition like Michelangelo, or +with passionate experience like Beethoven. The mere sight of the work +of Pheidias is like breathing pure health-giving air. Milton and Dante +were steeped in religious patriotism; Goethe was pervaded with +philosophy, and Balzac with scientific curiosity. Ariosto, Cervantes, +and even Boccaccio are masters in the mysteries of common life. In all +these cases the tone of the artist's mind is felt throughout his work: +what he paints, or sings, or writes, conveys a lesson while it +pleases. On the other hand, depravity in an artist or a poet +percolates through work which has in it nothing positive of evil, and +a very miasma of poisonous influence may rise from the apparently +innocuous creations of a tainted soul. Now Correggio is moralised in +neither way—neither as a good nor as a bad man, neither as an acute +thinker nor as a deliberate voluptuary. He is simply sensuous. On his +own ground he is even very fresh and healthy: his delineation of +youthful maternity, for example, is as true as it is beautiful; and +his sympathy with the gleefulness of children is devoid of +affectation. We have then only to ask ourselves whether the defect in +him of all thought and feeling which is not at once capable of +graceful fleshly incarnation, be sufficient to lower him in the scale +of artists. This question must of course be answered according to our +definition of the purposes of art. There is no doubt that the most +highly organised art—that which absorbs the most numerous human +qualities and effects a harmony between the most complex elements—is +the noblest. Therefore the artist who combines moral elevation and +power of thought with a due appreciation of sensual beauty, is more +elevated and more beneficial than one whose domain is simply that of +carnal loveliness. Correggio, if this be so, must take a comparatively +low rank. Just as we welcome the beautiful athlete for the radiant +life that is in him, but bow before the personality of Sophocles, +whose perfect form enshrined a noble and highly educated soul, so we +gratefully accept Correggio for his grace, while we approach the +consummate art of Michelangelo with reverent awe. It is necessary in +æsthetics as elsewhere to recognise a hierarchy of excellence, the +grades of which are determined by the greater or less +comprehensiveness of the artist's nature expressed in his work. At the +same time, the calibre of the artist's genius must be estimated; for +eminent greatness even of a narrow kind will always command our +admiration: and the amount of his originality has also to be taken +into account. What is unique has, for that reason alone, a claim on +our consideration. Judged in this way, Correggio deserves a place, +say, in the sweet planet Venus, above the moon and above Mercury, +among the artists who have not advanced beyond the contemplations +which find their proper outcome in love. Yet, even thus, he aids the +culture of humanity. 'We should take care,' said Goethe, apropos of +Byron, to Eckermann, 'not to be always looking for culture in the +decidedly pure and moral. Everything that is great promotes +cultivation as soon as we are aware of it.'</p> +<h5><a href="#CONTENTS">CONTENTS</a></h5> +<br /><br /> +<hr style="width: 100%;" /> +<h2><a name="CANOSSA" id="CANOSSA" /><i>CANOSSA</i></a></h2> +<hr style="width: 100%;" /> +<br /> +<p>Italy is less the land of what is venerable in antiquity, than of +beauty, by divine right young eternally in spite of age. This is due +partly to her history and art and literature, partly to the temper of +the races who have made her what she is, and partly to her natural +advantages. Her oldest architectural remains, the temples of Paestum +and Girgenti, or the gates of Perugia and Volterra, are so adapted to +Italian landscape and so graceful in their massive strength, that we +forget the centuries which have passed over them. We leap as by a +single bound from the times of Roman greatness to the new birth of +humanity in the fourteenth century, forgetting the many years during +which Italy, like the rest of Europe, was buried in what our ancestors +called Gothic barbarism. The illumination cast upon the classic period +by the literature of Rome and by the memory of her great men is so +vivid, that we feel the days of the Republic and the Empire to be near +us; while the Italian Renaissance is so truly a revival of that former +splendour, a resumption of the music interrupted for a season, that it +is extremely difficult to form any conception of the five long +centuries which elapsed between the Lombard invasion in 568 and the +accession of Hildebrand to the Pontificate in 1073. So true is it that +nothing lives and has reality for us but what is spiritual, +intellectual, self-possessed in personality and consciousness. When +the Egyptian priest said to Solon, 'You Greeks are always children,' +he intended a gentle sarcasm, but he implied a compliment; for the +quality of imperishable youth belonged to the Hellenic spirit, and has +become the heritage of every race which partook of it. And this spirit +in no common degree has been shared by the Italians of the earlier and +the later classic epoch. The land is full of monuments pertaining to +those two brilliant periods; and whenever the voice of poet has spoken +or the hand of artist has been at work, that spirit, as distinguished +from the spirit of mediaevalism, has found expression.</p> + +<p>Yet it must be remembered that during the five centuries above +mentioned Italy was given over to Lombards, Franks, and Germans. +Feudal institutions, alien to the social and political ideals of the +classic world, took a tolerably firm hold on the country. The Latin +element remained silent, passive, in abeyance, undergoing an important +transformation. It was in the course of those five hundred years that +the Italians as a modern people, separable from their Roman ancestors, +were formed. At the close of this obscure passage in Italian history, +their communes, the foundation of Italy's future independence, and the +source of her peculiar national development, appeared in all the +vigour and audacity of youth. At its close the Italian genius +presented Europe with its greatest triumph of constructive ability, +the Papacy. At its close again the series of supreme artistic +achievements, starting with the architecture of churches and public +palaces, passing on to sculpture and painting, and culminating in +music, which only ended with the temporary extinction of national +vitality in the seventeenth century, was simultaneously begun in all +the provinces of the peninsula.</p> + +<p>So important were these five centuries of incubation for Italy, and so +little is there left of them to arrest the attention of the student, +dazzled as he is by the ever-living glories of Greece, Rome, and the +Renaissance, that a visit to the ruins of Canossa is almost a duty. +There, in spite of himself, by the very isolation and forlorn +abandonment of what was once so formidable a seat of feudal despotism +and ecclesiastical tyranny, he is forced to confront the obscure but +mighty spirit of the middle ages. There, if anywhere, the men of those +iron-hearted times anterior to the Crusades will acquire distinctness +for his imagination, when he recalls the three main actors in the +drama enacted on the summit of Canossa's rock in the bitter winter of +1077.</p> + +<p>Canossa lies almost due south of Reggio d'Emilia, upon the slopes of +the Apennines. Starting from Reggio, the carriage-road keeps to the +plain for some while in a westerly direction, and then bends away +towards the mountains. As we approach their spurs, the ground begins +to rise. The rich Lombard tilth of maize and vine gives place to +English-looking hedgerows, lined with oaks, and studded with handsome +dark tufts of green hellebore. The hills descend in melancholy +earth-heaps on the plain, crowned here and there with ruined castles. +Four of these mediaeval strongholds, called Bianello, Montevetro, +Monteluzzo, and Montezano, give the name of Quattro Castelli to the +commune. The most important of them, Bianello, which, next to Canossa, +was the strongest fortress possessed by the Countess Matilda and her +ancestors, still presents a considerable mass of masonry, roofed and +habitable. The group formed a kind of advance-guard for Canossa +against attack from Lombardy. After passing Quattro Castelli we enter +the hills, climbing gently upwards between barren slopes of ashy grey +earth—the <i>débris</i> of most ancient Apennines—crested at favourable +points with lonely towers. In truth the whole country bristles with +ruined forts, making it clear that during the middle ages Canossa was +but the centre of a great military system, the core and kernel of a +fortified position which covered an area to be measured by scores of +square miles, reaching far into the mountains, and buttressed on the +plain. As yet, however, after nearly two hours' driving, Canossa has +not come in sight. At last a turn in the road discloses an opening in +the valley of the Enza to the left: up this lateral gorge we see first +the Castle of Rossena on its knoll of solid red rock, flaming in the +sunlight; and then, further withdrawn, detached from all surrounding +objects, and reared aloft as though to sweep the sea of waved and +broken hills around it, a sharp horn of hard white stone. That is +Canossa—the <i>alba Canossa</i>, the <i>candida petra</i> of its rhyming +chronicler. There is no mistaking the commanding value of its +situation. At the same time the brilliant whiteness of Canossa's +rocky hill, contrasted with the red gleam of Rossena, and outlined +against the prevailing dulness of these earthy Apennines, secures a +picturesque individuality concordant with its unique history and +unrivalled strength.</p> + +<p>There is still a journey of two hours before the castle can be +reached: and this may be performed on foot or horseback. The path +winds upward over broken ground; following the <i>arête</i> of curiously +jumbled and thwarted hill-slopes; passing beneath the battlements of +Rossena, whence the unfortunate Everelina threw herself in order to +escape the savage love of her lord and jailor; and then skirting those +horrid earthen <i>balze</i> which are so common and so unattractive a +feature of Apennine scenery. The most hideous <i>balze</i> to be found in +the length and breadth of Italy are probably those of Volterra, from +which the citizens themselves recoil with a kind of terror, and which +lure melancholy men by intolerable fascination on to suicide. For ever +crumbling, altering with frost and rain, discharging gloomy glaciers +of slow-crawling mud, and scarring the hillside with tracts of +barrenness, these earth-precipices are among the most ruinous and +discomfortable failures of nature. They have not even so much of +wildness or grandeur as forms, the saving merit of nearly all wasteful +things in the world, and can only be classed with the desolate +<i>ghiare</i> of Italian river-beds.</p> + +<p>Such as they are, these <i>balze</i> form an appropriate preface to the +gloomy and repellent isolation of Canossa. The rock towers from a +narrow platform to the height of rather more than 160 feet from its +base. The top is fairly level, forming an irregular triangle, of which +the greatest length is about 260 feet, and the width about 100 feet. +Scarcely a vestige of any building can be traced either upon the +platform or the summit, with the exception of a broken wall and +windows supposed to belong to the end of the sixteenth century. The +ancient castle, with its triple circuit of walls, enclosing barracks +for the garrison, lodgings for the lord and his retainers, a stately +church, a sumptuous monastery, storehouses, stables, workshops, and +all the various buildings of a fortified stronghold, have utterly +disappeared. The very passage of approach cannot be ascertained; for +it is doubtful whether the present irregular path that scales the +western face of the rock be really the remains of some old staircase, +corresponding to that by which Mont S. Michel in Normandy is ascended. +One thing is tolerably certain—that the three walls of which we hear +so much from the chroniclers, and which played so picturesque a part +in the drama of Henry IV.'s penance, surrounded the cliff at its base, +and embraced a large acreage of ground. The citadel itself must have +been but the acropolis or keep of an extensive fortress.</p> + +<p>There has been plenty of time since the year 1255, when the people of +Reggio sacked and destroyed Canossa, for Nature to resume her +undisputed sway by obliterating the handiwork of men; and at present +Nature forms the chief charm of Canossa. Lying one afternoon of May on +the crisp short grass at the edge of a precipice purple with iris in +full blossom, I surveyed, from what were once the battlements of +Matilda's castle, a prospect than which there is none more +spirit-stirring by reason of its beauty and its manifold associations +in Europe. The lower castle-crowded hills have sunk. Reggio lies at +our feet, shut in between the crests of Monte Carboniano and Monte +delle Celle. Beyond Reggio stretches Lombardy—the fairest and most +memorable battlefield of nations, the richest and most highly +cultivated garden of civilised industry. Nearly all the Lombard cities +may be seen, some of them faint like bluish films of vapour, some +clear with dome and spire. There is Modena and her Ghirlandina. Carpi, +Parma, Mirandola, Verona, Mantua, lie well defined and russet on the +flat green map; and there flashes a bend of lordly Po; and there the +Euganeans rise like islands, telling us where Padua and Ferrara nestle +in the amethystine haze Beyond and above all to the northward sweep +the Alps, tossing their silvery crests up into the cloudless sky from +the violet mist that girds their flanks and drowns their basements. +Monte Adamello and the Ortler, the cleft of the Brenner, and the sharp +peaks of the Venetian Alps are all distinctly visible. An eagle flying +straight from our eyrie might traverse Lombardy and light among the +snow-fields of the Valtelline between sunrise and sundown. Nor is the +prospect tame to southward. Here the Apennines roll, billow above +billow, in majestic desolation, soaring to snow summits in the +Pellegrino region. As our eye attempts to thread that labyrinth of +hill and vale, we tell ourselves that those roads wind to Tuscany, and +yonder stretches Garfagnana, where Ariosto lived and mused in +honourable exile from the world he loved.</p> + +<p>It was by one of the mountain passes that lead from Lucca northward +that the first founder of Canossa is said to have travelled early in +the tenth century. Sigifredo, if the tradition may be trusted, was +very wealthy; and with his money he bought lands and signorial rights +at Reggio, bequeathing to his children, when he died about 945, a +patrimony which they developed into a petty kingdom. Azzo, his second +son, fortified Canossa, and made it his principal place of residence. +When Lothair, King of Italy, died in 950, leaving his beautiful widow +to the ill-treatment of his successor, Berenger, Adelaide found a +protector in this Azzo. She had been imprisoned on the Lake of Garda; +but managing to escape in man's clothes to Mantua, she thence sent +news of her misfortunes to Canossa. Azzo lost no time in riding with +his knights to her relief, and brought her back in safety to his +mountain fastness. It is related that Azzo was afterwards instrumental +in calling Otho into Italy and procuring his marriage with Adelaide, +in consequence of which events Italy became a fief of the Empire. +Owing to the part he played at this time, the Lord of Canossa was +recognised as one of the most powerful vassals of the German Emperor +in Lombardy. Honours were heaped upon him; and he grew so rich and +formidable that Berenger, the titular King of Italy, laid siege to his +fortress of Canossa. The memory of this siege, which lasted for three +years and a half, is said still to linger in the popular traditions of +the place. When Azzo died at the end of the tenth century, he left to +his son Tedaldo the title of Count of Reggio and Modena; and this +title was soon after raised to that of Marquis. The Marches governed +as Vicar of the Empire by Tedaldo included Reggio, Modena, Ferrara, +Brescia, and probably Mantua. They stretched, in fact, across the +north of Italy, forming a quadrilateral between the Alps and +Apennines. Like his father, Tedaldo adhered consistently to the +Imperial party; and when he died and was buried at Canossa, he in his +turn bequeathed to his son Bonifazio a power and jurisdiction +increased by his own abilities. Bonifazio held the state of a +sovereign at Canossa, adding the duchy of Tuscany to his father's +fiefs, and meeting the allied forces of the Lombard barons in the +field of Coviolo like an independent potentate. His power and +splendour were great enough to rouse the jealousy of the Emperor; but +Henry III. seems to have thought it more prudent to propitiate this +proud vassal, and to secure his kindness, than to attempt his +humiliation. Bonifazio married Beatrice, daughter of Frederick, Duke +of Lorraine—her whose marble sarcophagus in the Campo Santo at Pisa +is said to have inspired Niccola Pisano with his new style of +sculpture. Their only child, Matilda, was born, probably at Lucca, in +1046; and six years after her birth, Bonifazio, who had swayed his +subjects like an iron-handed tyrant, was murdered. To the great House +of Canossa, the rulers of one-third of Italy, there now remained only +two women, Bonifazio's widow Beatrice, and his daughter Matilda. +Beatrice married Godfrey, Duke of Lorraine, who was recognised by +Henry IV. as her husband and as feudatory of the Empire in the full +place of Boniface. He died about 1070; and in this year Matilda was +married by proxy to his son, Godfrey the Hunchback, whom, however, +she did not see till the year 1072. The marriage was not a happy one; +and the question has even been disputed among Matilda's biographers +whether it was ever consummated. At any rate it did not last long; for +Godfrey was killed at Antwerp in 1076. In this year Matilda also lost +her mother, Beatrice, who died at Pisa, and was buried in the +cathedral.</p> + +<p>By this rapid enumeration of events it will be seen how the power and +honours of the House of Canossa, including Tuscany, Spoleto, and the +fairest portions of Lombardy, had devolved upon a single woman of the +age of thirty at the moment when the fierce quarrel between Pope and +Emperor began in the year 1076. Matilda was destined to play a great, +a striking, and a tragic part in the opening drama of Italian history. +Her decided character and uncompromising course of action have won for +her the name of 'la gran donna d'Italia,' and have caused her memory +to be blessed or execrated, according as the temporal pretensions and +spiritual tyranny of the Papacy may have found supporters or opponents +in posterity. She was reared from childhood in habits of austerity and +unquestioning piety. Submission to the Church became for her not +merely a rule of conduct, but a passionate enthusiasm. She identified +herself with the cause of four successive Popes, protected her idol, +the terrible and iron-hearted Hildebrand, in the time of his +adversity; remained faithful to his principles after his death; and +having served the Holy See with all her force and all that she +possessed through all her lifetime, she bequeathed her vast dominions +to it on her deathbed. Like some of the greatest mediaeval +characters—like Hildebrand himself—Matilda was so thoroughly of one +piece, that she towers above the mists of ages with the massive +grandeur of an incarnated idea. She is for us the living statue of a +single thought, an undivided impulse, the more than woman born to +represent her age. Nor was it without reason that Dante symbolised in +her the love of Holy Church; though students of the 'Purgatory' will +hardly recognise the lovely maiden, singing and plucking flowers +beside the stream of Lethe, in the stern and warlike chatelaine of +Canossa. Unfortunately we know but little of Matilda's personal +appearance. Her health was not strong; and it is said to have been +weakened, especially in her last illness, by ascetic observances. Yet +she headed her own troops, armed with sword and cuirass, avoiding +neither peril nor fatigue in the quarrels of her master Gregory. Up to +the year 1622 two strong suits of mail were preserved at Quattro +Castelli, which were said to have been worn by her in battle, and +which were afterwards sold on the market-place at Reggio. This habit +of donning armour does not, however, prove that Matilda was +exceptionally vigorous; for in those savage times she could hardly +have played the part of heroine without participating personally in +the dangers of warfare.</p> + +<p>No less monumental in the plastic unity of his character was the monk +Hildebrand, who for twenty years before his elevation to the Papacy +had been the maker of Popes and the creator of the policy of Rome. +When he was himself elected in the year 1073, and had assumed the name +of Gregory VII., he immediately began to put in practice the plans for +Church aggrandisement he had slowly matured during the previous +quarter of a century. To free the Church from its subservience to the +Empire, to assert the Pope's right to ratify the election of the +Emperor and to exercise the right of jurisdiction over him, to place +ecclesiastical appointments in the sole power of the Roman See, and to +render the celibacy of the clergy obligatory, were the points he had +resolved to carry. Taken singly and together, these chief aims of +Hildebrand's policy had but one object—the magnification of the +Church at the expense both of the people and of secular authorities, +and the further separation of the Church from the ties and sympathies +of common life that bound it to humanity. To accuse Hildebrand of +personal ambition would be but shallow criticism, though it is clear +that his inflexible and puissant nature found a savage selfish +pleasure in trampling upon power and humbling pride at warfare with +his own. Yet his was in no sense an egotistic purpose like that which +moved the Popes of the Renaissance to dismember Italy for their +bastards. Hildebrand, like Matilda, was himself the creature of a +great idea. These two potent personalities completely understood each +other, and worked towards a single end. Tho mythopoeic fancy might +conceive of them as the male and female manifestations of one dominant +faculty, the spirit of ecclesiastical dominion incarnate in a man and +woman of almost super-human mould.</p> + +<p>Opposed to them, as the third actor in the drama of Canossa, was a man +of feebler mould. Henry IV., King of Italy, but not yet crowned +Emperor, had none of his opponents' unity of purpose or monumental +dignity of character. At war with his German feudatories, browbeaten +by rebellious sons, unfaithful and cruel to his wife, vacillating in +the measures he adopted to meet his divers difficulties, at one time +tormented by his conscience into cowardly submission, and at another +treasonably neglectful of the most solemn obligations, Henry was no +match for the stern wills against which he was destined to break in +unavailing passion. Early disagreements with Gregory had culminated in +his excommunication. The German nobles abandoned his cause; and Henry +found it expedient to summon a council in Augsburg for the settlement +of matters in dispute between the Empire and the Papacy. Gregory +expressed his willingness to attend this council, and set forth from +Rome accompanied by the Countess Matilda in December 1076. He did not, +however, travel further than Vercelli, for news here reached him that +Henry was about to enter Italy at the head of a powerful army. Matilda +hereupon persuaded the Holy Father to place himself in safety among +her strongholds of Canossa. Thither accordingly Gregory retired before +the ending of that year; and bitter were the sarcasms uttered by the +imperial partisans in Italy upon this protection offered by a fair +countess to the monk who had been made a Pope. The foul calumnies of +that bygone age would be unworthy of even so much as this notice, if +we did not trace in them the ineradicable Italian tendency to cynical +insinuation—a tendency which has involved the history of the +Renaissance Popes in an almost impenetrable mist of lies and +exaggerations. Henry was in truth upon his road to Italy, but with a +very different attendance from that which Gregory expected. +Accompanied by Bertha, his wife, and his boy son Conrad, the Emperor +elect left Spires in the condition of a fugitive, crossed Burgundy, +spent Christmas at Besançon, and journeyed to the foot of Mont Cenis. +It is said that he was followed by a single male servant of mean +birth; and if the tale of his adventures during the passage of the +Alps can be credited, history presents fewer spectacles more +picturesque than the straits to which this representative of the +Cæsars, this supreme chief of feudal civility, this ruler destined +still to be the leader of mighty armies and the father of a line of +monarchs, was exposed. Concealing his real name and state, he induced +some shepherds to lead him and his escort through the thick snows to +the summit of Mont Cenis; and by the help of these men the imperial +party were afterwards let down the snow-slopes on the further side by +means of ropes. Bertha and her women were sewn up in hides and dragged +across the frozen surface of the winter drifts. It was a year +memorable for its severity. Heavy snow had fallen in October, which +continued ice-bound and unyielding till the following April.</p> + +<p>No sooner had Henry reached Turin, than he set forward again in the +direction of Canossa. The fame of his arrival had preceded him, and +he found that his party was far stronger in Italy than he had ventured +to expect. Proximity to the Church of Rome divests its fulminations of +half their terrors. The Italian bishops and barons, less superstitious +than the Germans, and with greater reason to resent the domineering +graspingness of Gregory, were ready to espouse the Emperor's cause. +Henry gathered a formidable force as he marched onward across +Lombardy; and some of the most illustrious prelates and nobles of the +South were in his suite. A more determined leader than Henry proved +himself to be, might possibly have forced Gregory to some +accommodation, in spite of the strength of Canossa and the Pope's +invincible obstinacy, by proper use of these supporters. Meanwhile the +adherents of the Church were mustered in Matilda's fortress; among +whom may be mentioned Azzo, the progenitor of Este and Brunswick; +Hugh, Abbot of Clugny; and the princely family of Piedmont. 'I am +become a second Rome,' exclaims Canossa, in the language of Matilda's +rhyming chronicler; 'all honours are mine; I hold at once both Pope +and King, the princes of Italy and those of Gaul, those of Rome, and +those from far beyond the Alps.' The stage was ready; the audience had +assembled; and now the three great actors were about to meet. +Immediately upon his arrival at Canossa, Henry sent for his cousin, +the Countess Matilda, and besought her to intercede for him with +Gregory. He was prepared to make any concessions or to undergo any +humiliations, if only the ban of excommunication might be removed; +nor, cowed as he was by his own superstitious conscience, and by the +memory of the opposition he had met with from his German vassals, does +he seem to have once thought of meeting force with force, and of +returning to his northern kingdom triumphant in the overthrow of +Gregory's pride. Matilda undertook to plead his cause before the +Pontiff. But Gregory was not to be moved so soon to mercy. 'If Henry +has in truth repented,' he replied, 'let him lay down crown and +sceptre, and declare himself unworthy of the name of king.' The only +point conceded to the suppliant was that he should be admitted in the +garb of a penitent within the precincts of the castle. Leaving his +retinue outside the walls, Henry entered the first series of outworks, +and was thence conducted to the second, so that between him and the +citadel itself there still remained the third of the surrounding +bastions. Here he was bidden to wait the Pope's pleasure; and here, in +the midst of that bitter winter weather, while the fierce winds of the +Apennines were sweeping sleet upon him in their passage from Monte +Pellegrino to the plain, he knelt barefoot, clothed in sackcloth, +fasting from dawn till eve, for three whole days. On the morning of +the fourth day, judging that Gregory was inexorable, and that his suit +would not be granted, Henry retired to the Chapel of S. Nicholas, +which stood within this second precinct. There he called to his aid +the Abbot of Clugny and the Countess, both of whom were his relations, +and who, much as they might sympathise with Gregory, could hardly be +supposed to look with satisfaction on their royal kinsman's outrage. +The Abbot told Henry that nothing in the world could move the Pope; +but Matilda, when in turn he fell before her knees and wept, engaged +to do for him the utmost. She probably knew that the moment for +unbending had arrived, and that her imperious guest could not with +either decency or prudence prolong the outrage offered to the civil +chief of Christendom. It was the 25th of January when the Emperor +elect was brought, half dead with cold and misery, into the Pope's +presence. There he prostrated himself in the dust, crying aloud for +pardon. It is said that Gregory first placed his foot upon Henry's +neck, uttering these words of Scripture: 'Super aspidem et basiliscum +ambulabis, et conculcabis leonem et draconem,' and that then he raised +him from the earth and formally pronounced his pardon. The prelates +and nobles who took part in this scene were compelled to guarantee +with their own oaths the vows of obedience pronounced by Henry; so +that in the very act of reconciliation a new insult was offered to +him. After this Gregory said mass, and permitted Henry to communicate; +and at the close of the day a banquet was served, at which the King +sat down to meat with the Pope and the Countess.</p> + +<p>It is probable that, while Henry's penance was performed in the castle +courts beneath the rock, his reception by the Pope, and all that +subsequently happened, took place in the citadel itself. But of this +we have no positive information. Indeed the silence of the chronicles +as to the topography of Canossa is peculiarly unfortunate for lovers +of the picturesque in historic detail, now that there is no +possibility of tracing the outlines of the ancient building. Had the +author of the 'Vita Mathildis' (Muratori, vol. v.) foreseen that his +beloved Canossa would one day be nothing but a mass of native rock, he +would undoubtedly have been more explicit on these points; and much +that is vague about an event only paralleled by our Henry II.'s +penance before Becket's shrine at Canterbury, might now be clear.</p> + +<p>Very little remains to be told about Canossa. During the same year, +1077, Matilda made the celebrated donation of her fiefs to Holy +Church. This was accepted by Gregory in the name of S. Peter, and it +was confirmed by a second deed during the pontificate of Urban IV. in +1102. Though Matilda subsequently married Guelfo d'Este, son of the +Duke of Bavaria, she was speedily divorced from him; nor was there any +heir to a marriage ridiculous by reason of disparity of age, the +bridegroom being but eighteen, while the bride was forty-three in the +year of her second nuptials. During one of Henry's descents into +Italy, he made an unsuccessful attack upon Canossa, assailing it at +the head of a considerable force one October morning in 1092. +Matilda's biographer informs us that the mists of autumn veiled his +beloved fortress from the eyes of the beleaguerers. They had not even +the satisfaction of beholding the unvanquished citadel; and, what was +more, the banner of the Emperor was seized and dedicated as a trophy +in the Church of S. Apollonio. In the following year the Countess +opened her gates of Canossa to an illustrious fugitive, Adelaide, the +wife of her old foeman, Henry, who had escaped with difficulty from +the insults and the cruelty of her husband. After Henry's death, his +son, the Emperor Henry V., paid Matilda a visit in her castle of +Bianello, addressed her by the name of mother, and conferred upon her +the vice-regency of Liguria. At the age of sixty-nine she died, in +1115, at Bondeno de' Roncori, and was buried, not among her kinsmen at +Canossa, but in an abbey of S. Benedict near Mantua. With her expired +the main line of the noble house she represented; though Canossa, now +made a fief of the Empire in spite of Matilda's donation, was given to +a family which claimed descent from Bonifazio's brother Conrad—a +young man killed in the battle of Coviolo. This family, in its turn, +was extinguished in the year 1570; but a junior branch still exists at +Verona. It will be remembered that Michelangelo Buonarroti claimed +kinship with the Count of Canossa; and a letter from the Count is +extant acknowledging the validity of his pretension.</p> + +<p>As far back as 1255 the people of Reggio destroyed the castle; nor did +the nobles of Canossa distinguish themselves in subsequent history +among those families who based their despotisms on the <i>débris</i> of the +Imperial power in Lombardy. It seemed destined that Canossa and all +belonging to it should remain as a mere name and memory of the +outgrown middle ages. Estensi, Carraresi, Visconti, Bentivogli, and +Gonzaghi belong to a later period of Lombard history, and mark the +dawn of the Renaissance.</p> + +<p>As I lay and mused that afternoon of May upon the short grass, cropped +by two grey goats, whom a little boy was tending, it occurred to me to +ask the woman who had served me as guide, whether any legend remained +in the country concerning the Countess Matilda. She had often, +probably, been asked this question by other travellers. Therefore she +was more than usually ready with an answer, which, as far as I could +understand her dialect, was this. Matilda was a great and potent +witch, whose summons the devil was bound to obey. One day she aspired, +alone of all her sex, to say mass; but when the moment came for +sacring the elements, a thunderbolt fell from the clear sky, and +reduced her to ashes.<a name="FNanchor_12_12" id="FNanchor_12_12" /></a><a href="#Footnote_12_12" class="fnanchor">[12]</a> That the most single-hearted handmaid of the +Holy Church, whose life was one long devotion to its ordinances, +should survive in this grotesque myth, might serve to point a satire +upon the vanity of earthly fame. The legend in its very extravagance +is a fanciful distortion of the truth.</p> +<h5><a href="#CONTENTS">CONTENTS</a></h5> + +<br /><br /> +<hr style="width: 100%;" /> +<h2><a name="FORNOVO" id="FORNOVO" /><i>FORNOVO</i></a></h2> + +<hr style="width: 100%;" /> +<br /> +<p>In the town of Parma there is one surpassingly strange relic of the +past. The palace of the Farnesi, like many a haunt of upstart tyranny +and beggared pride on these Italian plains, rises misshapen and +disconsolate above the stream that bears the city's name. The squalor +of this grey-brown edifice of formless brick, left naked like the +palace of the same Farnesi at Piacenza, has something even horrid in +it now that only vague memory survives of its former uses. The +princely <i>sprezzatura</i> of its ancient occupants, careless of these +unfinished courts and unroofed galleries amid the splendour of their +purfled silks and the glitter of their torchlight pageantry, has +yielded to sullen cynicism—the cynicism of arrested ruin and +unreverend age. All that was satisfying to the senses and distracting +to the eyesight in their transitory pomp has passed away, leaving a +sinister and naked shell. Remembrance can but summon up the crimes, +the madness, the trivialities of those dead palace-builders. An +atmosphere of evil clings to the dilapidated walls, as though the +tainted spirit of the infamous Pier Luigi still possessed the spot, on +which his toadstool brood of princelings sprouted in the mud of their +misdeeds. Enclosed in this huge labyrinth of brickwork is the relic of +which I spoke. It is the once world-famous Teatro Farnese, raised in +the year 1618 by Ranunzio Farnese for the marriage of Odoardo Farnese +with Margaret of Austria. Giambattista Aleotti, a native of +pageant-loving Ferrara, traced the stately curves and noble orders of +the galleries, designed the columns that support the raftered roof, +marked out the orchestra, arranged the stage, and breathed into the +whole the spirit of Palladio's most heroic neo-Latin style. Vast, +built of wood, dishevelled, with broken statues and blurred coats of +arms, with its empty scene, its uncurling frescoes, its hangings all +in rags, its cobwebs of two centuries, its dust and mildew and +discoloured gold—this theatre, a sham in its best days, and now that +ugliest of things, a sham unmasked and naked to the light of day, is +yet sublime, because of its proportioned harmony, because of its grand +Roman manner. The sight and feeling of it fasten upon the mind and +abide in the memory like a nightmare,—like one of Piranesi's weirdest +and most passion-haunted etchings for the <i>Carceri</i>. Idling there at +noon in the twilight of the dust-bedarkened windows, we fill the tiers +of those high galleries with ladies, the space below with grooms and +pages; the stage is ablaze with torches, and an Italian Masque, such +as our Marlowe dreamed of, fills the scene. But it is impossible to +dower these fancies with even such life as in healthier, happier +ruins phantasy may lend to imagination's figments. This theatre is +like a maniac's skull, empty of all but unrealities and mockeries of +things that are. The ghosts we raise here could never have been living +men and women: <i>questi sciaurati non fur mai vivi.</i> So clinging is the +sense of instability that appertains to every fragment of that dry-rot +tyranny which seized by evil fortune in the sunset of her golden day +on Italy.</p> + +<p>In this theatre I mused one morning after visiting Fornovo; and the +thoughts suggested by the battlefield found their proper atmosphere in +the dilapidated place. What, indeed, is the Teatro Farnese but a +symbol of those hollow principalities which the despot and the +stranger built in Italy after the fatal date of 1494, when national +enthusiasm and political energy were expiring in a blaze of art, and +when the Italians as a people had ceased to be; but when the phantom +of their former life, surviving in high works of beauty, was still +superb by reason of imperishable style! How much in Italy of the +Renaissance was, like this plank-built plastered theatre, a glorious +sham! The sham was seen through then; and now it stands unmasked: and +yet, strange to say, so perfect is its form that we respect the sham +and yield our spirits to the incantation of its music.</p> + +<p>The battle of Fornovo, as modern battles go, was a paltry affair; and +even at the time it seemed sufficiently without result. Yet the +trumpets which rang on July 6, 1495, for the onset, sounded the +<i>réveil</i> of the modern world; and in the inconclusive termination of +the struggle of that day, the Italians were already judged and +sentenced as a nation. The armies who met that morning represented +Italy and France,—Italy, the Sibyl of Renaissance; France, the Sibyl +of Revolution. At the fall of evening Europe was already looking +northward; and the last years of the fifteenth century were opening +an act which closed in blood at Paris on the ending of the eighteenth.</p> + +<p>If it were not for thoughts like these, no one, I suppose, would take +the trouble to drive for two hours out of Parma to the little village +of Fornovo—a score of bare grey hovels on the margin of a pebbly +river-bed beneath the Apennines. The fields on either side, as far as +eye can see, are beautiful indeed in May sunlight, painted here with +flax, like shallow sheets of water reflecting a pale sky, and there +with clover red as blood. Scarce unfolded leaves sparkle like +flamelets of bright green upon the knotted vines, and the young corn +is bending all one way beneath a western breeze. But not less +beautiful than this is the whole broad plain of Lombardy; nor are the +nightingales louder here than in the acacia trees around Pavia. As we +drive, the fields become less fertile, and the hills encroach upon the +level, sending down their spurs upon that waveless plain like blunt +rocks jutting out into a tranquil sea. When we reach the bed of the +Taro, these hills begin to narrow on either hand, and the road rises. +Soon they open out again with gradual curving lines, forming a kind of +amphitheatre filled up from flank to flank with the <i>ghiara</i> or pebbly +bottom of the Taro. The Taro is not less wasteful than any other of +the brotherhood of streams that pour from Alp or Apennine to swell the +Po. It wanders, an impatient rivulet, through a wilderness of +boulders, uncertain of its aim, shifting its course with the season of +the year, unless the jaws of some deep-cloven gully hold it tight and +show how insignificant it is. As we advance, the hills approach again; +between their skirts there is nothing but the river-bed; and now on +rising ground above the stream, at the point of juncture between the +Ceno and the Taro, we find Fornovo. Beyond the village the valley +broadens out once more, disclosing Apennines capped with winter snow. +To the right descends the Ceno. To the left foams the Taro, following +whose rocky channel we should come at last to Pontremoli and the +Tyrrhenian sea beside Sarzana. On a May-day of sunshine like the +present, the Taro is a gentle stream. A waggon drawn by two white oxen +has just entered its channel, guided by a contadino with goat-skin +leggings, wielding a long goad. The patient creatures stem the water, +which rises to the peasant's thighs and ripples round the creaking +wheels. Swaying to and fro, as the shingles shift upon the river-bed, +they make their way across; and now they have emerged upon the stones; +and now we lose them in a flood of sunlight.</p> + +<p>It was by this pass that Charles VIII. in 1495 returned from Tuscany, +when the army of the League was drawn up waiting to intercept and +crush him in the mousetrap of Fornovo. No road remained for Charles +and his troops but the rocky bed of the Taro, running, as I have +described it, between the spurs of steep hills. It is true that the +valley of the Baganza leads, from a little higher up among the +mountains, into Lombardy. But this pass runs straight to Parma; and to +follow it would have brought the French upon the walls of a strong +city. Charles could not do otherwise than descend upon the village of +Fornovo, and cut his way thence in the teeth of the Italian army over +stream and boulder between the gorges of throttling mountain. The +failure of the Italians to achieve what here upon the ground appears +so simple, delivered Italy hand-bound to strangers. Had they but +succeeded in arresting Charles and destroying his forces at Fornovo, +it is just possible that then—even then, at the eleventh hour—Italy +might have gained the sense of national coherence, or at least have +proved herself capable of holding by her leagues the foreigner at bay. +As it was, the battle of Fornovo, in spite of Venetian bonfires and +Mantuan Madonnas of Victory, made her conscious of incompetence and +convicted her of cowardice. After Fornovo, her sons scarcely dared to +hold their heads up in the field against invaders; and the battles +fought upon her soil were duels among aliens for the prize of Italy.</p> + +<p>In order to comprehend the battle of Fornovo in its bearings on +Italian history, we must go back to the year 1492, and understand the +conditions of the various States of Italy at that date. On April 8 in +that year, Lorenzo de' Medici, who had succeeded in maintaining a +political equilibrium in the peninsula, expired, and was succeeded by +his son Piero, a vain and foolhardy young man, from whom no guidance +could be expected. On July 25, Innocent VIII. died, and was succeeded +by the very worst Pope who has ever occupied S. Peter's chair, +Roderigo Borgia, Alexander VI. It was felt at once that the old order +of things had somehow ended, and that a new era, the destinies of +which as yet remained incalculable, was opening for Italy. The chief +Italian powers, hitherto kept in equipoise by the diplomacy of Lorenzo +de' Medici, were these—the Duchy of Milan, the Republic of Venice, +the Republic of Florence, the Papacy, and the kingdom of Naples. +Minor States, such as the Republics of Genoa and Siena, the Duchies of +Urbino and Ferrara, the Marquisate of Mantua, the petty tyrannies of +Romagna, and the wealthy city of Bologna, were sufficiently important +to affect the balance of power, and to produce new combinations. For +the present purpose it is, however, enough to consider the five great +Powers.</p> + +<p>After the peace of Constance, which freed the Lombard Communes from +Imperial interference in the year 1183, Milan, by her geographical +position, rose rapidly to be the first city of North Italy. Without +narrating the changes by which she lost her freedom as a Commune, it +is enough to state that, earliest of all Italian cities, Milan passed +into the hands of a single family. The Visconti managed to convert +this flourishing commonwealth, with all its dependencies, into their +private property, ruling it exclusively for their own profit, using +its municipal institutions as the machinery of administration, and +employing the taxes which they raised upon its wealth for purely +selfish ends. When the line of the Visconti ended in the year 1447, +their tyranny was continued by Francesco Sforza, the son of a poor +soldier of adventure, who had raised himself by his military genius, +and had married Bianca, the illegitimate daughter of the last +Visconti. On the death of Francesco Sforza in 1466, he left two sons, +Galeazzo Maria and Lodovico, surnamed Il Moro, both of whom were +destined to play a prominent part in history. Galeazzo Maria, +dissolute, vicious, and cruel to the core, was murdered by his injured +subjects in the year 1476. His son, Giovanni Galeazzo, aged eight, +would in course of time have succeeded to the Duchy, had it not been +for the ambition of his uncle Lodovico. Lodovico contrived to name +himself as Regent for his nephew, whom he kept, long after he had come +of age, in a kind of honourable prison. Virtual master in Milan, but +without a legal title to the throne, unrecognised in his authority by +the Italian powers, and holding it from day to day by craft and fraud, +Lodovico at last found his situation untenable; and it was this +difficulty of an usurper to maintain himself in his despotism which, +as we shall see, brought the French into Italy.</p> + +<p>Venice, the neighbour and constant foe of Milan, had become a close +oligarchy by a process of gradual constitutional development, which +threw her government into the hands of a few nobles. She was +practically ruled by the hereditary members of the Grand Council. Ever +since the year 1453, when Constantinople fell beneath the Turk, the +Venetians had been more and more straitened in their Oriental +commerce, and were thrown back upon the policy of territorial +aggrandisement in Italy, from which they had hitherto refrained as +alien to the temperament of the Republic. At the end of the fifteenth +century Venice therefore became an object of envy and terror to the +Italian States. They envied her because she alone was tranquil, +wealthy, powerful, and free. They feared her because they had good +reason to suspect her of encroachment; and it was foreseen that if she +got the upper hand in Italy, all Italy would be the property of the +families inscribed upon the Golden Book. It was thus alone that the +Italians comprehended government. The principle of representation +being utterly unknown, and the privileged burghers in each city being +regarded as absolute and lawful owners of the city and of everything +belonging to it, the conquest of a town by a republic implied the +political extinction of that town and the disfranchisement of its +inhabitants in favour of the conquerors.</p> + +<p>Florence at this epoch still called itself a Republic; and of all +Italian commonwealths it was by far the most democratic. Its history, +unlike that of Venice, had been the history of continual and brusque +changes, resulting in the destruction of the old nobility, in the +equalisation of the burghers, and in the formation of a new +aristocracy of wealth. Prom this class of <i>bourgeois</i> nobles sprang +the Medici, who, by careful manipulation of the State machinery, by +the creation of a powerful party devoted to their interests, by +flattery of the people, by corruption, by taxation, and by constant +scheming, raised themselves to the first place in the commonwealth, +and became its virtual masters. In the year 1492 Lorenzo de' Medici, +the most remarkable chief of this despotic family, died, bequeathing +his supremacy in the Republic to a son of marked incompetence.</p> + +<p>Since the Pontificate of Nicholas V. the See of Rome had entered upon +a new period of existence. The Popes no longer dreaded to reside in +Rome, but were bent upon making the metropolis of Christendom both +splendid as a seat of art and learning, and also potent as the capital +of a secular kingdom. Though their fiefs in Romagna and the March were +still held but loosely, though their provinces swarmed with petty +despots who defied the Papal authority, and though the princely Roman +houses of Colonna and Orsini were still strong enough to terrorise the +Holy Father in the Vatican, it was now clear that the Papal See must +in the end get the better of its adversaries, and consolidate itself +into a first-rate Power. The internal spirit of the Papacy at this +time corresponded to its external policy. It was thoroughly +secularised by a series of worldly and vicious pontiffs, who had clean +forgotten what their title, Vicar of Christ, implied. They +consistently used their religious prestige to enforce their secular +authority, while by their temporal power they caused their religious +claims to be respected. Corrupt and shameless, they indulged +themselves in every vice, openly acknowledged their children, and +turned Italy upside down in order to establish favourites and bastards +in the principalities they seized as spoils of war.</p> + +<p>The kingdom of Naples differed from any other state of Italy. Subject +continually to foreign rulers since the decay of the Greek Empire, +governed in succession by the Normans, the Hohenstauffens, and the +House of Anjou, it had never enjoyed the real independence, or the +free institutions, of the northern provinces; nor had it been +Italianised in the same sense as the rest of the peninsula. Despotism, +which assumed so many forms in Italy, was here neither the tyranny of +a noble house, nor the masked autocracy of a burgher, nor yet the +forceful sway of a condottiere. It had a dynastic character, +resembling the monarchy of one of the great European nations, but +modified by the peculiar conditions of Italian statecraft. Owing to +this dynastic and monarchical complexion of the Neapolitan kingdom, +semi-feudal customs flourished in the south far more than in the north +of Italy. The barons were more powerful; and the destinies of the +Regno often turned upon their feuds and quarrels with the Crown. At +the same time the Neapolitan despots shared the uneasy circumstances +of all Italian potentates, owing to the uncertainty of their tenure, +both as conquerors and aliens, and also as the nominal vassals of the +Holy See. The rights of suzerainty which the Normans had yielded to +the Papacy over their southern conquests, and which the Popes had +arbitrarily exercised in favour of the Angevine princes, proved a +constant source of peril to the rest of Italy by rendering the +succession to the crown of Naples doubtful. On the extinction of the +Angevine line, however, the throne was occupied by a prince who had no +valid title but that of the sword to its possession. Alfonso of Aragon +conquered Naples in 1442, and neglecting his hereditary dominion, +settled in his Italian capital. Possessed with the enthusiasm for +literature which was then the ruling passion of the Italians, and very +liberal to men of learning, Alfonso won for himself the surname of +Magnanimous. On his death, in 1458, he bequeathed his Spanish +kingdom, together with Sicily and Sardinia, to his brother, and left +the fruits of his Italian conquest to his bastard, Ferdinand. This +Ferdinand, whose birth was buried in profound obscurity, was the +reigning sovereign in the year 1492. Of a cruel and sombre +temperament, traitorous and tyrannical, Ferdinand was hated by his +subjects as much as Alfonso had been loved. He possessed, however, to +a remarkable degree, the qualities which at that epoch constituted a +consummate statesman; and though the history of his reign is the +history of plots and conspiracies, of judicial murders and forcible +assassinations, of famines produced by iniquitous taxation, and of +every kind of diabolical tyranny, Ferdinand contrived to hold his own, +in the teeth of a rebellious baronage or a maddened population. His +political sagacity amounted almost to a prophetic instinct in the last +years of his life, when he became aware that the old order was +breaking up in Italy, and had cause to dread that Charles VIII. of +France would prove his title to the kingdom of Naples by force of +arms.<a name="FNanchor_13_13" id="FNanchor_13_13" /></a><a href="#Footnote_13_13" class="fnanchor">[13]</a></p> + +<p>Such were the component parts of the Italian body politic, with the +addition of numerous petty principalities and powers, adhering more or +less consistently to one or other of the greater States. The whole +complex machine was bound together by no sense of common interest, +animated by no common purpose, amenable to no central authority. Even +such community of feeling as one spoken language gives, was lacking. +And yet Italy distinguished herself clearly from the rest of Europe, +not merely as a geographical fact, but also as a people intellectually +and spiritually one. The rapid rise of humanism had aided in producing +this national self-consciousness. Every State and every city was +absorbed in the recovery of culture and in the development of art and +literature. Far in advance of the other European nations, the Italians +regarded the rest of the world as barbarous, priding themselves the +while, in spite of mutual jealousies and hatreds, on their Italic +civilisation. They were enormously wealthy. The resources of the Papal +treasury, the private fortunes of the Florentine bankers, the riches +of the Venetian merchants might have purchased all that France or +Germany possessed of value. The single Duchy of Milan yielded to its +masters 700,000 golden florins of revenue, according to the +computation of De Comines. In default of a confederative system, the +several States were held in equilibrium by diplomacy. By far the most +important people, next to the despots and the captains of adventure, +were ambassadors and orators. War itself had become a matter of +arrangement, bargain, and diplomacy. The game of stratagem was played +by generals who had been friends yesterday and might be friends again +to-morrow, with troops who felt no loyalty whatever for the standards +under which they listed. To avoid slaughter and to achieve the ends of +warfare by parade and demonstration was the interest of every one +concerned. Looking back upon Italy of the fifteenth century, taking +account of her religious deadness and moral corruption, estimating the +absence of political vigour in the republics and the noxious tyranny +of the despots, analysing her lack of national spirit, and comparing +her splendid life of cultivated ease with the want of martial energy, +we can see but too plainly that contact with a simpler and stronger +people could not but produce a terrible catastrophe. The Italians +themselves, however, were far from comprehending this. Centuries of +undisturbed internal intrigue had accustomed them to play the game of +forfeits with each other, and nothing warned them that the time was +come at which diplomacy, finesse, and craft would stand them in ill +stead against rapacious conquerors.</p> + +<p>The storm which began to gather over Italy in the year 1492 had its +first beginning in the North. Lodovico Sforza's position in the Duchy +of Milan was becoming every day more difficult, when a slight and to +all appearances insignificant incident converted his apprehension of +danger into panic. It was customary for the States of Italy to +congratulate a new Pope on his election by their ambassadors; and this +ceremony had now to be performed for Roderigo Borgia. Lodovico +proposed that his envoys should go to Rome together with those of +Venice, Naples, and Florence; but Piero de' Medici, whose vanity made +him wish to send an embassy in his own name, contrived that Lodovico's +proposal should be rejected both by Florence and the King of Naples. +So strained was the situation of Italian affairs that Lodovico saw in +this repulse a menace to his own usurped authority. Feeling himself +isolated among the princes of his country, rebuffed by the Medici, and +coldly treated by the King of Naples, he turned in his anxiety to +France, and advised the young king, Charles VIII., to make good his +claim upon the Regno. It was a bold move to bring the foreigner thus +into Italy; and even Lodovico, who prided himself upon his sagacity, +could not see how things would end. He thought his situation so +hazardous, however, that any change must be for the better. Moreover, +a French invasion of Naples would tie the hands of his natural foe, +King Ferdinand, whose granddaughter, Isabella of Aragon, had married +Giovanni Galeazzo Sforza, and was now the rightful Duchess of Milan. +When the Florentine ambassador at Milan asked him how he had the +courage to expose Italy to such peril, his reply betrayed the egotism +of his policy: 'You talk to me of Italy; but when have I looked Italy +in the face? No one ever gave a thought to my affairs. I have, +therefore, had to give them such security as I could.'</p> + +<p>Charles VIII. was young, light-brained, romantic, and ruled by +<i>parvenus</i>, who had an interest in disturbing the old order of the +monarchy. He lent a willing ear to Lodovico's invitation, backed as +this was by the eloquence and passion of numerous Italian refugees and +exiles. Against the advice of his more prudent counsellors, he taxed +all the resources of his kingdom, and concluded treaties on +disadvantageous terms with England, Germany, and Spain, in order that +he might be able to concentrate all his attention upon the Italian +expedition. At the end of the year 1493, it was known that the +invasion was resolved upon. Gentile Becchi, the Florentine envoy at +the Court of France, wrote to Piero de' Medici: 'If the King succeeds, +it is all over with Italy—<i>tutta a bordello.</i>' The extraordinary +selfishness of the several Italian States at this critical moment +deserves to be noticed. The Venetians, as Paolo Antonio Soderini +described them to Piero de' Medici, 'are of opinion that to keep +quiet, and to see other potentates of Italy spending and suffering, +cannot but be to their advantage. They trust no one, and feel sure +they have enough money to be able at any moment to raise sufficient +troops, and so to guide events according to their inclinations.' As +the invasion was directed against Naples, Ferdinand of Aragon +displayed the acutest sense of the situation. 'Frenchmen,' he +exclaimed, in what appears like a prophetic passion when contrasted +with the cold indifference of others no less really menaced, 'have +never come into Italy without inflicting ruin; and this invasion, if +rightly considered, cannot but bring universal ruin, although it seems +to menace us alone.' In his agony Ferdinand applied to Alexander VI. +But the Pope looked coldly upon him, because the King of Naples, with +rare perspicacity, had predicted that his elevation to the Papacy +would prove disastrous to Christendom. Alexander preferred to ally +himself with Venice and Milan. Upon this Ferdinand wrote as follows: +'It seems fated that the Popes should leave no peace in Italy. We are +compelled to fight; but the Duke of Bari (<i>i.e.</i> Lodovico Sforza) +should think what may ensue from the tumult he is stirring up. He who +raises this wind will not be able to lay the tempest when he likes. +Let him look to the past, and he will see how every time that our +internal quarrels have brought Powers from beyond the Alps into Italy, +these have oppressed and lorded over her.'</p> + +<p>Terribly verified as these words were destined to be,—and they were +no less prophetic in their political sagacity than Savonarola's +prediction of the Sword and bloody Scourge,—it was now too late to +avert the coming ruin. On March 1, 1494, Charles was with his army at +Lyons. Early in September he had crossed the pass of Mont Genêvre and +taken up his quarters in the town of Asti. There is no need to +describe in detail the holiday march of the French troops through +Lombardy, Tuscany, and Rome, until, without having struck a blow of +consequence, the gates of Naples opened to receive the conqueror upon +February 22, 1495. Philippe de Comines, who parted from the King at +Asti and passed the winter as his envoy at Venice, has more than once +recorded his belief that nothing but the direct interposition of +Providence could have brought so mad an expedition to so successful a +conclusion. 'Dieu monstroit conduire l'entreprise,' No sooner, +however, was Charles installed in Naples than the States of Italy +began to combine against him. Lodovico Sforza had availed himself of +the general confusion consequent upon the first appearance of the +French, to poison his nephew. He was, therefore, now the titular, as +well as virtual, Lord of Milan. So far, he had achieved what he +desired, and had no further need of Charles. The overtures he now made +to the Venetians and the Pope terminated in a League between these +Powers for the expulsion of the French from Italy. Germany and Spain +entered into the same alliance; and De Comines, finding himself +treated with marked coldness by the Signory of Venice, despatched a +courier to warn Charles in Naples of the coming danger. After a stay +of only fifty days in his new capital, the French King hurried +northward. Moving quickly through the Papal States and Tuscany, he +engaged his troops in the passes of the Apennines near Pontremoli, and +on July 5, 1495, took up his quarters in the village of Fornovo. De +Comines reckons that his whole fighting force at this time did not +exceed 9,000 men, with fourteen pieces of artillery. Against him at +the opening of the valley was the army of the League, numbering some +35,000 men, of whom three-fourths were supplied by Venice, the rest by +Lodovico Sforza and the German Emperor. Francesco Gonzaga, Marquis of +Mantua, was the general of the Venetian forces; and on him, therefore, +fell the real responsibility of the battle.</p> + +<p>De Comines remarks on the imprudence of the allies, who allowed +Charles to advance as far as Fornovo, when it was their obvious policy +to have established themselves in the village and so have caught the +French troops in a trap. It was a Sunday when the French marched down +upon Fornovo. Before them spread the plain of Lombardy, and beyond it +the white crests of the Alps. 'We were,' says De Comines, 'in a valley +between two little mountain flanks, and in that valley ran a river +which could easily be forded on foot, except when it is swelled with +sudden rains. The whole valley was a bed of gravel and big stones, +very difficult for horses, about a quarter of a league in breadth, and +on the right bank lodged our enemies.' Any one who has visited Fornovo +can understand the situation of the two armies. Charles occupied the +village on the right bank of the Taro. On the same bank, extending +downward toward the plain, lay the host of the allies; and in order +that Charles should escape them, it was necessary that he should cross +the Taro, just below its junction with the Ceno, and reach Lombardy by +marching in a parallel line with his foes.</p> + +<p>All through the night of Sunday it thundered and rained incessantly; +so that on the Monday morning the Taro was considerably swollen. At +seven o'clock the King sent for De Comines, who found him already +armed and mounted on the finest horse he had ever seen. The name of +this charger was <i>Savoy</i>. He was black, one-eyed, and of middling +height; and to his great courage, as we shall see, Charles owed life +upon that day. The French army, ready for the march, now took to the +gravelly bed of the Taro, passing the river at a distance of about a +quarter of a league from the allies. As the French left Fornovo, the +light cavalry of their enemies entered the village and began to attack +the baggage. At the same time the Marquis of Mantua, with the flower +of his men-at-arms, crossed the Taro and harassed the rear of the +French host; while raids from the right bank to the left were +constantly being made by sharpshooters and flying squadrons. 'At this +moment,' says De Comines, 'not a single man of us could have escaped +if our ranks had once been broken.' The French army was divided into +three main bodies. The vanguard consisted of some 350 men-at-arms, +3000 Switzers, 300 archers of the Guard, a few mounted crossbow-men, +and the artillery. Next came the Battle, and after this the rearguard. +At the time when the Marquis of Mantua made his attack, the French +rearguard had not yet crossed the river. Charles quitted the van, put +himself at the head of his chivalry, and charged the Italian horsemen, +driving them back, some to the village and others to their camp. De +Comines observes, that had the Italian knights been supported in this +passage of arms by the light cavalry of the Venetian force, called +Stradiots, the French must have been outnumbered, thrown into +confusion, and defeated. As it was, these Stradiots were engaged in +plundering the baggage of the French; and the Italians, accustomed to +bloodless encounters, did not venture, in spite of their immense +superiority of numbers, to renew the charge. In the pursuit of +Gonzaga's horsemen Charles outstripped his staff, and was left almost +alone to grapple with a little band of mounted foemen. It was here +that his noble horse, Savoy, saved his person by plunging and charging +till assistance came up from the French, and enabled the King to +regain his van.</p> + +<p>It is incredible, considering the nature of the ground and the number +of the troops engaged, that the allies should not have returned to the +attack and have made the passage of the French into the plain +impossible. De Comines, however, assures us that the actual engagement +only lasted a quarter of an hour, and the pursuit of the Italians +three quarters of an hour. After they had once resolved to fly, they +threw away their lances and betook themselves to Reggio and Parma. So +complete was their discomfiture, that De Comines gravely blames the +want of military genius and adventure in the French host. If, instead +of advancing along the left bank of the Taro and there taking up his +quarters for the night, Charles had recrossed the stream and pursued +the army of the allies, he would have had the whole of Lombardy at his +discretion. As it was, the French army encamped not far from the scene +of the action in great discomfort and anxiety. De Comines had to +bivouac in a vineyard, without even a mantle to wrap round him, having +lent his cloak to the King in the morning; and as it had been pouring +all day, the ground could not have afforded very luxurious quarters. +The same extraordinary luck which had attended the French in their +whole expedition, now favoured their retreat; and the same +pusillanimity which the allies had shown at Fornovo, prevented them +from re-forming and engaging with the army of Charles upon the plain. +One hour before daybreak on Tuesday morning, the French broke up their +camp and succeeded in clearing the valley. That night they lodged at +Fiorenzuola, the next at Piacenza, and so on; till on the eighth day +they arrived at Asti without having been so much as incommoded by the +army of the allies in their rear.</p> + +<p>Although the field of Fornovo was in reality so disgraceful to the +Italians, they reckoned it a victory upon the technical pretence that +the camp and baggage of the French had been seized. Illuminations and +rejoicings made the piazza of S. Mark in Venice gay, and Francesco da +Gonzaga had the glorious Madonna della Vittoria painted for him by +Mantegna, in commemoration of what ought only to have been remembered +with shame.</p> + +<p>A fitting conclusion to this sketch, connecting its close with the +commencement, may be found in some remarks upon the manner of warfare +to which the Italians of the Renaissance had become accustomed, and +which proved so futile on the field of Fornovo. During the middle +ages, and in the days of the Communes, the whole male population of +Italy had fought light-armed on foot. Merchant and artisan left the +counting-house and the workshop, took shield and pike, and sallied +forth to attack the barons in their castles, or to meet the Emperor's +troops upon the field. It was with this national militia that the +citizens of Florence freed their <i>Contado</i> of the nobles, and the +burghers of Lombardy gained the battle of Legnano. In course of time, +by a process of change which it is not very easy to trace, heavily +armed cavalry began to take the place of infantry in mediæval warfare. +Men-at-arms, as they were called, encased from head to foot in iron, +and mounted upon chargers no less solidly caparisoned, drove the +foot-soldiers before them at the points of their long lances. Nowhere +in Italy do they seem to have met with the fierce resistance which the +bears of the Swiss Oberland and the bulls of Uri offered to the +knights of Burgundy. No Tuscan Arnold von Winkelried clasped a dozen +lances to his bosom that the foeman's ranks might thus be broken at +the cost of his own life; nor did it occur to the Italian burghers to +meet the charge of the horsemen with squares protected by bristling +spears. They seem, on the contrary, to have abandoned military service +with the readiness of men whose energies were already absorbed in the +affairs of peace. To become a practised and efficient man-at-arms +required long training and a life's devotion. So much time the +burghers of the free towns could not spare to military service, while +the petty nobles were only too glad to devote themselves to so +honourable a calling. Thus it came to pass that a class of +professional fighting-men was gradually formed in Italy, whose +services the burghers and the princes bought, and by whom the wars of +the peninsula were regularly farmed by contract. Wealth and luxury in +the great cities continued to increase; and as the burghers grew more +comfortable, they were less inclined to take the field in their own +persons, and more disposed to vote large sums of money for the +purchase of necessary aid. At the same time this system suited the +despots, since it spared them the peril of arming their own subjects, +while they taxed them to pay the services of foreign captains. War +thus became a commerce. Romagna, the Marches of Ancona, and other +parts of the Papal dominions, supplied a number of petty nobles whose +whole business in life it was to form companies of trained horsemen, +and with these bands to hire themselves out to the republics and the +despots. Gain was the sole purpose of these captains. They sold their +service to the highest bidder, fighting irrespectively of principle or +patriotism, and passing with the coldest equanimity from the camp of +one master to that of his worst foe. It was impossible that true +military spirit should survive this prostitution of the art of war. A +species of mock warfare prevailed in Italy. Battles were fought with a +view to booty more than victory; prisoners were taken for the sake of +ransom; bloodshed was carefully avoided, for the men who fought on +either side in any pitched field had been comrades with their present +foemen in the last encounter, and who could tell how soon the general +of the one host might not need his rival's troops to recruit his own +ranks? Like every genuine institution of the Italian Renaissance, +warfare was thus a work of fine art, a masterpiece of intellectual +subtlety; and like the Renaissance itself, this peculiar form of +warfare was essentially transitional. The cannon and the musket were +already in use; and it only required one blast of gunpowder to turn +the sham-fight of courtly, traitorous, finessing captains of adventure +into something terribly more real. To men like the Marquis of Mantua +war had been a highly profitable game of skill; to men like the +Maréchal de Gié it was a murderous horseplay; and this difference the +Italians were not slow to perceive. When they cast away their lances +at Fornovo, and fled—in spite of their superior numbers—never to +return, one fair-seeming sham of the fifteenth century became a vision +of the past.</p> +<h5><a href="#CONTENTS">CONTENTS</a></h5> +<br /><br /> +<hr style="width: 100%;" /> + + + +<h2><a name="FLORENCE_AND_THE_MEDICI" id="FLORENCE_AND_THE_MEDICI" /><i>FLORENCE AND THE MEDICI</i></a></h2> +<hr style="width: 100%;" /><br /> +<div class="blockquot"><p>Di Firenze in prima si divisono intra loro i nobili, dipoi i + nobili e il popolo, e in ultimo il popolo e la plebe; e + molte volte occorse che una di queste parti rimasa + superiore, si divise in due.—MACHIAVELLI.</p></div> +<br /> + +<p>I</p> + +<p>Florence, like all Italian cities, owed her independence to the duel +of the Papacy and Empire. The transference of the imperial authority +beyond the Alps had enabled the burghs of Lombardy and Tuscany to +establish a form of self-government. This government was based upon +the old municipal organisation of duumvirs and decemvirs. It was, in +fact, nothing more or less than a survival from the ancient Roman +system. The proof of this was, that while vindicating their rights as +towns, the free cities never questioned the validity of the imperial +title. Even after the peace of Constance in 1183, when Frederick +Barbarossa acknowledged their autonomy, they received within their +walls a supreme magistrate, with power of life and death and ultimate +appeal in all decisive questions, whose title of Potestà indicated +that he represented the imperial power—Potestas. It was not by the +assertion of any right, so much as by the growth of custom, and by the +weakness of the Emperors, that in course of time each city became a +sovereign State. The theoretical supremacy of the Empire prevented any +other authority from taking the first place in Italy. On the other +hand, the practical inefficiency of the Emperors to play their part +encouraged the establishment of numerous minor powers amenable to no +controlling discipline.</p> + +<p>The free cities derived their strength from industry, and had nothing +in common with the nobles of the surrounding country. Broadly +speaking, the population of the towns included what remained in Italy +of the old Roman people. This Roman stock was nowhere stronger than in +Florence and Venice—Florence defended from barbarian incursions by +her mountains and marshes, Venice by the isolation of her lagoons. The +nobles, on the contrary, were mostly of foreign origin—Germans, +Franks, and Lombards, who had established themselves as feudal lords +in castles apart from the cities. The force which the burghs acquired +as industrial communities was soon turned against these nobles. The +larger cities, like Milan and Florence, began to make war upon the +lords of castles, and to absorb into their own territory the small +towns and villages around them. Thus in the social economy of the +Italians there were two antagonistic elements ready to range +themselves beneath any banners that should give the form of legitimate +warfare to their mutual hostility. It was the policy of the Church in +the twelfth century to support the cause of the cities, using them as +a weapon against the Empire, and stimulating the growing ambition of +the burghers. In this way Italy came to be divided into the two +world-famous factions known as Guelf and Ghibelline. The struggle +between Guelf and Ghibelline was the struggle of the Papacy for the +depression of the Empire, the struggle of the great burghs face to +face with feudalism, the struggle of the old Italie stock enclosed in +cities with the foreign nobles established in fortresses. When the +Church had finally triumphed by the extirpation of the House of +Hohenstaufen, this conflict of Guelf and Ghibelline was really ended. +Until the reign of Charles V. no Emperor interfered to any purpose in +Italian affairs. At the same time the Popes ceased to wield a +formidable power. Having won the battle by calling in the French, they +suffered the consequences of this policy by losing their hold on Italy +during the long period of their exile at Avignon. The Italians, left +without either Pope or Emperor, were free to pursue their course of +internal development, and to prosecute their quarrels among +themselves. But though the names of Guelf and Ghibelline lost their +old significance after the year 1266 (the date of King Manfred's +death), these two factions had so divided Italy that they continued to +play a prominent part in her annals. Guelf still meant constitutional +autonomy, meant the burgher as against the noble, meant industry as +opposed to feudal lordship. Ghibelline meant the rule of the few over +the many, meant tyranny, meant the interest of the noble as against +the merchant and the citizen. These broad distinctions must be borne +in mind, if we seek to understand how it was that a city like Florence +continued to be governed by parties, the European force of which had +passed away.</p> + + +<p>II</p> + + +<p>Florence first rose into importance during the papacy of Innocent III. +Up to this date she had been a town of second-rate distinction even in +Tuscany. Pisa was more powerful by arms and commerce. Lucca was the +old seat of the dukes and marquises of Tuscany. But between the years +1200 and 1250 Florence assumed the place she was to hold +thenceforward, by heading the league of Tuscan cities formed to +support the Guelf party against the Ghibellines. Formally adopting the +Guelf cause, the Florentines made themselves the champions of +municipal liberty in Central Italy; and while they declared war +against the Ghibelline cities, they endeavoured to stamp out the very +name of noble in their State. It is not needful to describe the +varying fortunes of the Guelfs and Ghibellines, the burghers and the +nobles, during the thirteenth and the first half of the fourteenth +centuries. Suffice it to say that through all the vicissitudes of that +stormy period the name Guelf became more and more associated with +republican freedom in Florence. At last, after the final triumph of +that party in 1253, the Guelfs remained victors in the city. +Associating the glory of their independence with Guelf principles, the +citizens of Florence perpetuated within their State a faction that, in +its turn, was destined to prove perilous to liberty.</p> + +<p>When it became clear that the republic was to rule itself henceforth +untrammelled by imperial interference, the people divided themselves +into six districts, and chose for each district two Ancients, who +administered the government in concert with the Potestà and the +Captain of the People. The Ancients were a relic of the old Roman +municipal organisation. The Potestà who was invariably a noble +foreigner selected by the people, represented the extinct imperial +right, and exercised the power of life and death within the city. The +Captain of the People, who was also a foreigner, headed the burghers +in their military capacity, for at that period the troops were levied +from the citizens themselves in twenty companies. The body of the +citizens, or the <i>popolo</i>, were ultimately sovereigns in the State. +Assembled under the banners of their several companies, they formed a +<i>parlamento</i> for delegating their own power to each successive +government. Their representatives, again, arranged in two councils, +called the Council of the People and the Council of the Commune, under +the presidency of the Captain of the People and the Potestà, ratified +the measures which had previously been proposed and carried by the +executive authority or Signoria. Under this simple State system the +Florentines placed themselves at the head of the Tuscan League, fought +the battles of the Church, asserted their sovereignty by issuing the +golden florin of the republic, and flourished until 1266.</p> + + +<p>III</p> + + +<p>In that year an important change was effected in the Constitution. +The whole population of Florence consisted, on the one hand, of nobles +or Grandi, as they were called in Tuscany, and on the other hand of +working people. The latter, divided into traders and handicraftsmen, +were distributed in guilds called Arti; and at that time there were +seven Greater and five Lesser Arti, the most influential of all being +the Guild of the Wool Merchants. These guilds had their halls for +meeting, their colleges of chief officers, their heads, called Consoli +or Priors, and their flags. In 1266 it was decided that the +administration of the commonwealth should be placed simply and wholly +in the hands of the Arti, and the Priors of these industrial companies +became the lords or Signory of Florence. No inhabitant of the city who +had not enrolled himself as a craftsman in one of the guilds could +exercise any function of burghership. To be <i>scioperato</i>, or without +industry, was to be without power, without rank or place of honour in +the State. The revolution which placed the Arts at the head of the +republic had the practical effect of excluding the Grandi altogether +from the government. Violent efforts were made by these noble +families, potent through their territorial possessions and foreign +connections, and trained from boyhood in the use of arms, to recover +the place from which the new laws thrust them: but their menacing +attitude, instead of intimidating the burghers, roused their anger and +drove them to the passing of still more stringent laws. In 1293, after +the Ghibellines had been defeated in the great battle of Campaldino, a +series of severe enactments, called the Ordinances of Justice, were +decreed against the unruly Grandi. All civic rights were taken from +them; the severest penalties were attached to their slightest +infringement of municipal law; their titles to land were limited; the +privilege of living within the city walls was allowed them only under +galling restrictions; and, last not least, a supreme magistrate, named +the Gonfalonier of Justice, was created for the special purpose of +watching them and carrying out the penal code against them. +Henceforward Florence was governed exclusively by merchants and +artisans. The Grandi hastened to enrol themselves in the guilds, +exchanging their former titles and dignities for the solid privilege +of burghership. The exact parallel to this industrial constitution for +a commonwealth, carrying on wars with emperors and princes, holding +haughty captains in its pay, and dictating laws to subject cities, +cannot, I think, be elsewhere found in history. It is as unique as the +Florence of Dante and Giotto is unique. While the people was guarding +itself thus stringently against the Grandi, a separate body was +created for the special purpose of extirpating the Ghibellines. A +permanent committee of vigilance, called the College or the Captains +of the Guelf Party, was established. It was their function to +administer the forfeited possessions of Ghibelline rebels, to hunt out +suspected citizens, to prosecute them for Ghibellinism, to judge them, +and to punish them as traitors to the commonwealth. This body, like a +little State within the State, proved formidable to the republic +itself through the unlimited and undefined sway it exercised over +burghers whom it chose to tax with treason. In course of time it +became the oligarchical element within the Florentine democracy, and +threatened to change the free constitution of the city into a +government conducted by a few powerful families.</p> + +<p>There is no need to dwell in detail on the internal difficulties of +Florence during the first half of the fourteenth century. Two main +circumstances, however, require to be briefly noticed. These are (i) +the contest of the Blacks and Whites, so famous through the part +played in it by Dante; and (ii) the tyranny of the Duke<a name="FNanchor_1_1" id="FNanchor_1_1" /></a><a href="#Footnote_1_1" class="fnanchor">[1]</a> of Athens, +Walter de Brienne. The feuds of the Blacks and Whites broke up the +city into factions, and produced such anarchy that at last it was +found necessary to place the republic under the protection of foreign +potentates. Charles of Valois was first chosen, and after him the Duke +of Athens, who took up his residence in the city. Entrusted with +dictatorial authority, he used his power to form a military despotism. +Though his reign of violence lasted rather less than a year, it bore +important fruits; for the tyrant, seeking to support himself upon the +favour of the common people, gave political power to the Lesser Arts +at the expense of the Greater, and confused the old State-system by +enlarging the democracy. The net result of these events for Florence +was, first, that the city became habituated to rancorous party-strife, +involving exiles and proscriptions; and, secondly, that it lost its +primitive social hierarchy of classes.</p> + + +<p>IV</p> + + +<p>After the Guelfs had conquered the Ghibellines, and the people had +absorbed the Grandi in their guilds, the next chapter in the troubled +history of Florence was the division of the Popolo against itself. +Civil strife now declared itself as a conflict between labour and +capital. The members of the Lesser Arts, craftsmen who plied trades +subordinate to those of the Greater Arts, rose up against their social +and political superiors, demanding a larger share in the government, a +more equal distribution of profits, higher wages, and privileges that +should place them on an absolute equality with the wealthy merchants. +It was in the year 1378 that the proletariate broke out into +rebellion. Previous events had prepared the way for this revolt. First +of all, the republic had been democratised through the destruction of +the Grandi and through the popular policy pursued to gain his own ends +by the Duke of Athens. Secondly, society had been shaken to its very +foundation by the great plague of 1348. Both Boccaccio and Matteo +Villani draw lively pictures of the relaxed morality and loss of order +consequent upon this terrible disaster; nor had thirty years sufficed +to restore their relative position to grades and ranks confounded by +an overwhelming calamity. We may therefore reckon the great plague of +1348 among the causes which produced the anarchy of 1378. Rising in a +mass to claim their privileges, the artisans ejected the Signory from +the Public Palace, and for awhile Florence was at the mercy of the +mob. It is worthy of notice that the Medici, whose name is scarcely +known before this epoch, now came for one moment to the front. +Salvestro de' Medici was Gonfalonier of Justice at the time when the +tumult first broke out. He followed the faction of the handicraftsmen, +and became the hero of the day. I cannot discover that he did more +than extend a sort of passive protection to their cause. Yet there is +no doubt that the attachment of the working classes to the House of +Medici dates from this period. The rebellion of 1378 is known in +Florentine history as the Tumult of the Ciompi. The name Ciompi +strictly means the Wool-Carders. One set of operatives in the city, +and that the largest, gave its title to the whole body of the +labourers. For some months these craftsmen governed the republic, +appointing their own Signory and passing laws in their own interest; +but, as is usual, the proletariate found itself incapable of sustained +government. The ambition and discontent of the Ciompi foamed +themselves away, and industrious working men began to see that trade +was languishing and credit on the wane. By their own act at last they +restored the government to the Priors of the Greater Arti. Still the +movement had not been without grave consequences. It completed the +levelling of classes, which had been steadily advancing from the first +in Florence. After the Ciompi riot there was no longer not only any +distinction between noble and burgher, but the distinction between +greater and lesser guilds was practically swept away. The classes, +parties, and degrees in the republic were so broken up, ground down, +and mingled, that thenceforth the true source of power in the State +was wealth combined with personal ability. In other words, the proper +political conditions had been formed for unscrupulous adventurers. +Florence had become a democracy without social organisation, which +might fall a prey to oligarchs or despots. What remained of deeply +rooted feuds or factions—animosities against the Grandi, hatred for +the Ghibellines, jealousy of labour and capital—offered so many +points of leverage for stirring the passions of the people and for +covering personal ambition with a cloak of public zeal. The time was +come for the Albizzi to attempt an oligarchy, and for the Medici to +begin the enslavement of the State.</p> + + +<p>V</p> + + +<p>The Constitution of Florence offered many points of weakness to the +attacks of such intriguers. In the first place it was in its origin +not a political but an industrial organisation—a simple group of +guilds invested with the sovereign authority. Its two most powerful +engines, the Gonfalonier of Justice and the Guelf College, had been +formed, not with a view to the preservation of the government, but +with the purpose of quelling the nobles and excluding a detested +faction. It had no permanent head, like the Doge of Venice; no fixed +senate like the Venetian Grand Council; its chief magistrates, the +Signory, were elected for short periods of two months, and their mode +of election was open to the gravest criticism. Supposed to be chosen +by lot, they were really selected from lists drawn up by the factions +in power from time to time. These factions contrived to exclude the +names of all but their adherents from the bags, or <i>borse</i>, in which +the burghers eligible for election had to be inscribed. Furthermore, +it was not possible for this shifting Signory to conduct affairs +requiring sustained effort and secret deliberation; therefore recourse +was being continually had to dictatorial Commissions. The people, +summoned in parliament upon the Great Square, were asked to confer +plenipotentiary authority upon a committee called <i>Balia</i>, who +proceeded to do what they chose in the State, and who retained power +after the emergency for which they were created passed away. The same +instability in the supreme magistracy led to the appointment of +special commissioners for war, and special councils, or <i>Pratiche</i>, +for the management of each department. Such supplementary commissions +not only proved the weakness of the central authority, but they were +always liable to be made the instruments of party warfare. The Guelf +College was another and a different source of danger to the State. Not +acting under the control of the Signory, but using its own initiative, +this powerful body could proscribe and punish burghers on the mere +suspicion of Ghibellinism. Though the Ghibelline faction had become an +empty name, the Guelf College excluded from the franchise all and +every whom they chose on any pretext to admonish. Under this mild +phrase, <i>to admonish</i>, was concealed a cruel exercise of tyranny—it +meant to warn a man that he was suspected of treason, and that he had +better relinquish the exercise of his burghership. By free use of this +engine of Admonition, the Guelf College rendered their enemies +voiceless in the State, and were able to pack the Signory and the +councils with their own creatures. Another important defect in the +Florentine Constitution was the method of imposing taxes. This was +done by no regular system. The party in power made what estimate it +chose of a man's capacity to bear taxation, and called upon him for +extraordinary loans. In this way citizens were frequently driven into +bankruptcy and exile; and since to be a debtor to the State deprived a +burgher of his civic rights, severe taxation was one of the best ways +of silencing and neutralising a dissentient.</p> + +<p>I have enumerated these several causes of weakness in the Florentine +State-system, partly because they show how irregularly the +Constitution had been formed by the patching and extension of a simple +industrial machine to suit the needs of a great commonwealth; partly +because it was through these defects that the democracy merged +gradually into a despotism. The art of the Medici consisted in a +scientific comprehension of these very imperfections, a methodic use +of them for their own purposes, and a steady opposition to any +attempts made to substitute a stricter system. The Florentines had +determined to be an industrial community, governing themselves on the +co-operative principle, dividing profits, sharing losses, and exposing +their magistrates to rigid scrutiny. All this in theory was excellent. +Had they remained an unambitious and peaceful commonwealth, engaged in +the wool and silk trade, it might have answered. Modern Europe might +have admired the model of a communistic and commercial democracy. But +when they engaged in aggressive wars, and sought to enslave +sister-cities like Pisa and Lucca, it was soon found that their simple +trading constitution would not serve. They had to piece it out with +subordinate machinery, cumbrous, difficult to manage, ill-adapted to +the original structure. Each limb of this subordinate machinery, +moreover, was a <i>point d'appui</i> for insidious and self-seeking party +leaders.</p> + +<p>Florence, in the middle of the fourteenth century, was a vast beehive +of industry. Distinctions of rank among burghers, qualified to vote +and hold office, were theoretically unknown. Highly educated men, of +more than princely wealth, spent their time in shops and +counting-houses, and trained their sons to follow trades. Military +service at this period was abandoned by the citizens; they preferred +to pay mercenary troops for the conduct of their wars. Nor was there, +as in Venice, any outlet for their energies upon the seas. Florence +had no navy, no great port—she only kept a small fleet for the +protection of her commerce. Thus the vigour of the commonwealth was +concentrated on itself; while the influence of the citizens, through +their affiliated trading-houses, correspondents, and agents, extended +like a network over Europe. In a community of this kind it was natural +that wealth—rank and titles being absent—should alone confer +distinction. Accordingly we find that out of the very bosom of the +people a new plutocratic aristocracy begins to rise. The Grandi are +no more; but certain families achieve distinction by their riches, +their numbers, their high spirit, and their ancient place of honour in +the State. These nobles of the purse obtained the name of <i>Popolani +Nobili</i>; and it was they who now began to play at high stakes for the +supreme power. In all the subsequent vicissitudes of Florence every +change takes place by intrigue and by clever manipulation of the +political machine. Recourse is rarely had to violence of any kind, and +the leaders of revolutions are men of the yard-measure, never of the +sword. The despotism to which the republic eventually succumbed was no +less commercial than the democracy had been. Florence in the days of +her slavery remained a <i>Popolo</i>.</p> + + +<p>VI</p> + + +<p>The opening of the second half of the fourteenth century had been +signalised by the feuds of two great houses, both risen from the +people. These were the Albizzi and the Ricci. At this epoch there had +been a formal closing of the lists of burghers;—henceforth no new +families who might settle in the city could claim the franchise, vote +in the assemblies, or hold magistracies. The Guelf College used their +old engine of admonition to persecute <i>novi homines</i>, whom they +dreaded as opponents. At the head of this formidable organisation the +Albizzi placed themselves, and worked it with such skill that they +succeeded in driving the Ricci out of all participation in the +government. The tumult of the Ciompi formed but an episode in their +career toward oligarchy; indeed, that revolution only rendered the +political material of the Florentine republic more plastic in the +hands of intriguers, by removing the last vestiges of class +distinctions and by confusing the old parties of the State.</p> + +<p>When the Florentines in 1387 engaged in their long duel with Gian +Galeazzo Visconti, the difficulty of conducting this war without some +permanent central authority still further confirmed the power of the +rising oligarchs. The Albizzi became daily more autocratic, until in +1393 their chief, Maso degli Albizzi, a man of strong will and prudent +policy, was chosen Gonfalonier of Justice. Assuming the sway of a +dictator he revised the list of burghers capable of holding office, +struck out the private opponents of his house, and excluded all names +but those of powerful families who were well affected towards an +aristocratic government. The great house of the Alberti were exiled in +a body, declared rebels, and deprived of their possessions, for no +reason except that they seemed dangerous to the Albizzi. It was in +vain that the people murmured against these arbitrary acts. The new +rulers were omnipotent in the Signory, which they packed with their +own men, in the great guilds, and in the Guelf College. All the +machinery invented by the industrial community for its self-management +and self-defence was controlled and manipulated by a close body of +aristocrats, with the Albizzi at their head. It seemed as though +Florence, without any visible alteration in her forms of government, +was rapidly becoming an oligarchy even less open than the Venetian +republic. Meanwhile the affairs of the State were most flourishing. +The strong-handed masters of the city not only held the Duke of Milan +in check, and prevented him from turning Italy into a kingdom; they +furthermore acquired the cities of Pisa, Livorno, Arezzo, +Montepulciano, and Cortona, for Florence, making her the mistress of +all Tuscany, with the exception of Siena, Lucca, and Volterra. Maso +degli Albizzi was the ruling spirit of the commonwealth, spending the +enormous sum of 11,500,000 golden florins on war, raising sumptuous +edifices, protecting the arts, and acting in general like a powerful +and irresponsible prince.</p> + +<p>In spite of public prosperity there were signs, however, that this +rule of a few families could not last. Their government was only +maintained by continual revision of the lists of burghers, by +elimination of the disaffected, and by unremitting personal industry. +They introduced no new machinery into the Constitution whereby the +people might be deprived of its titular sovereignty, or their own +dictatorship might be continued with a semblance of legality. Again, +they neglected to win over the new nobles (<i>nobili popolani</i>) in a +body to their cause; and thus they were surrounded by rivals ready to +spring upon them when a false step should be made. The Albizzi +oligarchy was a masterpiece of art, without any force to sustain it +but the craft and energy of its constructors. It had not grown up, +like the Venetian oligarchy, by the gradual assimilation to itself of +all the vigour in the State. It was bound, sooner or later, to yield +to the renascent impulse of democracy inherent in Florentine +institutions.</p> + + +<p>VII</p> + + +<p>Maso degli Albizzi died in 1417. He was succeeded in the government by +his old friend, Niccolo da Uzzano, a man of great eloquence and +wisdom, whose single word swayed the councils of the people as he +listed. Together with him acted Maso's son, Rinaldo, a youth of even +more brilliant talents than his father, frank, noble, and +high-spirited, but far less cautious.</p> + +<p>The oligarchy, which these two men undertook to manage, had +accumulated against itself the discontent of overtaxed, disfranchised, +jealous burghers. The times, too, were bad. Pursuing the policy of +Maso, the Albizzi engaged the city in a tedious and unsuccessful war +with Filippo Maria Visconti, which cost 350,000 golden florins, and +brought no credit. In order to meet extraordinary expenses they raised +new public loans, thereby depreciating the value of the old Florentine +funds. What was worse, they imposed forced subsidies with grievous +inequality upon the burghers, passing over their friends and +adherents, and burdening their opponents with more than could be +borne. This imprudent financial policy began the ruin of the Albizzi. +It caused a clamour in the city for a new system of more just +taxation, which was too powerful to be resisted. The voice of the +people made itself loudly heard; and with the people on this occasion +sided Giovanni de' Medici. This was in 1427.</p> + +<p>It is here that the Medici appear upon that memorable scene where in +the future they are to play the first part. Giovanni de' Medici did +not belong to the same branch of his family as the Salvestro who +favoured the people at the time of the Ciompi Tumult. But he adopted +the same popular policy. To his sons Cosimo and Lorenzo he bequeathed +on his deathbed the rule that they should invariably adhere to the +cause of the multitude, found their influence on that, and avoid the +arts of factious and ambitious leaders. In his own life he had pursued +this course of conduct, acquiring a reputation for civic moderation +and impartiality that endeared him to the people and stood his +children in good stead. Early in his youth Giovanni found himself +almost destitute by reason of the imposts charged upon him by the +oligarchs. He possessed, however, the genius for money-making to a +rare degree, and passed his manhood as a banker, amassing the largest +fortune of any private citizen in Italy. In his old age he devoted +himself to the organisation of his colossal trading business, and +abstained, as far as possible, from political intrigues. Men observed +that they rarely met him in the Public Palace or on the Great Square.</p> + +<p>Cosimo de' Medici was thirty years old when his father Giovanni died, +in 1429. During his youth he had devoted all his time and energy to +business, mastering the complicated affairs of Giovanni's +banking-house, and travelling far and wide through Europe to extend +its connections. This education made him a consummate financier; and +those who knew him best were convinced that his ambition was set on +great things. However quietly he might begin, it was clear that he +intended to match himself, as a leader of the plebeians, against the +Albizzi. The foundations he prepared for future action were equally +characteristic of the man, of Florence, and of the age. Commanding the +enormous capital of the Medicean bank he contrived, at any sacrifice +of temporary convenience, to lend money to the State for war expenses, +engrossing in his own hands a large portion of the public debt of +Florence. At the same time his agencies in various European capitals +enabled him to keep his own wealth floating far beyond the reach of +foes within the city. A few years of this system ended in so complete +a confusion between Cosimo's trade and the finances of Florence that +the bankruptcy of the Medici, however caused, would have compromised +the credit of the State and the fortunes of the fund-holders. Cosimo, +in a word, made himself necessary to Florence by the wise use of his +riches. Furthermore, he kept his eye upon the list of burghers, +lending money to needy citizens, putting good things in the way of +struggling traders, building up the fortunes of men who were disposed +to favour his party in the State, ruining his opponents by the +legitimate process of commercial competition, and, when occasion +offered, introducing new voters into the Florentine Council by paying +off the debts of those who were disqualified by poverty from using the +franchise. While his capital was continually increasing he lived +frugally, and employed his wealth solely for the consolidation of his +political influence. By these arts Cosimo became formidable to the +oligarchs and beloved by the people. His supporters were numerous, and +held together by the bonds of immediate necessity or personal +cupidity. The plebeians and the merchants were all on his side. The +Grandi and the Ammoniti, excluded from the State by the practices of +the Albizzi, had more to hope from the Medicean party than from the +few families who still contrived to hold the reins of government. It +was clear that a conflict to the death must soon commence between the +oligarchy and this new faction.</p> + + +<p>VIII</p> + + +<p>At last, in 1433, war was declared. The first blow was struck by +Rinaldo degli Albizzi, who put himself in the wrong by attacking a +citizen indispensable to the people at large, and guilty of no +unconstitutional act. On September 7th of that year, a year decisive +for the future destinies of Florence, he summoned Cosimo to the Public +Palace, which he had previously occupied with troops at his command. +There he declared him a rebel to the State, and had him imprisoned in +a little square room in the central tower. The tocsin was sounded; the +people were assembled in parliament upon the piazza. The Albizzi held +the main streets with armed men, and forced the Florentines to place +plenipotentiary power for the administration of the commonwealth at +this crisis in the hands of a Balia, or committee selected by +themselves. It was always thus that acts of high tyranny were effected +in Florence. A show of legality was secured by gaining the compulsory +sanction of the people, driven by soldiery into the public square, and +hastily ordered to recognise the authority of their oppressors.</p> + +<p>The bill of indictment against the Medici accused them of sedition in +the year 1378—that is, in the year of the Ciompi Tumult—and of +treasonable practice during the whole course of the Albizzi +administration. It also strove to fix upon them the odium of the +unsuccessful war against the town of Lucca. As soon as the Albizzi had +unmasked their batteries, Lorenzo de' Medici managed to escape from +the city, and took with him his brother Cosimo's children to Venice. +Cosimo remained shut up within the little room called Barberia in +Arnolfo's tower. From that high eagle's nest the sight can range +Valdarno far and wide. Florence with her towers and domes lies below; +and the blue peaks of Carrara close a prospect westward than which, +with its villa-jewelled slopes and fertile gardens, there is nought +more beautiful upon the face of earth. The prisoner can have paid but +little heed to this fair landscape. He heard the frequent ringing of +the great bell that called the Florentines to council, the tramp of +armed men on the piazza, the coming and going of the burghers in the +palace halls beneath. On all sides lurked anxiety and fear of death. +Each mouthful he tasted might be poisoned. For many days he partook of +only bread and water, till his gaoler restored his confidence by +sharing all his meals. In this peril he abode twenty-four days. The +Albizzi, in concert with the Balia they had formed, were consulting +what they might venture to do with him. Some voted for his execution. +Others feared the popular favour, and thought that if they killed +Cosimo this act would ruin their own power. The nobler natures among +them determined to proceed by constitutional measures. At last, upon +September 29th, it was settled that Cosimo should be exiled to Padua +for ten years. The Medici were declared Grandi, by way of excluding +them from political rights. But their property remained untouched; and +on October 3rd, Cosimo was released.</p> + +<p>On the same day Cosimo took his departure. His journey northward +resembled a triumphant progress. He left Florence a simple burgher; he +entered Venice a powerful prince. Though the Albizzi seemed to have +gained the day, they had really cut away the ground beneath their +feet. They committed the fatal mistake of doing both too much and too +little—too much because they declared war against an innocent man, +and roused the sympathies of the whole people in his behalf; too +little, because they had not the nerve to complete their act by +killing him outright and extirpating his party. Machiavelli, in one of +his profoundest and most cynical critiques, remarks that few men know +how to be thoroughly bad with honour to themselves. Their will is +evil; but the grain of good in them—some fear of public opinion, +some repugnance to committing a signal crime—paralyses their arm at +the moment when it ought to have been raised to strike. He instances +Gian Paolo Baglioni's omission to murder Julius II., when that Pope +placed himself within his clutches at Perugia. He might also have +instanced Rinaldo degli Albizzi's refusal to push things to +extremities by murdering Cosimo. It was the combination of despotic +violence in the exile of Cosimo with constitutional moderation in the +preservation of his life, that betrayed the weakness of the oligarchs +and restored confidence to the Medicean party.</p> + + +<p>IX</p> + + +<p>In the course of the year 1434 this party began to hold up its head. +Powerful as the Albizzi were, they only retained the government by +artifice; and now they had done a deed which put at nought their +former arts and intrigues. A Signory favourable to the Medici came +into office, and on September 26th, 1434, Rinaldo in his turn was +summoned to the palace and declared a rebel. He strove to raise the +forces of his party, and entered the piazza at the head of eight +hundred men. The menacing attitude of the people, however, made +resistance perilous. Rinaldo disbanded his troops, and placed himself +under the protection of Pope Eugenius IV., who was then resident in +Florence. This act of submission proved that Rinaldo had not the +courage or the cruelty to try the chance of civil war. Whatever his +motives may have been, he lost his hold upon the State beyond +recovery. On September 29th, a new parliament was summoned; on October +2nd, Cosimo was recalled from exile and the Albizzi were banished. The +intercession of the Pope procured for them nothing but the liberty to +leave Florence unmolested. Einaldo turned his back upon the city he +had governed, never to set foot in it again. On October 6th, Cosimo, +having passed through Padua, Ferrara, and Modena like a conqueror, +reentered the town amid the plaudits of the people, and took up his +dwelling as an honoured guest in the Palace of the Republic. The +subsequent history of Florence is the history of his family. In after +years the Medici loved to remember this return of Cosimo. His +triumphal reception was painted in fresco on the walls of their villa +at Cajano under the transparent allegory of Cicero's entrance into +Rome.</p> + + +<p>X</p> + + +<p>By their brief exile the Medici had gained the credit of injured +innocence, the fame of martyrdom in the popular cause. Their foes had +struck the first blow, and in striking at them had seemed to aim +against the liberties of the republic. The mere failure of their +adversaries to hold the power they had acquired, handed over this +power to the Medici; and the reprisals which the Medici began to take +had the show of justice, not of personal hatred, or petty vengeance. +Cosimo was a true Florentine. He disliked violence, because he knew +that blood spilt cries for blood. His passions, too, were cool and +temperate. No gust of anger, no intoxication of success, destroyed his +balance. His one object, the consolidation of power for his family on +the basis of popular favour, was kept steadily in view; and he would +do nothing that might compromise that end. Yet he was neither generous +nor merciful. We therefore find that from the first moment of his +return to Florence he instituted a system of pitiless and unforgiving +persecution against his old opponents. The Albizzi were banished, root +and branch, with all their followers, consigned to lonely and often to +unwholesome stations through the length and breadth of Italy. If they +broke the bonds assigned them, they were forthwith declared traitors +and their property was confiscated. After a long series of years, by +merely keeping in force the first sentence pronounced upon them, +Cosimo had the cruel satisfaction of seeing the whole of that proud +oligarchy die out by slow degrees in the insufferable tedium of +solitude and exile. Even the high-souled Palla degli Strozzi, who had +striven to remain neutral, and whose wealth and talents were devoted +to the revival of classical studies, was proscribed because to Cosimo +he seemed too powerful. Separated from his children, he died in +banishment at Padua. In this way the return of the Medici involved the +loss to Florence of some noble citizens, who might perchance have +checked the Medicean tyranny if they had stayed to guide the State. +The plebeians, raised to wealth and influence by Cosimo before his +exile, now took the lead in the republic. He used these men as +catspaws, rarely putting himself forward or allowing his own name to +appear, but pulling the wires of government in privacy by means of +intermediate agents. The Medicean party was called at first <i>Puccini</i> +from a certain Puccio, whose name was better known in caucus or +committee than that of his real master.</p> + +<p>To rule through these creatures of his own making taxed all the +ingenuity of Cosimo; but his profound and subtle intellect was suited +to the task, and he found unlimited pleasure in the exercise of his +consummate craft. We have already seen to what extent he used his +riches for the acquisition of political influence. Now that he had +come to power, he continued the same method, packing the Signory and +the Councils with men whom he could hold by debt between his thumb and +finger. His command of the public moneys enabled him to wink at +peculation in State offices; it was part of his system to bind +magistrates and secretaries to his interest by their consciousness of +guilt condoned but not forgotten. Not a few, moreover, owed their +living to the appointments he procured for them. While he thus +controlled the wheel-work of the commonwealth by means of organised +corruption, he borrowed the arts of his old enemies to oppress +dissentient citizens. If a man took an independent line in voting, +and refused allegiance to the Medicean party, he was marked out for +persecution. No violence was used; but he found himself hampered in +his commerce—money, plentiful for others, became scarce for him; his +competitors in trade were subsidised to undersell him. And while the +avenues of industry were closed, his fortune was taxed above its +value, until he had to sell at a loss in order to discharge his public +obligations. In the first twenty years of the Medicean rule, seventy +families had to pay 4,875,000 golden florins of extraordinary imposts, +fixed by arbitrary assessment.</p> + +<p>The more patriotic members of his party looked with dread and loathing +on this system of corruption and exclusion. To their remonstrances +Cosimo replied in four memorable sayings: 'Better the State spoiled +than the State not ours.' 'Governments cannot be carried on with +paternosters.' 'An ell of scarlet makes a burgher.' 'I aim at finite +ends.' These maxims represent the whole man,—first, in his egotism, +eager to gain Florence for his family, at any risk of her ruin; +secondly, in his cynical acceptance of base means to selfish ends; +thirdly, in his bourgeois belief that money makes a man, and fine +clothes suffice for a citizen; fourthly, in his worldly ambition bent +on positive success. It was, in fact, his policy to reduce Florence to +the condition of a rotten borough: nor did this policy fail. One +notable sign of the influence he exercised was the change which now +came over the foreign relations of the republic. Up to the date of his +dictatorship Florence had uniformly fought the battle of freedom in +Italy. It was the chief merit of the Albizzi oligarchy that they +continued the traditions of the mediæval State, and by their vigorous +action checked the growth of the Visconti. Though they engrossed the +government they never forgot that they were first of all things +Florentines, and only in the second place men who owed their power and +influence to office. In a word, they acted like patriotic Tories, like +republican patricians. Therefore they would not ally themselves with +tyrants or countenance the enslavement of free cities by armed +despots. Their subjugation of the Tuscan burghs to Florence was itself +part of a grand republican policy. Cosimo changed all this. When the +Visconti dynasty ended by the death of Filippo Maria in 1447, there +was a chance of restoring the independence of Lombardy. Milan in +effect declared herself a republic, and by the aid of Florence she +might at this moment have maintained her liberty. Cosimo, however, +entered into treaty with Francesco Sforza, supplied him with money, +guaranteed him against Florentine interference, and saw with +satisfaction how he reduced the duchy to his military tyranny. The +Medici were conscious that they, selfishly, had most to gain by +supporting despots who in time of need might help them to confirm +their own authority. With the same end in view, when the legitimate +line of the Bentivogli was extinguished, Cosimo hunted out a bastard +pretender of that family, presented him to the chiefs of the +Bentivogli faction, and had him placed upon the seat of his supposed +ancestors at Bologna. This young man, a certain Santi da Cascese, +presumed to be the son of Ercole de' Bentivogli, was an artisan in a +wool factory when Cosimo set eyes upon him. At first Santi refused the +dangerous honour of governing a proud republic; but the intrigues of +Cosimo prevailed, and the obscure craftsman ended his days a powerful +prince.</p> + +<p>By the arts I have attempted to describe, Cosimo in the course of his +long life absorbed the forces of the republic into himself. While he +shunned the external signs of despotic power he made himself the +master of the State. His complexion was of a pale olive; his stature +short; abstemious and simple in his habits, affable in conversation, +sparing of speech, he knew how to combine that burgher-like civility +for which the Romans praised Augustus, with the reality of a despotism +all the more difficult to combat because it seemed nowhere and was +everywhere. When he died, at the age of seventy-five, in 1464, the +people whom he had enslaved, but whom he had neither injured nor +insulted, honoured him with the title of <i>Pater Patriæ</i>. This was +inscribed upon his tomb in S. Lorenzo. He left to posterity the fame +of a great and generous patron,<a name="FNanchor_14_14" id="FNanchor_14_14" /></a><a href="#Footnote_14_14" class="fnanchor">[14]</a> the infamy of a cynical, +self-seeking, bourgeois tyrant. Such combinations of contradictory +qualities were common enough at the time of the Renaissance. Did not +Machiavelli spend his days in tavern-brawls and low amours, his nights +among the mighty spirits of the dead, with whom, when he had changed +his country suit of homespun for the habit of the Court, he found +himself an honoured equal?</p> + + +<p>XI</p> + + +<p>Cosimo had shown consummate skill by governing Florence through a +party created and raised to influence by himself. The jealousy of +these adherents formed the chief difficulty with which his son Piero +had to contend. Unless the Medici could manage to kick down the ladder +whereby they had risen, they ran the risk of losing all. As on a +former occasion, so now they profited by the mistakes of their +antagonists. Three chief men of their own party, Diotisalvi Neroni, +Agnolo Acciaiuoli, and Luca Pitti, determined to shake off the yoke of +their masters, and to repay the Medici for what they owed by leading +them to ruin. Niccolo Soderini, a patriot, indignant at the slow +enslavement of his country, joined them. At first they strove to +undermine the credit of the Medici with the Florentines by inducing +Piero to call in the moneys placed at interest by his father in the +hands of private citizens. This act was unpopular; but it did not +suffice to move a revolution. To proceed by constitutional measures +against the Medici was judged impolitic. Therefore the conspirators +decided to take, if possible, Piero's life. The plot failed, chiefly +owing to the coolness and the cunning of the young Lorenzo, Piero's +eldest son. Public sympathy was strongly excited against the +aggressors. Neroni, Acciaiuoli, and Soderini were exiled. Pitti was +allowed to stay, dishonoured, powerless, and penniless, in Florence. +Meanwhile, the failure of their foes had only served to strengthen the +position of the Medici. The ladder had saved them the trouble of +kicking it down.</p> + +<p>The congratulations addressed on this occasion to Piero and Lorenzo by +the ruling powers of Italy show that the Medici were already regarded +as princes outside Florence. Lorenzo and Giuliano, the two sons of +Piero, travelled abroad to the Courts of Milan and Ferrara with the +style and state of more than simple citizens. At home they occupied +the first place on all occasions of public ceremony, receiving royal +visitors on terms of equality, and performing the hospitalities of the +republic like men who had been born to represent its dignities. +Lorenzo's marriage to Clarice Orsini, of the noble Roman house, was +another sign that the Medici were advancing on the way toward +despotism. Cosimo had avoided foreign alliances for his children. His +descendants now judged themselves firmly planted enough to risk the +odium of a princely match for the sake of the support outside the city +they might win.</p> + + +<p>XII</p> + + +<p>Piero de' Medici died in December 1469. His son Lorenzo was then +barely twenty-two years of age. The chiefs of the Medicean party, +<p>all-powerful in the State, held a council, in which they resolved to +place him in the same position as his father and grandfather. This +resolve seems to have been formed after mature deliberation, on the +ground that the existing conditions of Italian politics rendered it +impossible to conduct the government without a presidential head. +Florence, though still a democracy, required a permanent chief to +treat on an equality with the princes of the leading cities. Here we +may note the prudence of Cosimo's foreign policy. When he helped to +establish despots in Milan and Bologna he was rendering the presidency +of his own family in Florence necessary.</p> + +<p>Lorenzo, having received this invitation, called attention to his +youth and inexperience. Yet he did not refuse it; and, after a +graceful display of diffidence, he accepted the charge, entering thus +upon that famous political career, in the course of which he not only +established and maintained a balance of power in Italy, with Florence +for the central city, but also contrived to remodel the government of +the republic in the interest of his own family and to strengthen the +Medici by relations with the Papal See.</p> + +<p>The extraordinary versatility of this man's intellectual and social +gifts, his participation in all the literary and philosophical +interests of his century, his large and liberal patronage of art, and +the gaiety with which he joined the people of Florence in their +pastimes—Mayday games and Carnival festivities—strengthened his hold +upon the city in an age devoted to culture and refined pleasure. +Whatever was most brilliant in the spirit of the Italian Benaissance +seemed to be incarnate in Lorenzo. Not merely as a patron and a +dilettante, but as a poet and a critic, a philosopher and scholar, he +proved himself adequate to the varied intellectual ambitions of his +country. Penetrated with the passion for erudition which distinguished +Florence in the fifteenth century, familiar with her painters and her +sculptors, deeply read in the works of her great poets, he conceived +the ideal of infusing the spirit of antique civility into modern life, +and of effecting for society what the artists were performing in their +own sphere. To preserve the native character of the Florentine genius, +while he added the grace of classic form, was the aim to which his +tastes and instincts led him. At the same time, while he made himself +the master of Florentine revels and the Augustus of Renaissance +literature, he took care that beneath his carnival masks and +ball-dress should be concealed the chains which he was forging for the +republic.</p> + +<p>What he lacked, with so much mental brilliancy, was moral greatness. +The age he lived in was an age of selfish despots, treacherous +generals, godless priests. It was an age of intellectual vigour and +artistic creativeness; but it was also an age of mean ambition, sordid +policy, and vitiated principles. Lorenzo remained true in all respects +to the genius of this age: true to its enthusiasm for antique culture, +true to its passion for art, true to its refined love of pleasure; but +true also to its petty political intrigues, to its cynical +selfishness, to its lack of heroism. For Florence he looked no higher +and saw no further than Cosimo had done. If culture was his pastime, +the enslavement of the city by bribery and corruption was the hard +work of his manhood. As is the case with much Renaissance art, his +life was worth more for its decorative detail than for its +constructive design. In richness, versatility, variety, and +exquisiteness of execution, it left little to be desired; yet, viewed +at a distance, and as a whole, it does not inspire us with a sense of +architectonic majesty.</p> + + +<p>XIII</p> + + +<p>Lorenzo's chief difficulties arose from the necessity under which, +like Cosimo, he laboured of governing the city through its old +institutions by means of a party. To keep the members of this party in +good temper, and to gain their approval for the alterations he +effected in the State machinery of Florence, was the problem of his +life. The successful solution of this problem was easier now, after +two generations of the Medicean ascendency, than it had been at first. +Meanwhile the people were maintained in good humour by public shows, +ease, plenty, and a general laxity of discipline. The splendour of +Lorenzo's foreign alliances and the consideration he received from all +the Courts of Italy contributed in no small measure to his popularity +and security at home. By using his authority over Florence to inspire +respect abroad, and by using his foreign credit to impose upon the +burghers, Lorenzo displayed the tact of a true Italian diplomatist. +His genius for statecraft, as then understood, was indeed of a rare +order, equally adapted to the conduct of a complicated foreign policy +and to the control of a suspicious and variable Commonwealth. In one +point alone he was inferior to his grandfather. He neglected commerce, +and allowed his banking business to fall into disorder so hopeless +that in course of time he ceased to be solvent. Meanwhile his personal +expenses, both as a prince in his own palace, and as the +representative of majesty in Florence, continually increased. The +bankruptcy of the Medici, it had long been foreseen, would involve the +public finances in serious confusion. And now, in order to retrieve +his fortunes, Lorenzo was not only obliged to repudiate his debts to +the exchequer, but had also to gain complete disposal of the State +purse. It was this necessity that drove him to effect the +constitutional revolution of 1480, by which he substituted a Privy +Council of seventy members for the old Councils of the State, +absorbing the chief functions of the commonwealth into this single +body, whom he practically nominated at pleasure. The same want of +money led to the great scandal of his reign—the plundering of the +Monte delle Doti, or State Insurance Office Fund for securing dowers +to the children of its creditors.</p> + + +<p>XIV</p> + + +<p>While tracing the salient points of Lorenzo de' Medici's +administration I have omitted to mention the important events which +followed shortly after his accession to power in 1469. What happened +between that date and 1480 was not only decisive for the future +fortunes of the Casa Medici, but it was also eminently characteristic +of the perils and the difficulties which beset Italian despots. The +year 1471 was signalised by a visit by the Duke Galeazzo Maria Sforza +of Milan, and his wife Bona of Savoy, to the Medici in Florence. They +came attended by their whole Court—body guards on horse and foot, +ushers, pages, falconers, grooms, kennel-varlets, and huntsmen. +Omitting the mere baggage service, their train counted two thousand +horses. To mention this incident would be superfluous, had not so +acute an observer as Machiavelli marked it out as a turning-point in +Florentine history. Now, for the first time, the democratic +commonwealth saw its streets filled with a mob of courtiers. Masques, +balls, and tournaments succeeded each other with magnificent variety; +and all the arts of Florence were pressed into the service of these +festivals. Machiavelli says that the burghers lost the last remnant of +their old austerity of manners, and became, like the degenerate +Romans, ready to obey the masters who provided them with brilliant +spectacles. They gazed with admiration on the pomp of Italian +princes, their dissolute and godless living, their luxury and prodigal +expenditure; and when the Medici affected similar habits in the next +generation, the people had no courage to resist the invasion of their +pleasant vices.</p> + +<p>In the same year, 1471, Volterra was reconquered for the Florentines +by Frederick of Urbino. The honours of this victory, disgraced by a +brutal sack of the conquered city, in violation of its articles of +capitulation, were reserved for Lorenzo, who returned in triumph to +Florence. More than ever he assumed the prince, and in his person +undertook to represent the State.</p> + +<p>In the same year, 1471, Francesco della Rovere was raised to the +Papacy with the memorable name of Sixtus IV. Sixtus was a man of +violent temper and fierce passions, restless and impatiently +ambitious, bent on the aggrandisement of the beautiful and wanton +youths, his nephews. Of these the most aspiring was Girolamo Riario, +for whom Sixtus bought the town of Imola from Taddeo Manfredi, in +order that he might possess the title of count and the nucleus of a +tyranny in the Romagna. This purchase thwarted the plans of Lorenzo, +who wished to secure the same advantages for Florence. Smarting with +the sense of disappointment, he forbade the Roman banker, Francesco +Pazzi, to guarantee the purchase-money. By this act Lorenzo made two +mortal foes—the Pope and Francesco Pazzi. Francesco was a thin, pale, +atrabilious fanatic, all nerve and passion, with a monomaniac +intensity of purpose, and a will inflamed and guided by imagination—a +man formed by nature for conspiracy, such a man, in fact, as Shakspere +drew in Cassius. Maddened by Lorenzo's prohibition, he conceived the +notion of overthrowing the Medici in Florence by a violent blow. +Girolamo Riario entered into his views. So did Francesco Salviati, +Archbishop of Pisa, who had private reasons for hostility. These men +found no difficulty in winning over Sixtus to their plot; nor is it +possible to purge the Pope of participation in what followed. I need +not describe by what means Francesco drew the other members of his +family into the scheme, and how he secured the assistance of armed +cut-throats. Suffice it to say that the chief conspirators, with the +exception of the Count Girolamo, betook themselves to Florence, and +there, after the failure of other attempts, decided to murder Lorenzo +and his brother Giuliano in the cathedral on Sunday, April 26th, 1478. +The moment when the priest at the high altar finished the mass, was +fixed for the assassination. Everything was ready. The conspirators, +by Judas kisses and embracements, had discovered that the young men +wore no protective armour under their silken doublets. Pacing the +aisle behind the choir, they feared no treason. And now the lives of +both might easily have been secured, if at the last moment the courage +of the hired assassins had not failed them. Murder, they said, was +well enough; but they could not bring themselves to stab men before +the newly consecrated body of Christ. In this extremity a priest was +found who, 'being accustomed to churches,' had no scruples. He and +another reprobate were told off to Lorenzo. Francesco de' Pazzi +himself undertook Giuliano. The moment for attack arrived. Francesco +plunged his dagger into the heart of Giuliano. Then, not satisfied +with this death-blow, he struck again, and in his heat of passion +wounded his own thigh. Lorenzo escaped with a flesh-wound from the +poniard of the priest, and rushed into the sacristy, where his friend +Poliziano shut and held the brazen door. The plot had failed; for +Giuliano, of the two brothers, was the one whom the conspirators would +the more willingly have spared. The whole church was in an uproar. The +city rose in tumult. Rage and horror took possession of the people. +They flew to the Palazzo Pubblico and to the houses of the Pazzi, +hunted the conspirators from place to place, hung the archbishop by +the neck from the palace windows, and, as they found fresh victims +for their fury, strung them one by one in a ghastly row at his side +above the Square. About one hundred in all were killed. None who had +joined in the plot escaped; for Lorenzo had long arms, and one man, +who fled to Constantinople, was delivered over to his agents by the +Sultan. Out of the whole Pazzi family only Guglielmo, the husband of +Bianca de' Medici, was spared. When the tumult was over, Andrea del +Castagno painted the portraits of the traitors head-downwards upon the +walls of the Bargello Palace, in order that all men might know what +fate awaited the foes of the Medici and of the State of Florence.<a name="FNanchor_15_15" id="FNanchor_15_15" /></a><a href="#Footnote_15_15" class="fnanchor">[15]</a> +Meanwhile a bastard son of Giuliano's was received into the Medicean +household, to perpetuate his lineage. This child, named Giulio, was +destined to be famous in the annals of Italy and Florence under the +title of Pope Clement VII.</p> + + +<p>XV</p> + + +<p>As is usual when such plots miss their mark, the passions excited +redounded to the profit of the injured party. The commonwealth felt +that the blow struck at Lorenzo had been aimed at their majesty. +Sixtus, on the other hand, could not contain his rage at the failure +of so ably planned a <i>coup de main</i>. Ignoring that he had sanctioned +the treason, that a priest had put his hand to the dagger, that the +impious deed had been attempted in a church before the very Sacrament +of Christ, whose vicar on earth he was, the Pope now excommunicated +the republic. The reason he alleged was, that the Florentines had +dared to hang an archbishop.</p> + +<p>Thus began a war to the death between Sixtus and Florence. The Pope +inflamed the whole of Italy, and carried on a ruinous campaign in +Tuscany. It seemed as though the republic might lose her subject +cities, always ready to revolt when danger threatened the sovereign +State. Lorenzo's position became critical. Sixtus made no secret of +the hatred he bore him personally, declaring that he fought less with +Florence than with the Medici. To support the odium of this long war +and this heavy interdict alone, was more than he could do. His allies +forsook him. Naples was enlisted on the Pope's side. Milan and the +other States of Lombardy were occupied with their own affairs, and +held aloof. In this extremity he saw that nothing but a bold step +could save him. The league formed by Sixtus must be broken up at any +risk, and, if possible, by his own ability. On December 6th, 1479, +Lorenzo left Florence, unarmed and unattended, took ship at Leghorn, +and proceeded to the court of the enemy, King Ferdinand, at Naples. +Ferdinand was a cruel and treacherous sovereign, who had murdered his +guest, Jacopo Piccinino, at a banquet given in his honour. But +Ferdinand was the son of Alfonso, who, by address and eloquence, had +gained a kingdom from his foe and jailor, Filippo Maria Visconti. +Lorenzo calculated that he too, following Alfonso's policy, might +prove to Ferdinand how little there was to gain from an alliance with +Rome, how much Naples and Florence, firmly united together for offence +and defence, might effect in Italy.</p> + +<p>Only a student of those perilous times can appreciate the courage and +the genius, the audacity combined with diplomatic penetration, +displayed by Lorenzo at this crisis. He calmly walked into the lion's +den, trusting he could tame the lion and teach it, and all in a few +days. Nor did his expectation fail. Though Lorenzo was rather ugly +than handsome, with a dark skin, heavy brows, powerful jaws, and nose +sharp in the bridge and broad at the nostrils, without grace of +carriage or melody of voice, he possessed what makes up for personal +defects—the winning charm of eloquence in conversation, a subtle wit, +profound knowledge of men, and tact allied to sympathy, which placed +him always at the centre of the situation. Ferdinand received him +kindly. The Neapolitan nobles admired his courage and were fascinated +by his social talents. On March 1st, 1480, he left Naples again, +having won over the King by his arguments. When he reached Florence he +was able to declare that he brought home a treaty of peace and +alliance signed by the most powerful foe of the republic. The success +of this bold enterprise endeared Lorenzo more than ever to his +countrymen. In the same year they concluded a treaty with Sixtus, who +was forced against his will to lay down arms by the capture of Otranto +and the extreme peril of Turkish invasion. After the year 1480 Lorenzo +remained sole master in Florence, the arbiter and peacemaker of the +rest of Italy.</p> + + +<p>XVI</p> + + +<p>The conjuration of the Pazzi was only one in a long series of similar +conspiracies. Italian despots gained their power by violence and +wielded it with craft. Violence and craft were therefore used against +them. When the study of the classics had penetrated the nation with +antique ideas of heroism, tyrannicide became a virtue. Princes were +murdered with frightful frequency. Thus Gian Maria Visconti was put to +death at Milan in 1412; Galeazzo Maria Sforza in 1484; the Chiarelli +of Fabriano were massacred in 1435; the Baglioni of Perugia in 1500; +Girolamo Gentile planned the assassination of Galeazzo Sforza at Genoa +in 1476; Niccolo d'Este conspired against his uncle Ercole in 1476; +Stefano Porcari attempted the life of Nicholas V. at Rome in 1453; +Lodovico Sforza narrowly escaped a violent death in 1453. I might +multiply these instances beyond satiety. As it is, I have selected +but a few examples falling, all but one, within the second half of the +fifteenth century. Nearly all these attempts upon the lives of princes +were made in church during the celebration of sacred offices. There +was no superfluity of naughtiness, no wilful sacrilege, in this choice +of an occasion. It only testified to the continual suspicion and +guarded watchfulness maintained by tyrants. To strike at them except +in church was almost impossible. Meanwhile the fate of the +tyrannicides was uniform. Successful or not, they perished. Yet so +grievous was the pressure of Italian despotism, so glorious was the +ideal of Greek and Roman heroism, so passionate the temper of the +people, that to kill a prince at any cost to self appeared the crown +of manliness. This bloodshed exercised a delirious fascination: pure +and base, personal and patriotic motives combined to add intensity of +fixed and fiery purpose to the murderous impulse. Those then who, like +the Medici, aspired to tyranny and sought to found a dynasty of +princes, entered the arena against a host of unknown and unseen +gladiators.</p> + + +<p>XVII</p> + + +<p>On his deathbed, in 1492, Lorenzo lay between two men—Angelo +Poliziano and Girolamo Savonarola. Poliziano incarnated the genial, +radiant, godless spirit of fifteenth-century humanism. Savonarola +represented the conscience of Italy, self-convicted, amid all her +greatness, of crimes that called for punishment. It is said that when +Lorenzo asked the monk for absolution, Savonarola bade him first +restore freedom to Florence. Lorenzo, turned his face to the wall and +was silent. How indeed could he make this city in a moment free, after +sixty years of slow and systematic corruption? Savonarola left him, +and he died unshriven. This legend is doubtful, though it rests on +excellent if somewhat partial authority. It has, at any rate, the +value of a mythus, since it epitomises the attitude assumed by the +great preacher to the prince. Florence enslaved, the soul of Lorenzo +cannot lay its burden down, but must go with all its sins upon it to +the throne of God.</p> + +<p>The year 1492 was a memorable year for Italy. In this year Lorenzo's +death removed the keystone of the arch that had sustained the fabric +of Italian federation. In this year Roderigo Borgia was elected Pope. +In this year Columbus discovered America; Vasco de Gama soon after +opened a new way to the Indies, and thus the commerce of the world +passed from Italy to other nations. In this year the conquest of +Granada gave unity to the Spanish nation. In this year France, through +the lifelong craft of Louis XI., was for the first time united under a +young hot-headed sovereign. On every side of the political horizon +storms threatened. It was clear that a new chapter of European history +had been opened. Then Savonarola raised his voice, and cried that the +crimes of Italy, the abominations of the Church, would speedily be +punished. Events led rapidly to the fulfilment of this prophecy. +Lorenzo's successor, Piero de' Medici, was a vain, irresolute, and +hasty princeling, fond of display, proud of his skill in fencing and +football-playing, with too much of the Orsini blood in his hot veins, +with too little of the Medicean craft in his weak head. The Italian +despots felt they could not trust Piero, and this want of confidence +was probably the first motive that impelled Lodovico Sforza to call +Charles VIII. into Italy in 1494.</p> + +<p>It will not be necessary to dwell upon this invasion of the French, +except in so far as it affected Florence. Charles passed rapidly +through Lombardy, engaged his army in the passes of the Apennines, and +debouched upon the coast where the Magra divided Tuscany from Liguria. +Here the fortresses of Sarzana and Pietra Santa, between the marble +bulwark of Carrara and the Tuscan sea, stopped his further progress. +The keys were held by the Florentines. To force these strong positions +and to pass beyond them seemed impossible. It might have been +impossible if Piero de' Medici had possessed a firmer will. As it was, +he rode off to the French camp, delivered up the forts to Charles, +bound the King by no engagements, and returned not otherwise than +proud of his folly to Florence. A terrible reception awaited him. The +Florentines, in their fury, had risen and sacked the Medicean palace. +It was as much as Piero, with his brothers, could do to escape beyond +the hills to Venice. The despotism of the Medici, so carefully built +up, so artfully sustained and strengthened, was overthrown in a single +day.</p> + + +<p>XVIII</p> + + +<p>Before considering what happened in Florence after the expulsion of +the Medici, it will be well to pause a moment and review the state in +which Lorenzo had left his family. Piero, his eldest son, recognised +as chief of the republic after his father's death, was married to +Alfonsina Orsini, and was in his twenty-second year. Giovanni, his +second son, a youth of seventeen, had just been made cardinal. This +honour, of vast importance for the Casa Medici in the future, he owed +to his sister Maddalena's marriage to Franceschetto Cybo, son of +Innocent VIII. The third of Lorenzo's sons, named Giuliano, was a boy +of thirteen. Giulio, the bastard son of the elder Giuliano, was +fourteen. These four princes formed the efficient strength of the +Medici, the hope of the house; and for each of them, with the +exception of Piero, who died in exile, and of whom no more notice need +be taken, a brilliant destiny was still in store. In the year 1495, +however, they now wandered, homeless and helpless, through the cities +of Italy, each of which was shaken to its foundations by the French +invasion.</p> + + +<p>XIX</p> + + +<p>Florence, left without the Medici, deprived of Pisa and other subject +cities by the passage of the French army, with no leader but the monk +Savonarola, now sought to reconstitute her liberties. During the +domination of the Albizzi and the Medici the old order of the +commonwealth had been completely broken up. The Arti had lost their +primitive importance. The distinctions between the Grandi and the +Popolani had practically passed away. In a democracy that has +submitted to a lengthened course of tyranny, such extinction of its +old life is inevitable. Yet the passion for liberty was still +powerful; and the busy brains of the Florentines were stored with +experience gained from their previous vicissitudes, from \ the study +of antique history, and from the observation of existing constitutions +in the towns of Italy. They now determined to reorganise the State +upon the model of the Venetian republic. The Signory was to remain, +with its old institution of Priors, Gonfalonier, and College, elected +for brief periods. These magistrates were to take the initiative in +debate, to propose measures, and to consider plans of action. The real +power of the State, for voting supplies and ratifying the measures of +the Signory, was vested in a senate of one thousand members, called +the Grand Council, from whom a smaller body of forty, acting as +intermediates between the Council and the Signory, were elected. It is +said that the plan of this constitution originated with Savonarola; +nor is there any doubt that he used all his influence in the pulpit of +the Duomo to render it acceptable to the people. Whoever may have been +responsible for its formation, the new government was carried in +1495, and a large hall for the assembly of the Grand Council was +opened in the Public Palace.</p> + +<p>Savonarola, meanwhile, had become the ruling spirit of Florence. He +gained his great power as a preacher: he used it like a monk. The +motive principle of his action was the passion for reform. To bring +the Church back to its pristine state of purity, without altering its +doctrine or suggesting any new form of creed; to purge Italy of +ungodly customs; to overthrow the tyrants who encouraged evil living, +and to place the power of the State in the hands of sober citizens: +these were his objects. Though he set himself in bold opposition to +the reigning Pope, he had no desire to destroy the spiritual supremacy +of S. Peter's see. Though he burned with an enthusiastic zeal for +liberty, and displayed rare genius for administration, he had no +ambition to rule Florence like a dictator. Savonarola was neither a +reformer in the northern sense of the word, nor yet a political +demagogue. His sole wish was to see purity of manners and freedom of +self-government re-established. With this end in view he bade the +Florentines elect Christ as their supreme chief; and they did so. For +the same end he abstained from appearing in the State Councils, and +left the Constitution to work by its own laws. His personal influence +he reserved for the pulpit; and here he was omnipotent. The people +believed in him as a prophet. They turned to him as the man who knew +what he wanted—as the voice of liberty, the soul of the new régime, +the genius who could breathe into the commonwealth a breath of fresh +vitality. When, therefore, Savonarola preached a reform of manners, he +was at once obeyed. Strict laws were passed enforcing sobriety, +condemning trades of pleasure, reducing the gay customs of Florence to +puritanical austerity.</p> + +<p>Great stress has been laid upon this reaction of the monk-led populace +against the vices of the past. Yet the historian is bound to pronounce +that the reform effected by Savonarola was rather picturesque than +vital. Like all violent revivals of pietism, it produced a no less +violent reaction. The parties within the city who resented the +interference of a preaching friar, joined with the Pope in Rome, who +hated a contumacious schismatic in Savonarola. Assailed by these two +forces at the same moment, and driven upon perilous ground by his own +febrile enthusiasm, Savonarola succumbed. He was imprisoned, tortured, +and burned upon the public square in 1498.</p> + +<p>What Savonarola really achieved for Florence was not a permanent +reform of morality, but a resuscitation of the spirit of freedom. His +followers, called in contempt <i>I Piagnoni</i>, or the Weepers, formed the +path of the commonwealth in future; and the memory of their martyr +served as a common bond of sympathy to unite them in times of trial. +It was a necessary consequence of the peculiar part he played that the +city was henceforth divided into factions representing mutually +antagonistic principles. These factions were not created by +Savonarola; but his extraordinary influence accentuated, as it were, +the humours that lay dormant in the State. Families favourable to the +Medici took the name of <i>Palleschi</i>. Men who chafed against +puritanical reform, and who were eager for any government that should +secure them their old licence, were known as <i>Compagnacci</i>. Meanwhile +the oligarchs, who disliked a democratic Constitution, and thought it +possible to found an aristocracy without the intervention of the +Medici, came to be known as <i>Gli Ottimati</i>. Florence held within +itself, from this epoch forward to the final extinction of liberty, +four great parties: the <i>Piagnoni</i>, passionate for political freedom +and austerity of life; the <i>Palleschi</i>, favourable to the Medicean +cause, and regretful of Lorenzo's pleasant rule; the <i>Compagnacci</i>, +intolerant of the reformed republic, neither hostile nor loyal to the +Medici, but desirous of personal licence; the <i>Ottimati</i>, astute and +selfish, watching their own advantage, ever-mindful to form a narrow +government of privileged families, disinclined to the Medici, except +when they thought the Medici might be employed as instruments in their +intrigues.</p> + + +<p>XX</p> + + +<p>During the short period of Savonarola's ascendency, Florence was in +form at least a Theocracy, without any titular head but Christ; and as +long as the enthusiasm inspired by the monk lasted, as long as his +personal influence endured, the Constitution of the Grand Council +worked well. After his death it was found that the machinery was too +cumbrous. While adopting the Venetian form of government, the +Florentines had omitted one essential element—the Doge. By referring +measures of immediate necessity to the Grand Council, the republic +lost precious time. Dangerous publicity, moreover, was incurred; and +so large a body often came to no firm resolution. There was no +permanent authority in the State; no security that what had been +deliberated would be carried out with energy; no titular chief, who +could transact affairs with foreign potentates and their ambassadors. +Accordingly, in 1502, it was decreed that the Gonfalonier should hold +office for life—should be in fact a Doge. To this important post of +permanent president Piero Soderini was appointed; and in his hands +were placed the chief affairs of the republic.</p> + +<p>At this point Florence, after all her vicissitudes, had won her way to +something really similar to the Venetian Constitution. Yet the +similarity existed more in form than in fact. The government of +burghers in a Grand Council, with a Senate of forty, and a Gonfalonier +for life, had not grown up gradually and absorbed into itself the +vital forces of the commonwealth. It was a creation of inventive +intelligence, not of national development, in Florence. It had against +it the jealousy of the Ottimati, who felt themselves overshadowed by +the Gonfalonier; the hatred of the Palleschi, who yearned for the +Medici; the discontent of the working classes, who thought the +presence of a Court in Florence would improve trade; last, but not +least, the disaffection of the Compagnacci, who felt they could not +flourish to their heart's content in a free commonwealth. Moreover, +though the name of liberty was on every lip, though the Florentines +talked, wrote, and speculated more about constitutional independence +than they had ever done, the true energy of free institutions had +passed from the city. The corrupt government of Cosimo and Lorenzo +bore its natural fruit now. Egotistic ambition and avarice supplanted +patriotism and industry. It is necessary to comprehend these +circumstances, in order that the next revolution may be clearly +understood.</p> + + +<p>XXI</p> + + +<p>During the ten years which elapsed between 1502 and 1512, Piero +Soderini administered Florence with an outward show of great +prosperity. He regained Pisa, and maintained an honourable foreign +policy in the midst of the wars stirred up by the League of Cambray. +Meanwhile the young princes of the House of Medici had grown to +manhood in exile. The Cardinal Giovanni was thirty-seven in 1512. His +brother Giuliano was thirty-three. Both of these men were better +fitted than their brother Piero to fight the battles of the family. +Giovanni, in particular, had inherited no small portion of the +Medicean craft. During the troubled reign of Julius II. he kept very +quiet, cementing his connections with powerful men in Rome, but making +no effort to regain his hold on Florence. Now the moment for striking +a decisive blow had come. After the battle of Ravenna in 1512, the +French were driven out of Italy, and the Sforzas returned to Milan; +the Spanish troops, under the Viceroy Cardona, remained masters of the +country. Following the camp of these Spaniards, Giovanni de' Medici +entered Tuscany in August, and caused the restoration of the Medici +to be announced in Florence. The people, assembled by Soderini, +resolved to resist to the uttermost. No foreign army should force them +to receive the masters whom they had expelled. Yet their courage +failed on August 29th, when news reached them of the capture and the +sack of Prato. Prato is a sunny little city a few miles distant from +the walls of Florence, famous for the beauty of its women, the +richness of its gardens, and the grace of its buildings. Into this gem +of cities the savage soldiery of Spain marched in the bright autumnal +weather, and turned the paradise into a hell. It is even now +impossible to read of what they did in Prato without shuddering.<a name="FNanchor_16_16" id="FNanchor_16_16" /></a><a href="#Footnote_16_16" class="fnanchor">[16]</a> +Cruelty and lust, sordid greed for gold, and cold delight in +bloodshed, could go no further. Giovanni de' Medici, by nature mild +and voluptuous, averse to violence of all kinds, had to smile +approval, while the Spanish Viceroy knocked thus with mailed hand for +him at the door of Florence. The Florentines were paralysed with +terror. They deposed Soderini and received the Medici. Giovanni and +Giuliano entered their devastated palace in the Via Larga, abolished +the Grand Council, and dealt with the republic as they listed.</p> + + +<p>XXII</p> + + +<p>There was no longer any medium in Florence possible between either +tyranny or some such government as the Medici had now destroyed. The +State was too rotten to recover even the modified despotism of +Lorenzo's days. Each transformation had impaired some portion of its +framework, broken down some of its traditions, and sowed new seeds of +egotism in citizens who saw all things round them change but +self-advantage. Therefore Giovanni and Giuliano felt themselves secure +in flattering the popular vanity by an empty parade of the old +institutions. They restored the Signory and the Gonfalonier, elected +for intervals of two months by officers appointed for this purpose by +the Medici. Florence had the show of a free government. But the Medici +managed all things; and soldiers, commanded by their creature, Paolo +Vettori, held the Palace and the Public Square. The tyranny thus +established was less secure, inasmuch as it openly rested upon +violence, than Lorenzo's power had been; nor were there signs wanting +that the burghers could ill brook their servitude. The conspiracy of +Pietro Paolo Boscoli and Agostino Capponi proved that the Medicean +brothers ran daily risk of life. Indeed, it is not likely that they +would have succeeded in maintaining their authority—for they were +poor and ill-supported by friends outside the city—except for one +most lucky circumstance: that was the election of Giovanni de' Medici +to the Papacy in 1513.</p> + +<p>The creation of Leo X. spread satisfaction throughout Italy. +Politicians trusted that he would display some portion of his father's +ability, and restore peace to the nation. Men of arts and letters +expected everything from a Medicean Pope, who had already acquired the +reputation of polite culture and open-handed generosity. They at any +rate were not deceived. Leo's first words on taking his place in the +Vatican were addressed to his brother Giuliano: 'Let us enjoy the +Papacy, now that God has given it to us;' and his notion of enjoyment +was to surround himself with court-poets, jesters, and musicians, to +adorn his Roman palaces with frescoes, to collect statues and +inscriptions, to listen to Latin speeches, and to pass judgment upon +scholarly compositions. Any one and every one who gave him sensual or +intellectual pleasure, found his purse always open. He lived in the +utmost magnificence, and made Rome the Paris of the Renaissance for +brilliance, immorality, and self-indulgent ease. The politicians had +less reason to be satisfied. Instead of uniting the Italians and +keeping the great Powers of Europe in check, Leo carried on a series +of disastrous petty wars, chiefly with the purpose of establishing the +Medici as princes. He squandered the revenues of the Church, and left +enormous debts behind him—an exchequer ruined and a foreign policy so +confused that peace for Italy could only be obtained by servitude.</p> + +<p>Florence shared in the general rejoicing which greeted Leo's accession +to the Papacy. He was the first Florentine citizen who had received +the tiara, and the popular vanity was flattered by this honour to the +republic. Political theorists, meanwhile, began to speculate what +greatness Florence, in combination with Rome, might rise to. The Pope +was young; he ruled a large territory, reduced to order by his warlike +predecessors. It seemed as though the republic, swayed by him, might +make herself the first city in Italy, and restore the glories of her +Guelf ascendency upon the platform of Renaissance statecraft. There +was now no overt opposition to the Medici in Florence. How to govern +the city from Rome, and how to advance the fortunes of his brother +Giuliano and his nephew Lorenzo (Piero's son, a young man of +twenty-one), occupied the Pope's most serious attention. For Lorenzo +Leo obtained the Duchy of Urbino and the hand of a French princess. +Giuliano was named Gonfalonier of the Church. He also received the +French title of Duke of Nemours and the hand of Filiberta, Princess of +Savoy. Leo entertained a further project of acquiring the crown of +Southern Italy for his brother, and thus of uniting Rome, Florence, +and Naples under the headship of his house. Nor were the Medicean +interests neglected in the Church. Giulio, the Pope's bastard cousin, +was made cardinal. He remained in Rome, acting as vice-chancellor and +doing the hard work of the Papal Government for the pleasure-loving +pontiff.</p> + +<p>To Lorenzo, Duke of Urbino, the titular head of the family, was +committed the government of Florence. During their exile, wandering +from court to court in Italy, the Medici had forgotten what it was to +be burghers, and had acquired the manners of princes. Leo alone +retained enough of caution to warn his nephew that the Florentines +must still be treated as free people. He confirmed the constitution of +the Signory and the Privy Council of seventy established by his +father, bidding Lorenzo, while he ruled this sham republic, to avoid +the outer signs of tyranny. The young duke at first behaved with +moderation, but he could not cast aside his habits of a great lord. +Florence now for the first time saw a regular court established in her +midst, with a prince, who, though he bore a foreign title, was in fact +her master. The joyous days of Lorenzo the Magnificent returned. +Masquerades and triumphs filled the public squares. Two clubs of +pleasure, called the Diamond and the Branch—badges adopted by the +Medici to signify their firmness in disaster and their power of +self-recovery—were formed to lead the revels. The best sculptors and +painters devoted their genius to the invention of costumes and cars. +The city affected to believe that the age of gold had come again.</p> + + +<p>XXIII</p> + + +<p>Fortune had been very favourable to the Medici. They had returned as +princes to Florence. Giovanni was Pope. Giuliano was Gonfalonier of +the Church. Giulio was Cardinal and Archbishop of Florence. Lorenzo +ruled the city like a sovereign. But this prosperity was no less brief +than it was brilliant. A few years sufficed to sweep off all the +chiefs of the great house. Giuliano died in 1516, leaving only a +bastard son Ippolito. Lorenzo died in 1519, leaving a bastard son +Alessandro, and a daughter, six days old, who lived to be the Queen of +France. Leo died in 1521. There remained now no legitimate male +descendants from the stock of Cosimo. The honours and pretensions of +the Medici devolved upon three bastards—on the Cardinal Giulio, and +the two boys, Alessandro and Ippolito. Of these, Alessandro was a +mulatto, his mother having been a Moorish slave in the Palace of +Urbino; and whether his father was Giulio, or Giuliano, or a base +groom, was not known for certain. To such extremities were the Medici +reduced. In order to keep their house alive, they were obliged to +adopt this foundling. It is true that the younger branch of the +family, descended from Lorenzo, the brother of Cosimo, still +flourished. At this epoch it was represented by Giovanni, the great +general known as the Invincible, whose bust so strikingly resembles +that of Napoleon. But between this line of the Medici and the elder +branch there had never been true cordiality. The Cardinal mistrusted +Giovanni. It may, moreover, be added, that Giovanni was himself doomed +to death in the year 1526.</p> + +<p>Giulio de' Medici was left in 1521 to administer the State of Florence +single-handed. He was archbishop, and he resided in the city, holding +it with the grasp of an absolute ruler. Yet he felt his position +insecure. The republic had no longer any forms of self-government; nor +was there a magistracy to whom the despot could delegate his power in +his absence. Giulio's ambition was fixed upon the Papal crown. The +bastards he was rearing were but children. Florence had therefore to +be furnished with some political machinery that should work of itself. +The Cardinal did not wish to give freedom to the city, but clockwork. +He was in the perilous situation of having to rule a commonwealth +without life, without elasticity, without capacity of self-movement, +yet full of such material as, left alone, might ferment, and breed a +revolution. In this perplexity, he had recourse to advisers. The most +experienced politicians, philosophical theorists, practical +diplomatists, and students of antique history were requested to +furnish him with plans for a new constitution, just as you ask an +architect to give you the plan of a new house. This was the field-day +of the doctrinaires. Now was seen how much political sagacity the +Florentines had gained while they were losing liberty. We possess +these several drafts of constitutions. Some recommend tyranny; some +incline to aristocracy, or what Italians called <i>Governo Stretto</i>; +some to democracy, or <i>Governo Largo</i>; some to an eclectic compound of +the other forms, or <i>Governo Misto</i>. More consummate masterpieces of +constructive ingenuity can hardly be imagined. What is omitted in all, +is just what no doctrinaire, no nostrum can communicate—the breath of +life, the principle of organic growth. Things had come, indeed, to a +melancholy pass for Florence when her tyrant, in order to confirm his +hold upon her, had to devise these springs and irons to support her +tottering limbs.</p> + + +<p>XXIV</p> + + +<p>While the archbishop and the doctors were debating, a plot was +hatching in the Rucellai Gardens. It was here that the Florentine +Academy now held their meetings. For this society Machiavelli wrote +his 'Treatise on the Art of War,' and his 'Discourses upon Livy.' The +former was an exposition of Machiavelli's scheme for creating a +national militia, as the only safeguard for Italy, exposed at this +period to the invasions of great foreign armies. The latter is one of +the three or four masterpieces produced by the Florentine school of +critical historians. Stimulated by the daring speculations of +Machiavelli, and fired to enthusiasm by their study of antiquity, the +younger academicians formed a conspiracy for murdering Giulio de' +Medici, and restoring the republic on a Roman model. An intercepted +letter betrayed their plans. Two of the conspirators were taken and +beheaded. Others escaped. But the discovery of this conjuration put a +stop to Giulio's scheme of reforming the State. Henceforth he ruled +Florence like a despot, mild in manners, cautious in the exercise of +arbitrary power, but firm in his autocracy. The Condottiere. +Alessandro Vitelli, with a company of soldiers, was taken into service +for the protection of his person and the intimidation of the citizens.</p> + +<p>In 1523, the Pope, Adrian VI., expired after a short papacy, from +which he gained no honour and Italy no profit. Giulio hurried to Rome, +and, by the clever use of his large influence, caused himself to be +elected with the title of Clement VII. In Florence he left Silvio +Passerini, Cardinal of Cortona, as his vicegerent and the guardian of +the two boys Alessandro and Ippolito. The discipline of many years had +accustomed the Florentines to a government of priests. Still the +burghers, mindful of their ancient liberties, were galled by the yoke +of a Cortonese, sprung up from one of their subject cities; nor could +they bear the bastards who were being reared to rule them. Foreigners +threw it in their teeth that Florence, the city glorious of art and +freedom, was become a stable for mules—<i>stalla da muli</i>, in the +expressive language of popular sarcasm. Bastardy, it may be said in +passing, carried with it small dishonour among the Italians. The +Estensi were all illegitimate; the Aragonese house in Naples sprang +from Alfonso's natural son; and children of Popes ranked among the +princes. Yet the uncertainty of Alessandro's birth and the base +condition of his mother made the prospect of this tyrant peculiarly +odious; while the primacy of a foreign cardinal in the midst of +citizens whose spirit was still unbroken, embittered the cup of +humiliation. The Casa Medici held its authority by a slender thread, +and depended more upon the disunion of the burghers than on any power +of its own. It could always reckon on the favour of the lower +populace, who gained profit and amusement from the presence of a +court. The Ottimati again hoped more from a weak despotism than from a +commonwealth, where their privileges would have been merged in the +mass of the Grand Council. Thus the sympathies of the plebeians and +the selfishness of the rich patricians prevented the republic from +asserting itself. On this meagre basis of personal cupidity the Medici +sustained themselves. What made the situation still more delicate, and +at the same time protracted the feeble rule of Clement, was that +neither the Florentines nor the Medici had any army. Face to face with +a potentate so considerable as the Pope, a free State could not be +established without military force. On the other hand, the Medici, +supported by a mere handful of mercenaries, had no power to resist a +popular rising if any external event should inspire the middle classes +with a hope of liberty.</p> + + +<p>XXV</p> + + +<p>Clement assumed the tiara at a moment of great difficulty. Leo had +ruined the finance of Rome. France and Spain were still contending for +the possession of Italy. While acting as Vice-Chancellor, Giulio de' +Medici had seemed to hold the reins with a firm grasp, and men +expected that he would prove a powerful Pope; but in those days he had +Leo to help him; and Leo, though indolent, was an abler man than his +cousin. He planned, and Giulio executed. Obliged to act now for +himself, Clement revealed the weakness of his nature. That weakness +was irresolution, craft without wisdom, diplomacy without knowledge of +men. He raised the storm, and showed himself incapable of guiding it. +This is not the place to tell by what a series of crooked schemes and +cross purposes he brought upon himself the ruin of the Church and +Rome, to relate his disagreement with the Emperor, or to describe +again the sack of the Eternal City by the rabble of the Constable de +Bourbon's army. That wreck of Rome in 1527 was the closing scene of +the Italian Renaissance—the last of the Apocalyptic tragedies +foretold by Savonarola—the death of the old age.</p> + +<p>When the Florentines knew what was happening in Rome, they rose and +forced the Cardinal Passerini to depart with the Medicean bastards +from the city. The youth demanded arms for the defence of the town, +and they received them. The whole male population was enrolled in a +militia. The Grand Council was reformed, and the republic was restored +upon the basis of 1495. Niccolo Capponi was elected Gonfalonier. The +name of Christ was again registered as chief of the commonwealth—to +such an extent did the memory of Savonarola still sway the popular +imagination. The new State hastened to form an alliance with France, +and Malatesta Baglioni was chosen as military Commander-in-Chief. +Meanwhile the city armed itself for siege—Michel Angelo Buonarroti +and Francesco da San Gallo undertaking the construction of new forts +and ramparts. These measures were adopted with sudden decision, +because it was soon known that Clement had made peace with the +Emperor, and that the army which had sacked Rome was going to be +marched on Florence.</p> + + +<p>XXVI</p> + + +<p>In the month of August 1529 the Prince of Orange assembled his forces +at Terni, and thence advanced by easy stages into Tuscany. As he +approached, the Florentines laid waste their suburbs, and threw down +their wreath of towers, in order that the enemy might have no +harbourage or points of vantage for attack. Their troops were +concentrated within the city, where a new Gonfalonier, Francesco +Carducci, furiously opposed to the Medici, and attached to the +Piagnoni party, now ruled. On September 4th the Prince of Orange +appeared before the walls, and opened the memorable siege. It lasted +eight months, at the end of which time, betrayed by their generals, +divided among themselves, and worn out with delays, the Florentines +capitulated. Florence was paid as compensation for the insult offered +to the pontiff in the sack of Rome.</p> + +<p>The long yoke of the Medici had undermined the character of the +Florentines. This, their last glorious struggle for liberty, was but a +flash in the pan—a final flare-up of the dying lamp. The city was not +satisfied with slavery; but it had no capacity for united action. The +Ottimati were egotistic and jealous of the people. The Palleschi +desired to restore the Medici at any price—some of them frankly +wishing for a principality, others trusting that the old +quasi-republican government might still be reinstated. The Red +Republicans, styled Libertini and Arrabbiati, clung together in blind +hatred of the Medicean party; but they had no further policy to guide +them. The Piagnoni, or Frateschi, stuck to the memory of Savonarola, +and believed that angels would descend to guard the battlements when +human help had failed. These enthusiasts still formed the true nerve +of the nation—the class that might have saved the State, if salvation +had been possible. Even as it was, the energy of their fanaticism +prolonged the siege until resistance seemed no longer physically +possible. The hero developed by the crisis was Francesco Ferrucci, a +plebeian who had passed his youth in manual labour, and who now +displayed rare military genius. He fell fighting outside the walls of +Florence. Had he commanded the troops from the beginning, and remained +inside the city, it is just possible that the fate of the war might +have been less disastrous. As it was, Malatesta Baglioni, the +Commander-in-Chief, turned out an arrant scoundrel. He held secret +correspondence with Clement and the Prince of Orange. It was he who +finally sold Florence to her foes, 'putting on his head,' as the Doge +of Venice said before the Senate, 'the cap of the biggest traitor upon +record.'</p> + + +<p>XXVII</p> + + +<p>What remains of Florentine history may be briefly told. Clement, now +the undisputed arbiter of power and honour in the city, chose +Alessandro de' Medici to be prince. Alessandro was created Duke of +Cività di Penna, and married to a natural daughter of Charles V. +Ippolito was made a cardinal. Ippolito would have preferred a secular +to a priestly kingdom; nor did he conceal his jealousy for his cousin. +Therefore Alessandro had him poisoned. Alessandro in his turn was +murdered by his kinsman, Lorenzino de' Medici. Lorenzino paid the +usual penalty of tyrannicide some years later. When Alessandro was +killed in 1539, Clement had himself been dead five years. Thus the +whole posterity of Cosimo de' Medici, with the exception of Catherine, +Queen of France, was utterly extinguished. But the Medici had struck +root so firmly in the State, and had so remodelled it upon the type of +tyranny, that the Florentines were no longer able to do without them. +The chiefs of the Ottimati selected Cosimo, the representative of +Giovanni the Invincible, for their prince, and thus the line of the +elder Lorenzo came at last to power. This Cosimo was a boy of +eighteen, fond of field-sports, and unused to party intrigues. When +Francesco Guicciardini offered him a privy purse of one hundred and +twenty thousand ducats annually, together with the presidency of +Florence, this wily politician hoped that he would rule the State +through Cosimo, and realise at last that dream of the Ottimati, a +<i>Governo Stretto</i> or <i>di Pochi</i>. He was notably mistaken in his +calculations. The first days of Cosimo's administration showed that +he possessed the craft of his family and the vigour of his immediate +progenitors, and that he meant to be sole master in Florence. He it +was who obtained the title of Grand Duke of Tuscany from the Pope—a +title confirmed by the Emperor, fortified by Austrian alliances, and +transmitted through his heirs to the present century.</p> + + +<p>XXVIII</p> + + +<p>In this sketch of Florentine history, I have purposely omitted all +details that did not bear upon the constitutional history of the +republic, or on the growth of the Medici as despots; because I wanted +to present a picture of the process whereby that family contrived to +fasten itself upon the freest and most cultivated State in Italy. This +success the Medici owed mainly to their own obstinacy, and to the +weakness of republican institutions in Florence. Their power was +founded upon wealth in the first instance, and upon the ingenuity with +which they turned the favour of the proletariate to use. It was +confirmed by the mistakes and failures of their enemies, by Rinaldo +degli Albizzi's attack on Cosimo, by the conspiracy of Neroni and +Pitti against Piero, and by Francesco de' Pazzi's attempt to +assassinate Lorenzo. It was still further strengthened by the Medicean +sympathy for arts and letters—a sympathy which placed both Cosimo and +Lorenzo at the head of the Renaissance movement, and made them worthy +to represent Florence, the city of genius, in the fifteenth century. +While thus founding and cementing their dynastic influence upon the +basis of a widespread popularity, the Medici employed persistent +cunning in the enfeeblement of the Republic. It was their policy not +to plant themselves by force or acts of overt tyranny, but to corrupt +ambitious citizens, to secure the patronage of public officers, and to +render the spontaneous working of the State machinery impossible. By +pursuing this policy over a long series of years they made the revival +of liberty in 1494, and again in 1527, ineffectual. While exiled from +Florence, they never lost the hope of returning as masters, so long as +the passions they had excited, and they alone could gratify, remained +in full activity. These passions were avarice and egotism, the greed +of the grasping Ottimati, the jealousy of the nobles, the +self-indulgence of the proletariate. Yet it is probable they might +have failed to recover Florence, on one or other of these two +occasions, but for the accident which placed Giovanni de' Medici on +the Papal chair, and enabled him to put Giulio in the way of the same +dignity. From the accession of Leo in 1513 to the year 1527 the Medici +ruled Florence from Rome, and brought the power of the Church into the +service of their despotism. After that date they were still further +aided by the imperial policy of Charles V., who chose to govern Italy +through subject princes, bound to himself by domestic alliances and +powerful interests. One of these was Cosimo, the first Grand Duke of +Tuscany.</p> +<h5><a href="#CONTENTS">CONTENTS</a></h5> + +<br /><br /> +<hr style="width: 100%;" /> + + + + +<h2><a name="THE_DEBT_OF_ENGLISH_TO_ITALIAN_LITERATURE" id="THE_DEBT_OF_ENGLISH_TO_ITALIAN_LITERATURE" /><i>THE DEBT OF ENGLISH TO ITALIAN LITERATURE</i></a></h2> + +<hr style="width: 100%;" /> + +<br /> +<p>To an Englishman one of the chief interests of the study of Italian +literature is derived from the fact that, between England and Italy, +an almost uninterrupted current of intellectual intercourse has been +maintained throughout the last five centuries. The English have never, +indeed, at any time been slavish imitators of the Italians; but Italy +has formed the dreamland of the English fancy, inspiring poets with +their most delightful thoughts, supplying them with subjects, and +implanting in their minds that sentiment of Southern beauty which, +engrafted on our more passionately imaginative Northern nature, has +borne rich fruit in the works of Chaucer, Spenser, Marlowe, Shakspere, +Milton, and the poets of this century.</p> + +<p>It is not strange that Italy should thus in matters of culture have +been the guide and mistress of England. Italy, of all the European +nations, was the first to produce high art and literature in the dawn +of modern civilisation. Italy was the first to display refinement in +domestic life, polish of manners, civilities of intercourse. In Italy +the commerce of courts first developed a society of men and women, +educated by the same traditions of humanistic culture. In Italy the +principles of government were first discussed and reduced to theory. +In Italy the zeal for the classics took its origin; and scholarship, +to which we owe our mental training, was at first the possession of +none almost but Italians. It therefore followed that during the age of +the Renaissance any man of taste or genius, who desired to share the +newly discovered privileges of learning, had to seek Italy. Every one +who wished to be initiated into the secrets of science or philosophy, +had to converse with Italians in person or through books. Every one +who was eager to polish his native language, and to render it the +proper vehicle of poetic thought, had to consult the masterpieces of +Italian literature. To Italians the courtier, the diplomatist, the +artist, the student of statecraft and of military tactics, the +political theorist, the merchant, the man of laws, the man of arms, +and the churchman turned for precedents and precepts. The nations of +the North, still torpid and somnolent in their semi-barbarism, needed +the magnetic touch of Italy before they could awake to intellectual +life. Nor was this all. Long before the thirst for culture possessed +the English mind, Italy had appropriated and assimilated all that +Latin literature contained of strong or splendid to arouse the thought +and fancy of the modern world; Greek, too, was rapidly becoming the +possession of the scholars of Florence and Rome; so that English men +of letters found the spirit of the ancients infused into a modern +literature; models of correct and elegant composition existed for them +in a language easy, harmonious, and not dissimilar in usage to their +own.</p> + +<p>The importance of this service, rendered by Italians to the rest of +Europe, cannot be exaggerated. By exploring, digesting, and +reproducing the classics, Italy made the labour of scholarship +comparatively light for the Northern nations, and extended to us the +privilege of culture without the peril of losing originality in the +enthusiasm for erudition. Our great poets could handle lightly, and +yet profitably, those masterpieces of Greece and Rome, beneath the +weight of which, when first discovered, the genius of the Italians had +wavered. To the originality of Shakspere an accession of wealth +without weakness was brought by the perusal of Italian works, in which +the spirit of the antique was seen as in a modern mirror. Then, in +addition to this benefit of instruction, Italy gave to England a gift +of pure beauty, the influence of which, in refining our national +taste, harmonising the roughness of our manners and our language, and +stimulating our imagination, has been incalculable. It was a not +unfrequent custom for young men of ability to study at the Italian +universities, or at least to undertake a journey to the principal +Italian cities. From their sojourn in that land of loveliness and +intellectual life they returned with their Northern brains most +powerfully stimulated. To produce, by masterpieces of the imagination, +some work of style that should remain as a memento of that glorious +country, and should vie on English soil with the art of Italy, was +their generous ambition. Consequently the substance of the stories +versified by our poets, the forms of our metres, and the cadences of +our prose periods reveal a close attention to Italian originals.</p> + +<p>This debt of England to Italy in the matter of our literature began +with Chaucer. Truly original and national as was the framework of the +'Canterbury Tales,' we can hardly doubt but that Chaucer was +determined in the form adopted for his poem by the example of +Boccaccio. The subject-matter, also, of many of his tales was taken +from Boccaccio's prose or verse. For example, the story of Patient +Grizzel is founded upon one of the legends of the 'Decameron,' while +the Knight's Tale is almost translated from the 'Teseide' of +Boccaccio, and Troilus and Creseide is derived from the 'Filostrato' +of the same author. The Franklin's Tale and the Reeve's Tale are also +based either on stories of Boccaccio or else on French 'Fabliaux,' to +which Chaucer, as well as Boccaccio, had access. I do not wish to lay +too much stress upon Chaucer's direct obligations to Boccaccio, +because it is incontestable that the French 'Fabliaux,' which supplied +them both with subjects, were the common property of the mediæval +nations. But his indirect debt in all that concerns elegant handling +of material, and in the fusion of the romantic with the classic +spirit, which forms the chief charm of such tales as the Palamon and +Arcite, can hardly be exaggerated. Lastly, the seven-lined stanza, +called <i>rime royal</i>, which Chaucer used with so much effect in +narrative poetry, was probably borrowed from the earlier Florentine +'Ballata,' the last line rhyming with its predecessor being +substituted for the recurrent refrain. Indeed, the stanza itself, as +used by our earliest poets, may be found in Guido Cavalcanti's +'Ballatetta,' beginning, <i>Posso degli occhi miei</i>.</p> + +<p>Between Chaucer and Surrey the Muse of England fell asleep; but when +in the latter half of the reign of Henry VIII. she awoke again, it was +as a conscious pupil of the Italian that she attempted new strains and +essayed fresh metres. 'In the latter end of Henry VIII.'s reign,' says +Puttenham, 'sprang up a new company of courtly makers, of whom Sir T. +Wyatt the elder, and Henry Earl of Surrey, were the two chieftains, +who, having travelled into Italy, and there tasted the sweet and +stately measures and style of the Italian poesy, as novices newly +crept out of the schools of Dante, Ariosto, and Petrarch, they greatly +polished our rude and homely manner of vulgar poesy, from that it had +been before, and for that cause may justly be said the first reformers +of our English metre and style.' The chief point in which Surrey +imitated his 'master, Francis Petrarcha,' was in the use of the +sonnet. He introduced this elaborate form of poetry into our +literature; and how it has thriven with us, the masterpieces of +Spenser, Shakspere, Milton, Wordsworth, Keats, Rossetti attest. As +practised by Dante and Petrarch, the sonnet is a poem of fourteen +lines, divided into two quatrains and two triplets, so arranged that +the two quatrains repeat one pair of rhymes, while the two triplets +repeat another pair. Thus an Italian sonnet of the strictest form is +composed upon four rhymes, interlaced with great art. But much +divergence from this rigid scheme of rhyming was admitted even by +Petrarch, who not unfrequently divided the six final lines of the +sonnet into three couplets, interwoven in such a way that the two last +lines never rhymed.<a name="FNanchor_17_17" id="FNanchor_17_17" /></a><a href="#Footnote_17_17" class="fnanchor">[17]</a></p> + +<p>It has been necessary to say thus much about the structure of the +Italian sonnet, in order to make clear the task which lay before +Surrey and Wyatt, when they sought to transplant it into English. +Surrey did not adhere to the strict fashion of Petrarch: his sonnets +consist either of three regular quatrains concluded with a couplet, +or else of twelve lines rhyming alternately and concluded with a +couplet. Wyatt attempted to follow the order and interlacement of the +Italian rhymes more closely, but he too concluded his sonnet with a +couplet. This introduction of the final couplet was a violation of the +Italian rule, which may be fairly considered as prejudicial to the +harmony of the whole structure, and which has insensibly caused the +English sonnet to terminate in an epigram. The famous sonnet of Surrey +on his love, Geraldine, is an excellent example of the metrical +structure as adapted to the supposed necessities of English rhyming, +and as afterwards adhered to by Shakspere in his long series of +love-poems. Surrey, while adopting the form of the sonnet, kept quite +clear of the Petrarchist's mannerism. His language is simple and +direct: there is no subtilising upon far-fetched conceits, no +wire-drawing of exquisite sentimentalism, although he celebrates in +this, as in his other sonnets, a lady for whom he appears to have +entertained no more than a Platonic or imaginary passion. Surrey was a +great experimentalist in metre. Besides the sonnet, he introduced into +England blank verse, which he borrowed from the Italian <i>versi +sciolti</i>, fixing that decasyllable iambic rhythm for English +versification in which our greatest poetical triumphs have been +achieved.</p> + +<p>Before quitting the subject of the sonnet it would, however, be well +to mention the changes which were wrought in its structure by early +poets desirous of emulating the Italians. Shakspere, as already +hinted, adhered to the simple form introduced by Surrey: his stanzas +invariably consist of three separate quatrains followed by a couplet. +But Sir Philip Sidney, whose familiarity with Italian literature was +intimate, and who had resided long in Italy, perceived that without a +greater complexity and interweaving of rhymes the beauty of the poem +was considerably impaired. He therefore combined the rhymes of the two +quatrains, as the Italians had done, leaving himself free to follow +the Italian fashion in the conclusion, or else to wind up after +English usage with a couplet. Spenser and Drummond follow the rule of +Sidney; Drayton and Daniel, that of Surrey and Shakspere. It was not +until Milton that an English poet preserved the form of the Italian +sonnet in its strictness; but, after Milton, the greatest +sonnet-writers—Wordsworth, Keats, and Rossetti—have aimed at +producing stanzas as regular as those of Petrarch.</p> + +<p>The great age of our literature—the age of Elizabeth—was essentially +one of Italian influence. In Italy the Renaissance had reached its +height: England, feeling the new life which had been infused into arts +and letters, turned instinctively to Italy, and adopted her canons of +taste. 'Euphues' has a distinct connection with the Italian discourses +of polite culture. Sidney's 'Arcadia' is a copy of what Boccaccio had +attempted in his classical romances, and Sanazzaro in his +pastorals.<a name="FNanchor_18_18" id="FNanchor_18_18" /></a><a href="#Footnote_18_18" class="fnanchor">[18]</a> Spenser approached the subject of the 'Faery Queen' +with his head full of Ariosto and the romantic poets of Italy. His +sonnets are Italian; his odes embody the Platonic philosophy of the +Italians.<a name="FNanchor_19_19" id="FNanchor_19_19" /></a><a href="#Footnote_19_19" class="fnanchor">[19]</a> The extent of Spenser's deference to the Italians in +matters of poetic art may be gathered from this passage in the +dedication to Sir Walter Raleigh of the 'Faery Queen:'</p> + +<div class="blockquot"><p>I have followed all the antique poets historical: first + Homer, who in the persons of Agamemnon and Ulysses hath + ensampled a good governor and a virtuous man, the one in his + Ilias, the other in his Odysseis; then Virgil, whose like + intention was to do in the person of Æneas; after him + Ariosto comprised them both in his Orlando; and lately Tasso + dissevered them again, and formed both parts in two persons, + namely, that part which they in Philosophy call Ethice, or + virtues of a private man, coloured in his Rinaldo, the other + named Politico in his Goffredo.</p></div> + +<p>From this it is clear that, to the mind of Spenser, both Ariosto and +Tasso were authorities of hardly less gravity than Homer and Virgil. +Raleigh, in the splendid sonnet with which he responds to this +dedication, enhances the fame of Spenser by affecting to believe that +the great Italian, Petrarch, will be jealous of him in the grave. To +such an extent were the thoughts of the English poets occupied with +their Italian masters in the art of song.</p> + +<p>It was at this time, again, that English literature was enriched by +translations of Ariosto and Tasso—the one from the pen of Sir John +Harrington, the other from that of Fairfax. Both were produced in the +metre of the original—the octave stanza, which, however, did not at +that period take root in England. At the same period the works of many +of the Italian novelists, especially Bandello and Cinthio and +Boccaccio, were translated into English; Painter's 'Palace of +Pleasure' being a treasure-house of Italian works of fiction. Thomas +Hoby translated Castiglione's 'Courtier' in 1561. As a proof of the +extent to which Italian books were read in England at the end of the +sixteenth century, we may take a stray sentence from a letter of +Harvey, in which he disparages the works of Robert Greene:—'Even +Guicciardine's silver histories and Ariosto's golden cantos grow out +of request: and the Countess of Pembroke's "Arcadia" is not green +enough for queasy stomachs; but they must have seen Greene's +"Arcadia," and I believe most eagerly longed for Greene's "Faery +Queen."'</p> + +<p>Still more may be gathered on the same topic from the indignant +protest uttered by Roger Ascham in his 'Schoolmaster' (pp. 78-91, date +1570) against the prevalence of Italian customs, the habit of Italian +travel, and the reading of Italian books translated into English. +Selections of Italian stories rendered into English were extremely +popular; and Greene's tales, which had such vogue that Nash says of +them, 'glad was that printer that might be so blest to pay him dear +for the very dregs of his wit,' were all modelled on the Italian. The +education of a young man of good family was not thought complete +unless he had spent some time in Italy, studied its literature, +admired its arts, and caught at least some tincture of its manners. +Our rude ancestors brought back with them from these journeys many +Southern vices, together with the culture they had gone to seek. The +contrast between the plain dealing of the North and the refined +Machiavellism of the South, between Protestant earnestness in religion +and Popish scepticism, between the homely virtues of England and the +courtly libertinism of Venice or Florence, blunted the moral sense, +while it stimulated the intellectual activity of the English +travellers, and too often communicated a fatal shock to their +principles. <i>Inglese Italianato è un diavolo incarnato</i> passed into a +proverb: we find it on the lips of Parker, of Howell, of Sidney, of +Greene, and of Ascham; while Italy itself was styled by severe +moralists the court of Circe. In James Howell's 'Instructions for +forreine travell' we find this pregnant sentence: 'And being now in +Italy, that great limbique of working braines, he must be very +circumspect in his carriage, for she is able to turne a Saint into a +devill, and deprave the best natures, if one will abandon himselfe, +and become a prey to dissolut courses and wantonesse.' Italy, in +truth, had already become corrupt, and the fruit of her contact with +the nations of the North was seen in the lives of such scholars as +Robert Greene, who confessed that he returned from his travels +instructed 'in all the villanies under the sun.' Many of the scandals +of the Court of James might be ascribed to this aping of Southern +manners.</p> + +<p>Yet, together with the evil of depraved morality, the advantage of +improved culture was imported from Italy into England; and the +constitution of the English genius was young and healthy enough to +purge off the mischief, while it assimilated what was beneficial. This +is very manifest in the history of our drama, which, taking it +altogether, is at the same time the purest and the most varied that +exists in literature; while it may be affirmed without exaggeration +that one of the main impulses to free dramatic composition in England +was communicated by the attraction everything Italian possessed for +the English fancy. It was in the drama that the English displayed the +richness and the splendour of the Renaissance, which had blazed so +gorgeously and at times so balefully below the Alps. The Italy of the +Renaissance fascinated our dramatists with a strange wild glamour—the +contrast of external pageant and internal tragedy, the alternations of +radiance and gloom, the terrible examples of bloodshed, treason, and +heroism emergent from ghastly crimes. Our drama began with a +translation of Ariosto's 'Suppositi' and ended with Davenant's 'Just +Italian.' In the very dawn of tragic composition Greene versified a +portion of the 'Orlando Furioso,' and Marlowe devoted one of his most +brilliant studies to the villanies of a Maltese Jew. Of Shakspere's +plays five are incontestably Italian: several of the rest are +furnished with Italian names to suit the popular taste. Ben Jonson +laid the scene of his most subtle comedy of manners, 'Volpone,' in +Venice, and sketched the first cast of 'Every Man in his Humour' for +Italian characters. Tourneur, Ford, and Webster were so dazzled by the +tragic lustre of the wickedness of Italy that their finest dramas, +without exception, are minute and carefully studied psychological +analyses of great Italian tales of crime. The same, in a less degree, +is true of Middleton and Dekker. Massinger makes a story of the Sforza +family the subject of one of his best plays. Beaumont and Fletcher +draw the subjects of comedies and tragedies alike from the Italian +novelists. Fletcher in his 'Faithful Shepherdess' transfers the +pastoral style of Tasso and Guarini to the North. So close is the +connection between our tragedy and Italian novels that Marston and +Ford think fit to introduce passages of Italian dialogue into the +plays of 'Giovanni and Annabella' and 'Antonio and Mellida.' But the +best proof of the extent to which Italian life and literature had +influenced our dramatists, may be easily obtained by taking down +Halliwell's 'Dictionary of Old Plays,' and noticing that about every +third drama has an Italian title. Meanwhile the poems composed by the +chief dramatists—Shakspere's 'Venus and Adonis,' Marlowe's 'Hero and +Leander,' Marston's 'Pygmalion,' and Beaumont's 'Hermaphrodite'—are +all of them conceived in the Italian style, by men who had either +studied Southern literature, or had submitted to its powerful æsthetic +influences. The Masques, moreover, of Jonson, of Lyly, of Fletcher, +and of Chapman are exact reproductions upon the English court theatres +of such festival pageants as were presented to the Medici at Florence +or to the Este family at Ferrara.<a name="FNanchor_20_20" id="FNanchor_20_20" /></a><a href="#Footnote_20_20" class="fnanchor">[20]</a> Throughout our drama the +influence of Italy, direct or indirect, either as supplying our +playwrights with subjects or as stimulating their imagination, may +thus be traced. Yet the Elizabethan drama is in the highest sense +original. As a work of art pregnant with deepest wisdom, and +splendidly illustrative of the age which gave it birth, it far +transcends anything that Italy produced in the same department. Our +poets have a more masculine judgment, more fiery fancy, nobler +sentiment, than the Italians of any age but that of Dante. What Italy +gave, was the impulse toward creation, not patterns to be +imitated—the excitement of the imagination by a spectacle of so much +grandeur, not rules and precepts for production—the keen sense of +tragic beauty, not any tradition of accomplished art.</p> + +<p>The Elizabethan period of our literature was, in fact, the period +during which we derived most from the Italian nation.</p> + +<p>The study of the Italian language went hand in hand with the study of +Greek and Latin, so that the three together contributed to form the +English taste. Between us and the ancient world stood the genius of +Italy as an interpreter. Nor was this connection broken until far on +into the reign of Charles II. What Milton owed to Italy is clear not +only from his Italian sonnets, but also from the frequent mention of +Dante and Petrarch in his prose works, from his allusions to Boiardo +and Ariosto in the 'Paradise Lost,' and from the hints which he +probably derived from Pulci, Tasso and Andreini. It would, indeed, be +easy throughout his works to trace a continuous vein of Italian +influence in detail. But, more than this, Milton's poetical taste in +general seems to have been formed and ripened by familiarity with the +harmonies of the Italian language. In his Tractate on Education +addressed to Mr. Hartlib, he recommends that boys should be instructed +in the Italian pronunciation of vowel sounds, in order to give +sonorousness and dignity to elocution. This slight indication supplies +us with a key to the method of melodious structure employed by Milton +in his blank verse. Those who have carefully studied the harmonies of +the 'Paradise Lost,' know how all-important are the assonances of the +vowel sounds of <i>o</i> and <i>a</i> in its most musical passages. It is just +this attention to the liquid and sonorous recurrences of open vowels +that we should expect from a poet who proposed to assimilate his +diction to that of the Italians.</p> + +<p>After the age of Milton the connection between Italy and England is +interrupted. In the seventeenth century Italy herself had sunk into +comparative stupor, and her literature was trivial. France not only +swayed the political destinies of Europe, but also took the lead in +intellectual culture. Consequently, our poets turned from Italy to +France, and the French spirit pervaded English literature throughout +the period of the Restoration and the reigns of William and Queen +Anne. Yet during this prolonged reaction against the earlier movement +of English literature, as manifested in Elizabethanism, the influence +of Italy was not wholly extinct. Dryden's 'Tales from Boccaccio' are +no insignificant contribution to our poetry, and his 'Palamon and +Arcite,' through Chaucer, returns to the same source. But when, at the +beginning of this century, the Elizabethan tradition was revived, then +the Italian influence reappeared more vigorous than ever. The metre of +'Don Juan,' first practised by Frere and then adopted by Lord Byron, +is Pulci's octave stanza; the manner is that of Berni, Folengo, and +the Abbé Casti, fused and heightened by the brilliance of Byron's +genius into a new form. The subject of Shelley's strongest work of art +is Beatrice Cenci. Rogers's poem is styled 'Italy.' Byron's dramas are +chiefly Italian. Leigh Hunt repeats the tale of Francesca da Rimini. +Keats versifies Boccaccio's 'Isabella.' Passing to contemporary poets, +Rossetti has acclimatised in English the metres and the manner of the +earliest Italian lyrists. Swinburne dedicates his noblest song to the +spirit of liberty in Italy. Even George Eliot and Tennyson have each +of them turned stories of Boccaccio into verse. The best of Mrs. +Browning's poems, 'Casa Guidi Windows' and 'Aurora Leigh,' are steeped +in Italian thought and Italian imagery. Browning's longest poem is a +tale of Italian crime; his finest studies in the 'Men and Women' are +portraits of Italian character of the Renaissance period. But there is +more than any mere enumeration of poets and their work can set forth, +in the connection between Italy and England. That connection, so far +as the poetical imagination is concerned, is vital. As poets in the +truest sense of the word, we English live and breathe through sympathy +with the Italians. The magnetic touch which is required to inflame the +imagination of the North, is derived from Italy. The nightingales of +English song who make our oak and beech copses resonant in spring with +purest melody, are migratory birds, who have charged their souls in +the South with the spirit of beauty, and who return to warble native +wood-notes in a tongue which is their own.</p> + +<p>What has hitherto been said about the debt of the English poets to +Italy, may seem to imply that our literature can be regarded as to +some extent a parasite on that of the Italians. Against such a +conclusion no protest too energetic could be uttered. What we have +derived directly from the Italian poets are, first, some +metres—especially the sonnet and the octave stanza, though the latter +has never taken firm root in England. 'Terza rima,' attempted by +Shelley, Byron, Morris, and Mrs. Browning, has not yet become +acclimatised. Blank verse, although originally remodelled by Surrey +upon the <i>versi sciolti</i> of the Italians, has departed widely from +Italian precedent, first by its decasyllabic structure, whereas +Italian verse consists of hendecasyllables; and, secondly, by its +greater force, plasticity, and freedom. The Spenserian stanza, again, +is a new and original metre peculiar to our literature; though it is +possible that but for the complex structures of Italian lyric verse, +it might not have been fashioned for the 'Faery Queen.' Lastly, the +so-called heroic couplet is native to England; at any rate, it is in +no way related to Italian metre. Therefore the only true Italian +exotic adopted without modification into our literature is the sonnet.</p> + +<p>In the next place, we owe to the Italians the subject-matter of many +of our most famous dramas and our most delightful tales in verse. But +the English treatment of these histories and fables has been uniformly +independent and original. Comparing Shakspere's 'Romeo and Juliet' +with Bandello's tale, Webster's 'Duchess of Malfy' with the version +given from the Italian in Painter's 'Palace of Pleasure,' and +Chaucer's Knight's Tale with the 'Teseide' of Boccaccio, we perceive +at once that the English poets have used their Italian models merely +as outlines to be filled in with freedom, as the canvas to be +embroidered with a tapestry of vivid groups. Nothing is more manifest +than the superiority of the English genius over the Italian in all +dramatic qualities of intense passion, profound analysis, and living +portrayal of character in action. The mere rough detail of Shakspere's +'Othello' is to be found in Cinthio's Collection of Novelle; but let +an unprejudiced reader peruse the original, and he will be no more +deeply affected by it than by any touching story of treachery, +jealousy, and hapless innocence. The wily subtleties of Iago, the +soldierly frankness of Cassio, the turbulent and volcanic passions of +Othello, the charm of Desdemona, and the whole tissue of vivid +incidents which make 'Othello' one of the most tremendous extant +tragedies of characters in combat, are Shakspere's, and only +Shakspere's. This instance, indeed, enables us exactly to indicate +what the English owed to Italy and what was essentially their own. +From that Southern land of Circe about which they dreamed, and which +now and then they visited, came to their imaginations a +spirit-stirring breath of inspiration. It was to them the country of +marvels, of mysterious crimes, of luxurious gardens and splendid +skies, where love was more passionate and life more picturesque, and +hate more bloody and treachery more black, than in our Northern +climes. Italy was a spacious grove of wizardry, which mighty poets, on +the quest of fanciful adventure, trod with fascinated senses and +quickened pulses. But the strong brain which converted what they heard +and read and saw of that charmed land into the stuff of golden romance +or sable tragedy, was their own.</p> + +<p>English literature has been defined a literature of genius.</p> + +<p>Our greatest work in art has been achieved not so much by inspiration, +subordinate to sentiments of exquisite good taste or guided by +observance of classical models, as by audacious sallies of pure +inventive power. This is true as a judgment of that constellation +which we call our drama, of the meteor Byron, of Milton and Dryden, +who are the Jupiter and Mars of our poetic system, and of the stars +which stud our literary firmament under the names of Shelley, Keats, +Wordsworth, Chatterton, Scott, Coleridge, Clough, Blake, Browning, +Swinburne, Tennyson. There are only a very few of the English poets, +Pope and Gray, for example, in whom the free instincts of genius are +kept systematically in check by the laws of the reflective +understanding. Now Italian literature is in this respect all unlike +our own. It began, indeed, with Dante, as a literature pre-eminently +of genius; but the spirit of scholarship assumed the sway as early as +the days of Petrarch and Boccaccio, and after them Italian has been +consistently a literature of taste. By this I mean that even the +greatest Italian poets have sought to render their style correct, have +endeavoured to subordinate their inspiration to what they considered +the rules of sound criticism, and have paid serious attention to their +manner as independent of the matter they wished to express. The +passion for antiquity, so early developed in Italy, delivered the +later Italian poets bound hand and foot into the hands of Horace. +Poliziano was content to reproduce the classic authors in a mosaic +work of exquisite translations. Tasso was essentially a man of talent, +producing work of chastened beauty by diligent attention to the rule +and method of his art. Even Ariosto submitted the liberty of his swift +spirit to canons of prescribed elegance. While our English poets have +conceived and executed without regard for the opinion of the learned +and without obedience to the usages of language—Shakspere, for +example, producing tragedies which set Aristotle at defiance, and +Milton engrafting Latinisms on the native idiom—the Italian poets +thought and wrote with the fear of Academies before their eyes, and +studied before all things to maintain the purity of the Tuscan tongue. +The consequence is that the Italian and English literatures are +eminent for very different excellences. All that is forcible in the +dramatic presentation of life and character and action, all that is +audacious in imagination and capricious in fancy, whatever strength +style can gain from the sallies of original and untrammelled +eloquence, whatever beauty is derived from spontaneity and native +grace, belong in abundant richness to the English. On the other hand, +the Italian poets present us with masterpieces of correct and studied +diction, with carefully elaborated machinery, and with a style +maintained at a uniform level of dignified correctness. The weakness +of the English proceeds from inequality and extravagance; it is the +weakness of self-confident vigour, intolerant of rule, rejoicing in +its own exuberant resources. The weakness of the Italian is due to +timidity and moderation; it is the weakness that springs not so much +from a lack of native strength as from the over-anxious expenditure of +strength upon the attainment of finish, polish, and correctness. Hence +the two nations have everything to learn from one another. Modern +Italian poets may seek by contact with Shakspere and Milton to gain a +freedom from the trammels imposed upon them by the slavish followers +of Petrarch; while the attentive perusal of Tasso should be +recommended to all English people who have no ready access to the +masterpieces of Greek and Latin literature.</p> + +<p>Another point of view may be gained by noticing the pre-dominant tone +of the two literatures. Whenever English poetry is really great, it +approximates to the tragic and the stately; whereas the Italians are +peculiarly felicitous in the smooth and pleasant style, which combines +pathos with amusement, and which does not trespass beyond the region +of beauty into the domain of sublimity or terror. Italian poetry is +analogous to Italian painting and Italian music: it bathes the soul in +a plenitude of charms, investing even the most solemn subjects with +loveliness. Rembrandt and Albert Dürer depict the tragedies of the +Sacred History with a serious and awful reality: Italian painters, +with a few rare but illustrious exceptions, shrink from approaching +them from any point of view but that of harmonious melancholy. Even so +the English poets stir the soul to its very depths by their profound +and earnest delineations of the stern and bitter truths of the world: +Italian poets environ all things with the golden haze of an artistic +harmony; so that the soul is agitated by no pain at strife with the +persuasions of pure beauty.</p> +<h5><a href="#CONTENTS">CONTENTS</a></h5> + + +<br/><br /> +<hr style="width: 100%;" /> + +<h2><a name="POPULAR_SONGS_OF_TUSCANY" id="POPULAR_SONGS_OF_TUSCANY" /><i>POPULAR SONGS OF TUSCANY</i></a></h2> +<hr style="width: 100%;" /> +<br /> +<p>It is a noticeable fact about the popular songs of Tuscany that they +are almost exclusively devoted to love. The Italians in general have +no ballad literature resembling that of our Border or that of Spain. +The tragic histories of their noble families, the great deeds of their +national heroes, and the sufferings of their country during centuries +of warfare, have left but few traces in their rustic poetry. It is +true that some districts are less utterly barren than others in these +records of the past. The Sicilian people's poetry, for example, +preserves a memory of the famous Vespers; and one or two terrible +stories of domestic tragedy, like the tale of Rosmunda in 'La Donna +Lombarda,' the romance of the Baronessa di Carini, and the so-called +Caso di Sciacca, may still be heard upon the lips of the people. But +these exceptions are insignificant in comparison with the vast mass of +songs which deal with love; and I cannot find that Tuscany, where the +language of this minstrelsy is purest, and where the artistic +instincts of the race are strongest, has anything at all approaching +to our ballads.<a name="FNanchor_21_21" id="FNanchor_21_21" /></a><a href="#Footnote_21_21" class="fnanchor">[21]</a> Though the Tuscan contadini are always singing, it +rarely happens that</p> + +<p> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">The plaintive numbers flow</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">For old, unhappy, far-off things,</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">And battles long ago.</span><br /> +</p> + +<p>On the contrary, we may be sure, when we hear their voices ringing +through the olive-groves or macchi, that they are chanting</p> + +<p> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">Some more humble lay,</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Familiar matter of to-day,—</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Some natural sorrow, loss, or pain,</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">That has been, and may be again;</span><br /> +</p> + +<p>or else, since their melodies are by no means uniformly sad, some +ditty of the joyousness of springtime or the ecstasy of love.</p> + +<p>This defect of anything corresponding to our ballads of 'Chevy Chase,' +or 'Sir Patrick Spens,' or 'Gil Morrice,' in a poetry which is still +so vital with the life of past centuries, is all the more remarkable +because Italian history is distinguished above that of other nations +by tragic episodes peculiarly suited to poetic treatment. Many of +these received commemoration in the fourteenth century from Dante; +others were embodied in the <i>novelle</i> of Boccaccio and Cinthio and +Bandello, whence they passed into the dramas of Shakspere, Webster, +Ford, and their contemporaries. But scarcely an echo can be traced +through all the volumes of the recently collected popular songs. We +must seek for an explanation of this fact partly in the conditions of +Italian life, and partly in the nature of the Italian imagination. +Nowhere in Italy do we observe that intimate connection between the +people at large and the great nobles which generates the sympathy of +clanship. Politics in most parts of the peninsula fell at a very early +period into the hands either of irresponsible princes, who ruled like +despots, or else of burghers, who administered the state within the +walls of their Palazzo Pubblico. The people remained passive +spectators of contemporary history. The loyalty of subjects to their +sovereign which animates the Spanish ballads, the loyalty of retainers +to their chief which gives life to the tragic ballads of the Border, +did not exist in Italy. Country-folk felt no interest in the doings of +Visconti or Medici or Malatesti sufficient to arouse the enthusiasm of +local bards or to call forth the celebration of their princely +tragedies in verse. Amid the miseries of foreign wars and home +oppression, it seemed better to demand from verse and song some +mitigation of the woes of life, some expression of personal emotion, +than to record the disasters which to us at a distance appear poetic +in their grandeur.</p> + +<p>These conditions of popular life, although unfavourable to the +production of ballad poetry, would not, however, have been sufficient +by themselves to check its growth, if the Italians had been strongly +impelled to literature of this type by their nature. The real reason +why their <i>Volkslieder</i> are amorous and personal is to be found in the +quality of their imagination. The Italian genius is not creatively +imaginative in the highest sense. The Italians have never, either in +the ancient or the modern age, produced a great drama or a national +epic, the 'Æneid' and the 'Divine Comedy' being obviously of +different species from the 'Iliad' or the 'Nibelungen Lied.' Modern +Italians, again, are distinguished from the French, the Germans, and +the English in being the conscious inheritors of an older, august, and +strictly classical civilisation. The great memories of Rome weigh down +their faculties of invention. It would also seem as though they shrank +in their poetry from the representation of what is tragic and +spirit-stirring. They incline to what is cheerful, brilliant, or +pathetic. The dramatic element in human life, external to the +personality of the poet, which exercised so strong a fascination over +our ballad-bards and playwrights, has but little attraction for the +Italian. When he sings, he seeks to express his own individual +emotions—his love, his joy, his jealousy, his anger, his despair. The +language which he uses is at the same time direct in its intensity, +and hyperbolical in its display of fancy; but it lacks those +imaginative touches which exalt the poetry of personal passion into a +sublimer region. Again, the Italians are deficient in a sense of the +supernatural. The wraiths that cannot rest because their love is still +unsatisfied, the voices which cry by night over field and fell, the +water-spirits and forest fairies, the second-sight of coming woes, the +presentiment of death, the warnings and the charms and spells, which +fill the popular poetry of all Northern nations, are absent in Italian +songs. In the whole of Tigri's collection I only remember one mention +of a ghost. It is not that the Italians are deficient in superstitions +of all kinds. Every one has heard of their belief in the evil eye, for +instance. But they do not connect this kind of fetichism with their +poetry; and even their greatest poets, with the exception of Dante, +have shown no capacity or no inclination for enhancing the imaginative +effect of their creations by an appeal to the instinct of mysterious +awe.</p> + +<p>The truth is that the Italians as a race are distinguished as much by +a firm grasp upon the practical realities of existence as by powerful +emotions. They have but little of that dreamy <i>Schwärmerei</i> with which +the people of the North are largely gifted. The true sphere of their +genius is painting. What appeals to the imagination through the eyes, +they have expressed far better than any other modern nation. But their +poetry, like their music, is deficient in tragic sublimity and in the +higher qualities of imaginative creation.</p> + +<p>It may seem paradoxical to say this of the nation which produced +Dante. But we must remember not to judge races by single and +exceptional men of genius. Petrarch, the Troubadour of exquisite +emotions, Boccaccio, who touches all the keys of life so lightly, +Ariosto, with the smile of everlasting April on his lips, and Tasso, +excellent alone when he confines himself to pathos or the picturesque, +are no exceptions to what I have just said. Yet these poets pursued +their art with conscious purpose. The tragic splendour of Greece, the +majesty of Rome, were not unknown to them. Far more is it true that +popular poetry in Italy, proceeding from the hearts of uncultivated +peasants and expressing the national character in its simplicity, +displays none of the stuff from which the greatest works of art in +verse, epics and dramas, can be wrought. But within its own sphere of +personal emotion, this popular poetry is exquisitely melodious, +inexhaustibly rich, unique in modern literature for the direct +expression which it has given to every shade of passion.</p> + +<p>Signor Tigri's collection,<a name="FNanchor_22_22" id="FNanchor_22_22" /></a><a href="#Footnote_22_22" class="fnanchor">[22]</a> to which I shall confine my attention +in this paper, consists of eleven hundred and eighty-five <i>rispetti</i>, +with the addition of four hundred and sixty-one <i>stornelli</i>. Rispetto, +it may be said in passing, is the name commonly given throughout Italy +to short poems, varying from six to twelve lines, constructed on the +principle of the octave stanza. That is to say, the first part of the +rispetto consists of four or six lines with alternate rhymes, while +one or more couplets, called the <i>ripresa</i>, complete the poem.<a name="FNanchor_23_23" id="FNanchor_23_23" /></a><a href="#Footnote_23_23" class="fnanchor">[23]</a> The +stornello, or ritournelle, never exceeds three lines, and owes its +name to the return which it makes at the end of the last line to the +rhyme given by the emphatic word of the first. Browning, in his poem +of 'Fra Lippo Lippi,' has accustomed English ears to one common +species of the stornello,<a name="FNanchor_24_24" id="FNanchor_24_24" /></a><a href="#Footnote_24_24" class="fnanchor">[24]</a> which sets out with the name of a +flower, and rhymes with it, as thus:</p> + +<p> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">Fior di narciso.</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Prigionero d'amore mi son reso,</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Nel rimirare il tuo leggiadro viso.</span><br /> +</p> + +<p>The divisions of those two sorts of songs, to which Tigri gives names +like The Beauty of Women, The Beauty of Men, Falling in Love, +Serenades, Happy Love, Unhappy Love, Parting, Absence, Letters, Return +to Home, Anger and Jealousy, Promises, Entreaties and Reproaches, +Indifference, Treachery and Abandonment, prove with what fulness the +various phases of the tender passion are treated. Through the whole +fifteen hundred the one theme of Love is never relinquished. Only two +persons, 'I' and 'thou,' appear upon the scene; yet so fresh and so +various are the moods of feeling, that one can read them from first to +last without too much satiety.</p> + +<p>To seek for the authors of these ditties would be useless. Some of +them may be as old as the fourteenth century; others may have been +made yesterday. Some are the native product of the Tuscan mountain +villages, especially of the regions round Pistoja and Siena, where on +the spurs of the Apennines the purest Italian is vernacular. Some, +again, are importations from other provinces, especially from Sicily +and Naples, caught up by the peasants of Tuscany and adapted to their +taste and style; for nothing travels faster than a <i>Volkslied</i>. Born +some morning in a noisy street of Naples, or on the solitary slopes of +Radicofani, before the week is out, a hundred voices are repeating it. +Waggoners and pedlars carry it across the hills to distant towns. It +floats with the fishermen from bay to bay, and marches with the +conscript to his barrack in a far-off province. Who was the first to +give it shape and form? No one asks, and no one cares. A student well +acquainted with the habits of the people in these matters says, 'If +they knew the author of a ditty, they would not learn it, far less if +they discovered that it was a scholar's.' If the cadence takes their +ear, they consecrate the song at once by placing it upon the honoured +list of 'ancient lays.' Passing from lip to lip and from district to +district, it receives additions and alterations, and becomes the +property of a score of provinces. Meanwhile the poet from whose soul +it blossomed that first morning like a flower, remains contented with +obscurity. The wind has carried from his lips the thistledown of song, +and sown it on a hundred hills and meadows, far and wide. After such +wise is the birth of all truly popular compositions. Who knows, for +instance, the veritable author of many of those mighty German chorals +which sprang into being at the period of the Reformation? The first +inspiration was given, probably, to a single mind; but the melody, as +it has reached us, is the product of a thousand. This accounts for the +variations which in different dialects and districts the same song +presents. Meanwhile, it is sometimes possible to trace the authorship +of a ballad with marked local character to an improvisatore famous in +his village, or to one of those professional rhymesters whom the +country-folk employ in the composition of love-letters to their +sweethearts at a distance.<a name="FNanchor_25_25" id="FNanchor_25_25" /></a><a href="#Footnote_25_25" class="fnanchor">[25]</a> Tommaseo, in the preface to his 'Canti +Popolari,' mentions in particular a Beatrice di Pian degli Ontani, +whose poetry was famous through the mountains of Pistoja; and Tigri +records by name a little girl called Cherubina, who made rispetti by +the dozen as she watched her sheep upon the hills. One of the songs in +his collection (p. 181) contains a direct reference to the village +letter-writer:—</p> + +<p> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Salutatemi, bella, lo scrivano;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Non lo conosco e non so chi si sia.</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">A me mi pare un poeta sovrano,</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Tanto gli è sperto nella poesia.<a name="FNanchor_26_26" id="FNanchor_26_26" /></a><a href="#Footnote_26_26" class="fnanchor">[26]</a></span><br /> +</p> + +<p>While I am writing thus about the production and dissemination of +these love-songs, I cannot help remembering three days and nights +which I once spent at sea between Genoa and Palermo, in the company of +some conscripts who were going to join their regiment in Sicily. They +were lads from the Milanese and Liguria, and they spent a great +portion of their time in composing and singing poetry. One of them had +a fine baritone voice; and when the sun had set, his comrades gathered +round him and begged him to sing to them 'Con quella patetica tua +voce.' Then followed hours of singing, the low monotonous melodies of +his ditties harmonising wonderfully with the tranquillity of night, so +clear and calm that the sky and all its stars were mirrored on the +sea, through which we moved as if in a dream. Sometimes the songs +provoked conversation, which, as is usual in Italy, turned mostly upon +'le bellezze delle donne.' I remember that once an animated discussion +about the relative merits of blondes and brunettes nearly ended in a +quarrel, when the youngest of the whole band, a boy of about +seventeen, put a stop to the dispute by theatrically raising his eyes +and arms to heaven and crying, 'Tu sei innamorato d' una grande Diana +cacciatrice nera, ed io d' una bella Venere bionda.' Though they were +but village lads, they supported their several opinions with arguments +not unworthy of Firenzuola, and showed the greatest delicacy of +feeling in the treatment of a subject which could scarcely have failed +to reveal any latent coarseness.</p> + +<p>The purity of all the Italian love-songs collected by Tigri is very +remarkable.<a name="FNanchor_27_27" id="FNanchor_27_27" /></a><a href="#Footnote_27_27" class="fnanchor">[27]</a> Although the passion expressed in them is Oriental in +its vehemence, not a word falls which could offend a virgin's ear. The +one desire of lovers is lifelong union in marriage. The <i>damo</i>—for so +a sweetheart is termed in Tuscany—trembles until he has gained the +approval of his future mother-in-law, and forbids the girl he is +courting to leave her house to talk to him at night:—</p> + +<p> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Dice che tu tì affacci alia finestra;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Ma non tì dice che tu vada fuora,</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Perchè, la notte, è cosa disonesta.</span><br /> +</p> + +<p>All the language of his love is respectful. <i>Signore</i>, or master of my +soul, <i>madonna, anima mia, dolce mio ben, nobil persona,</i> are the +terms of adoration with which he approaches his mistress. The +elevation of feeling and perfect breeding which Manzoni has so well +delineated in the loves of Renzo and Lucia are traditional among +Italian country-folk. They are conscious that true gentleness is no +matter of birth or fortune:—</p> + +<p> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">E tu non mi lasciar per poverezza,</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Chè povertà non guasta gentilezza.<a name="FNanchor_28_28" id="FNanchor_28_28" /></a><a href="#Footnote_28_28" class="fnanchor">[28]</a></span><br /> +</p> + + +<p>This in itself constitutes an important element of culture, and +explains to some extent the high romantic qualities of their +impassioned poetry. The beauty of their land reveals still more. 'O +fortunatos nimium sua si bona norint!' Virgil's exclamation is as true +now as it was when he sang the labours of Italian country-folk some +nineteen centuries ago. To a traveller from the north there is a +pathos even in the contrast between the country in which these +children of a happier climate toil, and those bleak, winter-beaten +fields where our own peasants pass their lives. The cold nights and +warm days of Tuscan springtime are like a Swiss summer. They make rich +pasture and a hardy race of men. Tracts of corn and oats and rye +alternate with patches of flax in full flower, with meadows yellow +with buttercups or pink with ragged robin; the young vines, running +from bough to bough of elm and mulberry, are just coming into leaf. +The poplars are fresh with bright green foliage. On the verge of this +blooming plain stand ancient cities ringed with hills, some rising to +snowy Apennines, some covered with white convents and sparkling with +villas. Cypresses shoot, black and spirelike, amid grey clouds of +olive-boughs upon the slopes; and above, where vegetation borders on +the barren rock, are masses of ilex and arbutus interspersed with +chestnut-trees not yet in leaf. Men and women are everywhere at work, +ploughing with great white oxen, or tilling the soil with spades six +feet in length—Sabellian ligones. The songs of nightingales among +acacia-trees, and the sharp scream of swallows wheeling in air, mingle +with the monotonous chant that always rises from the country-people at +their toil. Here and there on points of vantage, where the hill-slopes +sink into the plain, cluster white villages with flower-like +campanili. It is there that the veglia, or evening rendezvous of +lovers, the serenades and balls and feste, of which one hears so much +in the popular minstrelsy, take place. Of course it would not be +difficult to paint the darker shades of this picture. Autumn comes, +when the contadini of Lucca and Siena and Pistoja go forth to work in +the unwholesome marshes of the Maremma, or of Corsica and Sardinia. +Dismal superstitions and hereditary hatreds cast their blight over a +life externally so fair. The bad government of centuries has perverted +in many ways the instincts of a people naturally mild and cheerful and +peace-loving. But as far as nature can make men happy, these +husbandmen are surely to be reckoned fortunate, and in their songs we +find little to remind us of what is otherwise than sunny in their lot.</p> + +<p>A translator of these <i>Volkslieder</i> has to contend with difficulties +of no ordinary kind. The freshness of their phrases, the spontaneity +of their sentiments, and the melody of their unstudied cadences, are +inimitable. So again is the peculiar effect of their frequent +transitions from the most fanciful imagery to the language of prose. +No mere student can hope to rival, far less to reproduce, in a foreign +tongue, the charm of verse which sprang untaught from the hearts of +simple folk, which lives unwritten on the lips of lovers, and which +should never be dissociated from singing.<a name="FNanchor_29_29" id="FNanchor_29_29" /></a><a href="#Footnote_29_29" class="fnanchor">[29]</a> There are, besides, +peculiarities in the very structure of the popular rispetto. The +constant repetition of the same phrase with slight variations, +especially in the closing lines of the <i>ripresa</i> of the Tuscan +rispetto, gives an antique force and flavour to these ditties, like +that which we appreciate in our own ballads, but which may easily, in +the translation, degenerate into weakness and insipidity. The Tuscan +rhymester, again, allows himself the utmost licence. It is usual to +find mere assonances like <i>bene</i> and <i>piacere, oro</i> and <i>volo, ala</i> +and <i>alata</i>, in the place of rhymes; while such remote resemblances of +sound as <i>colli</i> and <i>poggi</i>, <i>lascia</i> and <i>piazza</i>, are far from +uncommon. To match these rhymes by joining 'home' and 'alone,' 'time' +and 'shine,' &c, would of course be a matter of no difficulty; but it +has seemed to me on the whole best to preserve, with some exceptions, +such accuracy as the English ear requires. I fear, however, that, +after all, these wild-flowers of song, transplanted to another climate +and placed in a hothouse, will appear but pale and hectic by the side +of their robuster brethren of the Tuscan hills.</p> + +<p>In the following serenade many of the peculiarities which</p> + +<p>I have just noticed occur. I have also adhered to the irregularity of +rhyme which may be usually observed about the middle of the poem (p. +103):—</p> + +<p> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Sleeping or waking, thou sweet face,</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Lift up thy fair and tender brow:</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">List to thy love in this still place;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">He calls thee to thy window now:</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">But bids thee not the house to quit,</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Since in the night this were not meet.</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Come to thy window, stay within;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">I stand without, and sing and sing:</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Come to thy window, stay at home;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">I stand without, and make my moan.</span><br /> +</p> + +<p>Here is a serenade of a more impassioned character (p. 99):—</p> + +<p> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">I come to visit thee, my beauteous queen,</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Thee and the house where thou art harboured:</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">All the long way upon my knees, my queen,</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">I kiss the earth where'er thy footsteps tread.</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">I kiss the earth, and gaze upon the wall,</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Whereby thou goest, maid imperial!</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">I kiss the earth, and gaze upon the house,</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Whereby thou farest, queen most beauteous!</span><br /> +</p> + +<p>In the next the lover, who has passed the whole night beneath his +sweetheart's window, takes leave at the break of day. The feeling of +the half-hour before dawn, when the sound of bells rises to meet the +growing light, and both form a prelude to the glare and noise of day, +is expressed with much unconscious poetry (p. 105):—</p> + +<p> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">I see the dawn e'en now begin to peer:</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Therefore I take my leave, and cease to sing,</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">See how the windows open far and near,</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">And hear the bells of morning, how they ring!</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Through heaven and earth the sounds of ringing swell;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Therefore, bright jasmine flower, sweet maid, farewell!</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Through heaven and Rome the sound of ringing goes;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Farewell, bright jasmine flower, sweet maiden rose!</span><br /> +</p> + +<p>The next is more quaint (p. 99):—</p> + +<p> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">I come by night, I come, my soul aflame;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">I come in this fair hour of your sweet sleep;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">And should I wake you up, it were a shame.</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">I cannot sleep, and lo! I break your sleep.</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">To wake you were a shame from your deep rest;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Love never sleeps, nor they whom Love hath blest.</span><br /> +</p> + +<p>A very great many rispetti are simple panegyrics of the beloved, to +find similitude for whose beauty heaven and earth are ransacked. The +compliment of the first line in the following song is perfect (p. +23):—</p> + +<p> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Beauty was born with you, fair maid:</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">The sun and moon inclined to you;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">On you the snow her whiteness laid</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">The rose her rich and radiant hue:</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Saint Magdalen her hair unbound,</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">And Cupid taught you how to wound—</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">How to wound hearts Dan Cupid taught:</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Your beauty drives me love-distraught.</span><br /> +</p> + +<p>The lady in the next was December's child (p. 25):—</p> + +<p> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">O beauty, born in winter's night,</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Born in the month of spotless snow:</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Your face is like a rose so bright;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Your mother may be proud of you!</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">She may be proud, lady of love,</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Such sunlight shines her house above:</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">She may be proud, lady of heaven,</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Such sunlight to her home is given.</span><br /> +</p> + +<p>The sea wind is the source of beauty to another (p. 16):—</p> + +<p> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Nay, marvel not you are so fair;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">For you beside the sea were born:</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">The sea-waves keep you fresh and fair,</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Like roses on their leafy thorn.</span><br /> +<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">If roses grow on the rose-bush,</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Your roses through midwinter blush;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">If roses bloom on the rose-bed,</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Your face can show both white and red.</span><br /> +</p> + +<p>The eyes of a fourth are compared, after quite a new and original +fashion, to stars (p. 210):—</p> + +<p> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">The moon hath risen her plaint to lay</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Before the face of Love Divine.</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Saying in heaven she will not stay,</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Since you have stolen what made her shine:</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Aloud she wails with sorrow wan,—</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">She told her stars and two are gone:</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">They are not there; you have them now;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">They are the eyes in your bright brow.</span><br /> +</p> + +<p>Nor are girls less ready to praise their lovers, but that they do not +dwell so much on physical perfection. Here is a pleasant greeting (p. +124):—</p> + +<p> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">O welcome, welcome, lily white,</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Thou fairest youth of all the valley!</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">When I'm with you, my soul is light;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">I chase away dull melancholy.</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">I chase all sadness from my heart:</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Then welcome, dearest that thou art!</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">I chase all sadness from my side:</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Then welcome, O my love, my pride!</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">I chase all sadness far away:</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Then welcome, welcome, love, to-day!</span><br /> +</p> + +<p>The image of a lily is very prettily treated in the next (p 79):—</p> + +<p> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">I planted a lily yestreen at my window;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">I set it yestreen, and to-day it sprang up:</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">When I opened the latch and leaned out of my window,</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">It shadowed my face with its beautiful cup.</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">O lily, my lily, how tall you are grown!</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Remember how dearly I loved you, my own.</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">O lily, my lily, you'll grow to the sky!</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Remember I love you for ever and aye.</span><br /> +</p> + +<p>The same thought of love growing like a flower receives another turn +(p. 69):—</p> + +<p> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">On yonder hill I saw a flower;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">And, could it thence be hither borne,</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">I'd plant it here within my bower,</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">And water it both eve and morn.</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">Small water wants the stem so straight;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">'Tis a love-lily stout as fate.</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">Small water wants the root so strong:</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">'Tis a love-lily lasting long.</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">Small water wants the flower so sheen:</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">'Tis a love-lily ever green.</span><br /> +</p> + +<p>Envious tongues have told a girl that her complexion is not good. She +replies, with imagery like that of Virgil's 'Alba ligustra cadunt, +vaccinia nigra leguntur' (p. 31):—</p> + +<p> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Think it no grief that I am brown,</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">For all brunettes are born to reign:</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">White is the snow, yet trodden down;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Black pepper kings need not disdain:</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">White snow lies mounded on the vales</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Black pepper's weighed in brazen scales.</span><br /> +</p> + +<p>Another song runs on the same subject (p. 38):—</p> + +<p> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">The whole world tells me that I'm brown,</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">The brown earth gives us goodly corn:</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">The clove-pink too, however brown,</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Yet proudly in the hand 'tis borne.</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">They say my love is black, but he</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Shines like an angel-form to me:</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">They say my love is dark as night;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">To me he seems a shape of light.</span><br /> +</p> + +<p>The freshness of the following spring song recalls the ballads of the +Val de Vire in Normandy (p. 85):—</p> + +<p> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">It was the morning of the first of May,</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Into the close I went to pluck a flower;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">And there I found a bird of woodland gay,</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Who whiled with songs of love the silent hour.</span><br /> +<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">O bird, who fliest from fair Florence, how</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Dear love begins, I prithee teach me now!—</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Love it begins with music and with song,</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">And ends with sorrow and with sighs ere long.</span><br /> +</p> + +<p>Love at first sight is described (p. 79):—</p> + +<p> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">The very moment that we met,</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">That moment love began to beat:</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">One glance of love we gave, and swore</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Never to part for evermore;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">We swore together, sighing deep,</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Never to part till Death's long sleep.</span><br /> +</p> + +<p>Here too is a memory of the first days of love (p. 79):—</p> + +<p> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">If I remember, it was May</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">When love began between us two:</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">The roses in the close were gay,</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">The cherries blackened on the bough.</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">O cherries black and pears so green!</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Of maidens fair you are the queen.</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Fruit of black cherry and sweet pear!</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Of sweethearts you're the queen, I swear.</span><br /> +</p> + +<p>The troth is plighted with such promises as these (p. 230):—</p> + +<p> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Or ere I leave you, love divine,</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Dead tongues shall stir and utter speech,</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">And running rivers flow with wine,</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">And fishes swim upon the beach;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Or ere I leave or shun you, these</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Lemons shall grow on orange-trees.</span><br /> +</p> + + +<p>The girl confesses her love after this fashion (p. 86):—</p> + +<p> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Passing across the billowy sea,</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">I let, alas, my poor heart fall;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">I bade the sailors bring it me;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">They said they had not seen it fall.</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">I asked the sailors, one and two;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">They said that I had given it you.</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">I asked the sailors, two and three;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">They said that I had given it thee.</span><br /> +</p> + +<p>It is not uncommon to speak of love as a sea. Here is a curious play +upon this image (p. 227):—</p> + +<p> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Ho, Cupid! Sailor Cupid, ho!</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Lend me awhile that bark of thine;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">For on the billows I will go,</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">To find my love who once was mine:</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">And if I find her, she shall wear</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">A chain around her neck so fair,</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Around her neck a glittering bond,</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Four stars, a lily, a diamond.</span><br /> +</p> + +<p>It is also possible that the same thought may occur in the second line +of the next ditty (p. 120):—</p> + +<p> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Beneath the earth I'll make a way</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">To pass the sea and come to you.</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">People will think I'm gone away;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">But, dear, I shall be seeing you.</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">People will say that I am dead;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">But we'll pluck roses white and red:</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">People will think I'm lost for aye;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">But we'll pluck roses, you and I.</span><br /> +</p> + +<p>All the little daily incidents are beautified by love. Here is a lover +who thanks the mason for making his window so close upon the road that +he can see his sweetheart as she passes (p. 118):—</p> + +<p> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Blest be the mason's hand who built</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">This house of mine by the roadside,</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">And made my window low and wide</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">For me to watch my love go by.</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">And if I knew when she went by,</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">My window should be fairly gilt;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">And if I knew what time she went,</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">My window should be flower-besprent.</span><br /> +</p> + +<p>Here is a conceit which reminds one of the pretty epistle of +Philostratus, in which the footsteps of the beloved are called +<i>ερηρεισμένα Φιλήματα</i> (p. 117):—</p> + +<p> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">What time I see you passing by;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">I sit and count the steps you take:</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">You take the steps; I sit and sigh:</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">Step after step, my sighs awake.</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">Tell me, dear love, which more abound,</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">My sighs or your steps on the ground?</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">Tell me, dear love, which are the most,</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">Your light steps or the sighs they cost?</span><br /> +<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">A girl complains that she cannot see her lover's house (p. 117):—</span><br /> +<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">I lean upon the lattice, and look forth</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">To see the house where my lover dwells.</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">There grows an envious tree that spoils my mirth:</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">Cursed be the man who set it on these hills!</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">But when those jealous boughs are all unclad,</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">I then shall see the cottage of my lad:</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">When once that tree is rooted from the hills,</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">I'll see the house wherein my lover dwells.</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1.5em;">*/</span><br /> +<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">In the same mood a girl who has just parted from her sweetheart is</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">angry with the hill beyond which he is travelling (p. 167):—</span><br /> +<br /> +<p> +<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1.5em;">I see and see, yet see not what I would:</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">I see the leaves atremble on the tree:</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">I saw my love where on the hill he stood,</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">Yet see him not drop downward to the lea.</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 3.5em;">O traitor hill, what will you do?</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 3.5em;">I ask him, live or dead, from you.</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 3.5em;">O traitor hill, what shall it be?</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 3.5em;">I ask him, live or dead, from thee.</span><br /> +</p> + +<p>All the songs of love in absence are very quaint. Here is one which +calls our nursery rhymes to mind (p. 119):—</p> + +<p> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">I would I were a bird so free,</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">That I had wings to fly away:</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Unto that window I would flee,</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Where stands my love and grinds all day.</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Grind, miller, grind; the water's deep!</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">I cannot grind; love makes me weep.</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Grind, miller, grind; the waters flow!</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">I cannot grind; love wastes me so.</span><br /> +</p> + + +<p>The next begins after the same fashion, but breaks into a very shower +of benedictions (p. 118):—</p> + +<p> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Would God I were a swallow free,</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">That I had wings to fly away:</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Upon the miller's door I'd be,</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Where stands my love and grinds all day:</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Upon the door, upon the sill,</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Where stays my love;—God bless him still!</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">God bless my love, and blessed be</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">His house, and bless my house for me;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Yea, blest be both, and ever blest</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">My lover's house, and all the rest!</span><br /> +</p> + +<p>The girl alone at home in her garden sees a wood-dove flying by and +calls to it (p. 179):—</p> + +<p> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">O dove, who fliest far to yonder hill,</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Dear dove, who in the rock hast made thy nest,</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Let me a feather from thy pinion pull,</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">For I will write to him who loves me best.</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">And when I've written it and made it clear,</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">I'll give thee back thy feather, dove so dear:</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">And when I've written it and sealed it, then</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">I'll give thee back thy feather love-laden.</span><br /> +</p> + +<p>A swallow is asked to lend the same kind service (p. 179):—</p> + +<p> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">O swallow, swallow, flying through the air,</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Turn, turn, I prithee, from thy flight above!</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Give me one feather from thy wing so fair,</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">For I will write a letter to my love.</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">When I have written it and made it clear,</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">I'll give thee back thy feather, swallow dear;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">When I have written it on paper white,</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">I'll make, I swear, thy missing feather right;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">When once 'tis written on fair leaves of gold,</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">I'll give thee back thy wing and flight so bold.</span><br /> +</p> + + +<p>Long before Tennyson's song in the 'Princess,' it would seem that +swallows were favourite messengers of love. In the next song which I +translate, the repetition of one thought with delicate variation is +full of character (p. 178):—</p> + +<p> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">O swallow, flying over hill and plain,</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">If thou shouldst find my love, oh bid him come!</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">And tell him, on these mountains I remain</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Even as a lamb who cannot find her home:</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">And tell him, I am left all, all alone,</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Even as a tree whose flowers are overblown:</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">And tell him, I am left without a mate</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Even as a tree whose boughs are desolate:</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">And tell him, I am left uncomforted</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Even as the grass upon the meadows dead.</span><br /> +</p> + +<p>The following is spoken by a girl who has been watching the lads of +the village returning from their autumn service in the plain, and +whose damo comes the last of all (p. 240):—</p> + +<p> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">O dear my love, you come too late!</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">What found you by the way to do?</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">I saw your comrades pass the gate,</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">But yet not you, dear heart, not you!</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">If but a little more you'd stayed,</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">With sighs you would have found me dead;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">If but a while you'd keep me crying,</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">With sighs you would have found me dying.</span><br /> +</p> + +<p>The <i>amantium irae</i> find a place too in these rustic ditties. A girl +explains to her sweetheart (p. 240):—</p> + +<p> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">'Twas told me and vouchsafed for true,</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Your kin are wroth as wroth can be;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">For loving me they swear at you,</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">They swear at you because of me;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Your father, mother, all your folk,</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Because you love me, chafe and choke!</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Then set your kith and kin at ease;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Set them at ease and let me die:</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Set the whole clan of them at ease;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Set them at ease and see me die!</span><br /> +</p> + +<p>Another suspects that her damo has paid his suit to a rival (p. +200):—</p> + +<p> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">On Sunday morning well I knew</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Where gaily dressed you turned your feet;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">And there were many saw it too,</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">And came to tell me through the street:</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">And when they spoke, I smiled, ah me!</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">But in my room wept privately;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">And when they spoke, I sang for pride,</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">But in my room alone I sighed.</span><br /> +</p> + +<p>Then come reconciliations (p. 223):—</p> + +<p> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Let us make peace, my love, my bliss!</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">For cruel strife can last no more.</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">If you say nay, yet I say yes:</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">'Twixt me and you there is no war.</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Princes and mighty lords make peace;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">And so may lovers twain, I wis:</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Princes and soldiers sign a truce;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">And so may two sweethearts like us:</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Princes and potentates agree;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">And so may friends like you and me.</span><br /> +</p> + +<p>There is much character about the following, which is spoken by the +damo (p. 223):—</p> + +<p> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">As yonder mountain height I trod,</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">I chanced to think of your dear name;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">I knelt with clasped hands on the sod,</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">And thought of my neglect with shame:</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">I knelt upon the stone, and swore</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Our love should bloom as heretofore.</span><br /> +</p> + +<p>Sometimes the language of affection takes a more imaginative tone, as +in the following (p. 232):—</p> + +<p> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Dearest, what time you mount to heaven above,</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">I'll meet you holding in my hand my heart:</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">You to your breast shall clasp me full of love,</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">And I will lead you to our Lord apart.</span><br /> +<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Our Lord, when he our love so true hath known,</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Shall make of our two hearts one heart alone;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">One heart shall make of our two hearts, to rest</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">In heaven amid the splendours of the blest.</span><br /> +</p> + +<p>This was the woman's. Here is the man's (p. 113):—</p> + +<p> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">If I were master of all loveliness,</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">I'd make thee still more lovely than thou art:</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">If I were master of all wealthiness,</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Much gold and silver should be thine, sweetheart:</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">If I were master of the house of hell,</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">I'd bar the brazen gates in thy sweet face;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Or ruled the place where purging spirits dwell,</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">I'd free thee from that punishment apace.</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Were I in paradise and thou shouldst come,</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">I'd stand aside, my love, to make thee room;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Were I in paradise, well seated there,</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">I'd quit my place to give it thee, my fair!</span><br /> +</p> + +<p>Sometimes, but very rarely, weird images are sought to clothe passion, +as in the following (p. 136):—</p> + +<p> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Down into hell I went and thence returned:</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Ah me! alas! the people that were there!</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">I found a room where many candles burned,</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">And saw within my love that languished there.</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">When as she saw me, she was glad of cheer,</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">And at the last she said: Sweet soul of mine;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Dost thou recall the time long past, so dear,</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">When thou didst say to me, Sweet soul of mine?</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Now kiss me on the mouth, my dearest, here;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Kiss me that I for once may cease to pine!</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">So sweet, ah me, is thy dear mouth, so dear,</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">That of thy mercy prithee sweeten mine!</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Now, love, that thou hast kissed me, now, I say,</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Look not to leave this place again for aye.</span><br /> +</p> + +<p>Or again in this (p. 232):—</p> + +<p> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Methinks I hear, I hear a voice that cries:</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Beyond the hill it floats upon the air.</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">It is my lover come to bid me rise,</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">If I am fain forthwith toward heaven to fare.</span><br /> +<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">But I have answered him, and said him No!</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">I've given my paradise, my heaven, for you:</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Till we together go to paradise,</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">I'll stay on earth and love your beauteous eyes.</span><br /> +</p> + +<p>But it is not with such remote and eerie thoughts that the rustic muse +of Italy can deal successfully. Far better is the following +half-playful description of love-sadness (p. 71):—</p> + +<p> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Ah me, alas! who know not how to sigh!</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Of sighs I now full well have learned the art:</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Sighing at table when to eat I try,</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Sighing within my little room apart,</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Sighing when jests and laughter round me fly,</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Sighing with her and her who know my heart:</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">I sigh at first, and then I go on sighing;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">'Tis for your eyes that I am ever sighing:</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">I sigh at first, and sigh the whole year through;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">And 'tis your eyes that keep me sighing so.</span><br /> +</p> + +<p>The next two rispetti, delicious in their naïveté, might seem to have +been extracted from the libretto of an opera, but that they lack the +sympathising chorus, who should have stood at hand, ready to chime in +with 'he,' 'she,' and 'they,' to the 'I,' 'you,' and 'we' of the +lovers (p. 123):—</p> + +<p> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Ah, when will dawn that glorious day</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">When you will softly mount my stair?</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">My kin shall bring you on the way;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">I shall be first to greet you there.</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Ah, when will dawn that day of bliss</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">When we before the priest say Yes?</span><br /> +<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Ah, when will dawn that blissful day</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">When I shall softly mount your stair,</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Your brothers meet me on the way,</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">And one by one I greet them there?</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">When comes the day, my staff, my strength,</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">To call your mother mine at length?</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">When will the day come, love of mine,</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">I shall be yours and you be mine?</span><br /> +</p> + +<p>Hitherto the songs have told only of happy love, or of love returned. +Some of the best, however, are unhappy. Here is one, for instance, +steeped in gloom (p. 142):—</p> + +<p> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">They have this custom in fair Naples town;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">They never mourn a man when he is dead:</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">The mother weeps when she has reared a son</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">To be a serf and slave by love misled;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">The mother weeps when she a son hath born</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">To be the serf and slave of galley scorn;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">The mother weeps when she a son gives suck</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">To be the serf and slave of city luck.</span><br /> +</p> + +<p>The following contains a fine wild image, wrought out with strange +passion in detail (p. 300):—</p> + +<p> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">I'll spread a table brave for revelry,</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">And to the feast will bid sad lovers all.</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">For meat I'll give them my heart's misery;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">For drink I'll give these briny tears that fall.</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Sorrows and sighs shall be the varletry,</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">To serve the lovers at this festival:</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">The table shall be death, black death profound;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Weep, stones, and utter sighs, ye walls around!</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">The table shall be death, yea, sacred death;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Weep, stones, and sigh as one that sorroweth!</span><br /> +</p> + +<p>Nor is the next a whit less in the vein of mad Jeronimo (p. 304):—</p> + +<p> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">High up, high up, a house I'll rear,</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">High up, high up, on yonder height;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">At every window set a snare,</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">With treason, to betray the night;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">With treason, to betray the stars,</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Since I'm betrayed by my false feres;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">With treason, to betray the day,</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Since Love betrayed me, well away!</span><br /> +</p> + +<p>The vengeance of an Italian reveals itself in the energetic song which +I quote next (p. 303):—</p> + +<p> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">I have a sword; 'twould cut a brazen bell,</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">Tough steel 'twould cut, if there were any need:</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">I've had it tempered in the streams of hell</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">By masters mighty in the mystic rede:</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">I've had it tempered by the light of stars;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">Then let him come whose skin is stout as Mars;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">I've had it tempered to a trenchant blade;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">Then let him come who stole from me my maid.</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1.5em;">*/</span><br /> +<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">More mild, but brimful of the bitterness of a soul to whom the whole</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">world has become but ashes in the death of love, is the following</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">lament (p. 143):—</span><br /> +<br /> +<p> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">Call me the lovely Golden Locks no more,</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">But call me Sad Maid of the golden hair.</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">If there be wretched women, sure I think</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">I too may rank among the most forlorn.</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">I fling a palm into the sea; 'twill sink:</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">Others throw lead, and it is lightly borne.</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">What have I done, dear Lord, the world to cross?</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">Gold in my hand forthwith is turned to dross.</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">How have I made, dear Lord, dame Fortune wroth?</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">Gold in my hand forthwith is turned to froth.</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">What have I done, dear Lord, to fret the folk?</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">Gold in my hand forthwith is turned to smoke.</span><br /> +</p> + +<p>Here is pathos (p. 172):—</p> + +<p> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">The wood-dove who hath lost her mate,</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">She lives a dolorous life, I ween;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">She seeks a stream and bathes in it,</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">And drinks that water foul and green:</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">With other birds she will not mate,</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Nor haunt, I wis, the flowery treen;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">She bathes her wings and strikes her breast;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Her mate is lost: oh, sore unrest!</span><br /> +</p> + +<p>And here is fanciful despair (p. 168):—</p> + +<p> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">I'll build a house of sobs and sighs,</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 3em;">With tears the lime I'll slack;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">And there I'll dwell with weeping eyes</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 3em;">Until my love come back:</span><br /> +<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">And there I'll stay with eyes that burn</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">Until I see my love return.</span><br /> +</p> + +<p>The house of love has been deserted, and the lover comes to moan +beneath its silent eaves (p. 171):—</p> + +<p> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Dark house and window desolate!</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Where is the sun which shone so fair?</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">'Twas here we danced and laughed at fate:</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Now the stones weep; I see them there.</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">They weep, and feel a grievous chill:</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Dark house and widowed window-sill!</span><br /> +</p> + +<p>And what can be more piteous than this prayer? (p. 809):—</p> + +<p> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Love, if you love me, delve a tomb,</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">And lay me there the earth beneath;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">After a year, come see my bones,</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">And make them dice to play therewith.</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">But when you're tired of that game,</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Then throw those dice into the flame;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">But when you're tired of gaming free,</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Then throw those dice into the sea.</span><br /> +</p> + +<p>The simpler expression of sorrow to the death is, as usual, more +impressive. A girl speaks thus within sight of the grave (p. 808):—</p> + +<p> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Yes, I shall die: what wilt thou gain?</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">The cross before my bier will go;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">And thou wilt hear the bells complain,</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">The <i>Misereres</i> loud and low.</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Midmost the church thou'lt see me lie</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">With folded hands and frozen eye;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Then say at last, I do repent!—</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Nought else remains when fires are spent.</span><br /> +</p> + +<p>Here is a rustic Oenone (p. 307):—</p> + +<p> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Fell death, that fliest fraught with woe!</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Thy gloomy snares the world ensphere:</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Where no man calls, thou lov'st to go;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">But when we call, thou wilt not hear.</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Fell death, false death of treachery,</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Thou makest all content but me.</span><br /> +</p> + +<p>Another is less reproachful, but scarcely less sad (p. 308):—</p> + +<p> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Strew me with blossoms when I die,</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Nor lay me 'neath the earth below;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Beyond those walls, there let me lie,</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Where oftentimes we used to go.</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">There lay me to the wind and rain;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Dying for you, I feel no pain:</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">There lay me to the sun above;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Dying for you, I die of love.</span><br /> +</p> + +<p>Yet another of these pitiful love-wailings displays much poetry of +expression (p. 271):—</p> + +<p> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">I dug the sea, and delved the barren sand:</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">I wrote with dust and gave it to the wind:</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Of melting snow, false Love, was made thy band,</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Which suddenly the day's bright beams unbind.</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Now am I ware, and know my own mistake—</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">How false are all the promises you make;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Now am I ware, and know the fact, ah me!</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">That who confides in you, deceived will be.</span><br /> +</p> + +<p>It would scarcely be well to pause upon these very doleful ditties. +Take, then, the following little serenade, in which the lover on his +way to visit his mistress has unconsciously fallen on the same thought +as Bion (p. 85):—</p> + +<p> +<span style="margin-left: 2.5em;">Yestreen I went my love to greet,</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2.5em;">By yonder village path below:</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2.5em;">Night in a coppice found my feet;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2.5em;">I called the moon her light to show—</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">O moon, who needs no flame to fire thy face,</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Look forth and lend me light a little space!</span><br /> +</p> + +<p>Enough has been quoted to illustrate the character of the Tuscan +popular poetry. These village rispetti bear the same relation to the +canzoniere of Petrarch as the 'savage drupe' to the 'suave plum.' They +are, as it were, the wild stock of that highly artificial flower of +art. Herein lies, perhaps, their chief importance. As in our ballad +literature we may discern the stuff of the Elizabethan drama +undeveloped, so in the Tuscan people's songs we can trace the crude +form of that poetic instinct which produced the sonnets to Laura. It +is also very probable that some such rustic minstrelsy preceded the +Idylls of Theocritus and the Bucolics of Virgil; for coincidences of +thought and imagery, which can scarcely be referred to any conscious +study of the ancients, are not a few. Popular poetry has this great +value for the student of literature: it enables him to trace those +forms of fancy and of feeling which are native to the people, and +which must ultimately determine the character of national art, however +much that may be modified by culture.</p> +<h5><a href="#CONTENTS">CONTENTS</a></h5> +<br/><br /> +<hr style="width: 100%;" /> + + +<h2><a name="POPULAR_ITALIAN_POETRY_OF_THE_RENAISSANCE" id="POPULAR_ITALIAN_POETRY_OF_THE_RENAISSANCE" /><i>POPULAR ITALIAN POETRY OF THE RENAISSANCE</i></a></h2> + +<hr style="width: 100%;" /> +<br /> +<p>The semi-popular poetry of the Italians in the fifteenth century +formed an important branch of their national literature, and +flourished independently of the courtly and scholastic studies which +gave a special character to the golden age of the revival. While the +latter tended to separate the people from the cultivated classes, the +former established a new link of connection between them, different +indeed from that which existed when smiths and carters repeated the +Canzoni of Dante by heart in the fourteenth century, but still +sufficiently real to exercise a weighty influence over the national +development. Scholars like Angelo Poliziano, princes like Lorenzo de' +Medici, men of letters like Feo Belcari and Benivieni, borrowed from +the people forms of poetry, which they handled with refined taste, and +appropriated to the uses of polite literature. The most important of +these forms, native to the people but assimilated by the learned +classes, were the Miracle Play or 'Sacra Rappresentazione;' the +'Ballata' or lyric to be sung while dancing; the 'Canto +Carnascialesco' or Carnival Chorus; the 'Rispetto' or short +love-ditty; the 'Lauda' or hymn; the 'Maggio' or May-song; and the +'Madrigale' or little part-song.</p> + +<p>At Florence, where even under the despotism of the Medici a show of +republican life still lingered, all classes joined in the amusements +of carnival and spring time; and this poetry of the dance, the +pageant, and the villa flourished side by side with the more serious +efforts of the humanistic muse. It is not my purpose in this place to +inquire into the origins of each lyrical type, to discuss the +alterations they may have undergone at the hands of educated +versifiers, or to define their several characteristics; but only to +offer translations of such as seem to me best suited to represent the +genius of the people and the age.</p> + +<p>In the composition of the poetry in question, Angelo Poliziano was +indubitably the most successful. This giant of learning, who filled +the lecture-rooms of Florence with students of all nations, and whose +critical and rhetorical labours marked an epoch in the history of +scholarship, was by temperament a poet, and a poet of the people. +Nothing was easier for him than to throw aside his professor's mantle, +and to improvise 'Ballate' for the girls to sing as they danced their +'Carola' upon the Piazza di Santa Trinità in summer evenings. The +peculiarity of this lyric is that it starts with a couplet, which also +serves as refrain, supplying the rhyme to each successive stanza. The +stanza itself is identical with our rime royal, if we count the +couplet in the place of the seventh line. The form is in itself so +graceful and is so beautifully treated by Poliziano that I cannot +content myself with fewer than four of his <i>Ballate</i>.<a name="FNanchor_30_30" id="FNanchor_30_30" /></a><a href="#Footnote_30_30" class="fnanchor">[30]</a> The first is +written on the world-old theme of 'Gather ye rosebuds while ye may.'</p> + + +<p> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">I went a roaming, maidens, one bright day,</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">In a green garden in mid month of May.</span><br /> +<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Violets and lilies grew on every side</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">Mid the green grass, and young flowers wonderful,</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Golden and white and red and azure-eyed;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">Toward which I stretched my hands, eager to pull</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">Plenty to make my fair curls beautiful,</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">To crown my rippling curls with garlands gay.</span><br /> +<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">I went a roaming, maidens, one bright day,</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">In a green garden in mid month of May.</span><br /> +<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">But when my lap was full of flowers I spied</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">Roses at last, roses of every hue;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Therefore I ran to pluck their ruddy pride,</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">Because their perfume was so sweet and true</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">That all my soul went forth with pleasure new,</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">With yearning and desire too soft to say.</span><br /> +<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">I went a roaming, maidens, one bright day,</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">In a green garden in mid month of May.</span><br /> +<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">I gazed and gazed. Hard task it were to tell</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">How lovely were the roses in that hour:</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">One was but peeping from her verdant shell,</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">And some were faded, some were scarce in flower:</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">Then Love said: Go, pluck from the blooming bower</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Those that thou seest ripe upon the spray.</span><br /> +<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">I went a roaming, maidens, one bright day,</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">In a green garden in mid month of May.</span><br /> +<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">For when the full rose quits her tender sheath,</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">When she is sweetest and most fair to see,</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Then is the time to place her in thy wreath,</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">Before her beauty and her freshness flee.</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">Gather ye therefore roses with great glee,</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Sweet girls, or ere their perfume pass away.</span><br /> +<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">I went a roaming, maidens, one bright day,</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">In a green garden in mid month of May.</span><br /> +</p> + +<p>The next Ballata is less simple, but is composed with the same +intention. It may here be parenthetically mentioned that the courtly +poet, when he applied himself to this species of composition, invented +a certain rusticity of incident, scarcely in keeping with the spirit +of his art. It was in fact a conventional feature of this species of +verse that the scene should be laid in the country, where the burgher, +on a visit to his villa, is supposed to meet with a rustic beauty who +captivates his eyes and heart. Guido Cavalcanti, in his celebrated +Ballata, 'In un boschetto trovai pastorella,' struck the keynote of +this music, which, it may be reasonably conjectured, was imported into +Italy through Provençal literature from the pastorals of Northern +France. The lady so quaintly imaged by a bird in the following Ballata +of Poliziano is supposed to have been Monna Ippolita Leoncina of +Prato, white-throated, golden-haired, and dressed in crimson silk.</p> + +<p> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">I found myself one day all, all alone,</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">For pastime in a field with blossoms strewn.</span><br /> +<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">I do not think the world a field could show</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">With herbs of perfume so surpassing rare;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">But when I passed beyond the green hedge-row,</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">A thousand flowers around me flourished fair,</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">White, pied and crimson, in the summer air;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Among the which I heard a sweet bird's tone.</span><br /> +<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">I found myself one day all, all alone,</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">For pastime in a field with blossoms strewn.</span><br /> +<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Her song it was so tender and so clear</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">That all the world listened with love; then I</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">With stealthy feet a-tiptoe drawing near,</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">Her golden head and golden wings could spy,</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">Her plumes that flashed like rubies 'neath the sky,</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Her crystal beak and throat and bosom's zone.</span><br /> +<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">I found myself one day all, all alone,</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">For pastime in a field with blossoms strewn.</span><br /> +<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Fain would I snare her, smit with mighty love;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">But arrow-like she soared, and through the air</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Fled to her nest upon the boughs above;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">Wherefore to follow her is all my care,</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">For haply I might lure her by some snare</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Forth from the woodland wild where she is flown.</span><br /> +<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">I found myself one day all, all alone,</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">For pastime in a field with blossoms strewn.</span><br /> +<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Yea, I might spread some net or woven wile;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">But since of singing she doth take such pleasure,</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Without or other art or other guile</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">I seek to win her with a tuneful measure;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">Therefore in singing spend I all my leisure,</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">To make by singing this sweet bird my own.</span><br /> +<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">I found myself one day all, all alone,</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">For pastime in a field with blossoms strewn.</span><br /> +</p> + +<p>The same lady is more directly celebrated in the next Ballata, where +Poliziano calls her by her name, Ippolita. I have taken the liberty of +substituting Myrrha for this somewhat unmanageable word.</p> + +<p> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">He who knows not what thing is Paradise,</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Let him look fixedly on Myrrha's eyes.</span><br /> +<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">From Myrrha's eyes there flieth, girt with fire,</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">An angel of our lord, a laughing boy,</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Who lights in frozen hearts a flaming pyre,</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">And with such sweetness doth the soul destroy,</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">That while it dies, it murmurs forth its joy;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Oh blessed am I to dwell in Paradise!</span><br /> +<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">He who knows not what thing is Paradise,</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Let him look fixedly on Myrrha's eyes.</span><br /> +<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">From Myrrha's eyes a virtue still doth move,</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">So swift and with so fierce and strong a flight,</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">That it is like the lightning of high Jove,</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">Riving of iron and adamant the might;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">Nathless the wound doth carry such delight</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">That he who suffers dwells in Paradise.</span><br /> +<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">He who knows not what thing is Paradise,</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Let him look fixedly on Myrrha's eyes.</span><br /> +<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">From Myrrha's eyes a lovely messenger</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">Of joy so grave, so virtuous, doth flee,</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">That all proud souls are bound to bend to her;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">So sweet her countenance, it turns the key</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">Of hard hearts locked in cold security:</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Forth flies the prisoned soul to Paradise.</span><br /> +<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">He who knows not what thing is Paradise,</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Let him look fixedly on Myrrha's eyes.</span><br /> +<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">In Myrrha's eyes beauty doth make her throne,</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">And sweetly smile and sweetly speak her mind:</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Such grace in her fair eyes a man hath known</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">As in the whole wide world he scarce may find:</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">Yet if she slay him with a glance too kind,</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">He lives again beneath her gazing eyes.</span><br /> +<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">He who knows not what thing is Paradise,</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Let him look fixedly on Myrrha's eyes.</span><br /> +</p> + +<p>The fourth Ballata sets forth the fifteenth-century Italian code of +love, the code of the Novelle, very different in its avowed laxity +from the high ideal of the trecentisti poets.</p> + +<p> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">I ask no pardon if I follow Love;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">Since every gentle heart is thrall thereof.</span><br /> +<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">From those who feel the fire I feel, what use</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 3em;">Is there in asking pardon? These are so</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">Gentle, kind-hearted, tender, piteous,</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 3em;">That they will have compassion, well I know.</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 3em;">From such as never felt that honeyed woe,</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">I seek no pardon: nought they know of Love.</span><br /> +<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">I ask no pardon if I follow Love;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">Since every gentle heart is thrall thereof.</span><br /> +<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">Honour, pure love, and perfect gentleness,</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 3em;">Weighed in the scales of equity refined,</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">Are but one thing: beauty is nought or less,</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 3em;">Placed in a dame of proud and scornful mind.</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 3em;">Who can rebuke me then if I am kind</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">So far as honesty comports and Love?</span><br /> +<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">I ask no pardon if I follow Love;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">Since every gentle heart is thrall thereof.</span><br /> +<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">Let him rebuke me whose hard heart of stone</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 3em;">Ne'er felt of Love the summer in his vein!</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">I pray to Love that who hath never known</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 3em;">Love's power, may ne'er be blessed with Love's great gain;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 3em;">But he who serves our lord with might and main,</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">May dwell for ever in the fire of Love!</span><br /> +<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">I ask no pardon if I follow Love;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">Since every gentle heart is thrall thereof.</span><br /> +<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">Let him rebuke me without cause who will;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 3em;">For if he be not gentle, I fear nought:</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">My heart obedient to the same love still</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 3em;">Hath little heed of light words envy-fraught:</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 3em;">So long as life remains, it is my thought</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">To keep the laws of this so gentle Love.</span><br /> +<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">I ask no pardon if I follow Love;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">Since every gentle heart is thrall thereof.</span><br /> +</p> + +<p>This Ballata is put into a woman's mouth. Another, ascribed to Lorenzo +de' Medici, expresses the sadness of a man who has lost the favour of +his lady. It illustrates the well-known use of the word <i>Signore</i> for +mistress in Florentine poetry.</p> + +<p> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">How can I sing light-souled and fancy-free,</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">When my loved lord no longer smiles on me?</span><br /> +<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">Dances and songs and merry wakes I leave</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 3em;">To lovers fair, more fortunate and gay;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">Since to my heart so many sorrows cleave</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 3em;">That only doleful tears are mine for aye:</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 3em;">Who hath heart's ease, may carol, dance, and play</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">While I am fain to weep continually.</span><br /> +<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">How can I sing light-souled and fancy-free,</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">When my loved lord no longer smiles on me?</span><br /> +<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">I too had heart's ease once, for so Love willed,</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 3em;">When my lord loved me with love strong and great:</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">But envious fortune my life's music stilled,</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 3em;">And turned to sadness all my gleeful state.</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 3em;">Ah me! Death surely were less desolate</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">Than thus to live and love-neglected be!</span><br /> +<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">How can I sing light-souled and fancy-free,</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">When my loved lord no longer smiles on me?</span><br /> +<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">One only comfort soothes my heart's despair,</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 3em;">And mid this sorrow lends my soul some cheer;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">Unto my lord I ever yielded fair</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 3em;">Service of faith untainted pure and clear;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 3em;">If then I die thus guiltless, on my bier</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">It may be she will shed one tear for me.</span><br /> +<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">How can I sing light-souled and fancy-free,</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">When my loved lord no longer smiles on me?</span><br /> +</p> + +<p>The Florentine <i>Rispetto</i> was written for the most part in octave +stanzas, detached or continuous. The octave stanza in Italian +literature was an emphatically popular form; and it is still largely +used in many parts of the peninsula for the lyrical expression of +emotion.<a name="FNanchor_31_31" id="FNanchor_31_31" /></a><a href="#Footnote_31_31" class="fnanchor">[31]</a> Poliziano did no more than treat it with his own +facility, sacrificing the unstudied raciness of his popular models to +literary elegance.</p> + +<p>Here are a few of these detached stanzas or <i>Rispetti Spicciolati</i>:—</p> + +<p> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Upon that day when first I saw thy face,</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">I vowed with loyal love to worship thee.</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Move, and I move; stay, and I keep my place:</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">Whate'er thou dost, will I do equally.</span><br /> +<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">In joy of thine I find most perfect grace,</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">And in thy sadness dwells my misery:</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Laugh, and I laugh; weep, and I too will weep.</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Thus Love commands, whose laws I loving keep.</span><br /> +<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Nay, be not over-proud of thy great grace,</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">Lady! for brief time is thy thief and mine.</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">White will he turn those golden curls, that lace</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">Thy forehead and thy neck so marble-fine.</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Lo! while the flower still flourisheth apace,</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">Pluck it: for beauty but awhile doth shine.</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Fair is the rose at dawn; but long ere night</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">Her freshness fades, her pride hath vanished quite.</span><br /> +<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Fire, fire! Ho, water! for my heart's afire!</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">Ho, neighbours! help me, or by God I die!</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">See, with his standard, that great lord, Desire!</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">He sets my heart aflame: in vain I cry.</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Too late, alas! The flames mount high and higher.</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">Alack, good friends! I faint, I fail, I die.</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Ho! water, neighbours mine! no more delay I</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">My heart's a cinder if you do but stay.</span><br /> +<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Lo, may I prove to Christ a renegade,</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">And, dog-like, die in pagan Barbary;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Nor may God's mercy on my soul be laid,</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">If ere for aught I shall abandon thee:</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Before all-seeing God this prayer be made—</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">When I desert thee, may death feed on me:</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Now if thy hard heart scorn these vows, be sure</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">That without faith none may abide secure.</span><br /> +<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">I ask not, Love, for any other pain</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">To make thy cruel foe and mine repent,</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Only that thou shouldst yield her to the strain</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">Of these my arms, alone, for chastisement;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Then would I clasp her so with might and main,</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">That she should learn to pity and relent,</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">And, in revenge for scorn and proud despite,</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">A thousand times I'd kiss her forehead white.</span><br /> +<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Not always do fierce tempests vex the sea,</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">Nor always clinging clouds offend the sky;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Cold snows before the sunbeams haste to flee,</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">Disclosing flowers that 'neath their whiteness lie;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">The saints each one doth wait his day to see,</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">And time makes all things change; so, therefore, I</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Ween that 'tis wise to wait my turn, and say,</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">That who subdues himself, deserves to sway.</span><br /> +</p> + +<p>It will be observed that the tone of these poems is not passionate nor +elevated. Love, as understood in Florence of the fifteenth century, +was neither; nor was Poliziano the man to have revived Platonic +mysteries or chivalrous enthusiasms. When the octave stanzas, written +with this amorous intention, were strung together into a continuous +poem, this form of verse took the title of <i>Rispetto Gontinuato</i>. In +the collection of Poliziano's poems there are several examples of the +long Rispetto, carelessly enough composed, as may be gathered from the +recurrence of the same stanzas in several poems. All repeat the old +arguments, the old enticements to a less than lawful love. The one +which I have chosen for translation, styled <i>Serenata ovvero Lettera +in Istrambotti</i>, might be selected as an epitome of Florentine +convention in the matter of love-making.</p> + +<p> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">O thou of fairest fairs the first and queen,</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">Most courteous, kind, and honourable dame,</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Thine ear unto thy servant's singing lean,</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">Who loves thee more than health, or wealth, or fame;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">For thou his shining planet still hast been,</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">And day and night he calls on thy fair name:</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">First wishing thee all good the world can give,</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Next praying in thy gentle thoughts to live.</span><br /> +<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">He humbly prayeth that thou shouldst be kind</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">To think upon his pure and perfect faith,</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">And that such mercy in thy heart and mind</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">Should reign, as so much beauty argueth:</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">A thousand, thousand hints, or he were blind,</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">Of thy great courtesy he reckoneth:</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Wherefore thy loyal subject now doth sue</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Such guerdon only as shall prove them true.</span><br /> +<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">He knows himself unmeet for love from thee,</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">Unmeet for merely gazing on thine eyes;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Seeing thy comely squires so plenteous be,</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">That there is none but 'neath thy beauty sighs:</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Yet since thou seekest fame and bravery,</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">Nor carest aught for gauds that others prize,</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">And since he strives to honour thee alway,</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">He still hath hope to gain thy heart one day.</span><br /> +<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Virtue that dwells untold, unknown, unseen,</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">Still findeth none to love or value it;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Wherefore his faith, that hath so perfect been,</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">Not being known, can profit him no whit:</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">He would find pity in thine eyes, I ween,</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">If thou shouldst deign to make some proof of it;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">The rest may flatter, gape, and stand agaze;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Him only faith above the crowd doth raise.</span><br /> +<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Suppose that he might meet thee once alone,</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">Face unto face, without or jealousy,</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Or doubt or fear from false misgiving grown,</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">And tell his tale of grievous pain to thee,</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Sure from thy breast he'd draw full many a moan.</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">And make thy fair eyes weep right plenteously:</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Yea, if he had but skill his heart to show,</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">He scarce could fail to win thee by its woe.</span><br /> +<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Now art thou in thy beauty's blooming hour;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">Thy youth is yet in pure perfection's prime:</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Make it thy pride to yield thy fragile flower,</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">Or look to find it paled by envious time:</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">For none to stay the flight of years hath power,</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">And who culls roses caught by frosty rime?</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Give therefore to thy lover, give, for they</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Too late repent who act not while they may.</span><br /> +<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Time flies: and lo! thou let'st it idly fly:</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">There is not in the world a thing more dear;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">And if thou wait to see sweet May pass by,</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">Where find'st thou roses in the later year?</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">He never can, who lets occasion die:</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">Now that thou canst, stay not for doubt or fear;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">But by the forelock take the flying hour,</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Ere change begins, and clouds above thee lower.</span><br /> +<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Too long 'twixt yea and nay he hath been wrung;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">Whether he sleep or wake he little knows,</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Or free or in the bands of bondage strung:</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">Nay, lady, strike, and let thy lover loose!</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">What joy hast thou to keep a captive hung?</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">Kill him at once, or cut the cruel noose:</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">No more, I prithee, stay; but take thy part:</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Either relax the bow, or speed the dart.</span><br /> +<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Thou feedest him on words and windiness,</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">On smiles, and signs, and bladders light as air;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Saying, thou fain wouldst comfort his distress,</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">But dar'st not, canst not: nay, dear lady fair,</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">All things are possible beneath the stress</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">Of will, that flames above the soul's despair!</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Dally no longer: up, set to thy hand;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Or see his love unclothed and naked stand.</span><br /> +<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">For he hath sworn, and by this oath will bide,</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">E'en though his life be lost in the endeavour,</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">To leave no way, nor art, nor wile untried,</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">Until he pluck the fruit he sighs for ever:</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">And, though he still would spare thy honest pride,</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">The knot that binds him he must loose or sever;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Thou too, O lady, shouldst make sharp thy knife,</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">If thou art fain to end this amorous strife.</span><br /> +<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Lo! if thou lingerest still in dubious dread,</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">Lest thou shouldst lose fair fame of honesty,</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Here hast thou need of wile and warihead,</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">To test thy lover's strength in screening thee;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Indulge him, if thou find him well bestead,</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">Knowing that smothered love flames outwardly:</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Therefore, seek means, search out some privy way;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">Keep not the steed too long at idle play.</span><br /> +<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Or if thou heedest what those friars teach,</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">I cannot fail, lady, to call thee fool:</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Well may they blame our private sins and preach;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">But ill their acts match with their spoken rule;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">The same pitch clings to all men, one and each.</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">There, I have spoken: set the world to school</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">With this true proverb, too, be well acquainted</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">The devil's ne'er so black as he is painted.</span><br /> +<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Nor did our good Lord give such grace to thee</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">That thou shouldst keep it buried in thy breast,</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">But to reward thy servant's constancy,</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">Whose love and loyal faith thou hast repressed:</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Think it no sin to be some trifle free,</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">Because thou livest at a lord's behest;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">For if he take enough to feed his fill,</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">To cast the rest away were surely ill.</span><br /> +<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">They find most favour in the sight of heaven</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">Who to the poor and hungry are most kind;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">A hundred-fold shall thus to thee be given</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">By God, who loves the free and generous mind;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Thrice strike thy breast, with pure contrition riven,</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">Crying: I sinned; my sin hath made me blind!—</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">He wants not much: enough if he be able</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">To pick up crumbs that fall beneath thy table.</span><br /> +<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Wherefore, O lady, break the ice at length;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">Make thou, too, trial of love's fruits and flowers:</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">When in thine arms thou feel'st thy lover's strength,</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">Thou wilt repent of all these wasted hours;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Husbands, they know not love, its breadth and length,</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">Seeing their hearts are not on fire like ours:</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Things longed for give most pleasure; this I tell thee:</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">If still thou doubtest let the proof compel thee.</span><br /> +<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">What I have spoken is pure gospel sooth;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1.5em;">I have told all my mind, withholding nought:</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">And well, I ween, thou canst unhusk the truth,</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1.5em;">And through the riddle read the hidden thought:</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Perchance if heaven still smile upon my youth,</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1.5em;">Some good effect for me may yet be wrought:</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Then fare thee well; too many words offend:</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">She who is wise is quick to comprehend.</span><br /> +</p> + +<p>The levity of these love-declarations and the fluency of their vows +show them to be 'false as dicers' oaths,' mere verses of the moment, +made to please a facile mistress. One long poem, which cannot be +styled a Rispetto, but is rather a Canzone of the legitimate type, +stands out with distinctness from the rest of Poliziano's love-verses. +It was written by him for Giuliano de' Medici, in praise of the fair +Simonetta. The following version attempts to repeat its metrical +effects in some measure:—</p> + +<p> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">My task it is, since thus Love wills, who strains</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">And forces all the world beneath his sway,</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">In lowly verse to say</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">The great delight that in my bosom reigns.</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">For if perchance I took but little pains</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">To tell some part of all the joy I find,</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">I might be deem'd unkind</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">By one who knew my heart's deep happiness.</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">He feels but little bliss who hides his bliss;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">Small joy hath he whose joy is never sung;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">And he who curbs his tongue</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Through cowardice, knows but of love the name.</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Wherefore to succour and augment the fame</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">Of that pure, virtuous, wise, and lovely may,</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">Who like the star of day</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Shines mid the stars, or like the rising sun,</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Forth from my burning heart the words shall run.</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">Far, far be envy, far be jealous fear,</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">With discord dark and drear,</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">And all the choir that is of love the foe.—</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">The season had returned when soft winds blow,</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">The season friendly to young lovers coy,</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">Which bids them clothe their joy</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">In divers garbs and many a masked disguise.</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Then I to track the game 'neath April skies</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">Went forth in raiment strange apparellèd,</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">And by kind fate was led</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Unto the spot where stayed my soul's desire.</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">The beauteous nymph who feeds my soul with fire,</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">I found in gentle, pure, and prudent mood,</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">In graceful attitude,</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Loving and courteous, holy, wise, benign.</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">So sweet, so tender was her face divine,</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">So gladsome, that in those celestial eyes</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">Shone perfect paradise,</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Yea, all the good that we poor mortals crave.</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Around her was a band so nobly brave</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">Of beauteous dames, that as I gazed at these</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">Methought heaven's goddesses</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">That day for once had deigned to visit earth.</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">But she who gives my soul sorrow and mirth,</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">Seemed Pallas in her gait, and in her face</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">Venus; for every grace</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">And beauty of the world in her combined.</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Merely to think, far more to tell my mind</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">Of that most wondrous sight, confoundeth me,</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">For mid the maidens she</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Who most resembled her was found most rare.</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Call ye another first among the fair;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">Not first, but sole before my lady set:</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">Lily and violet</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">And all the flowers below the rose must bow.</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Down from her royal head and lustrous brow</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">The golden curls fell sportively unpent,</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">While through the choir she went</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">With feet well lessoned to the rhythmic sound.</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Her eyes, though scarcely raised above the ground,</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">Sent me by stealth a ray divinely fair;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">But still her jealous hair</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Broke the bright beam, and veiled her from my gaze.</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">She, born and nursed in heaven for angels' praise,</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">No sooner saw this wrong, than back she drew,</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">With hand of purest hue,</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Her truant curls with kind and gentle mien.</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Then from her eyes a soul so fiery keen,</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">So sweet a soul of love she cast on mine,</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">That scarce can I divine</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">How then I 'scaped from burning utterly.</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">These are the first fair signs of love to be,</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">That bound my heart with adamant, and these</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">The matchless courtesies</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Which, dreamlike, still before mine eyes must hover.</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">This is the honeyed food she gave her lover,</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">To make him, so it pleased her, half-divine;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">Nectar is not so fine,</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Nor ambrosy, the fabled feast of Jove.</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Then, yielding proofs more clear and strong of love,</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">As though to show the faith within her heart,</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">She moved, with subtle art,</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Her feet accordant to the amorous air.</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">But while I gaze and pray to God that ne'er</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">Might cease that happy dance angelical,</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">O harsh, unkind recall!</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Back to the banquet was she beckonèd.</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">She, with her face at first with pallor spread,</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">Then tinted with a blush of coral dye,</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">'The ball is best!' did cry,</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Gentle in tone and smiling as she spake.</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">But from her eyes celestial forth did break</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">Favour at parting; and I well could see</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">Young love confusedly</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Enclosed within the furtive fervent gaze,</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Heating his arrows at their beauteous rays,</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">For war with Pallas and with Dian cold.</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">Fairer than mortal mould,</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">She moved majestic with celestial gait;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">And with her hand her robe in royal state</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">Raised, as she went with pride ineffable.</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">Of me I cannot tell,</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Whether alive or dead I there was left.</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Nay, dead, methinks! since I of thee was reft,</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">Light of my life! and yet, perchance, alive—</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">Such virtue to revive</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">My lingering soul possessed thy beauteous face,</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">But if that powerful charm of thy great grace</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">Could then thy loyal lover so sustain,</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">Why comes there not again</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">More often or more soon the sweet delight?</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Twice hath the wandering moon with borrowed light</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">Stored from her brother's rays her crescent horn,</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">Nor yet hath fortune borne</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Me on the way to so much bliss again.</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Earth smiles anew; fair spring renews her reign:</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">The grass and every shrub once more is green;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">The amorous birds begin,</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">From winter loosed, to fill the field with song.</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">See how in loving pairs the cattle throng;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">The bull, the ram, their amorous jousts enjoy:</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">Thou maiden, I a boy,</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Shall we prove traitors to love's law for aye?</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Shall we these years that are so fair let fly?</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">Wilt thou not put thy flower of youth to use?</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">Or with thy beauty choose</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">To make him blest who loves thee best of all?</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Haply I am some hind who guards the stall,</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">Or of vile lineage, or with years outworn,</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">Poor, or a cripple born,</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Or faint of spirit that you spurn me so?</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Nay, but my race is noble and doth grow</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">With honour to our land, with pomp and power;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">My youth is yet in flower,</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">And it may chance some maiden sighs for me.</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">My lot it is to deal right royally</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">With all the goods that fortune spreads around,</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">For still they more abound,</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Shaken from her full lap, the more I waste.</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">My strength is such as whoso tries shall taste;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">Circled with friends, with favours crowned am I:</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">Yet though I rank so high</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Among the blest, as men may reckon bliss,</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Still without thee, my hope, my happiness,</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">It seems a sad, and bitter thing to live!</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">Then stint me not, but give</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">That joy which holds all joys enclosed in one.</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Let me pluck fruits at last, not flowers alone!</span><br /> +</p> + +<p>With much that is frigid, artificial, and tedious in this +old-fashioned love-song, there is a curious monotony of sweetness +which commends it to our ears; and he who reads it may remember the +profile portrait of Simonetta from the hand of Piero della Francesca +in the Pitti Palace at Florence.</p> + +<p>It is worth comparing Poliziano's treatment of popular or semi-popular +verse-forms with his imitations of Petrarch's manner. For this purpose +I have chosen a <i>Canzone</i>, clearly written in competition with the +celebrated 'Chiare, fresche e dolci acque,' of Laura's lover. While +closely modelled upon Petrarch's form and similar in motive, this +Canzone preserves Poliziano's special qualities of fluency and +emptiness of content.</p> + +<p> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Hills, valleys, caves and fells,</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">With flowers and leaves and herbage spread;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">Green meadows; shadowy groves where light is low;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">Lawns watered with the rills</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">That cruel Love hath made me shed,</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">Cast from these cloudy eyes so dark with woe;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">Thou stream that still dost know</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">What fell pangs pierce my heart,</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">So dost thou murmur back my moan;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">Lone bird that chauntest tone for tone,</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">While in our descant drear Love sings his part:</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">Nymphs, woodland wanderers, wind and air;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">List to the sound out-poured from my despair!</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Seven times and once more seven</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">The roseate dawn her beauteous brow</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">Enwreathed with orient jewels hath displayed;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">Cynthia once more in heaven</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">Hath orbed her horns with silver now;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">While in sea waves her brother's light was laid;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">Since this high mountain glade</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">Felt the white footsteps fall</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">Of that proud lady, who to spring</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">Converts whatever woodland thing</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">She may o'ershadow, touch, or heed at all.</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">Here bloom the flowers, the grasses spring</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">From her bright eyes, and drink what mine must bring.</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Yea, nourished with my tears</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">Is every little leaf I see,</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">And the stream rolls therewith a prouder wave.</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">Ah me! through what long years</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">Will she withhold her face from me,</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">Which stills the stormy skies howe'er they rave?</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">Speak! or in grove or cave</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">If one hath seen her stray,</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">Plucking amid those grasses green</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">Wreaths for her royal brows serene,</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">Flowers white and blue and red and golden gay!</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">Nay, prithee, speak, if pity dwell</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">Among these woods, within this leafy dell!</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">O Love! 'twas here we saw,</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">Beneath the new-fledged leaves that spring</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">From this old beech, her fair form lowly laid:—</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">The thought renews my awe!</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">How sweetly did her tresses fling</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">Waves of wreathed gold unto the winds that strayed</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">Fire, frost within me played,</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">While I beheld the bloom</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">Of laughing flowers—O day of bliss!—</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">Around those tresses meet and kiss,</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">And roses in her lap of Love the home!</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">Her grace, her port divinely fair,</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">Describe it, Love! myself I do not dare.</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">In mute intent surprise</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">I gazed, as when a hind is seen</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">To dote upon its image in a rill;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">Drinking those love-lit eyes,</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">Those hands, that face, those words serene,</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">That song which with delight the heaven did fill,</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">That smile which thralls me still,</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">Which melteth stones unkind,</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">Which in this woodland wilderness</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">Tames every beast and stills the stress</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">Of hurrying waters. Would that I could find</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">Her footprints upon field or grove!</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">I should not then be envious of Jove.</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Thou cool stream rippling by,</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">Where oft it pleased her to dip</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">Her naked foot, how blest art thou!</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">Ye branching trees on high,</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">That spread your gnarled roots on the lip</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">Of yonder hanging rock to drink heaven's dew!</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">She often leaned on you,</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">She who is my life's bliss!</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">Thou ancient beech with moss o'ergrown,</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">How do I envy thee thy throne,</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">Found worthy to receive such happiness!</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">Ye winds, how blissful must ye be,</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">Since ye have borne to heaven her harmony!</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">The winds that music bore,</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">And wafted it to God on high,</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">That Paradise might have the joy thereof.</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">Flowers here she plucked, and wore</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">Wild roses from the thorn hard by:</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">This air she lightened with her look of love:</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">This running stream above,</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">She bent her face!—Ah me!</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">Where am I? What sweet makes me swoon?</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">What calm is in the kiss of noon?</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">Who brought me here? Who speaks? What melody?</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">Whence came pure peace into my soul?</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">What joy hath rapt me from my own control?</span><br /> +</p> + +<p>Poliziano's refrain is always: 'Gather ye rosebuds while ye may. It is +spring-time now and youth. Winter and old age are coming!' A <i>Maggio</i>, +or May-day song, describing the games, dances, and jousting matches of +the Florentine lads upon the morning of the first of May, expresses +this facile philosophy of life with a quaintness that recalls Herrick. +It will be noticed that the Maggio is built, so far as rhymes go, on +the same system as Poliziano's Ballata. It has considerable historical +interest, for the opening couplet is said to be Guido Cavalcanti's, +while the whole poem is claimed by Roscoe for Lorenzo de' Medici, and +by Carducci with better reason for Poliziano.</p> + +<p> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">Welcome in the May</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">And the woodland garland gay!</span><br /> +<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Welcome in the jocund spring</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">Which bids all men lovers be!</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Maidens, up with carolling,</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">With your sweethearts stout and free,</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">With roses and with blossoms ye</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Who deck yourselves this first of May!</span><br /> +<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Up, and forth into the pure</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">Meadows, mid the trees and flowers!</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Every beauty is secure</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">With so many bachelors:</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">Beasts and birds amid the bowers</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Burn with love this first of May.</span><br /> +<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Maidens, who are young and fair,</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">Be not harsh, I counsel you;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">For your youth cannot repair</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">Her prime of spring, as meadows do:</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">None be proud, but all be true</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">To men who love, this first of May.</span><br /> +<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Dance and carol every one</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">Of our band so bright and gay!</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">See your sweethearts how they run</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">Through the jousts for you to-day!</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">She who saith her lover nay,</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Will deflower the sweets of May,</span><br /> +<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Lads in love take sword and shield</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">To make pretty girls their prize:</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Yield ye, merry maidens, yield</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">To your lovers' vows and sighs:</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">Give his heart back ere it dies:</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Wage not war this first of May.</span><br /> +<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">He who steals another's heart,</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">Let him give his own heart too:</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Who's the robber? 'Tis the smart</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">Little cherub Cupid, who</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">Homage comes to pay with you,</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Damsels, to the first of May.</span><br /> +<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Love comes smiling; round his head</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">Lilies white and roses meet:</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">'Tis for you his flight is sped.</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">Fair one, haste our king to greet:</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">Who will fling him blossoms sweet</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Soonest on this first of May?</span><br /> +<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Welcome, stranger! welcome, king!</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">Love, what hast thou to command?</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">That each girl with wreaths should ring</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">Her lover's hair with loving hand,</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">That girls small and great should band</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">In Love's ranks this first of May.</span><br /> +</p> + +<p>The <i>Canto Carnascialesco</i>, for the final development if not for the +invention of which all credit must be given to Lorenzo de' Medici, +does not greatly differ from the Maggio in structure. It admitted, +however, of great varieties, and was generally more complex in its +interweaving of rhymes. Yet the essential principle of an exordium +which should also serve for a refrain, was rarely, if ever, departed +from. Two specimens of the Carnival Song will serve to bring into +close contrast two very different aspects of Florentine history. The +earlier was composed by Lorenzo de' Medici at the height of his power +and in the summer of Italian independence. It was sung by masquers +attired in classical costume, to represent Bacchus and his crew.</p> + +<p> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">Fair is youth and void of sorrow;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 3em;">But it hourly flies away.—</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 3em;">Youths and maids, enjoy to-day;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">Nought ye know about to-morrow.</span><br /> +<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">This is Bacchus and the bright</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 3em;">Ariadne, lovers true!</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">They, in flying time's despite,</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 3em;">Each with each find pleasure new;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">These their Nymphs, and all their crew</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 3em;">Keep perpetual holiday.—</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 3em;">Youths and maids, enjoy to-day;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">Nought ye know about to-morrow.</span><br /> +<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">These blithe Satyrs, wanton-eyed,</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 3em;">Of the Nymphs are paramours:</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">Through the caves and forests wide</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 3em;">They have snared them mid the flowers;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">Warmed with Bacchus, in his bowers,</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 3em;">Now they dance and leap alway.—</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 3em;">Youths and maids, enjoy to-day;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">Nought ye know about to-morrow.</span><br /> +<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">These fair Nymphs, they are not loth</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 3em;">To entice their lovers' wiles.</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">None but thankless folk and rough</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 3em;">Can resist when Love beguiles.</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">Now enlaced, with wreathèd smiles,</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 3em;">All together dance and play.—</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 3em;">Youths and maids, enjoy to-day;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">Nought ye know about to-morrow.</span><br /> +<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">See this load behind them plodding</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 3em;">On the ass! Silenus he,</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">Old and drunken, merry, nodding,</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 3em;">Full of years and jollity;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">Though he goes so swayingly,</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 3em;">Yet he laughs and quaffs alway.—</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 3em;">Youths and maids, enjoy to-day;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">Nought ye know about to-morrow.</span><br /> +<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">Midas treads a wearier measure:</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 3em;">All he touches turns to gold:</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">If there be no taste of pleasure,</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 3em;">What's the use of wealth untold?</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">What's the joy his fingers hold,</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 3em;">When he's forced to thirst for aye?—</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 3em;">Youths and maids, enjoy to-day;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">Nought ye know about to-morrow.</span><br /> +<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">Listen well to what we're saying;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 3em;">Of to-morrow have no care!</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">Young and old together playing,</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 3em;">Boys and girls, be blithe as air!</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">Every sorry thought forswear!</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 3em;">Keep perpetual holiday.—-</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 3em;">Youths and maids, enjoy to-day;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">Nought ye know about to-morrow.</span><br /> +<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">Ladies and gay lovers young!</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 3em;">Long live Bacchus, live Desire!</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">Dance and play; let songs be sung;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 3em;">Let sweet love your bosoms fire;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">In the future come what may!—-</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">Youths and maids, enjoy to-day!</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">Nought ye know about to-morrow.</span><br /> +<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">Fair is youth and void of sorrow;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 3em;">But it hourly flies away.</span><br /> +</p> + +<p>The next, composed by Antonio Alamanni, after Lorenzo's death and the +ominous passage of Charles VIII., was sung by masquers habited as +skeletons. The car they rode on, was a Car of Death designed by Piero +di Cosimo, and their music was purposely gloomy. If in the jovial days +of the Medici the streets of Florence had rung to the thoughtless +refrain, 'Nought ye know about to-morrow,' they now re-echoed with a +cry of 'Penitence;' for times had strangely altered, and the heedless +past had brought forth a doleful present. The last stanza of +Alamanni's chorus is a somewhat clumsy attempt to adapt the too real +moral of his subject to the customary mood of the Carnival.</p> + + +<p> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Sorrow, tears, and penitence</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Are our doom of pain for aye;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">This dead concourse riding by</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Hath no cry but penitence!</span><br /> +<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">E'en as you are, once were we:</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">You shall be as now we are:</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">We are dead men, as you see:</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">We shall see you dead men, where</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Nought avails to take great care,</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">After sins, of penitence.</span><br /> +<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">We too in the Carnival</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Sang our love-songs through the town;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Thus from sin to sin we all</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Headlong, heedless, tumbled down:—</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Now we cry, the world around,</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Penitence! oh, Penitence!</span><br /> +<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Senseless, blind, and stubborn fools!</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Time steals all things as he rides:</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Honours, glories, states, and schools,</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Pass away, and nought abides;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Till the tomb our carcase hides,</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">And compels this penitence.</span><br /> +<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">This sharp scythe you see us bear,</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Brings the world at length to woe:</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">But from life to life we fare;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">And that life is joy or woe:</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">All heaven's bliss on him doth flow</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Who on earth does penitence.</span><br /> +<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Living here, we all must die;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Dying, every soul shall live:</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">For the King of kings on high</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">This fixed ordinance doth give:</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Lo, you all are fugitive!</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Penitence! Cry Penitence!</span><br /> +<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Torment great and grievous dole</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Hath the thankless heart mid you;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">But the man of piteous soul</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Finds much honour in our crew:</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Love for loving is the due</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">That prevents this penitence.</span><br /> +<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Sorrow, tears, and penitence</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Are our doom of pain for aye:</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">This dead concourse riding by</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Hath no cry but Penitence!</span><br /> +</p> + +<p>One song for dancing, composed less upon the type of the Ballata than +on that of the Carnival Song, may here be introduced, not only in +illustration of the varied forms assumed by this style of poetry, but +also because it is highly characteristic of Tuscan town-life. This +poem in the vulgar style has been ascribed to Lorenzo de' Medici, but +probably without due reason. It describes the manners and customs of +female street gossips.</p> + +<p> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">Since you beg with such a grace,</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 4em;">How can I refuse a song,</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 4em;">Wholesome, honest, void of wrong,</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 4em;">On the follies of the place?</span><br /> +<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">Courteously on you I call;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 4em;">Listen well to what I sing:</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 4em;">For my roundelay to all</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 4em;">May perchance instruction bring,</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 4em;">And of life good lessoning.—</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 4em;">When in company you meet,</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 4em;">Or sit spinning, all the street</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 4em;">Clamours like a market-place.</span><br /> +<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">Thirty of you there may be;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 4em;">Twenty-nine are sure to buzz,</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 4em;">And the single silent she</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 4em;">Racks her brains about her coz:—</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 4em;">Mrs. Buzz and Mrs. Huzz,</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 4em;">Mind your work, my ditty saith;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 4em;">Do not gossip till your breath</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 4em;">Fails and leaves you black of face!</span><br /> +<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">Governments go out and in:—</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 4em;">You the truth must needs discover.</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 4em;">Is a girl about to win</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 4em;">A brave husband in her lover?—</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 4em;">Straight you set to talk him over:</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 4em;">'Is he wealthy?' 'Does his coat</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 4em;">Fit?' 'And has he got a vote?'</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 4em;">'Who's his father?' 'What's his race?'</span><br /> +<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">Out of window one head pokes;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 4em;">Twenty others do the same:—</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 4em;">Chatter, clatter!—creaks and croaks</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 4em;">All the year the same old game!—</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 4em;">'See my spinning!' cries one dame,</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 4em;">'Five long ells of cloth, I trow!'</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 4em;">Cries another, 'Mine must go,</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 4em;">Drat it, to the bleaching base!'</span><br /> +<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">'Devil take the fowl!' says one:</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 4em;">'Mine are all bewitched, I guess;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 4em;">Cocks and hens with vermin run,</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 4em;">Mangy, filthy, featherless.'</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 4em;">Says another: 'I confess</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 4em;">Every hair I drop, I keep—</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 4em;">Plague upon it, in a heap</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 4em;">Falling off to my disgrace!'</span><br /> +<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">If you see a fellow walk</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 4em;">Up or down the street and back,</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 4em;">How you nod and wink and talk,</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 4em;">Hurry-skurry, cluck and clack!—</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 4em;">'What, I wonder, does he lack</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 4em;">Here about?'—'There's something wrong!'</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 4em;">Till the poor man's made a song</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 4em;">For the female populace.</span><br /> +<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">It were well you gave no thought</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 4em;">To such idle company;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 4em;">Shun these gossips, care for nought</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 4em;">But the business that you ply.</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 4em;">You who chatter, you who cry,</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 4em;">Heed my words; be wise, I pray:</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 4em;">Fewer, shorter stories say:</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 4em;">Bide at home, and mind your place.</span><br /> +<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">Since you beg with such a grace,</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 4em;">How can I refuse a song,</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 4em;">Wholesome, honest, void of wrong,</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 4em;">On the follies of the place?</span><br /> +</p> + +<p>The <i>Madrigale</i>, intended to be sung in parts, was another species of +popular poetry cultivated by the greatest of Italian writers. Without +seeking examples from such men as Petrarch, Michelangelo, or Tasso, +who used it as a purely literary form, I will content myself with a +few Madrigals by anonymous composers, more truly popular in style, and +more immediately intended for music.<a name="FNanchor_32_32" id="FNanchor_32_32" /></a><a href="#Footnote_32_32" class="fnanchor">[32]</a> The similarity both of manner +and matter, between these little poems and the Ballate, is obvious. +There is the same affectation of rusticity in both.</p> + +<p> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;"><i>Cogliendo per un prato.</i></span><br /> +<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Plucking white lilies in a field I saw</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">Fair women, laden with young Love's delight:</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">Some sang, some danced; but all were fresh and bright.</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Then by the margin of a fount they leaned,</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">And of those flowers made garlands for their hair—</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">Wreaths for their golden tresses quaint and rare.</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Forth from the field I passed, and gazed upon</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Their loveliness, and lost my heart to one.</span><br /> +<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;"><i>Togliendo l' una all' altra.</i></span><br /> +<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">One from the other borrowing leaves and flowers,</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">I saw fair maidens 'neath the summer trees,</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">Weaving bright garlands with low love-ditties.</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Mid that sweet sisterhood the loveliest</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">Turned her soft eyes to me, and whispered, 'Take!'</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">Love-lost I stood, and not a word I spake.</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">My heart she read, and her fair garland gave:</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Therefore I am her servant to the grave.</span><br /> +<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;"><i>Appress' un fiume chiaro</i>.</span><br /> +<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Hard by a crystal stream</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">Girls and maids were dancing round</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">A lilac with fair blossoms crowned.</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Mid these I spied out one</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">So tender-sweet, so love-laden,</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">She stole my heart with singing then:</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Love in her face so lovely-kind</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">And eyes and hands my soul did bind.</span><br /> +<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;"><i>Di riva in riva</i>.</span><br /> +<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">From lawn to lea Love led me down the valley,</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">Seeking my hawk, where 'neath a pleasant hill</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">I spied fair maidens bathing in a rill.</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Lina was there all loveliness excelling;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">The pleasure of her beauty made me sad,</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">And yet at sight of her my soul was glad.</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Downward I cast mine eyes with modest seeming,</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">And all a tremble from the fountain fled:</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">For each was naked as her maidenhead.</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Thence singing fared I through a flowery plain,</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Where bye and bye I found my hawk again!</span><br /> +<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;"><i>Nel chiaro fiume</i>.</span><br /> +<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Down a fair streamlet crystal-clear and pleasant</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">I went a fishing all alone one day,</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">And spied three maidens bathing there at play.</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Of love they told each other honeyed stories,</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">While with white hands they smote the stream, to wet</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">Their sunbright hair in the pure rivulet.</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Gazing I crouched among thick flowering leafage,</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">Till one who spied a rustling branch on high,</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">Turned to her comrades with a sudden cry,</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">And 'Go! Nay, prithee go!' she called to me:</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">'To stay were surely but scant courtesy.'</span><br /> +<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;"><i>Quel sole che nutrica.</i></span><br /> +<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">The sun which makes a lily bloom,</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">Leans down at times on her to gaze—</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">Fairer, he deems, than his fair rays:</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Then, having looked a little while,</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">He turns and tells the saints in bliss</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">How marvellous her beauty is.</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Thus up in heaven with flute and string</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Thy loveliness the angels sing.</span><br /> +<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;"><i>Di novo è giunt'.</i></span><br /> +<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Lo: here hath come an errant knight</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">On a barbed charger clothed in mail:</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">His archers scatter iron hail.</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">At brow and breast his mace he aims;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">Who therefore hath not arms of proof,</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">Let him live locked by door and roof;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Until Dame Summer on a day</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">That grisly knight return to slay.</span><br /> +</p> + +<p>Poliziano's treatment of the octave stanza for Rispetti was +comparatively popular. But in his poem of 'La Giostra,' written to +commemorate the victory of Giuliano de' Medici in a tournament and to +celebrate his mistress, he gave a new and richer form to the metre +which Boccaccio had already used for epic verse. The slight and +uninteresting framework of this poem, which opened a new sphere for +Italian literature, and prepared the way for Ariosto's golden cantos, +might be compared to one of those wire baskets which children steep in +alum water, and incrust with crystals, sparkling, artificial, +beautiful with colours not their own. The mind of Poliziano held, as +it were, in solution all the images and thoughts of antiquity, all the +riches of his native literature. In that vast reservoir of poems and +mythologies and phrases, so patiently accumulated, so tenaciously +preserved, so thoroughly assimilated, he plunged the trivial subject +he had chosen, and triumphantly presented to the world the <i>spolia +opima</i> of scholarship and taste. What mattered it that the theme was +slight? The art was perfect, the result splendid. One canto of 125 +stanzas describes the youth of Giuliano, who sought to pass his life +among the woods, a hunter dead to love, but who was doomed to be +ensnared by Cupid. The chase, the beauty of Simonetta, the palace of +Venus, these are the three subjects of a book as long as the first +Iliad. The second canto begins with dreams and prophecies of glory to +be won by Giuliano in the tournament. But it stops abruptly. The +tragic catastrophe of the Pazzi Conjuration cut short Poliziano's +panegyric by the murder of his hero. Meanwhile the poet had achieved +his purpose. His torso presented to Italy a model of style, a piece of +written art adequate to the great painting of the Renaissance period, +a double star of poetry which blent the splendours of the ancient and +the modern world. To render into worthy English the harmonies of +Poliziano is a difficult task. Yet this must be attempted if an +English reader is to gain any notion of the scope and substance of the +Italian poet's art. In the first part of the poem we are placed, as it +were, at the mid point between the 'Hippolytus' of Euripides and +Shakspere's 'Venus and Adonis.' The cold hunter Giuliano is to see +Simonetta, and seeing, is to love her. This is how he first discovers +the triumphant beauty:<a name="FNanchor_33_33" id="FNanchor_33_33" /></a><a href="#Footnote_33_33" class="fnanchor">[33]</a></p> + +<p> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">White is the maid, and white the robe around her,</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">With buds and roses and thin grasses pied;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Enwreathèd folds of golden tresses crowned her,</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Shadowing her forehead fair with modest pride:</span><br /> +<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">The wild wood smiled; the thicket where he found her,</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">To ease his anguish, bloomed on every side:</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Serene she sits, with gesture queenly mild,</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">And with her brow tempers the tempests wild.</span><br /> +</p> + +<p>After three stanzas of this sort, in which the poet's style is more +apparent than the object he describes, occurs this charming picture:—</p> + +<p> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Reclined he found her on the swarded grass</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">In jocund mood; and garlands she had made</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Of every flower that in the meadow was,</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">Or on her robe of many hues displayed;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">But when she saw the youth before her pass,</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">Raising her timid head awhile she stayed;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Then with her white hand gathered up her dress,</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">And stood, lap-full of flowers, in loveliness.</span><br /> +<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Then through the dewy field with footstep slow</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">The lingering maid began to take her way,</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Leaving her lover in great fear and woe,</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">For now he longs for nought but her alway:</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">The wretch, who cannot bear that she should go,</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">Strives with a whispered prayer her feet to stay;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">And thus at last, all trembling, all afire,</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">In humble wise he breathes his soul's desire:</span><br /> +<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">'Whoe'er thou art, maid among maidens queen,</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">Goddess, or nymph—nay, goddess seems most clear—</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">If goddess, sure my Dian I have seen;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">If mortal, let thy proper self appear!</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Beyond terrestrial beauty is thy mien;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">I have no merit that I should be here!</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">What grace of heaven, what lucky star benign</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Yields me the sight of beauty so divine?'</span><br /> +</p> + +<p>A conversation ensues, after which Giuliano departs utterly lovesick, +and Cupid takes wing exultingly for Cyprus, where his mother's palace +stands. In the following picture of the house of Venus, who shall say +how much of Ariosto's Alcina and Tasso's Armida is contained? Cupid +arrives, and the family of Love is filled with joy at Giuliano's +conquest. From the plan of the poem it is clear that its beauties are +chiefly those of detail. They are, however, very great. How perfect, +for example, is the richness combined with delicacy of the following +description of a country life:—</p> + +<p>BOOK I. STANZAS 17-21.</p> + +<p> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">How far more safe it is, how far more fair,</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">To chase the flying deer along the lea;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Through ancient woods to track their hidden lair,</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">Far from the town, with long-drawn subtlety:</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">To scan the vales, the hills, the limpid air,</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">The grass and flowers, clear ice, and streams so free;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">To hear the birds wake from their winter trance,</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">The wind-stirred leaves and murmuring waters dance.</span><br /> +<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">How sweet it were to watch the young goats hung</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">From toppling crags, cropping the tender shoot,</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">While in thick pleachèd shade the shepherd sung</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">His uncouth rural lay and woke his flute;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">To mark, mid dewy grass, red apples flung,</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">And every bough thick set with ripening fruit,</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">The butting rams, kine lowing o'er the lea,</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">And cornfields waving like the windy sea.</span><br /> +<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Lo! how the rugged master of the herd</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">Before his flock unbars the wattled cote;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Then with his rod and many a rustic word</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">He rules their going: or 'tis sweet to note</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">The delver, when his toothèd rake hath stirred</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">The stubborn clod, his hoe the glebe hath smote;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Barefoot the country girl, with loosened zone,</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Spins, while she keeps her geese 'neath yonder stone.</span><br /> +<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">After such happy wise, in ancient years,</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">Dwelt the old nations in the age of gold;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Nor had the fount been stirred of mothers' tears</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">For sons in war's fell labour stark and cold;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Nor trusted they to ships the wild wind steers,</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">Nor yet had oxen groaning ploughed the wold;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Their houses were huge oaks, whose trunks had store</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Of honey, and whose boughs thick acorns bore.</span><br /> +<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Nor yet, in that glad time, the accursèd thirst</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">Of cruel gold had fallen on this fair earth:</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Joyous in liberty they lived at first;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">Unploughed the fields sent forth their teeming birth;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Till fortune, envious of such concord, burst</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">The bond of law, and pity banned and worth;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Within their breasts sprang luxury and that rage</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Which men call love in our degenerate age.</span><br /> +</p> + +<p>We need not be reminded that these stanzas are almost a cento from +Virgil, Hesiod, and Ovid. The merits of the translator, adapter, and +combiner, who knew so well how to cull their beauties and adorn them +with a perfect dress of modern diction, are so eminent that we cannot +deny him the title of a great poet. It is always in picture-painting +more than in dramatic presentation that Poliziano excels. Here is a +basrelief of Venus rising from the Ocean foam:—</p> + + +<p>STANZAS 99-107.</p> + +<p> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">In Thetis' lap, upon the vexed Egean,</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">The seed deific from Olympus sown,</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Beneath dim stars and cycling empyrean</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">Drifts like white foam across the salt waves blown;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Thence, born at last by movements hymenean,</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">Rises a maid more fair than man hath known;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Upon her shell the wanton breezes waft her;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">She nears the shore, while heaven looks down with laughter</span><br /> +<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Seeing the carved work you would cry that real</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">Were shell and sea, and real the winds that blow;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">The lightning of the goddess' eyes you feel,</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">The smiling heavens, the elemental glow:</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">White-vested Hours across the smooth sands steal,</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">With loosened curls that to the breezes flow;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Like, yet unlike, are all their beauteous faces,</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">E'en as befits a choir of sister Graces.</span><br /> +<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Well might you swear that on those waves were riding</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1.5em;">The goddess with her right hand on her hair,</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">And with the other the sweet apple hiding;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">And that beneath her feet, divinely fair,</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Fresh flowers sprang forth, the barren sands dividing;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">Then that, with glad smiles and enticements rare,</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">The three nymphs round their queen, embosoming her,</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Threw the starred mantle soft as gossamer.</span><br /> +<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">The one, with hands above her head upraised,</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">Upon her dewy tresses fits a wreath,</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">With ruddy gold and orient gems emblazed;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">The second hangs pure pearls her ears beneath;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">The third round shoulders white and breast hath placed</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">Such wealth of gleaming carcanets as sheathe</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Their own fair bosoms, when the Graces sing</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Among the gods with dance and carolling.</span><br /> +<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Thence might you see them rising toward the spheres,</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">Seated upon a cloud of silvery white;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">The trembling of the cloven air appears</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">Wrought in the stone, and heaven serenely bright;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">The gods drink in with open eyes and ears</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">Her beauty, and desire her bed's delight;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Each seems to marvel with a mute amaze—</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Their brows and foreheads wrinkle as they gaze.</span><br /> +</p> + +<p>The next quotation shows Venus in the lap of Mars, and Visited by +Cupid:—</p> + +<p> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">STANZAS 122—124.</span><br /> +<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Stretched on a couch, outside the coverlid,</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">Love found her, scarce unloosed from Mars' embrace;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">He, lying back within her bosom, fed</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">His eager eyes on nought but her fair face;</span><br /> +<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Roses above them like a cloud were shed,</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">To reinforce them in the amorous chace;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">While Venus, quick with longings unsuppressed,</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">A thousand times his eyes and forehead kissed.</span><br /> +<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Above, around, young Loves on every side</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">Played naked, darting birdlike to and fro;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">And one, whose plumes a thousand colours dyed,</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">Fanned the shed roses as they lay arow;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">One filled his quiver with fresh flowers, and hied</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">To pour them on the couch that lay below;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Another, poised upon his pinions, through</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">The falling shower soared shaking rosy dew:</span><br /> +<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">For, as he quivered with his tremulous wing,</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">The wandering roses in their drift were stayed;—</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Thus none was weary of glad gambolling;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">Till Cupid came, with dazzling plumes displayed,</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Breathless; and round his mother's neck did fling</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">His languid arms, and with his winnowing made</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Her heart burn:—very glad and bright of face,</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">But, with his flight, too tired to speak apace.</span><br /> +</p> + +<p>These pictures have in them the very glow of Italian painting. +Sometimes we seem to see a quaint design of Piero di Cosimo, with +bright tints and multitudinous small figures in a spacious landscape. +Sometimes it is the languid grace of Botticelli, whose soul became +possessed of classic inspiration as it were in dreams, and who has +painted the birth of Venus almost exactly as Poliziano imagined it. +Again, we seize the broader beauties of the Venetian masters, or the +vehemence of Giulio Romano's pencil. To the last class belong the two +next extracts:—</p> + +<p> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">STANZAS 104—107.</span><br /> +<br /> +<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">In the last square the great artificer</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">Had wrought himself crowned with Love's perfect palm;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Black from his forge and rough, he runs to her,</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">Leaving all labour for her bosom's calm:</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Lips joined to lips with deep love-longing stir,</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">Fire in his heart, and in his spirit balm;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Far fiercer flames through breast and marrow fly</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">Than those which heat his forge in Sicily.</span><br /> +<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Jove, on the other side, becomes a bull,</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">Goodly and white, at Love's behest, and rears</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">His neck beneath his rich freight beautiful:</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">She turns toward the shore that disappears,</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">With frightened gesture; and the wonderful</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">Gold curls about her bosom and her ears</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Float in the wind; her veil waves, backward borne;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">This hand still clasps his back, and that his horn.</span><br /> +<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">With naked feet close-tucked beneath her dress,</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">She seems to fear the sea that dares not rise:</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">So, imaged in a shape of drear distress,</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">In vain unto her comrades sweet she cries;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">They left amid the meadow-flowers, no less</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">For lost Europa wail with weeping eyes:</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Europa, sounds the shore, bring back our bliss</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">But the bull swims and turns her feet to kiss.</span><br /> +<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Here Jove is made a swan, a golden shower,</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">Or seems a serpent, or a shepherd-swain,</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">To work his amorous will in secret hour;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">Here, like an eagle, soars he o'er the plain,</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Love-led, and bears his Ganymede, the flower</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">Of beauty, mid celestial peers to reign;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">The boy with cypress hath his fair locks crowned,</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Naked, with ivy wreathed his waist around.</span><br /> +<br /> +<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">STANZAS 110—112.</span><br /> +<br /> +<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Lo! here again fair Ariadne lies,</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">And to the deaf winds of false Theseus plains.</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">And of the air and slumber's treacheries;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">Trembling with fear even as a reed that strain.</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">And quivers by the mere 'neath breezy skies:</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">Her very speechless attitude complains—</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">No beast there is so cruel as thou art,</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">No beast less loyal to my broken heart.</span><br /> +<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Throned on a car, with ivy crowned and vine,</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">Rides Bacchus, by two champing tigers driven:</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Around him on the sand deep-soaked with brine</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">Satyrs and Bacchantes rush; the skies are riven</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">With shouts and laughter; Fauns quaff bubbling wine</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">From horns and cymbals; Nymphs, to madness driven,</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Trip, skip, and stumble; mixed in wild enlacements,</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Laughing they roll or meet for glad embracements.</span><br /> +<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Upon his ass Silenus, never sated,</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">With thick, black veins, wherethrough the must is soaking,</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Nods his dull forehead with deep sleep belated;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">His eyes are wine-inflamed, and red, and smoking:</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Bold Mænads goad the ass so sorely weighted,</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">With stinging thyrsi; he sways feebly poking</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">The mane with bloated fingers; Fauns behind him,</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">E'en as he falls, upon the crupper bind him.</span><br /> +</p> + +<p>We almost seem to be looking at the frescoes in some Trasteverine +palace, or at the canvas of one of the sensual Genoese painters. The +description of the garden of Venus has the charm of somewhat +artificial elegance, the exotic grace of style, which attracts us in +the earlier Renaissance work:—</p> + +<p> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">The leafy tresses of that timeless garden</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">Nor fragile brine nor fresh snow dares to whiten;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Frore winter never comes the rills to harden,</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">Nor winds the tender shrubs and herbs to frighten;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Glad Spring is always here, a laughing warden;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">Nor do the seasons wane, but ever brighten;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Here to the breeze young May, her curls unbinding,</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">With thousand flowers her wreath is ever winding.</span><br /> +</p> + +<p>Indeed it may be said with truth that Poliziano's most eminent faculty +as a descriptive poet corresponded exactly to the genius of the +painters of his day. To produce pictures radiant with Renaissance +colouring, and vigorous with Renaissance passion, was the function of +his art, not to express profound thought or dramatic situations. This +remark might be extended with justice to Ariosto, and Tasso, and +Boiardo. The great narrative poets of the Renaissance in Italy were +not dramatists; nor were their poems epics: their forte lay in the +inexhaustible variety and beauty of their pictures.</p> + +<p>Of Poliziano's plagiarism—if this be the right word to apply to the +process of assimilation and selection, by means of which the +poet-scholar of Florence taught the Italians how to use the riches of +the ancient languages and their own literature—here are some +specimens. In stanza 42 of the 'Giostra' he says of Simonetta:—</p> + +<p> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">E 'n lei discerne un non so che divino.</span><br /> +</p> + + +<p>Dante has the line:—</p> + +<p> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Vostri risplende un non so che divino.</span><br /> +</p> + +<p>In the 44th he speaks about the birds:—</p> + +<p> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">E canta ogni augelletto in suo latino.</span><br /> +</p> + +<p>This comes from Cavalcanti's:—</p> + +<p> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">E cantinne gli augelli.</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Ciascuno in suo latino.</span><br /> +</p> + +<p>Stanza 45 is taken bodily from Claudian, Dante, and Cavalcanti. It +would seem as though Poliziano wished to show that the classic and +medieval literature of Italy was all one, and that a poet of the +Renaissance could carry on the continuous tradition in his own style. +A, line in stanza 54 seems perfectly original:—</p> + +<p> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">E già dall'alte ville il fumo esala.</span><br /> +</p> + +<p>It comes straight from Virgil:—</p> + +<p> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Et jam summa pocul villarum culmina fumant.</span><br /> +</p> + +<p>In the next stanza the line—</p> + +<p> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Tal che 'l ciel tutto rasserenò d'intorno,</span><br /> +</p> + +<p>is Petrarch's. So in the 56th, is the phrase 'il dolce andar celeste.' +In stanza 57—</p> + +<p> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Par che 'l cor del petto se gli schianti,</span><br /> +</p> + +<p>belongs to Boccaccio. In stanza 60 the first line:—</p> + +<p> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">La notte che le cose ci nasconde,</span><br /> +</p> + +<p>together with its rhyme, 'sotto le amate fronde,' is borrowed from the +23rd canto of the 'Paradiso.' In the second line, 'Stellato ammanto' +is Claudian's 'stellantes sinus' applied to the heaven. When we reach +the garden of Venus we find whole passages translated from Claudian's +'Marriage of Honorius,' and from the 'Metamorphoses' of Ovid.</p> + +<p>Poliziano's second poem of importance, which indeed may historically +be said to take precedence of 'La Giostra,' was the so-called tragedy +of 'Orfeo.' The English version of this lyrical drama must be reserved +for a separate study: yet it belongs to the subject of this, inasmuch +as the 'Orfeo' is a classical legend treated in a form already +familiar to the Italian people. Nearly all the popular kinds of poetry +of which specimens have been translated in this chapter, will be found +combined in its six short scenes.</p> +<h5><a href="#CONTENTS">CONTENTS</a></h5> +<br/><br /> +<hr style="width: 100%;" /> + + + +<h2><a name="ORFEO" id="ORFEO" /><i>ORFEO</i></a></h2> +<hr style="width: 100%;" /> +<br /> +<p>The 'Orfeo' of Messer Angelo Poliziano ranks amongst the most +important poems of the fifteenth century. It was composed at Mantua in +the short space of two days, on the occasion of Cardinal Francesco +Gonzaga's visit to his native town in 1472. But, though so hastily put +together, the 'Orfeo' marks an epoch in the evolution of Italian +poetry. It is the earliest example of a secular drama, containing +within the compass of its brief scenes the germ of the opera, the +tragedy, and the pastoral play. In form it does not greatly differ +from the 'Sacre Rappresentazioni' of the fifteenth century, as those +miracle plays were handled by popular poets of the earlier +Renaissance. But while the traditional octave stanza is used for the +main movement of the piece, Poliziano has introduced episodes of +<i>terza rima</i>, madrigals, a carnival song, a <i>ballata</i>, and, above all, +choral passages which have in them the future melodrama of the musical +Italian stage. The lyrical treatment of the fable, its capacity for +brilliant and varied scenic effects, its combination of singing with +action, and the whole artistic keeping of the piece, which never +passes into genuine tragedy, but stays within the limits of romantic +pathos, distinguish the 'Orfeo' as a typical production of Italian +genius. Thus, though little better than an improvisation, it combines +the many forms of verse developed by the Tuscans at the close of the +Middle Ages, and fixes the limits beyond which their dramatic poets, +with a few exceptions, were not destined to advance. Nor was the +choice of the fable without significance. Quitting the Bible stories +and the Legends of Saints, which supplied the mediaeval playwright +with material, Poliziano selects a classic story: and this story might +pass for an allegory of Italy, whose intellectual development the +scholar-poet ruled. Orpheus is the power of poetry and art, softening +stubborn nature, civilising men, and prevailing over Hades for a +season. He is the right hero of humanism, the genius of the +Renaissance, the tutelary god of Italy, who thought she could resist +the laws of fate by verse and elegant accomplishments. To press this +kind of allegory is unwise; for at a certain moment it breaks in our +hands. And yet in Eurydice the fancy might discover Freedom, the true +spouse of poetry and art; Orfeo's last resolve too vividly depicts the +vice of the Renaissance; and the Mænads are those barbarous armies +destined to lay waste the plains of Italy, inebriate with wine and +blood, obeying a new lord of life on whom the poet's harp exerts no +charm. But a truce to this spinning of pedantic cobwebs. Let Mercury +appear, and let the play begin.</p> +<br /> +<br /> +<br /> +<h3><i>THE FABLE OF ORPHEUS</i></h3> + +<p> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">MERCURY <i>announces the show</i>.</span><br /> +<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">Ho, silence! Listen! There was once a hind,</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 3em;">Son of Apollo, Aristaeus hight,</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 3em;">Who loved with so untamed and fierce a mind</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 3em;">Eurydice, the wife of Orpheus wight,</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 3em;">That chasing her one day with will unkind</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 3em;">He wrought her cruel death in love's despite;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 3em;">For, as she fled toward the mere hard by,</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 3em;">A serpent stung her, and she had to die.</span><br /> +<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">Now Orpheus, singing, brought her back from hell,</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 3em;">But could not keep the law the fates ordain:</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 3em;">Poor wretch, he backward turned and broke the spell;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 3em;">So that once more from him his love was ta'en.</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 3em;">Therefore he would no more with women dwell,</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 3em;">And in the end by women he was slain.</span><br /> +<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;"><i>Enter</i> A SHEPHERD, <i>who says</i>—</span><br /> +<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">Nay, listen, friends! Fair auspices are given,</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">Since Mercury to earth hath come from heaven.</span><br /> +<br /> +<br /> +<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">SCENE I</span><br /> +<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">MOPSUS, <i>an old shepherd</i>.</span><br /> +<br /> +<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">Say, hast thou seen a calf of mine, all white</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 3em;">Save for a spot of black upon her front,</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 3em;">Two feet, one flank, and one knee ruddy-bright?</span><br /> +<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">ARISTAEUS, <i>a young shepherd</i>.</span><br /> +<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">Friend Mopsus, to the margin of this fount</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 3em;">No herds have come to drink since break of day;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">Yet may'st thou hear them low on yonder mount.</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 3em;">Go, Thyrsis, search the upland lawn, I pray!</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">Thou Mopsus shalt with me the while abide;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 3em;">For I would have thee listen to my lay.</span><br /> +<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 18em;">[<i>Exit</i> THYRSIS.</span><br /> +<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">'Twas yester morn where trees yon cavern hide,</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 3em;">I saw a nymph more fair than Dian, who</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 3em;">Had a young lusty lover at her side:</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">But when that more than woman met my view,</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 3em;">The heart within my bosom leapt outright,</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 3em;">And straight the madness of wild Love I knew.</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">Since then, dear Mopsus, I have no delight;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 3em;">But weep and weep: of food and drink I tire,</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 3em;">And without slumber pass the weary night.</span><br /> +<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">MOPSUS.</span><br /> +<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">Friend Aristaeus, if this amorous fire</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 4em;">Thou dost not seek to quench as best may be,</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 4em;">Thy peace of soul will vanish in desire.</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">Thou know'st that love is no new thing to me:</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 4em;">I've proved how love grown old brings bitter pain:</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 4em;">Cure it at once, or hope no remedy;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">For if thou find thee in Love's cruel chain,</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 4em;">Thy bees, thy blossoms will be out of mind,</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 4em;">Thy fields, thy vines, thy flocks, thy cotes, thy grain</span><br /> +<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">ARISTAEUS.</span><br /> +<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">Mopsus, thou speakest to the deaf and blind:</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 4em;">Waste not on me these wingèd words, I pray,</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 4em;">Lest they be scattered to the inconstant wind,</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">I love, and cannot wish to say love nay;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 4em;">Nor seek to cure so charming a disease:</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 4em;">They praise Love best who most against him say.</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">Yet if thou fain wouldst give my heart some ease,</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 4em;">Forth from thy wallet take thy pipe, and we</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 4em;">Will sing awhile beneath the leafy trees;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">For well my nymph is pleased with melody.</span><br /> +<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">THE SONG.</span><br /> +<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">Listen, ye wild woods, to my roundelay;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">Since the fair nymph will hear not, though I pray.</span><br /> +<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">The lovely nymph is deaf to my lament,</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 4em;">Nor heeds the music of this rustic reed;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">Wherefore my flocks and herds are ill content,</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 4em;">Nor bathe their hoof where grows the water weed,</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 4em;">Nor touch the tender herbage on the mead;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">So sad, because their shepherd grieves, are they.</span><br /> +<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">Listen, ye wild woods, to my roundelay;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">Since the fair nymph will hear not, though I pray.</span><br /> +<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">The herds are sorry for their master's moan;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 4em;">The nymph heeds not her lover though he die,</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">The lovely nymph, whose heart is made of stone—</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 3em;">Nay steel, nay adamant! She still doth fly</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 3em;">Far, far before me, when she sees me nigh,</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">Even as a lamb flies fern the wolf away.</span><br /> +<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">Listen, ye wild woods, to my roundelay;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">Since the fair nymph will hear not, though I pray.</span><br /> +<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">Nay, tell her, pipe of mine, how swift doth flee</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 3em;">Beauty together with our years amain;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">Tell her how time destroys all rarity,</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 3em;">Nor youth once lost can be renewed again;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 3em;">Tell her to use the gifts that yet remain:</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">Roses and violets blossom not alway.</span><br /> +<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">Listen, ye wild woods, to my roundelay;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">Since the fair nymph will hear not, though I pray.</span><br /> +<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">Carry, ye winds, these sweet words to her ears,</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 3em;">Unto the ears of my loved nymph, and tell</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">How many tears I shed, what bitter tears!</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 3em;">Beg her to pity one who loves so well:</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 3em;">Say that my life is frail and mutable,</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">And melts like rime before the rising day.</span><br /> +<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">Listen, ye wild woods, to my roundelay;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">Since the fair nymph will hear not, though I pray.</span><br /> +<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">MOPSUS.</span><br /> +<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">Less sweet, methinks the voice of waters falling</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 3em;">From cliffs that echo back their murmurous song;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 3em;">Less sweet the summer sound of breezes calling</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 3em;">Through pine-tree tops sonorous all day long;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 3em;">Than are thy rhymes, the soul of grief enthralling,</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 3em;">Thy rhymes o'er field and forest borne along:</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">If she but hear them, at thy feet she'll fawn.—</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">Lo, Thyrsis, hurrying homeward from the lawn!</span><br /> +<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 14em;">[<i>Re-enters</i> THYRSIS.</span><br /> +<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">ARISTAEUS.</span><br /> +<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">What of the calf? Say, hast thou seen her now?</span><br /> +<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">THYRSIS, <i>the cowherd</i>.</span><br /> +<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">I have, and I'd as lief her throat were cut!</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">She almost ripped my bowels up, I vow,</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">Running amuck with horns well set to butt:</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">Nathless I've locked her in the stall below:</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">She's blown with grass, I tell you, saucy slut!</span><br /> +<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">ARISTAEUS.</span><br /> +<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">Now, prithee, let me hear what made you stay</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">So long upon the upland lawns away?</span><br /> +<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">THYRSIS.</span><br /> +<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">Walking, I spied a gentle maiden there,</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 3em;">Who plucked wild flowers upon the mountain side:</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 3em;">I scarcely think that Venus is more fair,</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 3em;">Of sweeter grace, most modest in her pride:</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 3em;">She speaks, she sings, with voice so soft and rare,</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 3em;">That listening streams would backward roll their tide:</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 3em;">Her face is snow and roses; gold her head;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 3em;">All, all alone she goes, white-raimented,</span><br /> +<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">ARISTAEUS.</span><br /> +<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">Stay, Mopsus! I must follow: for 'tis she</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 3em;">Of whom I lately spoke. So, friend, farewell!</span><br /> +<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">MOPSUS.</span><br /> +<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">Hold, Aristaeus, lest for her or thee</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">Thy boldness be the cause of mischief fell!</span><br /> +<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">ARISTAEUS.</span><br /> +<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">Nay, death this day must be my destiny,</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">Unless I try my fate and break the spell.</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">Stay therefore, Mopsus, by the fountain stay!</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">I'll follow her, meanwhile, yon mountain way.</span><br /> +<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 15em;">[<i>Exit</i> ARISTAEUS.</span><br /> +<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">MOPSUS.</span><br /> +<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">Thyrsis, what thinkest thou of thy loved lord?</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 3em;">See'st thou that all his senses are distraught?</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 3em;">Couldst thou not speak some seasonable word,</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 3em;">Tell him what shame this idle love hath wrought?</span><br /> +<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">THYRSIS.</span><br /> +<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">Free speech and servitude but ill accord,</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">Friend Mopsus, and the hind is folly-fraught</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">Who rates his lord! He's wiser far than I.</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">To tend these kine is all my mastery.</span><br /> +<br /> +<br /> +<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">SCENE II</span><br /> +<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">ARISTAEUS, <i>in pursuit of</i> EURYDICE.</span><br /> +<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">Flee not from me, maiden!</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 3em;">Lo, I am thy friend!</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 3em;">Dearer far than life I hold thee.</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 3em;">List, thou beauty-laden,</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 3em;">To these prayers attend:</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 3em;">Flee not, let my arms enfold thee!</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 3em;">Neither wolf nor bear will grasp thee:</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 3em;">That I am thy friend I've told thee:</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 3em;">Stay thy course then; let me clasp thee!—</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 3em;">Since thou'rt deaf and wilt not heed me,</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 3em;">Since thou'rt still before me flying,</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 3em;">While I follow panting, dying,</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 3em;">Lend me wings, Love, wings to speed me!</span><br /> +<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 18em;">[<i>Exit</i> ARISTAEUS, <i>pursuing</i> EURYDICE.</span><br /> +<br /> +<br /> +<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">SCENE III</span><br /> +<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">A DRYAD.</span><br /> +<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">Sad news of lamentation and of pain,</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 3em;">Dear sisters, hath my voice to bear to you:</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 3em;">I scarcely dare to raise the dolorous strain.</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">Eurydice by yonder stream lies low;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 3em;">The flowers are fading round her stricken head,</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 3em;">And the complaining waters weep their woe.</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">The stranger soul from that fair house hath fled;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 3em;">And she, like privet pale, or white May-bloom</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 3em;">Untimely plucked, lies on the meadow, dead.</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">Hear then the cause of her disastrous doom!</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 3em;">A snake stole forth and stung her suddenly.</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 3em;">I am so burdened with this weight of gloom</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">That, lo, I bid you all come weep with me!</span><br /> +<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">CHORUS OF DRYADS.</span><br /> +<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">Let the wide air with our complaint resound!</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 3em;">For all heaven's light is spent.</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 3em;">Let rivers break their bound,</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 3em;">Swollen with tears outpoured from our lament!</span><br /> +<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">Fell death hath ta'en their splendour from the skies:</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 3em;">The stars are sunk in gloom.</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 3em;">Stern death hath plucked the bloom</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 3em;">Of nymphs:—Eurydice down-trodden lies.</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">Weep, Love! The woodland cries.</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 3em;">Weep, groves and founts;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 3em;">Ye craggy mounts; you leafy dell,</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 3em;">Beneath whose boughs she fell,</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 3em;">Bend every branch in time with this sad sound.</span><br /> +<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">Let the wide air with our complaint resound!</span><br /> +<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">Ah, fortune pitiless! Ah, cruel snake!</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 3em;">Ah, luckless doom of woes!</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 3em;">Like a cropped summer rose,</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 3em;">Or lily cut, she withers on the brake.</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">Her face, which once did make</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 3em;">Our age so bright</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 3em;">With beauty's light, is faint and pale;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 3em;">And the clear lamp doth fail,</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 3em;">Which shed pure splendour all the world around</span><br /> +<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">Let the wide air with our complaint resound!</span><br /> +<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">Who e'er will sing so sweetly, now she's gone?</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 4em;">Her gentle voice to hear,</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 4em;">The wild winds dared not stir;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 4em;">And now they breathe but sorrow, moan for moan:</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">So many joys are flown,</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 4em;">Such jocund days</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 4em;">Doth Death erase with her sweet eyes!</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 4em;">Bid earth's lament arise,</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 4em;">And make our dirge through heaven and sea rebound!</span><br /> +<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">Let the wide air with our complaint resound!</span><br /> +<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">A DRYAD.</span><br /> +<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">'Tis surely Orpheus, who hath reached the hill,</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 4em;">With harp in hand, glad-eyed and light of heart!</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 4em;">He thinks that his dear love is living still.</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">My news will stab him with a sudden smart:</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 4em;">An unforeseen and unexpected blow</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 4em;">Wounds worst and stings the bosom's tenderest part.</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">Death hath disjoined the truest love, I know,</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 4em;">That nature yet to this low world revealed,</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 4em;">And quenched the flame in its most charming glow.</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">Go, sisters, hasten ye to yonder field,</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 4em;">Where on the sward lies slain Eurydice;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 4em;">Strew her with flowers and grasses! I must yield</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">This man the measure of his misery.</span><br /> +<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 6em;">[<i>Exeunt</i> DRYADS. <i>Enter</i> ORPHEUS, <i>singing</i>.</span><br /> +<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">ORPHEUS.</span><br /> +<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;"><i>Musa, triumphales titulos et gesta canamus</i></span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 4em;"><i>Herculis, et forti monstra subacta manu;</i></span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;"><i>Ut timidae malri pressos ostenderit angues,</i></span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 4em;"><i>Intrepidusque fero riserit ore puer.</i></span><br /> +<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">A DRYAD.</span><br /> +<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">Orpheus, I bring thee bitter news. Alas!</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 4em;">Thy nymph who was so beautiful, is slain!</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 4em;">flying from Aristaeus o'er the grass,</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 4em;">What time she reached yon stream that threads the plain,</span><br /> +<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 3em;">A snake which lurked mid flowers where she did pass,</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 3em;">Pierced her fair foot with his envenomed bane:</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 3em;">So fierce, so potent was the sting, that she</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 3em;">Died in mid course. Ah, woe that this should be!</span><br /> +<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 4em;">[ORPHEUS <i>turns to go in silence.</i></span><br /> +<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">MNESILLUS, <i>the satyr</i>.</span><br /> +<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">Mark ye how sunk in woe</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 3em;">The poor wretch forth doth pass,</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 3em;">And may not answer, for his grief, one word?</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 3em;">On some lone shore, unheard,</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 3em;">Far, far away, he'll go,</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 3em;">And pour his heart forth to the winds, alas!</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 3em;">I'll follow and observe if he</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 3em;">Moves with his moan the hills to sympathy.</span><br /> +<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 8em;">[<i>Follows</i> ORPHEUS.</span><br /> +<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">ORPHEUS.</span><br /> +<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">Let us lament, O lyre disconsolate!</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 3em;">Our wonted music is in tune no more.</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 3em;">Lament we while the heavens revolve, and let</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 3em;">The nightingale be conquered on Love's shore!</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 3em;">O heaven, O earth, O sea, O cruel fate!</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 3em;">How shall I bear a pang so passing sore?</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 3em;">Eurydice, my love! O life of mine!</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 3em;">On earth I will no more without thee pine!</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">I will go down unto the doors of Hell,</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 3em;">And see if mercy may be found below:</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 3em;">Perchance we shall reverse fate's spoken spell</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 3em;">With tearful songs and words of honeyed woe:</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 3em;">Perchance will Death be pitiful; for well</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 3em;">With singing have we turned the streams that flow;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 3em;">Moved stones, together hind and tiger drawn,</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 3em;">And made trees dance upon the forest lawn.</span><br /> +<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 4em;">[<i>Passes from sight on his way to Hades.</i></span><br /> +<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">MNESILLUS.</span><br /> +<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">The staff of Fate is strong</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 3em;">And will not lightly bend,</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 3em;">Nor yet the stubborn gates of steely Hell.</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 3em;">Nay, I can see full well</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 3em;">His life will not be long:</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 3em;">Those downward feet no more will earthward wend.</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 3em;">What marvel if they lose the light,</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 3em;">Who make blind Love their guide by day and night!</span><br /> +<br /> +<br /> +<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">SCENE IV</span><br /> +<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">ORPHEUS, <i>at the gate of Hell.</i></span><br /> +<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">Pity, nay pity for a lover's moan!</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 3em;">Ye Powers of Hell, let pity reign in you!</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 3em;">To your dark regions led me Love alone:</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 3em;">Downward upon his wings of light I flew.</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 3em;">Hush, Cerberus! Howl not by Pluto's throne!</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 3em;">For when you hear my tale of misery, you,</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 3em;">Nor you alone, but all who here abide</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 3em;">In this blind world, will weep by Lethe's tide.</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">There is no need, ye Furies, thus to rage;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 3em;">To dart those snakes that in your tresses twine:</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 3em;">Knew ye the cause of this my pilgrimage,</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 3em;">Ye would lie down and join your moans with mine.</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 3em;">Let this poor wretch but pass, who war doth wage</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 3em;">With heaven, the elements, the powers divine!</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 3em;">I beg for pity or for death. No more!</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 3em;">But open, ope Hell's adamantine door!</span><br /> +<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 8em;">[ORPHEUS <i>enters Hell.</i></span><br /> +<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">PLUTO.</span><br /> +<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">What man is he who with his golden lyre</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 3em;">Hath moved the gates that never move,</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 3em;">While the dead folk repeat his dirge of love?</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">The rolling stone no more doth tire</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 3em;">Swart Sisyphus on yonder hill;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 3em;">And Tantalus with water slakes his fire;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">The groans of mangled Tityos are still;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 3em;">Ixion's wheel forgets to fly;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 3em;">The Danaids their urns can fill:</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">I hear no more the tortured spirits cry;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">But all find rest in that sweet harmony.</span><br /> +<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">PROSERPINE.</span><br /> +<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">Dear consort, since, compelled by love of thee,</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 3em;">I left the light of heaven serene,</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 3em;">And came to reign in hell, a sombre queen;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">The charm of tenderest sympathy</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 3em;">Hath never yet had power to turn</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 3em;">My stubborn heart, or draw forth tears from me.</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">Now with desire for yon sweet voice I yearn;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 3em;">Nor is there aught so dear</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 3em;">As that delight. Nay, be not stern</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">To this one prayer! Relax thy brows severe,</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">And rest awhile with me that song to hear!</span><br /> +<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 4em;">[ORPHEUS <i>stands before the throne.</i></span><br /> +<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">ORPHEUS.</span><br /> +<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">Ye rulers of the people lost in gloom,</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 3em;">Who see no more the jocund light of day!</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 3em;">Ye who inherit all things that the womb</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 3em;">Of Nature and the elements display!</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 3em;">Hear ye the grief that draws me to the tomb!</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 3em;">Love, cruel Love, hath led me on this way:</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 3em;">Not to chain Cerberus I hither come,</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 3em;">But to bring back my mistress to her home.</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">A serpent hidden among flowers and leaves</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 3em;">Stole my fair mistress—nay, my heart—from me:</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 3em;">Wherefore my wounded life for ever grieves,</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 3em;">Nor can I stand against this agony.</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 3em;">Still, if some fragrance lingers yet and cleaves</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 3em;">Of your famed love unto your memory,</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 3em;">If of that ancient rape you think at all,</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 3em;">Give back Eurydice!—On you I call.</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">All things ere long unto this bourne descend:</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 3em;">All mortal lives to you return at last:</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 3em;">Whate'er the moon hath circled, in the end</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 3em;">Must fade and perish in your empire vast:</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 3em;">Some sooner and some later hither wend;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 3em;">Yet all upon this pathway shall have passed:</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 3em;">This of our footsteps is the final goal;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 3em;">And then we dwell for aye in your control.</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">Therefore the nymph I love is left for you</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 3em;">When nature leads her deathward in due time:</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 3em;">But now you've cropped the tendrils as they grew,</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 3em;">The grapes unripe, while yet the sap did climb:</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 3em;">Who reaps the young blades wet with April dew,</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 3em;">Nor waits till summer hath o'erpassed her prime?</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 3em;">Give back, give back my hope one little day!—</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 3em;">Not for a gift, but for a loan I pray.</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">I pray not to you by the waves forlorn</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 3em;">Of marshy Styx or dismal Acheron,</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 3em;">By Chaos where the mighty world was born,</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 3em;">Or by the sounding flames of Phlegethon;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 3em;">But by the fruit which charmed thee on that morn</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 3em;">When thou didst leave our world for this dread throne!</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 3em;">O queen! if thou reject this pleading breath,</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 3em;">I will no more return, but ask for death!</span><br /> +<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">PROSERPINE.</span><br /> +<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">Husband, I never guessed</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 3em;">That in our realm oppressed</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 3em;">Pity could find a home to dwell:</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 3em;">But now I know that mercy teems in Hell.</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 3em;">I see Death weep; her breast</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 3em;">Is shaken by those tears that faultless fell.</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 3em;">Let then thy laws severe for him be swayed</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 3em;">By love, by song, by the just prayers he prayed!</span><br /> +<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">PLUTO.</span><br /> +<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">She's thine, but at this price:</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 3em;">Bend not on her thine eyes,</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 3em;">Till mid the souls that live she stay.</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 3em;">See that thou turn not back upon the way!</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 3em;">Check all fond thoughts that rise!</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 3em;">Else will thy love be torn from thee away.</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 3em;">I am well pleased that song so rare as thine</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 3em;">The might of my dread sceptre should incline.</span><br /> +<br /> +<br /> +<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">SCENE V</span><br /> +<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">ORPHEUS, <i>sings.</i></span><br /> +<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;"><i>Ite tritumphales circum mea tempora lauri.</i></span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 3em;"><i>Vicimus Eurydicen: reddita vita mihi est,</i></span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;"><i>Haec mea praecipue victoria digna coronâ.</i></span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 3em;"><i>Oredimus? an lateri juncta puella meo?</i></span><br /> +<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">EURYDICE.</span><br /> +<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">All me! Thy love too great</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 3em;">Hath lost not thee alone!</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 3em;">I am torn from thee by strong Fate.</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 3em;">No more I am thine own.</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 3em;">In vain I stretch these arms. Back, back to Hell</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 3em;">I'm drawn, I'm drawn. My Orpheus, fare thee well!</span><br /> +<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 14em;">[EURYDICE <i>disappears.</i></span><br /> +<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">ORPHEUS.</span><br /> +<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">Who hath laid laws on Love?</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 3em;">Will pity not be given</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 3em;">For one short look so full thereof?</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 3em;">Since I am robbed of heaven,</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 3em;">Since all my joy so great is turned to pain,</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 3em;">I will go back and plead with Death again!</span><br /> +<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 6em;">[TISIPHONE <i>blocks his way.</i></span><br /> +<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">TISIPHONE.</span><br /> +<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">Nay, seek not back to turn!</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 3em;">Vain is thy weeping, all thy words are vain.</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 3em;">Eurydice may not complain</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 3em;">Of aught but thee—albeit her grief is great.</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 3em;">Vain are thy verses 'gainst the voice of Fate!</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 3em;">How vain thy song! For Death is stern!</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 3em;">Try not the backward path: thy feet refrain!</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 3em;">The laws of the abyss are fixed and firm remain.</span><br /> +<br /> +<br /> +<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">SCENE VI</span><br /> +<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">ORPHEUS.</span><br /> +<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">What sorrow-laden song shall e'er be found</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 3em;">To match the burden of my matchless woe?</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 3em;">How shall I make the fount of tears abound,</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 3em;">To weep apace with grief's unmeasured flow?</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 3em;">Salt tears I'll waste upon the barren ground,</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 3em;">So long as life delays me here below;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 3em;">And since my fate hath wrought me wrong so sore,</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 3em;">I swear I'll never love a woman more!</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">Henceforth I'll pluck the buds of opening spring,</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 3em;">The bloom of youth when life is loveliest,</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 3em;">Ere years have spoiled the beauty which they bring:</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 3em;">This love, I swear, is sweetest, softest, best!</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 3em;">Of female charms let no one speak or sing;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 3em;">Since she is slain who ruled within my breast.</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 3em;">He who would seek my converse, let him see</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 3em;">That ne'er he talk of woman's love to me!</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">How pitiful is he who changes mind</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 3em;">For woman! for her love laments or grieves!</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 3em;">Who suffers her in chains his will to bind,</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 3em;">Or trusts her words lighter than withered leaves,</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 3em;">Her loving looks more treacherous than the wind!</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 3em;">A thousand times she veers; to nothing cleaves:</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 3em;">Follows who flies; from him who follows, flees;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 3em;">And comes and goes like waves on stormy seas!</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">High Jove confirms the truth of what I said,</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 3em;">Who, caught and bound in love's delightful snare,</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 3em;">Enjoys in heaven his own bright Ganymed:</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 3em;">Phoebus on earth had Hyacinth the fair:</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 3em;">Hercules, conqueror of the world, was led</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 3em;">Captive to Hylas by this love so rare.—</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 3em;">Advice for husbands! Seek divorce, and fly</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 3em;">Far, far away from female company!</span><br /> +<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">[<i>Enter a</i> MAENAD <i>leading a train of</i> BACCHANTES.</span><br /> +<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">A MAENAD.</span><br /> +<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">Ho! Sisters! Up! Alive!</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 3em;">See him who doth our sex deride!</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 3em;">Hunt him to death, the slave!</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">Thou snatch the thyrsus! Thou this oak-tree rive!</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 3em;">Cast down this doeskin and that hide!</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 3em;">We'll wreak our fury on the knave!</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">Yea, he shall feel our wrath, the knave!</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 3em;">He shall yield up his hide</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 3em;">Riven as woodmen fir-trees rive!</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 3em;">No power his life can save;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 3em;">Since women he hath dared deride!</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 3em;">Ho! To him, sisters! Ho! Alive!</span><br /> +<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">[ORPHEUS <i>is chased off the scene and slain: the</i> MAENADS</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;"><i>then return.</i></span><br /> +<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">A MAENAD.</span><br /> +<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">Ho! Bacchus! Ho! I yield thee thanks for this!</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 3em;">Through all the woodland we the wretch have borne:</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 3em;">So that each root is slaked with blood of his:</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 3em;">Yea, limb from limb his body have we torn</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 3em;">Through the wild forest with a fearful bliss:</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 3em;">His gore hath bathed the earth by ash and thorn!—</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 3em;">Go then! thy blame on lawful wedlock fling!</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 3em;">Ho! Bacchus! take the victim that we bring!</span><br /> +<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">CHORUS OF MAENADS.</span><br /> +<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 3em;">Bacchus! we all must follow thee!</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 3em;">Bacchus! Bacchus! Ohé! Ohé!</span><br /> +<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">With ivy coronals, bunch and berry,</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 3em;">Crown we our heads to worship thee!</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">Thou hast bidden us to make merry</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 3em;">Day and night with jollity!</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">Drink then! Bacchus is here! Drink free,</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">And hand ye the drinking-cup to me!</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 3em;">Bacchus! we all must follow thee!</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 3em;">Bacchus! Bacchus! Ohé! Ohé!</span><br /> +<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">See, I have emptied my horn already:</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 3em;">Stretch hither your beaker to me, I pray:</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">Are the hills and the lawns where we roam unsteady?</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 3em;">Or is it my brain that reels away?</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">Let every one run to and fro through the hay,</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">As ye see me run! Ho! after me!</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 3em;">Bacchus! we all must follow thee!</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 3em;">Bacchus! Bacchus! Ohé! Ohé!</span><br /> +<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">Methinks I am dropping in swoon or slumber:</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 3em;">Am I drunken or sober, yes or no?</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">What are these weights my feet encumber?</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 3em;">You too are tipsy, well I know!</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">Let every one do as ye see me do,</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">Let every one drink and quaff like me!</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 3em;">Bacchus! we all must follow thee!</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 3em;">Bacchus! Bacchus! Ohé! Ohé!</span><br /> +<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">Cry Bacchus! Cry Bacchus! Be blithe and merry,</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 3em;">Tossing wine down your throats away!</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">Let sleep then come and our gladness bury:</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 3em;">Drink you, and you, and you, while ye may!</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">Dancing is over for me to-day.</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">Let every one cry aloud Evohé!</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 3em;">Bacchus! we all must follow thee!</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 3em;">Bacchus! Bacchus! Ohé! Ohé!</span><br /> +</p> + +<p>Though an English translation can do little toward rendering the +facile graces of Poliziano's style, that 'roseate fluency' for which +it has been praised by his Italian admirers, the main qualities of the +'Orfeo' as a composition may be traced in this rough copy. Of dramatic +power, of that mastery over the deeper springs of human nature which +distinguished the first effort of the English muse in Marlowe's plays, +there is but little. A certain adaptation of the language to the +characters, as in the rudeness of Thyrsis when contrasted with the +rustic elegance of Aristæus, a touch of simple feeling in Eurydice's +lyrical outcry of farewell, a discrimination between the tender +sympathy of Proserpine and Pluto's stern relenting, a spirited +presentation of the Bacchanalian <i>furore</i> in the Mænads, an attempt to +model the Satyr Mnesillus as apart from human nature and yet +sympathetic to its anguish, these points constitute the chief dramatic +features of the melodrama. Orpheus himself is a purely lyrical +personage. Of character, he can scarcely be said to have anything +marked; and his part rises to its height precisely in that passage +where the lyrist has to be displayed. Before the gates of Hades and +the throne of Proserpine he sings, and his singing is the right +outpouring of a poet's soul; each octave resumes the theme of the last +stanza with a swell of utterance, a crescendo of intonation that +recalls the passionate and unpremeditated descant of a bird upon the +boughs alone. To this true quality of music is added the +persuasiveness of pleading. That the violin melody of his incomparable +song is lost, must be reckoned a great misfortune. We have good reason +to believe that the part of Orpheus was taken by Messer Baccio +Ugolini, singing to the viol. Here too it may be mentioned that a +<i>tondo</i> in monochrome, painted by Signorelli among the arabesques at +Orvieto, shows Orpheus at the throne of Plato, habited as a poet with +the laurel crown and playing on a violin of antique form. It would be +interesting to know whether a rumour of the Mantuan pageant had +reached the ears of the Cortonese painter.</p> + +<p>If the whole of the 'Orfeo' had been conceived and executed with the +same artistic feeling as the chief act, it would have been a really +fine poem independently of its historical interest. But we have only +to turn the page and read the lament uttered for the loss of Eurydice, +in order to perceive Poliziano's incapacity for dealing with his hero +in a situation of greater difficulty. The pathos which might have made +us sympathise with Orpheus in his misery, the passion, approaching to +madness, which might have justified his misogyny, are absent. It is +difficult not to feel that in this climax of his anguish he was a poor +creature, and that the Mænads served him right. Nothing illustrates +the defect of real dramatic imagination better than this failure to +dignify the catastrophe. Gifted with a fine lyrical inspiration, +Poliziano seems to have already felt the Bacchic chorus which forms so +brilliant a termination to his play, and to have forgotten his duty to +the unfortunate Orpheus, whose sorrow for Eurydice is stultified and +made unmeaning by the prosaic expression of a base resolve. It may +indeed be said in general that the 'Orfeo' is a good poem only where +the situation is not so much dramatic as lyrical, and that its finest +passage—the scene in Hades—was fortunately for its author one in +which the dramatic motive had to be lyrically expressed. In this +respect, as in many others, the 'Orfeo' combines the faults and merits +of the Italian attempts at melo-tragedy. To break a butterfly upon the +wheel is, however, no fit function of criticism: and probably no one +would have smiled more than the author of this improvisation, at the +thought of its being gravely dissected just four hundred years after +the occasion it was meant to serve had long been given over to +oblivion.</p> + + +<p><i>NOTE</i></p> + + +<p>Poliziano's 'Orfeo' was dedicated to Messer Carlo Canale, the husband +of that famous Vannozza who bore Lucrezia and Cesare Borgia to +Alexander VI. As first published in 1494, and as republished from time +to time up to the year 1776, it carried the title of 'La Favola di +Orfeo,' and was not divided into acts. Frequent stage-directions +sufficed, as in the case of Florentine 'Sacre Rappresentazioni,' for +the indication of the scenes. In this earliest redaction of the +'Orfeo' the chorus of the Dryads, the part of Mnesillus, the lyrical +speeches of Proserpine and Pluto, and the first lyric of the Mænads +are either omitted or represented by passages in <i>ottava rima</i>. In the +year 1776 the Padre Ireneo Affò printed at Venice a new version of +'Orfeo, Tragedia di Messer Angelo Poliziano,' collated by him from two +MSS. This play is divided into five acts, severally entitled +'Pastoricus,' 'Nymphas Habet,' 'Heroïcus,' 'Necromanticus,' and +'Bacchanalis.' The stage-directions are given partly in Latin, partly +in Italian; and instead of the 'Announcement of the Feast' by Mercury, +a prologue consisting of two octave stanzas is appended. A Latin +Sapphic ode in praise of the Cardinal Gonzaga, which was interpolated +in the first version, is omitted, and certain changes are made in the +last soliloquy of Orpheus. There is little doubt, I think, that the +second version, first given to the press by the Padre Affò, was +Poliziano's own recension of his earlier composition. I have therefore +followed it in the main, except that I have not thought it necessary +to observe the somewhat pedantic division into acts, and have +preferred to use the original 'Announcement of the Feast,' which +proves the integral connection between this ancient secular play and +the Florentine Mystery or 'Sacra Rappresentazione.' The last soliloquy +of Orpheus, again, has been freely translated by me from both versions +for reasons which will be obvious to students of the original. I have +yet to make a remark upon one detail of my translation. In line 390 +(part of the first lyric of the Mænads) the Italian gives us:—</p> + +<p> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Spezzata come il fabbro il cribro spezza.</span><br /> +</p> + + +<p>This means literally: 'Riven as a blacksmith rives a sieve or +boulter.' Now sieves are made in Tuscany of a plate of iron, pierced +with holes; and the image would therefore be familiar to an Italian. I +have, however, preferred to translate thus:—</p> + +<p> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Riven as woodmen fir-trees rive,</span><br /> +</p> + +<p>instead of giving:—</p> + +<p> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Riven as blacksmiths boulters rive,</span><br /> +</p> + +<p>because I thought that the second and faithful version would be +unintelligible as well as unpoetical for English readers.</p> +<h5><a href="#CONTENTS">CONTENTS</a></h5> +<br/><br /> +<hr style="width: 100%;" /> + +<h2><a name="EIGHT_SONNETS_OF_PETRARCH" id="EIGHT_SONNETS_OF_PETRARCH" /><i>EIGHT SONNETS OF PETRARCH</i></a></h2> + +<hr style="width: 100%;" /> +<br /> + +<p>ON THE PAPAL COURT AT AVIGNON</p> + + +<p> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Fountain of woe! Harbour of endless ire!</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">Thou school of errors, haunt of heresies!</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">Once Rome, now Babylon, the world's disease,</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">That maddenest men with fears and fell desire!</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">O forge of fraud! O prison dark and dire,</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">Where dies the good, where evil breeds increase!</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">Thou living Hell! Wonders will never cease</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">If Christ rise not to purge thy sins with fire.</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Founded in chaste and humble poverty,</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">Against thy founders thou dost raise thy horn,</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">Thou shameless harlot! And whence flows this pride?</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Even from foul and loathed adultery,</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">The wage of lewdness. Constantine, return!</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">Not so: the felon world its fate must bide.</span><br /> +</p> + + + + +<p>TO STEFANO COLONNA</p> + +<p>WRITTEN FROM VAUCLUSE</p> + +<p> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Glorius Colonna, thou on whose high head</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">Rest all our hopes and the great Latin name,</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">Whom from the narrow path of truth and fame</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">The wrath of Jove turned not with stormful dread:</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Here are no palace-courts, no stage to tread;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">But pines and oaks the shadowy valleys fill</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">Between the green fields and the neighbouring hill,</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">Where musing oft I climb by fancy led.</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">These lift from earth to heaven our soaring soul,</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">While the sweet nightingale, that in thick bowers</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">Through darkness pours her wail of tuneful woe,</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Doth bend our charmed breast to love's control;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">But thou alone hast marred this bliss of ours,</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">Since from our side, dear lord, thou needs must go.</span><br /> +</p> + + + +<p>IN VITA DI MADONNA LAURA. XI</p> + +<p>ON LEAVING AVIGNON</p> + + +<p> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">Backward at every weary step and slow</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 3em;">These limbs I turn which with great pain I bear;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 3em;">Then take I comfort from the fragrant air</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 3em;">That breathes from thee, and sighing onward go.</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">But when I think how joy is turned to woe,</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 3em;">Remembering my short life and whence I fare,</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 3em;">I stay my feet for anguish and despair,</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 3em;">And cast my tearful eyes on earth below.</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">At times amid the storm of misery</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 3em;">This doubt assails me: how frail limbs and poor</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 3em;">Can severed from their spirit hope to live.</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">Then answers Love: Hast thou no memory</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 3em;">How I to lovers this great guerdon give,</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 3em;">Free from all human bondage to endure?</span><br /> +</p> + + + + +<p>IN VITA DI MADONNA LAURA. XII</p> + +<p>THOUGHTS IN ABSENCE</p> + +<p> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">The wrinkled sire with hair like winter snow</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">Leaves the beloved spot where he hath passed his years,</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">Leaves wife and children, dumb with bitter tears,</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">To see their father's tottering steps and slow.</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Dragging his aged limbs with weary woe,</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">In these last days of life he nothing fears,</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">But with stout heart his fainting spirit cheers,</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">And spent and wayworn forward still doth go;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Then comes to Rome, following his heart's desire,</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">To gaze upon the portraiture of Him</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">Whom yet he hopes in heaven above to see:</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Thus I, alas! my seeking spirit tire,</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">Lady, to find in other features dim</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">The longed for, loved, true lineaments of thee.</span><br /> +</p> + + +<p>IN VITA DI MADONNA LAURA. LII</p> + +<p>OH THAT I HAD WINGS LIKE A DOVE!</p> + +<p> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">I am so tired beneath the ancient load</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">Of my misdeeds and custom's tyranny,</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">That much I fear to fail upon the road</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">And yield my soul unto mine enemy.</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">'Tis true a friend from whom all splendour flowed,</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">To save me came with matchless courtesy:</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">Then flew far up from sight to heaven's abode,</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">So that I strive in vain his face to see.</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Yet still his voice reverberates here below:</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">Oh ye who labour, lo! the path is here;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">Come unto me if none your going stay!</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">What grace, what love, what fate surpassing fear</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">Shall give me wings like dove's wings soft as snow,</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">That I may rest and raise me from the clay?</span><br /> +</p> + + + +<p>IN MORTE DI MADONNA LAURA. XXIV</p> + + +<p> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">The eyes whereof I sang my fervid song,</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">The arms, the hands, the feet, the face benign,</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">Which severed me from what was rightly mine,</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">And made me sole and strange amid the throng,</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">The crispèd curls of pure gold beautiful,</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">And those angelic smiles which once did shine</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">Imparadising earth with joy divine,</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">Are now a little dust—dumb, deaf, and dull.</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">And yet I live! wherefore I weep and wail,</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">Left alone without the light I loved so long,</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">Storm-tossed upon a bark that hath no sail.</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Then let me here give o'er my amorous song;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">The fountains of old inspiration fail,</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">And nought but woe my dolorous chords prolong.</span><br /> +</p> + +<p>IN MORTE DI MADONNA LAURA. XXXIV</p> + + + +<p> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">In thought I raised me to the place where she</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">Whom still on earth I seek and find not, shines;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">There 'mid the souls whom the third sphere confines,</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">More fair I found her and less proud to me.</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">She took my hand and said: Here shalt thou be</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">With me ensphered, unless desires mislead;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">Lo! I am she who made thy bosom bleed,</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">Whose day ere eve was ended utterly:</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">My bliss no mortal heart can understand;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">Thee only do I lack, and that which thou</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">So loved, now left on earth, my beauteous veil.</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Ah! wherefore did she cease and loose my hand?</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">For at the sound of that celestial tale</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">I all but stayed in paradise till now.</span><br /> +</p> + + + + +<p>IN MORTE DI MADONNA LAURA. LXXIV</p> + +<p> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">The flower of angels and the spirits blest,</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">Burghers of heaven, on that first day when she</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">Who is my lady died, around her pressed</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">Fulfilled with wonder and with piety.</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">What light is this? What beauty manifest?</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">Marvelling they cried: for such supremacy</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">Of splendour in this age to our high rest</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">Hath never soared from earth's obscurity.</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">She, glad to have exchanged her spirit's place,</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">Consorts with those whose virtues most exceed;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">At times the while she backward turns her face</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">To see me follow—seems to wait and plead:</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">Therefore toward heaven my will and soul I raise,</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">Because I hear her praying me to speed.</span><br /> +</p> + + +<h5><a href="#CONTENTS">CONTENTS</a></h5> +<br/><br /> +<hr style="width: 100%;" /> + + + + +<h2><a name="FOOTNOTES" id="FOOTNOTES" />FOOTNOTES:</a></h2> +<hr style="width: 100%;" /> +<br /> + +<blockquote> +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_1_1" id="Footnote_1_1" /></a><a href="#FNanchor_1_1"><span class="label">[1]</span></a> We may compare with Venice what is known about the +ancient Hellenic city of Sybaris. Sybaris and Ravenna were the Greek +and Roman Venice of antiquity.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_2_2" id="Footnote_2_2" /></a><a href="#FNanchor_2_2"><span class="label">[2]</span></a> His first wife was a daughter of the great general of the +Venetians against Francesco Sforza. Whether Sigismondo murdered her, +as Sansovino seems to imply in his <i>Famiglie Illustri</i>, or whether he +only repudiated her after her father's execution on the Piazza di San +Marco, admits of doubt. About the question of Sigismondo's marriage +with Isotta there is also some uncertainty. At any rate she had been +some time his mistress before she became his wife.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_3_3" id="Footnote_3_3" /></a><a href="#FNanchor_3_3"><span class="label">[3]</span></a> For the place occupied in the evolution of Italian +scholarship by this Greek sage, see my 'Revival of Learning,' +<i>Renaissance in Italy</i>, part 2.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_4_4" id="Footnote_4_4" /></a><a href="#FNanchor_4_4"><span class="label">[4]</span></a> The account of this church given by Æneas Sylvius +Piccolomini (Pii Secundi, Comment., ii. 92) deserves quotation: +'Ædificavit tamen nobile templum Arimini in honorem divi Francisci, +verum ita gentilibus operibus implevit, ut non tam Christianorum quam +infidelium dæmones adorantium templum esse videatur.'</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_5_5" id="Footnote_5_5" /></a><a href="#FNanchor_5_5"><span class="label">[5]</span></a> Almost all the facts of Alberti's life are to be found in +the Latin biography included in Muratori. It has been conjectured, and +not without plausibility, by the last editor of Alberti's complete +works, Bonucci, that this Latin life was penned by Alberti himself.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_6_6" id="Footnote_6_6" /></a><a href="#FNanchor_6_6"><span class="label">[6]</span></a> There is in reality no doubt or problem about this Saint +Clair. She was born in 1275, and joined the Augustinian Sisterhood, +dying young, in 1308, as Abbess of her convent. Continual and +impassioned meditation on the Passion of our Lord impressed her heart +with the signs of His suffering which have been described above. I owe +this note to the kindness of an anonymous correspondent, whom I here +thank.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_7_7" id="Footnote_7_7" /></a><a href="#FNanchor_7_7"><span class="label">[7]</span></a> The balance of probability leans against Isabella in this +affair. At the licentious court of the Medici she lived with +unpardonable freedom. Troilo Orsini was himself assassinated in Paris +by Bracciano's orders a few years afterwards.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_8_8" id="Footnote_8_8" /></a><a href="#FNanchor_8_8"><span class="label">[8]</span></a> I have amplified and corrected this chronicle by the +light of Professor Gnoli's monograph, <i>Vittoria Accoramboni</i>, +published by Le Monnier at Florence in 1870.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_9_9" id="Footnote_9_9" /></a><a href="#FNanchor_9_9"><span class="label">[9]</span></a> In dealing with Webster's tragedy, I have adhered to his +use and spelling of names.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_10_10" id="Footnote_10_10" /></a><a href="#FNanchor_10_10"><span class="label">[10]</span></a> The fresco of the Coronation of the Virgin upon the +semi-dome of S. Giovanni is the work of a copyist, Cesare Aretusi. But +part of the original fresco, which was removed in 1684, exists in a +good state of preservation at the end of the long gallery of the +library.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_11_11" id="Footnote_11_11" /></a><a href="#FNanchor_11_11"><span class="label">[11]</span></a> See the chapter on Euripides in my <i>Studies of Greek +Poets</i>, First Series, for a further development of this view of +artistic evolution.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_12_12" id="Footnote_12_12" /></a><a href="#FNanchor_12_12"><span class="label">[12]</span></a> I find that this story is common in the country round +Canossa. It is mentioned by Professor A. Ferretti in his monograph +entitled <i>Canossa, Studi e Ricerche</i>, Reggio, 1876, a work to which I +am indebted, and which will repay careful study.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_13_13" id="Footnote_13_13" /></a><a href="#FNanchor_13_13"><span class="label">[13]</span></a> Charles claimed under the will of René of Anjou, who in +turn claimed under the will of Joan II.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_14_14" id="Footnote_14_14" /></a><a href="#FNanchor_14_14"><span class="label">[14]</span></a> For an estimate of Cosimo's services to art and +literature, his collection of libraries, his great buildings, his +generosity to scholars, and his promotion of Greek studies, I may +refer to my <i>Renaissance in Italy</i>: 'The Revival of Learning,' chap. +iv.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_15_15" id="Footnote_15_15" /></a><a href="#FNanchor_15_15"><span class="label">[15]</span></a> Giottino had painted the Duke of Athens, in like manner, +on the same walls.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_16_16" id="Footnote_16_16" /></a><a href="#FNanchor_16_16"><span class="label">[16]</span></a> See <i>Archivio Storico</i>.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_17_17" id="Footnote_17_17" /></a><a href="#FNanchor_17_17"><span class="label">[17]</span></a> The order of rhymes runs thus: <i>a, b, b, a, a, b, b, a, +c, d, c, d, c, d</i>; or in the terzets, <i>c, d, e, c, d, e</i>, or <i>c, d, e, +d, c, e</i>, and so forth.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_18_18" id="Footnote_18_18" /></a><a href="#FNanchor_18_18"><span class="label">[18]</span></a> It has extraordinary interest for the student of our +literary development, inasmuch as it is full of experiments in metres, +which have never thriven on English soil. Not to mention the attempt +to write in asclepiads and other classical rhythms, we might point to +Sidney's <i>terza rima</i>, poems with <i>sdrucciolo</i> or treble rhymes. This +peculiar and painful form he borrowed from Ariosto and Sanazzaro; but +even in Italian it cannot be handled without sacrifice of variety, +without impeding the metrical movement and marring the sense.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_19_19" id="Footnote_19_19" /></a><a href="#FNanchor_19_19"><span class="label">[19]</span></a> The stately structure of the <i>Prothalamion</i> and +<i>Epithalamion</i> is a rebuilding of the Italian Canzone. His Eclogues, +with their allegories, repeat the manner of Petrarch's minor Latin +poems.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_20_20" id="Footnote_20_20" /></a><a href="#FNanchor_20_20"><span class="label">[20]</span></a> Marlowe makes Gaveston talk of 'Italian masques.' At the +same time, in the prologue to <i>Tamburlaine</i>, he shows that he was +conscious of the new and nobler direction followed by the drama in +England.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_21_21" id="Footnote_21_21" /></a><a href="#FNanchor_21_21"><span class="label">[21]</span></a> This sentence requires some qualification. In his +<i>Poesia Popolare Italiana</i>, 1878, Professor d'Ancona prints a Pisan, a +Venetian, and two Lombard versions of our Border ballad 'Where hae ye +been, Lord Randal, my son,' so close in general type and minor details +to the English, German, Swedish, and Finnish versions of this +Volkslied as to suggest a very ancient community of origin. It remains +as yet, however, an isolated fact in the history of Italian popular +poetry.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_22_22" id="Footnote_22_22" /></a><a href="#FNanchor_22_22"><span class="label">[22]</span></a> <i>Canti Popolari Toscani</i>, raccolti e annotati da +Giuseppe Tigri. Volume unico. Firenze: G. Barbèra, 1869.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_23_23" id="Footnote_23_23" /></a><a href="#FNanchor_23_23"><span class="label">[23]</span></a> This is a description of the Tuscan rispetto. In Sicily +the stanza generally consists of eight lines rhyming alternately +throughout, while in the North of Italy it is normally a simple +quatrain. The same poetical material assumes in Northern, Central, and +Southern Italy these diverge but associated forms.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_24_24" id="Footnote_24_24" /></a><a href="#FNanchor_24_24"><span class="label">[24]</span></a> This song, called Ciure (Sicilian for <i>fiore</i>) in +Sicily, is said by Signor Pitré to be in disrepute there. He once +asked an old dame of Palermo to repeat him some of these ditties. Her +answer was, 'You must get them from light women; I do not know any. +They sing them in bad houses and prisons, where, God be praised, I +have never been.' In Tuscany there does not appear to be so marked a +distinction between the flower song and the rispetto.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_25_25" id="Footnote_25_25" /></a><a href="#FNanchor_25_25"><span class="label">[25]</span></a> Much light has lately been thrown on the popular poetry +of Italy; and it appears that contemporary improvisatori trust more to +their richly stocked memories and to their power of recombination than +to original or novel inspiration. It is in Sicily that the vein of +truly creative lyric utterance is said to flow most freely and most +copiously at the present time.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_26_26" id="Footnote_26_26" /></a><a href="#FNanchor_26_26"><span class="label">[26]</span></a> 'Remember me, fair one, to the scrivener. I do not know +him or who he is, but he seems to me a sovereign poet, so cunning is +he in his use of verse.'</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_27_27" id="Footnote_27_27" /></a><a href="#FNanchor_27_27"><span class="label">[27]</span></a> It must be remarked that Tigri draws a strong contrast +in this respect between the songs of the mountain districts which he +has printed and those of the towns, and that Pitrè, in his edition of +Sicilian <i>Volkslieder</i>, expressly alludes to the coarseness of a whole +class which he had omitted. The MSS. of Sicilian and Tuscan songs, +dating from the fifteenth century and earlier, yield a fair proportion +of decidedly obscene compositions. Yet the fact stated above is +integrally correct. When acclimatised in the large towns, the rustic +Muse not unfrequently assumes a garb of grossness. At home, among the +fields and on the mountains, she remains chaste and romantic.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_28_28" id="Footnote_28_28" /></a><a href="#FNanchor_28_28"><span class="label">[28]</span></a> <p> In a rispetto, of which I subjoin a translation, sung by +a poor lad to a mistress of higher rank, love itself is pleaded as the +sign of a gentle soul:—</p></div> + +<p> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">My state is poor: I am not meet</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">To court so nobly born a love;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">For poverty hath tied my feet,</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">Trying to climb too far above.</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Yet am I gentle, loving thee;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Nor need thou shun my poverty.</span><br /> +<br /> +</p> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_29_29" id="Footnote_29_29" /></a><a href="#FNanchor_29_29"><span class="label">[29]</span></a> When the Cherubina, of whom mention has been made above, +was asked by Signor Tigri to dictate some of her rispetti, she answered, +'O signore! ne dico tanti quando li canto! . . . ma ora . . . bisognerebbe +averli tutti in visione; se no, proprio non vengono.'</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_30_30" id="Footnote_30_30" /></a><a href="#FNanchor_30_30"><span class="label">[30]</span></a> I need hardly guard myself against being supposed to +mean that the form of <i>Ballata</i> in question was the only one of its +kind in Italy.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_31_31" id="Footnote_31_31" /></a><a href="#FNanchor_31_31"><span class="label">[31]</span></a> See my <i>Sketches in Italy and Greece</i>, p. 114.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_32_32" id="Footnote_32_32" /></a><a href="#FNanchor_32_32"><span class="label">[32]</span></a> The originals will be found in Carducci's <i>Studi +Letterari</i>, p. 273 <i>et seq.</i> I have preserved their rhyming +structure.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_33_33" id="Footnote_33_33" /></a><a href="#FNanchor_33_33"><span class="label">[33]</span></a> Stanza XLIII. All references are made to Carducci's +excellent edition, <i>Le Stanze, l'Orfeo e le Rime di Messer Angelo +Ambrogini Poliziano.</i> Firenze: G. Barbéra. 1863.</p></div> + +</blockquote> + + + + + + + + + + +<pre> + + + + + +End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of Sketches and Studies in Italy and +Greece, Second Series, by John Addington Symonds + +*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK ITALY AND GREECE *** + +***** This file should be named 14634-h.htm or 14634-h.zip ***** +This and all associated files of various formats will be found in: + https://www.gutenberg.org/1/4/6/3/14634/ + +Produced by Ted Garvin, Jayam and the PG Online Distributed +Proofreading Team + + +Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions +will be renamed. + +Creating the works from public domain print editions means that no +one owns a United States copyright in these works, so the Foundation +(and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United States without +permission and without paying copyright royalties. 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You may copy it, give it away or +re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included +with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org + + +Title: Sketches and Studies in Italy and Greece, Second Series + +Author: John Addington Symonds + +Release Date: January 7, 2005 [EBook #14634] + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: ASCII + +*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK ITALY AND GREECE *** + + + + +Produced by Ted Garvin, Jayam and the PG Online Distributed +Proofreading Team + + + + + + +SKETCHES AND STUDIES IN ITALY AND GREECE + + + + + + +BY JOHN ADDINGTON SYMONDS + + +AUTHOR OF "RENAISSANCE IN ITALY" "STUDIES OF THE GREEK POETS," ETC + + + + + + +SECOND SERIES + +LONDON JOHN MURRAY, ALBEMARLE STREET, W. + +1914 + +_All rights reserved_ + + + + + FIRST EDITION (_Smith, Elder & Co._) _October, 1898_ + _Reprinted_ _May, 1900_ + _Reprinted_ _June, 1902_ + _Reprinted_ _November, 1905_ + _Reprinted_ _December, 1907_ + _Reprinted_ _February, 1914_ + _Taken over by John Murray_ _January, 1917_ + + + +_Printed in Great Britain at_ THE BALLANTYNE PRESS _by_ SPOTTISWOODE, +BALLANTYNE & Co. LTD. _Colchester, London & Eton_ + + + + +CONTENTS + + PAGE + + RAVENNA 1 + RIMINI 14 + MAY IN UMBRIA 32 + THE PALACE OF URBINO 50 + VITTORIA ACCORAMBONI 88 + AUTUMN WANDERINGS 127 + PARMA 147 + CANOSSA 163 + FORNOVO 180 + FLORENCE AND THE MEDICI 201 + THE DEBT OF ENGLISH TO ITALIAN LITERATURE 258 + POPULAR SONGS OF TUSCANY 276 + POPULAR ITALIAN POETRY OF THE RENAISSANCE 305 + THE 'ORFEO' OF POLIZIANO 345 + EIGHT SONNETS OF PETRARCH 365 + + + + + + + +SKETCHES AND STUDIES IN ITALY AND GREECE + + + + +_RAVENNA_ + + +The Emperor Augustus chose Ravenna for one of his two naval stations, +and in course of time a new city arose by the sea-shore, which +received the name of Portus Classis. Between this harbour and the +mother city a third town sprang up, and was called Caesarea. Time and +neglect, the ravages of war, and the encroaching powers of Nature have +destroyed these settlements, and nothing now remains of the three +cities but Ravenna. It would seem that in classical times Ravenna +stood, like modern Venice, in the centre of a huge lagune, the fresh +waters of the Ronco and the Po mixing with the salt waves of the +Adriatic round its very walls. The houses of the city were built on +piles; canals instead of streets formed the means of communication, +and these were always filled with water artificially conducted from +the southern estuary of the Po. Round Ravenna extended a vast morass, +for the most part under shallow water, but rising at intervals into +low islands like the Lido or Murano or Torcello which surround Venice. +These islands were celebrated for their fertility: the vines and +fig-trees and pomegranates, springing from a fat and fruitful soil, +watered with constant moisture, and fostered by a mild sea-wind and +liberal sunshine, yielded crops that for luxuriance and quality +surpassed the harvests of any orchards on the mainland. All the +conditions of life in old Ravenna seem to have resembled those of +modern Venice; the people went about in gondolas, and in the early +morning barges laden with fresh fruit or meat and vegetables flocked +from all quarters to the city of the sea.[1] Water also had to be +procured from the neighbouring shore, for, as Martial says, a well at +Ravenna was more valuable than a vineyard. Again, between the city and +the mainland ran a long low causeway all across the lagune like that +on which the trains now glide into Venice. Strange to say, the air of +Ravenna was remarkably salubrious: this fact, and the ease of life +that prevailed there, and the security afforded by the situation of +the town, rendered it a most desirable retreat for the monarchs of +Italy during those troublous times in which the empire nodded to its +fall. Honorius retired to its lagunes for safety; Odoacer, who +dethroned the last Caesar of the West, succeeded him; and was in turn, +supplanted by Theodoric the Ostrogoth. Ravenna, as we see it now, +recalls the peaceful and half-Roman rule of the great Gothic king. His +palace, his churches, and the mausoleums in which his daughter +Amalasuntha laid the hero's bones, have survived the sieges of +Belisarius and Astolphus, the conquest of Pepin, the bloody quarrels +of Iconoclasts with the children of the Roman Church, the mediaeval +wars of Italy, the victory of Gaston de Foix, and still stand gorgeous +with marbles and mosaics in spite of time and the decay of all around +them. + +As early as the sixth century, the sea had already retreated to such a +distance from Ravenna that orchards and gardens were cultivated on +the spot where once the galleys of the Caesars rode at anchor. Groves +of pines sprang up along the shore, and in their lofty tops the music +of the wind moved like the ghost of waves and breakers plunging upon +distant sands. This Pinetum stretches along the shore of the Adriatic +for about forty miles, forming a belt of variable width between the +great marsh and the tumbling sea. From a distance the bare stems and +velvet crowns of the pine-trees stand up like palms that cover an +oasis on Arabian sands; but at a nearer view the trunks detach +themselves from an inferior forest-growth of juniper and thorn and ash +and oak, the tall roofs of the stately firs shooting their breadth of +sheltering greenery above the lower and less sturdy brushwood. It is +hardly possible to imagine a more beautiful and impressive scene than +that presented by these long alleys of imperial pines. They grow so +thickly one behind another, that we might compare them to the pipes of +a great organ, or the pillars of a Gothic church, or the basaltic +columns of the Giant's Causeway. Their tops are evergreen and laden +with the heavy cones, from which Ravenna draws considerable wealth. +Scores of peasants are quartered on the outskirts of the forest, whose +business it is to scale the pines and rob them of their fruit at +certain seasons of the year. Afterwards they dry the fir-cones in the +sun, until the nuts which they contain fall out. The empty husks are +sold for firewood, and the kernels in their stony shells reserved for +exportation. You may see the peasants, men, women, and boys, sorting +them by millions, drying and sifting them upon the open spaces of the +wood, and packing them in sacks to send abroad through Italy. The +_pinocchi_ or kernels of the stone-pine are largely used in cookery, +and those of Ravenna are prized for their good quality and aromatic +flavour. When roasted or pounded, they taste like a softer and more +mealy kind of almonds. The task of gathering this harvest is not a +little dangerous. Men have to cut notches in the straight shafts, and +having climbed, often to the height of eighty feet, to lean upon the +branches, and detach the fir-cones with a pole--and this for every +tree. Some lives, they say, are yearly lost in the business. + +As may be imagined, the spaces of this great forest form the haunt of +innumerable living creatures. Lizards run about by myriads in the +grass. Doves coo among the branches of the pines, and nightingales +pour their full-throated music all day and night from thickets of +white-thorn and acacia. The air is sweet with aromatic scents: the +resin of the pine and juniper, the mayflowers and acacia-blossoms, the +violets that spring by thousands in the moss, the wild roses and faint +honeysuckles which throw fragrant arms from bough to bough of ash or +maple, join to make one most delicious perfume. And though the air +upon the neighbouring marsh is poisonous, here it is dry, and spreads +a genial health. The sea-wind murmuring through these thickets at +nightfall or misty sunrise, conveys no fever to the peasants stretched +among their flowers. They watch the red rays of sunset flaming through +the columns of the leafy hall, and flaring on its fretted rafters of +entangled boughs; they see the stars come out, and Hesper gleam, an +eye of brightness, among dewy branches; the moon walks silver-footed +on the velvet tree-tops, while they sleep beside the camp-fires; fresh +morning wakes them to the sound of birds and scent of thyme and +twinkling of dewdrops on the grass around. Meanwhile ague, fever, and +death have been stalking all night long about the plain, within a few +yards of their couch, and not one pestilential breath has reached the +charmed precincts of the forest. + +You may ride or drive for miles along green aisles between the pines +in perfect solitude; and yet the creatures of the wood, the sunlight +and the birds, the flowers and tall majestic columns at your side, +prevent all sense of loneliness or fear. Huge oxen haunt the +wilderness--grey creatures, with mild eyes and spreading horns and +stealthy tread. Some are patriarchs of the forest, the fathers and +the mothers of many generations who have been carried from their sides +to serve in ploughs or waggons on the Lombard plain. Others are +yearling calves, intractable and ignorant of labour. In order to +subdue them to the yoke, it is requisite to take them very early from +their native glades, or else they chafe and pine away with weariness. +Then there is a sullen canal, which flows through the forest from the +marshes to the sea; it is alive with frogs and newts and snakes. You +may see these serpents basking on the surface among thickets of the +flowering rush, or coiled about the lily leaves and flowers--lithe +monsters, slippery and speckled, the tyrants of the fen. + +It is said that when Dante was living at Ravenna he would spend whole +days alone among the forest glades, thinking of Florence and her civil +wars, and meditating cantos of his poem. Nor have the influences of +the pine-wood failed to leave their trace upon his verse. The charm of +its summer solitude seems to have sunk into his soul; for when he +describes the whispering of winds and singing birds among the boughs +of his terrestrial paradise, he says:-- + + Non pero dal lor esser dritto sparte + Tanto, che gli augelletti per le cime + Lasciasser d' operare ogni lor arte: + Ma con piena letizia l' aure prime, + Cantando, ricevano intra le foglie, + Che tenevan bordone alle sue rime + Tal, qual di ramo in ramo si raccoglie + Per la pineta in sul lito di Chiassi + Quand' Eolo Scirocco fuor discioglie. + +With these verses in our minds, while wandering down the grassy +aisles, beside the waters of the solitary place, we seem to meet that +lady singing as she went, and plucking flower by flower, 'like +Proserpine when Ceres lost a daughter, and she lost her spring.' +There, too, the vision of the griffin and the car, of singing +maidens, and of Beatrice descending to the sound of Benedictus and of +falling flowers, her flaming robe and mantle green as grass, and veil +of white, and olive crown, all flashed upon the poet's inner eye, and +he remembered how he bowed before her when a boy. There is yet another +passage in which it is difficult to believe that Dante had not the +pine-forest in his mind. When Virgil and the poet were waiting in +anxiety before the gates of Dis, when the Furies on the wall were +tearing their breasts and crying, 'Venga Medusa, e si 'l farem di +smalto,' suddenly across the hideous river came a sound like that +which whirlwinds make among the shattered branches and bruised stems +of forest-trees; and Dante, looking out with fear upon the foam and +spray and vapour of the flood, saw thousands of the damned flying +before the face of one who forded Styx with feet unwet. 'Like frogs,' +he says, 'they fled, who scurry through the water at the sight of +their foe, the serpent, till each squats and hides himself close to +the ground.' The picture of the storm among the trees might well have +occurred to Dante's mind beneath the roof of pine-boughs. Nor is there +any place in which the simile of the frogs and water-snake attains +such dignity and grandeur. I must confess that till I saw the ponds +and marshes of Ravenna, I used to fancy that the comparison was +somewhat below the greatness of the subject; but there so grave a note +of solemnity and desolation is struck, the scale of Nature is so +large, and the serpents coiling in and out among the lily leaves and +flowers are so much in their right place, that they suggest a scene by +no means unworthy of Dante's conception. + +Nor is Dante the only singer who has invested this wood with poetical +associations. It is well known that Boccaccio laid his story of +'Honoria' in the pine-forest, and every student of English literature +must be familiar with the noble tale in verse which Dryden has founded +on this part of the 'Decameron.' We all of us have followed Theodore, +and watched with him the tempest swelling in the grove, and seen the +hapless ghost pursued by demon hounds and hunter down the glades. This +story should be read while storms are gathering upon the distant sea, +or thunderclouds descending from the Apennines, and when the pines +begin to rock and surge beneath the stress of labouring winds. Then +runs the sudden flash of lightning like a rapier through the boughs, +the rain streams hissing down, and the thunder 'breaks like a whole +sea overhead.' + +With the Pinetum the name of Byron will be for ever associated. During +his two years' residence in Ravenna he used to haunt its wilderness, +riding alone or in the company of friends. The inscription placed +above the entrance to the house he occupied alludes to it as one of +the objects which principally attracted the poet to the neighbourhood +of Ravenna: 'Impaziente di visitare l' antica selva, che inspiro gia +il Divino e Giovanni Boccaccio.' We know, however, that a more +powerful attraction, in the person of the Countess Guiccioli, +maintained his fidelity to 'that place of old renown, once in the +Adrian Sea, Ravenna.' + +Between the Bosco, as the people of Ravenna call this pine-wood, and +the city, the marsh stretches for a distance of about three miles. It +is a plain intersected by dykes and ditches, and mapped out into +innumerable rice-fields. For more than half a year it lies under +water, and during the other months exhales a pestilential vapour, +which renders it as uninhabitable as the Roman Campagna; yet in +springtime this dreary flat is even beautiful. The young blades of the +rice shoot up above the water, delicately green and tender. The +ditches are lined with flowering rush and golden flags, while white +and yellow lilies sleep in myriads upon the silent pools. Tamarisks +wave their pink and silver tresses by the road, and wherever a plot of +mossy earth emerges from the marsh, it gleams with purple orchises and +flaming marigolds; but the soil beneath is so treacherous and spongy, +that these splendid blossoms grow like flowers in dreams or fairy +stories. You try in vain to pick them; they elude your grasp, and +flourish in security beyond the reach of arm or stick. + +Such is the sight of the old town of Classis. Not a vestige of the +Roman city remains, not a dwelling or a ruined tower, nothing but the +ancient church of S. Apollinare in Classe. Of all desolate buildings +this is the most desolate. Not even the deserted grandeur of S. Paolo +beyond the walls of Rome can equal it. Its bare round campanile gazes +at the sky, which here vaults only sea and plain--a perfect dome, +star-spangled like the roof of Galla Placidia's tomb. Ravenna lies low +to west, the pine-wood stretches away in long monotony to east. There +is nothing else to be seen except the spreading marsh, bounded by dim +snowy Alps and purple Apennines, so very far away that the level rack +of summer clouds seem more attainable and real. What sunsets and +sunrises that tower must see; what glaring lurid afterglows in August, +when the red light scowls upon the pestilential fen; what sheets of +sullen vapour rolling over it in autumn; what breathless heats, and +rainclouds big with thunder; what silences; what unimpeded blasts of +winter winds! One old monk tends this deserted spot. He has the huge +church, with its echoing aisles and marble columns and giddy +bell-tower and cloistered corridors, all to himself. At rare +intervals, priests from Ravenna come to sing some special mass at +these cold altars; pious folk make vows to pray upon their mouldy +steps and kiss the relics which are shown on great occasions. But no +one stays; they hurry, after muttering their prayers, from the +fever-stricken spot, reserving their domestic pieties and customary +devotions for the brighter and newer chapels of the fashionable +churches in Ravenna. So the old monk is left alone to sweep the marsh +water from his church floor, and to keep the green moss from growing +too thickly on its monuments. A clammy conferva covers everything +except the mosaics upon tribune, roof, and clerestory, which defy the +course of age. Christ on His throne _sedet aternumque sedebit_: the +saints around him glitter with their pitiless uncompromising eyes and +wooden gestures, as if twelve centuries had not passed over them, and +they were nightmares only dreamed last night, and rooted in a sick +man's memory. For those gaunt and solemn forms there is no change of +life or end of days. No fever touches them; no dampness of the wind +and rain loosens their firm cement. They stare with senseless faces in +bitter mockery of men who live and die and moulder away beneath. Their +poor old guardian told us it was a weary life. He has had the fever +three times, and does not hope to survive many more Septembers. The +very water that he drinks is brought him from Ravenna; for the vast +fen, though it pours its overflow upon the church floor, and spreads +like a lake around, is death to drink. The monk had a gentle woman's +voice and mild brown eyes. What terrible crime had consigned him to +this living tomb? For what past sorrow is he weary of his life? What +anguish of remorse has driven him to such a solitude? Yet he looked +simple and placid; his melancholy was subdued and calm, as if life +were over for him, and he were waiting for death to come with a +friend's greeting upon noiseless wings some summer night across the +fen-lands in a cloud of soft destructive fever-mist. + +Another monument upon the plain is worthy of a visit. It is the +so-called Colonna dei Francesi, a _cinquecento_ pillar of Ionic +design, erected on the spot where Gaston de Foix expired victorious +after one of the bloodiest battles ever fought. The Ronco, a straight +sluggish stream, flows by the lonely spot; mason bees have covered +with laborious stucco-work the scrolls and leafage of its ornaments, +confounding epitaphs and trophies under their mud houses. A few +cypress-trees stand round it, and the dogs and chickens of a +neighbouring farmyard make it their rendezvous. Those mason bees are +like posterity, which settles down upon the ruins of a Baalbec or a +Luxor, setting up its tents, and filling the fair spaces of Hellenic +or Egyptian temples with clay hovels. Nothing differs but the scale; +and while the bees content themselves with filling up and covering, +man destroys the silent places of the past which he appropriates. + +In Ravenna itself, perhaps what strikes us most is the abrupt +transition everywhere discernible from monuments of vast antiquity to +buildings of quite modern date. There seems to be no interval between +the marbles and mosaics of Justinian or Theodoric and the +insignificant frippery of the last century. The churches of +Ravenna--S. Vitale, S. Apollinare, and the rest--are too well known, +and have been too often described by enthusiastic antiquaries, to need +a detailed notice in this place. Every one is aware that the +ecclesiastical customs and architecture of the early Church can be +studied in greater perfection here than elsewhere. Not even the +basilicas and mosaics of Rome, nor those of Palermo and Monreale, are +equal for historical interest to those of Ravenna. Yet there is not +one single church which remains entirely unaltered and unspoiled. The +imagination has to supply the atrium or outer portico from one +building, the vaulted baptistery with its marble font from another, +the pulpits and ambones from a third the tribune from a fourth, the +round brick bell-tower from a fifth, and then to cover all the concave +roofs and chapel walls with grave and glittering mosaics. + +There is nothing more beautiful in decorative art than the mosaics of +such tiny buildings as the tomb of Galla Placidia or the chapel of the +Bishop's Palace. They are like jewelled and enamelled cases; not an +inch of wall can be seen which is not covered with elaborate patterns +of the brightest colours. Tall date-palms spring from the floor with +fruit and birds among their branches, and between them stand the +pillars and apostles of the Church. In the spandrels and lunettes +above the arches and the windows angels fly with white extended wings. +On every vacant place are scrolls and arabesques of foliage,--birds +and beasts, doves drinking from the vase, and peacocks spreading +gorgeous plumes--a maze of green and gold and blue. Overhead, the +vault is powdered with stars gleaming upon the deepest azure, and in +the midst is set an aureole embracing the majestic head of Christ, or +else the symbol of the sacred fish, or the hand of the Creator +pointing from a cloud. In Galla Placidia's tomb these storied vaults +spring above the sarcophagi of empresses and emperors, each lying in +the place where he was laid more than twelve centuries ago. The light +which struggles through the narrow windows serves to harmonise the +brilliant hues and make a gorgeous gloom. + +Besides these more general and decorative subjects, many of the +churches are adorned with historical mosaics, setting forth the Bible +narrative or incidents from the life of Christian emperors and kings. +In S. Apollinare Nuovo there is a most interesting treble series of +such mosaics extending over both walls of the nave. On the left hand, +as we enter, we see the town of Classis; on the right the palace of +Theodoric, its doors and loggie rich with curtains, and its friezes +blazing with coloured ornaments. From the city gate of Classis virgins +issue, and proceed in a long line until they reach Madonna seated on a +throne, with Christ upon her knees, and the three kings in adoration +at her feet. From Theodoric's palace door a similar procession of +saints and martyrs carry us to Christ surrounded by archangels. Above +this double row of saints and virgins stand the fathers and prophets +of the Church, and highest underneath the roof are pictures from the +life of our Lord. It will be remembered in connection with these +subjects that the women sat upon the left and the men upon the right +side of the church. Above the tribune, at the east end of the church, +it was customary to represent the Creative Hand, or the monogram of +the Saviour, or the head of Christ with the letters A and [Greek O]. +Moses and Elijah frequently stand on either side to symbolise the +transfiguration, while the saints and bishops specially connected with +the church appeared upon a lower row. Then on the side walls were +depicted such subjects as Justinian and Theodora among their +courtiers, or the grant of the privileges of the church to its first +founder from imperial patrons, with symbols of the old Hebraic +ritual--Abel's lamb, the sacrifice of Isaac, Melchisedec's offering of +bread and wine,--which were regarded as the types of Christian +ceremonies. The baptistery was adorned with appropriate mosaics +representing Christ's baptism in Jordan. + +Generally speaking, one is struck with the dignity of these designs, +and especially with the combined majesty and sweetness of the face of +Christ. The sense for harmony of hue displayed in their composition is +marvellous. It would be curious to trace in detail the remnants of +classical treatment which may be discerned--Jordan, for instance, +pours his water from an urn like a river-god crowned with sedge--or to +show what points of ecclesiastical tradition are established these +ancient monuments. We find Mariolatry already imminent, the names of +the three kings, Kaspar, Melchior, and Balthazar, the four evangelists +as we now recognise them, and many of the rites and vestments which +Ritualists of all denominations regard with superstitious reverence. + +There are two sepulchral monuments in Ravenna which cannot be passed +over unnoticed. The one is that of Theodoric the Goth, crowned by its +semisphere of solid stone, a mighty tomb, well worthy of the conqueror +and king. It stands in a green field, surrounded by acacias, where the +nightingales sing ceaselessly in May. The mason bees have covered it, +and the water has invaded its sepulchral vaults. In spite of many +trials, it seems that human art is unable to pump out the pond and +clear the frogs and efts from the chamber where the great Goth was +laid by Amalasuntha. + +The other is Dante's temple, with its basrelief and withered garlands. +The story of his burial, and of the discovery of his real tomb, is +fresh in the memory of every one. But the 'little cupola, more neat +than solemn,' of which Lord Byron speaks, will continue to be the goal +of many a pilgrimage. For myself--though I remember Chateaubriand's +bareheaded genuflection on its threshold, Alfieri's passionate +prostration at the altar-tomb, and Byron's offering of poems on the +poet's shrine--I confess that a single canto of the 'Inferno,' a +single passage of the 'Vita Nuova,' seems more full of soul-stirring +associations than the place where, centuries ago, the mighty dust was +laid. It is the spirit that lives and makes alive. And Dante's spirit +seems more present with us under the pine-branches of the Bosco than +beside his real or fancied tomb. 'He is risen,'--'Lo, I am with you +alway'--these are the words that ought to haunt us in a +burying-ground. There is something affected and self-conscious in +overpowering grief or enthusiasm or humiliation at a tomb. + + * * * * * + + + + +_RIMINI_ + +SIGISMONDO PANDOLFO MALATESTA AND LEO BATTISTA ALBERTI + + +Rimini is a city of about 18,000 souls, famous for its Stabilmento de' +Bagni and its antiquities, seated upon the coast of the Adriatic, a +little to the south-east of the world-historical Rubicon. It is our +duty to mention the baths first among its claims to distinction, +since the prosperity and cheerfulness of the little town depend on +them in a great measure. But visitors from the north will fly from +these, to marvel at the bridge which Augustus built and Tiberius +completed, and which still spans the Marecchia with five gigantic +arches of white Istrian limestone, as solidly as if it had not borne +the tramplings of at least three conquests. The triumphal arch, too, +erected in honour of Augustus, is a notable monument of Roman +architecture. Broad, ponderous, substantial, tufted here and there +with flowering weeds, and surmounted with mediaeval machicolations, +proving it to have sometimes stood for city gate or fortress, it +contrasts most favourably with the slight and somewhat gimcrack arch +of Trajan in the sister city of Ancona. Yet these remains of the +imperial pontifices, mighty and interesting as they are, sink into +comparative insignificance beside the one great wonder of Rimini, the +cathedral remodelled for Sigismondo Pandolfo Malatesta by Leo Battista +Alberti in 1450. This strange church, one of the earliest extant +buildings in which the Neopaganism of the Renaissance showed itself in +full force, brings together before our memory two men who might be +chosen as typical in their contrasted characters of the transitional +age which gave them birth. + +No one with any tincture of literary knowledge is ignorant of the fame +at least of the great Malatesta family--the house of the Wrongheads, +as they were rightly called by some prevision of their future part in +Lombard history. The readers of the twenty-seventh and twenty-eighth +cantos of the 'Inferno' have all heard of + + E il mastin vecchio e il nuovo da Verucchio + Che fecer di Montagna il mal governo, + +while the story of Francesca da Polenta, who was wedded to the +hunchback Giovanni Malatesta and murdered by him with her lover Paolo, +is known not merely to students of Dante, but to readers of Byron and +Leigh Hunt, to admirers of Flaxman, Ary Scheffer, Dore--to all, in +fact, who have of art and letters any love. + +The history of these Malatesti, from their first establishment under +Otho III. as lieutenants for the Empire in the Marches of Ancona, down +to their final subjugation by the Papacy in the age of the +Renaissance, is made up of all the vicissitudes which could befall a +mediaeval Italian despotism. Acquiring an unlawful right over the +towns of Rimini, Cesena, Sogliano, Ghiacciuolo, they ruled their petty +principalities like tyrants by the help of the Guelf and Ghibelline +factions, inclining to the one or the other as it suited their humour +or their interest, wrangling among themselves, transmitting the +succession of their dynasty through bastards and by deeds of force, +quarrelling with their neighbours the Counts of Urbino, alternately +defying and submitting to the Papal legates in Romagna, serving as +condottieri in the wars of the Visconti and the state of Venice, and +by their restlessness and genius for military intrigues contributing +in no slight measure to the general disturbance of Italy. The +Malatesti were a race of strongly marked character: more, perhaps, +than any other house of Italian tyrants, they combined for generations +those qualities of the fox and the lion, which Machiavelli thought +indispensable to a successful despot. Son after son, brother with +brother, they continued to be fierce and valiant soldiers, cruel in +peace, hardy in war, but treasonable and suspicious in all +transactions that could not be settled by the sword. Want of union, +with them as with the Baglioni and many other of the minor noble +families in Italy, prevented their founding a substantial dynasty. +Their power, based on force, was maintained by craft and crime, and +transmitted through tortuous channels by intrigue. While false in +their dealings with the world at large, they were diabolical in the +perfidy with which they treated one another. No feudal custom, no +standard of hereditary right, ruled the succession in their family. +Therefore the ablest Malatesta for the moment clutched what he could +of the domains that owned his house for masters. Partitions among sons +or brothers, mutually hostile and suspicious, weakened the whole +stock. Yet they were great enough to hold their own for centuries +among the many tyrants who infested Lombardy. That the other princely +families of Romagna, Emilia, and the March were in the same state of +internal discord and dismemberment, was probably one reason why the +Malatesti stood their ground so firmly as they did. + +So far as Rimini is concerned, the house of Malatesta culminated in +Sigismondo Pandolfo, son of Gian Galeazzo Visconti's general, the +perfidious Pandolfo. It was he who built the Rocca, or castle of the +despots, which stands a little way outside the town, commanding a fair +view of Apennine tossed hill-tops and broad Lombard plain, and who +remodelled the Cathedral of S. Francis on a plan suggested by the +greatest genius of the age. Sigismondo Pandolfo Malatesta was one of +the strangest products of the earlier Renaissance. To enumerate the +crimes which he committed within the sphere of his own family, +mysterious and inhuman outrages which render the tale of the Cenci +credible, would violate the decencies of literature. A thoroughly +bestial nature gains thus much with posterity that its worst qualities +must be passed by in silence. It is enough to mention that he murdered +three wives in succession,[2] Bussoni di Carmagnuola, Guinipera +d'Este, and Polissena Sforza, on various pretexts of infidelity, and +carved horns upon his own tomb with this fantastic legend +underneath:-- + + Porto le corna ch' ognuno le vede, + E tal le porta che non se lo crede. + +He died in wedlock with the beautiful and learned Isotta degli Atti, +who had for some time been his mistress. But, like most of the +Malatesti, he left no legitimate offspring. Throughout his life he was +distinguished for bravery and cunning, for endurance of fatigue and +rapidity of action, for an almost fretful rashness in the execution of +his schemes, and for a character terrible in its violence. He was +acknowledged as a great general; yet nothing succeeded with him. The +long warfare which he carried on against the Duke of Montefeltro ended +in his discomfiture. Having begun by defying the Holy See, he was +impeached at Rome for heresy, parricide, incest, adultery, rape, and +sacrilege, burned in effigy by Pope Pius II., and finally restored to +the bosom of the Church, after suffering the despoliation of almost +all his territories, in 1463. The occasion on which this fierce and +turbulent despiser of laws human and divine was forced to kneel as a +penitent before the Papal legate in the gorgeous temple dedicated to +his own pride, in order that the ban of excommunication might be +removed from Rimini, was one of those petty triumphs, interesting +chiefly for their picturesqueness, by which the Popes confirmed their +questionable rights over the cities of Romagna. Sigismondo, shorn of +his sovereignty, took the command of the Venetian troops against the +Turks in the Morea, and returned in 1465, crowned with laurels, to die +at Rimini in the scene of his old splendour. + +A very characteristic incident belongs to this last act of his life. +Dissolute, treacherous, and inhuman as he was, the tyrant of Rimini +had always encouraged literature, and delighted in the society of +artists. He who could brook no contradiction from a prince or soldier, +allowed the pedantic scholars of the sixteenth century to dictate to +him in matters of taste, and sat with exemplary humility at the feet +of Latinists like Porcellio, Basinio, and Trebanio. Valturio, the +engineer, and Alberti, the architect, were his familiar friends; and +the best hours of his life were spent in conversation with these men. +Now that he found himself upon the sacred soil of Greece, he was +determined not to return to Italy empty-handed. Should he bring +manuscripts or marbles, precious vases or inscriptions in half-legible +Greek character? These relics were greedily sought for by the +potentates of Italian cities; and no doubt Sigismondo enriched his +library with some such treasures. But he obtained a nobler +prize--nothing less than the body of a saint of scholarship, the +authentic bones of the great Platonist, Gemisthus Pletho.[3] These he +exhumed from their Greek grave and caused them to be deposited in a +stone sarcophagus outside the cathedral of his building in Rimini. The +Venetians, when they stole the body of S. Mark from Alexandria, were +scarcely more pleased than was Sigismondo with the acquisition of this +Father of the Neopagan faith. Upon the tomb we still may read this +legend: 'Jemisthii Bizantii philosopher sua temp principis reliquum +Sig. Pan. Mal. Pan. F. belli Pelop adversus Turcor regem Imp ob +ingentem eruditorum quo flagrat amorem huc afferendum introque +mittendum curavit MCCCCLXVI.' Of the Latinity of the inscription much +cannot be said; but it means that 'Sigismondo Pandolfo Malatesta, +having served as general against the Turks in the Morea, induced by +the great love with which he burns for all learned men, brought and +placed here the remains of Gemisthus of Byzantium, the prince of the +philosophers of his day.' + +Sigismondo's portrait, engraved on medals, and sculptured upon every +frieze and point of vantage in the Cathedral of Rimini, well denotes +the man. His face is seen in profile. The head, which is low and flat +above the forehead, rising swiftly backward from the crown, carries a +thick bushy shock of hair curling at the ends, such as the Italians +call a _zazzera_. The eye is deeply sunk, with long venomous flat +eyelids, like those which Leonardo gives to his most wicked faces. The +nose is long and crooked, curved like a vulture's over a petulant +mouth, with lips deliberately pressed together, as though it were +necessary to control some nervous twitching. The cheek is broad, and +its bone is strongly marked. Looking at these features in repose, we +cannot but picture to our fancy what expression they might assume +under a sudden fit of fury, when the sinews of the face were +contracted with quivering spasms, and the lips writhed in sympathy +with knit forehead and wrinkled eyelids. + +Allusion has been made to the Cathedral of S. Francis at Rimini, as +the great ornament of the town, and the chief monument of Sigismondo's +fame. It is here that all the Malatesti lie. Here too is the chapel +consecrated to Isotta, 'Divae Isottae Sacrum;' and the tombs of the +Malatesta ladies, 'Malatestorum domus heroidum sepulchrum;' and +Sigismondo's own grave with the cuckold's horns and scornful epitaph. +Nothing but the fact that the church is duly dedicated to S. Francis, +and that its outer shell of classic marble encases an old Gothic +edifice, remains to remind us that it is a Christian place of +worship.[4] It has no sanctity, no spirit of piety. The pride of the +tyrant whose legend--'Sigismundus Pandulphus Malatesta Pan. F. Fecit +Anno Gratiae MCCCCL'--occupies every arch and stringcourse of the +architecture, and whose coat-of-arms and portrait in medallion, with +his cipher and his emblems of an elephant and a rose, are wrought in +every piece of sculptured work throughout the building, seems so to +fill this house of prayer that there is no room left for God. Yet the +Cathedral of Rimini remains a monument of first-rate importance for +all students who seek to penetrate the revived Paganism of the +fifteenth century. It serves also to bring a far more interesting +Italian of that period than the tyrant of Rimini himself, before our +notice. + +In the execution of his design, Sigismondo received the assistance of +one of the most remarkable men of this or any other age. Leo Battista +Alberti, a scion of the noble Florentine house of that name, born +during the exile of his parents, and educated in the Venetian +territory, was endowed by nature with aptitudes, faculties, and +sensibilities so varied, as to deserve the name of universal genius. +Italy in the Renaissance period was rich in natures of this sort, to +whom nothing that is strange or beautiful seemed unfamiliar, and who, +gifted with a kind of divination, penetrated the secrets of the world +by sympathy. To Pico della Mirandola, Lionardo da Vinci, and Michel +Agnolo Buonarroti may be added Leo Battista Alberti. That he achieved +less than his great compeers, and that he now exists as the shadow of +a mighty name, was the effect of circumstances. He came half a century +too early into the world, and worked as a pioneer rather than a +settler of the realm which Lionardo ruled as his demesne. Very early +in his boyhood Alberti showed the versatility of his talents. The use +of arms, the management of horses, music, painting, modelling for +sculpture, mathematics, classical and modern literature, physical +science as then comprehended, and all the bodily exercises proper to +the estate of a young nobleman, were at his command. His biographer +asserts that he was never idle, never subject to ennui or fatigue. He +used to say that books at times gave him the same pleasure as +brilliant jewels or perfumed flowers: hunger and sleep could not keep +him from them then. At other times the letters on the page appeared to +him like twining and contorted scorpions, so that he preferred to gaze +on anything but written scrolls. He would then turn to music or +painting, or to the physical sports in which he excelled. The language +in which this alternation of passion and disgust for study is +expressed, bears on it the stamp of Alberti's peculiar temperament, +his fervid and imaginative genius, instinct with subtle sympathies and +strange repugnances. Flying from his study, he would then betake +himself to the open air. No one surpassed him in running, in +wrestling, in the force with which he cast his javelin or discharged +his arrows. So sure was his aim and so skilful his cast, that he could +fling a farthing from the pavement of the square, and make it ring +against a church roof far above. When he chose to jump, he put his +feet together and bounded over the shoulders of men standing erect +upon the ground. On horseback he maintained perfect equilibrium, and +seemed incapable of fatigue. The most restive and vicious animals +trembled under him and became like lambs. There was a kind of +magnetism in the man. We read, besides these feats of strength and +skill, that he took pleasure in climbing mountains, for no other +purpose apparently than for the joy of being close to nature. + +In this, as in many other of his instincts, Alberti was before his +age. To care for the beauties of landscape unadorned by art, and to +sympathise with sublime or rugged scenery, was not in the spirit of +the Renaissance. Humanity occupied the attention of poets and +painters; and the age was yet far distant when the pantheistic feeling +for the world should produce the art of Wordsworth and of Turner. Yet +a few great natures even then began to comprehend the charm and +mystery which the Greeks had imaged in their Pan, the sense of an +all-pervasive spirit in wild places, the feeling of a hidden want, the +invisible tie which makes man a part of rocks and woods and streams +around him. Petrarch had already ascended the summit of Mont Ventoux, +to meditate, with an exaltation of the soul he scarcely understood, +upon the scene spread at his feet and above his head. AEneas Sylvius +Piccolomini delighted in wild places for no mere pleasure of the +chase, but for the joy he took in communing with nature. How S. +Francis found God in the sun and the air, the water and the stars, we +know by his celebrated hymn; and of Dante's acute observation, every +canto of the 'Divine Comedy' is witness. + +Leo Alberti was touched in spirit by even a deeper and a stranger +pathos than any of these men: 'In the early spring, when he beheld the +meadows and hills covered with flowers, and saw the trees and plants +of all kinds bearing promise of fruit, his heart became exceeding +sorrowful; and when in autumn he looked on fields heavy with harvest +and orchards apple-laden, he felt such grief that many even saw him +weep for the sadness of his soul.' It would seem that he scarcely +understood the source of this sweet trouble: for at such times he +compared the sloth and inutility of men with the industry and +fertility of nature; as though this were the secret of his melancholy. +A poet of our century has noted the same stirring of the spirit, and +has striven to account for it:-- + + Tears from the depth of some divine despair + Rise in the heart, and gather to the eyes, + In looking on the happy autumn fields, + And thinking of the days that are no more. + +Both Alberti and Tennyson have connected the _mal du pays_ of the +human soul for that ancient country of its birth, the mild Saturnian +earth from which we sprang, with a sense of loss. It is the waste of +human energy that affects Alberti; the waste of human life touches the +modern poet. Yet both perhaps have scarcely interpreted their own +spirit; for is not the true source of tears deeper and more secret? +Man is a child of nature in the simplest sense; and the stirrings of +the secular breasts that gave him suck, and on which he even now must +hang, have potent influences over his emotions. + +Of Alberti's extraordinary sensitiveness to all such impressions many +curious tales are told. The sight of refulgent jewels, of flowers, and +of fair landscapes, had the same effect upon his nerves as the sound +of the Dorian mood upon the youths whom Pythagoras cured of passion by +music. He found in them an anodyne for pain, a restoration from +sickness. Like Walt Whitman, who adheres to nature by closer and more +vital sympathy than any other poet of the modern world, Alberti felt +the charm of excellent old age no less than that of florid youth. 'On +old men gifted with a noble presence and hale and vigorous, he gazed +again and again, and said that he revered in them the delights of +nature (_naturae delitias_).' Beasts and birds and all living creatures +moved him to admiration for the grace with which they had been gifted, +each in his own kind. It is even said that he composed a funeral +oration for a dog which he had loved and which died. + +To this sensibility for all fair things in nature, Alberti added the +charm of a singularly sweet temper and graceful conversation. The +activity of his mind, which was always being exercised on subjects of +grave speculation, removed him from the noise and bustle of +commonplace society. He was somewhat silent, inclined to solitude, +and of a pensive countenance; yet no man found him difficult of +access: his courtesy was exquisite, and among familiar friends he was +noted for the flashes of a delicate and subtle wit. Collections were +made of his apophthegms by friends, and some are recorded by his +anonymous biographer.[5] Their finer perfume, as almost always happens +with good sayings which do not certain the full pith of a proverb, but +owe their force, in part at least, to the personality of their author, +and to the happy moment of their production, has evanesced. Here, +however, is one which seems still to bear the impress of Alberti's +genius: 'Gold is the soul of labour, and labour the slave of +pleasure.' Of women he used to say that their inconstancy was an +antidote to their falseness; for if a woman could but persevere in +what she undertook, all the fair works of men would be ruined. One of +his strongest moral sentences is aimed at envy, from which he suffered +much in his own life, and against which he guarded with a curious +amount of caution. His own family grudged the distinction which his +talents gained for him, and a dark story is told of a secret attempt +made by them to assassinate him through his servants. Alberti met +these ignoble jealousies with a stately calm and a sweet dignity of +demeanour, never condescending to accuse his relatives, never seeking +to retaliate, but acting always for the honour of his illustrious +house. In the same spirit of generosity he refused to enter into wordy +warfare with detractors and calumniators, sparing the reputation even +of his worst enemy when chance had placed him in his power. This +moderation both of speech and conduct was especially distinguished in +an age which tolerated the fierce invectives of Filelfo, and applauded +the vindictive courage of Cellini. To money Alberti showed a calm +indifference. He committed his property to his friends and shared with +them in common. Nor was he less careless about vulgar fame, spending +far more pains in the invention of machinery and the discovery of +laws, than in their publication to the world. His service was to +knowledge, not to glory. Self-control was another of his eminent +qualities. With the natural impetuosity of a large heart, and the +vivacity of a trained athlete, he yet never allowed himself to be +subdued by anger or by sensual impulses, but took pains to preserve +his character unstained and dignified before the eyes of men. A story +is told of him which may remind us of Goethe's determination to +overcome his giddiness. In his youth his head was singularly sensitive +to changes of temperature; but by gradual habituation he brought +himself at last to endure the extremes of heat and cold bareheaded. In +like manner he had a constitutional disgust for onions and honey; so +powerful, that the very sight of these things made him sick. Yet by +constantly viewing and touching what was disagreeable, he conquered +these dislikes; and proved that men have a complete mastery over what +is merely instinctive in their nature. His courage corresponded to his +splendid physical development. When a boy of fifteen, he severely +wounded himself in the foot. The gash had to be probed and then sewn +up. Alberti not only bore the pain of this operation without a groan, +but helped the surgeon with his own hands; and effected a cure of the +fever which succeeded by the solace of singing to his cithern. For +music he had a genius of the rarest order; and in painting he is said +to have achieved success. Nothing, however, remains of his work and +from what Vasari says of it, we may fairly conclude that he gave less +care to the execution of finished pictures, than to drawings +subsidiary to architectural and mechanical designs. His biographer +relates that when he had completed a painting, he called children and +asked them what it meant. If they did not know, he reckoned it a +failure. He was also in the habit of painting from memory. While at +Venice, he put on canvas the faces of friends at Florence whom he had +not seen for months. That the art of painting was subservient in his +estimation to mechanics, is indicated by what we hear about the +camera, in which he showed landscapes by day and the revolutions of +the stars by night, so lively drawn that the spectators were affected +with amazement. The semi-scientific impulse to extend man's mastery +over nature, the magician's desire to penetrate secrets, which so +powerfully influenced the development of Lionardo's genius, seems to +have overcome the purely aesthetic instincts of Alberti, so that he +became in the end neither a great artist like Raphael, nor a great +discoverer like Galileo, but rather a clairvoyant to whom the miracles +of nature and of art lie open. + +After the first period of youth was over, Leo Battista Alberti devoted +his great faculties and all his wealth of genius to the study of the +law--then, as now, the quicksand of the noblest natures. The industry +with which he applied himself to the civil and ecclesiastical codes +broke his health. For recreation he composed a Latin comedy called +'Philodoxeos,' which imposed upon the judgment of scholars, and was +ascribed as a genuine antique to Lepidus, the comic poet. Feeling +stronger, Alberti returned at the age of twenty to his law studies, +and pursued them in the teeth of disadvantages. His health was still +uncertain, and the fortune of an exile reduced him to the utmost want. +It was no wonder that under these untoward circumstances even his +Herculean strength gave way. Emaciated and exhausted, he lost the +clearness of his eyesight, and became subject to arterial +disturbances, which filled his ears with painful sounds. This nervous +illness is not dissimilar to that which Rousseau describes in the +confessions of his youth. In vain, however, his physicians warned +Alberti of impending peril. A man of so much stanchness, accustomed +to control his nature with an iron will, is not ready to accept +advice. Alberti persevered in his studies, until at last the very seat +of intellect was invaded. His memory began to fail him for names, +while he still retained with wonderful accuracy whatever he had seen +with his eyes. It was now impossible to think of law as a profession. +Yet since he could not live without severe mental exercise, he had +recourse to studies which tax the verbal memory less than the +intuitive faculties of the reason. Physics and mathematics became his +chief resource; and he devoted his energies to literature. His +'Treatise on the Family' may be numbered among the best of those +compositions on social and speculative subjects in which the Italians +of the Renaissance sought to rival Cicero. His essays on the arts are +mentioned by Vasari with sincere approbation. Comedies, interludes, +orations, dialogues, and poems flowed with abundance from his facile +pen. Some were written in Latin, which he commanded more than fairly; +some in the Tuscan tongue, of which owing to the long exile of his +family in Lombardy, he is said to have been less a master. It was +owing to this youthful illness, from which apparently his constitution +never wholly recovered, that Alberti's genius was directed to +architecture. + +Through his friendship with Flavio Biondo, the famous Roman antiquary, +Alberti received an introduction to Nicholas V. at the time when this, +the first great Pope of the Renaissance, was engaged in rebuilding the +palaces and fortifications of Rome. Nicholas discerned the genius of +the man, and employed him as his chief counsellor in all matters of +architecture. When the Pope died, he was able, while reciting his long +Latin will upon his deathbed, to boast that he had restored the Holy +See to its due dignity, and the Eternal City to the splendour worthy +of the seat of Christendom. The accomplishment of the second part of +his work he owed to the genius of Alberti. After doing thus much for +Rome under Thomas of Sarzana, and before beginning to beautify +Florence at the instance of the Rucellai family, Alberti entered the +service of the Malatesta, and undertook to remodel the Cathedral of S. +Francis at Rimini. He found it a plain Gothic structure with apse and +side chapels. Such churches are common enough in Italy, where pointed +architecture never developed its true character of complexity and +richness, but was doomed to the vast vacuity exemplified in S. +Petronio of Bologna. He left it a strange medley of mediaeval and +Renaissance work, a symbol of that dissolving scene in the world's +pantomime, when the spirit of classic art, as yet but little +comprehended, was encroaching on the early Christian taste. Perhaps +the mixture of styles so startling in S. Francesco ought not to be +laid to the charge of Alberti, who had to execute the task of turning +a Gothic into a classic building. All that he could do was to alter +the whole exterior of the church, by affixing a screen-work of Roman +arches and Corinthian pilasters, so as to hide the old design and yet +to leave the main features of the fabric, the windows and doors +especially, _in statu quo_. With the interior he dealt upon the same +general principle, by not disturbing its structure, while he covered +every available square inch of surface with decorations alien to the +Gothic manner. Externally, S. Francesco is perhaps the most original +and graceful of the many attempts made by Italian builders to fuse the +mediaeval and the classic styles. For Alberti attempted nothing less. A +century elapsed before Palladio, approaching the problem from a +different point of view, restored the antique in its purity, and +erected in the Palazzo della Ragione of Vicenza an almost unique +specimen of resuscitated Roman art. + +Internally, the beauty of the church is wholly due to its exquisite +wall-ornaments. These consist for the most part of low reliefs in a +soft white stone, many of them thrown out upon a blue ground in the +style of Della Robbia. Allegorical figures designed with the purity of +outline we admire in Botticelli, draperies that Burne-Jones might +copy, troops of singing boys in the manner of Donatello, great angels +traced upon the stone so delicately that they seem to be rather drawn +than sculptured, statuettes in niches, personifications of all arts +and sciences alternating with half-bestial shapes of satyrs and +sea-children:--such are the forms which fill the spaces of the chapel +walls, and climb the pilasters, and fret the arches, in such abundance +that had the whole church been finished as it was designed, it would +have presented one splendid though bizarre effect of incrustation. +Heavy screens of Verona marble, emblazoned in open arabesques with the +ciphers of Sigismondo and Isotta, with coats-of-arms, emblems, and +medallion portraits, shut the chapels from the nave. Who produced all +this sculpture it is difficult to say. Some of it is very good: much +is indifferent. We may hazard the opinion that, besides Bernardo +Ciuffagni, of whom Vasari speaks, some pupils of Donatello and +Benedetto da Majano worked at it. The influence of the sculptors of +Florence is everywhere perceptible. + +Whatever be the merit of these reliefs, there is no doubt that they +fairly represent one of the most interesting moments in the history of +modern art. Gothic inspiration had failed; the early Tuscan style of +the Pisani had been worked out; Michelangelo was yet far distant, and +the abundance of classic models had not overwhelmed originality. The +sculptors of the school of Ghiberti and Donatello, who are represented +in this church, were essentially pictorial, preferring low to high +relief, and relief in general to detached figures. Their style, like +the style of Boiardo in poetry, of Botticelli in painting, is specific +to Italy in the middle of the fifteenth century. Mediaeval standards of +taste were giving way to classical, Christian sentiment to Pagan; yet +the imitation of the antique had not been carried so far as to efface +the spontaneity of the artist, and enough remained of Christian +feeling to tinge the fancy with a grave and sweet romance. The +sculptor had the skill and mastery to express his slightest shade of +thought with freedom, spirit, and precision. Yet his work showed no +sign of conventionality, no adherence to prescribed rules. Every +outline, every fold of drapery, every attitude was pregnant, to the +artist's own mind at any rate, with meaning. In spite of its +symbolism, what he wrought was never mechanically figurative, but +gifted with the independence of its own beauty, vital with an +inbreathed spirit of life. It was a happy moment, when art had reached +consciousness, and the artist had not yet become self-conscious. The +hand and the brain then really worked together for the procreation of +new forms of grace, not for the repetition of old models, or for the +invention of the strange and startling. 'Delicate, sweet, and +captivating,' are good adjectives to express the effect produced upon +the mind by the contemplation even of the average work of this period. + +To study the flowing lines of the great angels traced upon the walls +of the Chapel of S. Sigismund in the Cathedral of Rimini, to follow +the undulations of their drapery that seems to float, to feel the +dignified urbanity of all their gestures, is like listening to one of +those clear early Italian compositions for the voice, which surpasses +in suavity of tone and grace of movement all that Music in her +full-grown vigour has produced. There is indeed something infinitely +charming in the crepuscular moments of the human mind. Whether it be +the rathe loveliness of an art still immature, or the beauty of art +upon the wane--whether, in fact, the twilight be of morning or of +evening, we find in the masterpieces of such periods a placid calm and +chastened pathos, as of a spirit self-withdrawn from vulgar cares, +which in the full light of meridian splendour is lacking. In the +Church of S. Francesco at Rimini the tempered clearness of the dawn is +just about to broaden into day. + + * * * * * + + + + +_MAY IN UMBRIA_ + +FROM ROME TO TERNI + + +We left Rome in clear sunset light. The Alban Hills defined themselves +like a cameo of amethyst upon a pale blue distance; and over the +Sabine Mountains soared immeasurable moulded domes of alabaster +thunderclouds, casting deep shadows, purple and violet, across the +slopes of Tivoli. To westward the whole sky was lucid, like some +half-transparent topaz, flooded with slowly yellowing sunbeams. The +Campagna has often been called a garden of wild-flowers. Just now +poppy and aster, gladiolus and thistle, embroider it with patterns +infinite and intricate beyond the power of art. They have already mown +the hay in part; and the billowy tracts of greyish green, where no +flowers are now in bloom, supply a restful groundwork to those +brilliant patches of diapered _fioriture_. These are like +praying-carpets spread for devotees upon the pavement of a mosque +whose roof is heaven. In the level light the scythes of the mowers +flash as we move past. From their bronzed foreheads the men toss +masses of dark curls. Their muscular flanks and shoulders sway +sideways from firm yet pliant reins. On one hill, fronting the sunset, +there stands a herd of some thirty huge grey oxen, feeding and raising +their heads to look at us, with just a flush of crimson on their +horns and dewlaps. This is the scale of Mason's and of Costa's +colouring. This is the breadth and magnitude of Rome. + +Thus, through dells of ilex and oak, yielding now a glimpse of Tiber +and S. Peter's, now opening on a purple section of the distant Sabine +Hills, we came to Monte Rotondo. The sun sank; and from the flames +where he had perished, Hesper and the thin moon, very white and keen, +grew slowly into sight. Now we follow the Tiber, a swollen, hurrying, +turbid river, in which the mellowing Western sky reflects itself. This +changeful mirror of swift waters spreads a dazzling foreground to +valley, hill, and lustrous heaven. There is orange on the far horizon, +and a green ocean above, in which sea-monsters fashioned from the +clouds are floating. Yonder swims an elf with luminous hair astride +upon a sea-horse, and followed by a dolphin plunging through the fiery +waves. The orange deepens into dying red. The green divides into +daffodil and beryl. The blue above grows fainter, and the moon and +stars shine stronger. + +Through these celestial changes we glide into a landscape fit for +Francia and the early Umbrian painters. Low hills to right and left; +suavely modelled heights in the far distance; a very quiet width of +plain, with slender trees ascending into the pellucid air; and down in +the mystery of the middle distance a glimpse of heaven-reflecting +water. The magic of the moon and stars lends enchantment to this +scene. No painting could convey their influences. Sometimes both +luminaries tremble, all dispersed and broken, on the swirling river. +Sometimes they sleep above the calm cool reaches of a rush-grown mere. +And here and there a ruined turret, with a broken window and a tuft +of shrubs upon the rifted battlement, gives value to the fading pallor +of the West. The last phase in the sunset is a change to blue-grey +monochrome, faintly silvered with starlight; hills, Tiber, fields and +woods, all floating in aerial twilight. There is no definition of +outline now. The daffodil of the horizon has faded into scarcely +perceptible pale greenish yellow. + +We have passed Stimigliano. Through the mystery of darkness we hurry +past the bridges of Augustus and the lights of Narni. + + +THE CASCADES OF TERNI + + +The Velino is a river of considerable volume which rises in the +highest region of the Abruzzi, threads the upland valley of Rieti, and +precipitates itself by an artificial channel over cliffs about seven +hundred feet in height into the Nera. The water is densely charged +with particles of lime. This calcareous matter not only tends +continually to choke its bed, but clothes the precipices over which +the torrent thunders with fantastic drapery of stalactite; and, +carried on the wind in foam, incrusts the forests that surround the +falls with fine white dust. These famous cascades are undoubtedly the +most sublime and beautiful which Europe boasts; and their situation is +worthy of so great a natural wonder. We reach them through a noble +mid-Italian landscape, where the mountain forms are austere and boldly +modelled, but the vegetation, both wild and cultivated, has something +of the South-Italian richness. The hillsides are a labyrinth of box +and arbutus, with coronilla in golden bloom. The turf is starred with +cyclamens and orchises. Climbing the staircase paths beside the falls +in morning sunlight, or stationed on the points of vantage that +command their successive cataracts, we enjoyed a spectacle which might +be compared in its effect upon the mind to the impression left by a +symphony or a tumultuous lyric. The turbulence and splendour, the +swiftness and resonance, the veiling of the scene in smoke of +shattered water-masses, the withdrawal of these veils according as the +volume of the river slightly shifted in its fall, the rainbows +shimmering on the silver spray, the shivering of poplars hung above +impendent precipices, the stationary grandeur of the mountains keeping +watch around, the hurry and the incoherence of the cataracts, the +immobility of force and changeful changelessness in nature, were all +for me the elements of one stupendous poem. It was like an ode of +Shelley translated into symbolism, more vivid through inarticulate +appeal to primitive emotion than any words could be. + + +MONTEFALCO + + +The rich land of the Clitumnus is divided into meadows by transparent +watercourses, gliding with a glassy current over swaying reeds. +Through this we pass, and leave Bevagna to the right, and ascend one +of those long gradual roads which climb the hills where all the cities +of the Umbrians perch. The view expands, revealing Spello, Assisi, +Perugia on its mountain buttress, and the far reaches northward of the +Tiber valley. Then Trevi and Spoleto came into sight, and the severe +hill-country above Gubbio in part disclosed itself. Over Spoleto the +fierce witch-haunted heights of Norcia rose forbidding. This is the +kind of panorama that dilates the soul. It is so large, so dignified, +so beautiful in tranquil form. The opulent abundance of the plain +contrasts with the severity of mountain ranges desolately grand; and +the name of each of all those cities thrills the heart with memories. + +The main object of a visit to Montefalco is to inspect its many +excellent frescoes; painted histories of S. Francis and S. Jerome, by +Benozzo Gozzoli; saints, angels, and Scripture episodes by the gentle +Tiberio d'Assisi. Full justice had been done to these, when a little +boy, seeing us lingering outside the church of S. Chiara, asked +whether we should not like to view the body of the saint. This +privilege could be purchased at the price of a small fee. It was only +necessary to call the guardian of her shrine at the high altar. +Indolent, and in compliant mood, with languid curiosity and half an +hour to spare, we assented. A handsome young man appeared, who +conducted us with decent gravity into a little darkened chamber behind +the altar. There he lighted wax tapers, opened sliding doors in what +looked like a long coffin, and drew curtains. Before us in the dim +light there lay a woman covered with a black nun's dress. Only her +hands, and the exquisitely beautiful pale contour of her face +(forehead, nose, mouth, and chin, modelled in purest outline, as +though the injury of death had never touched her) were visible. Her +closed eyes seemed to sleep. She had the perfect peace of Luini's S. +Catherine borne by the angels to her grave on Sinai. I have rarely +seen anything which surprised and touched me more. The religious +earnestness of the young custode, the hushed adoration of the +country-folk who had silently assembled round us, intensified the +sympathy-inspiring beauty of the slumbering girl. Could Julia, +daughter of Claudius, have been fairer than this maiden, when the +Lombard workmen found her in her Latin tomb, and brought her to be +worshipped on the Capitol? S. Chiara's shrine was hung round with her +relics; and among these the heart extracted from her body was +suspended. Upon it, apparently wrought into the very substance of the +mummied flesh, were impressed a figure of the crucified Christ, the +scourge, and the five stigmata. The guardian's faith in this +miraculous witness to her sainthood, the gentle piety of the men and +women who knelt before it, checked all expressions of incredulity. We +abandoned ourselves to the genius of the place; forgot even to ask +what Santa Chiara was sleeping here; and withdrew, toned to a not +unpleasing melancholy. The world-famous S. Clair, the spiritual sister +of S. Francis, lies in Assisi. I have often asked myself, Who, then, +was this nun? What history had she? And I think now of this girl as of +a damsel of romance, a Sleeping Beauty in the wood of time, secluded +from intrusive elements of fact, and folded in the love and faith of +her own simple worshippers. Among the hollows of Arcadia, how many +rustic shrines in ancient days held saints of Hellas, apocryphal, +perhaps, like this, but hallowed by tradition and enduring homage![6] + + +FOLIGNO + + +In the landscape of Raphael's votive picture, known as the Madonna di +Foligno, there is a town with a few towers, placed upon a broad plain +at the edge of some blue hills. Allowing for that license as to +details which imaginative masters permitted themselves in matters of +subordinate importance, Raphael's sketch is still true to Foligno. The +place has not materially changed since the beginning of the sixteenth +century. Indeed, relatively to the state of Italy at large, it is +still the same as in the days of ancient Rome. Foligno forms a station +of commanding interest between Rome and the Adriatic upon the great +Flaminian Way. At Foligno the passes of the Apennines debouch into the +Umbrian plain, which slopes gradually toward the valley of the Tiber, +and from it the valley of the Nera is reached by an easy ascent +beneath the walls of Spoleto. An army advancing from the north by the +Metaurus and the Furlo Pass must find itself at Foligno; and the level +champaign round the city is well adapted to the maintenance and +exercises of a garrison. In the days of the Republic and the Empire, +the value of this position was well understood; but Foligno's +importance, as the key to the Flaminian Way, was eclipsed by two +flourishing cities in its immediate vicinity, Hispellum and Mevania, +the modern Spello and Bevagna. We might hazard a conjecture that the +Lombards, when they ruled the Duchy of Spoleto, following their usual +policy of opposing new military centres to the ancient Roman +municipia, encouraged Fulginium at the expense of her two neighbours. +But of this there is no certainty to build upon. All that can be +affirmed with accuracy is that in the Middle Ages, while Spello and +Bevagna declined into the inferiority of dependent burghs, Foligno +grew in power and became the chief commune of this part of Umbria. It +was famous during the last centuries of struggle between the Italian +burghers and their native despots, for peculiar ferocity in civil +strife. Some of the bloodiest pages in mediaeval Italian history are +those which relate the vicissitudes of the Trinci family, the +exhaustion of Foligno by internal discord, and its final submission to +the Papal power. Since railways have been carried from Rome through +Narni and Spoleto to Ancona and Perugia, Foligno has gained +considerably in commercial and military status. It is the point of +intersection for three lines; the Italian government has made it a +great cavalry depot, and there are signs of reviving traffic in its +decayed streets. Whether the presence of a large garrison has already +modified the population, or whether we may ascribe something to the +absence of Roman municipal institutions in the far past, and to the +savagery of the mediaeval period, it is difficult to say. Yet the +impression left by Foligno upon the mind is different from that of +Assisi, Spello, and Montefalco, which are distinguished for a certain +grace and gentleness in their inhabitants. + +My window in the city wall looks southward across the plain to +Spoleto, with Montefalco perched aloft upon the right, and Trevi on +its mountain-bracket to the left. From the topmost peaks of the Sabine +Apennines, gradual tender sloping lines descend to find their quiet in +the valley of Clitumnus. The space between me and that distance is +infinitely rich with every sort of greenery, dotted here and there +with towers and relics of baronial houses. The little town is in +commotion; for the working men of Foligno and its neighbourhood have +resolved to spend their earnings on a splendid festa--horse-races, and +two nights of fireworks. The acacias and paulownias on the ramparts +are in full bloom of creamy white and lilac. In the glare of Bengal +lights these trees, with all their pendulous blossoms, surpassed the +most fantastic of artificial decorations. The rockets sent aloft into +the sky amid that solemn Umbrian landscape were nowise out of harmony +with nature. I never sympathised with critics who resent the intrusion +of fireworks upon scenes of natural beauty. The Giessbach, lighted up +at so much per head on stated evenings, with a band playing and a +crowd of cockneys staring, presents perhaps an incongruous spectacle. +But where, as here at Foligno, a whole city has made itself a +festival, where there are multitudes of citizens and soldiers and +country-people slowly moving and gravely admiring, with the decency +and order characteristic of an Italian crowd, I have nothing but a +sense of satisfaction. + +It is sometimes the traveller's good fortune in some remote place to +meet with an inhabitant who incarnates and interprets for him the +_genius loci_ as he has conceived it. Though his own subjectivity will +assuredly play a considerable part in such an encounter, transferring +to his chance acquaintance qualities he may not possess, and +connecting this personality in some purely imaginative manner with +thoughts derived from study, or impressions made by nature; yet the +stranger will henceforth become the meeting-point of many memories, +the central figure in a composition which derives from him its +vividness. Unconsciously and innocently he has lent himself to the +creation of a picture, and round him, as around the hero of a myth, +have gathered thoughts and sentiments of which he had himself no +knowledge. On one of these nights I had been threading the aisles of +acacia-trees, now glaring red, now azure, as the Bengal lights kept +changing. My mind instinctively went back to scenes of treachery and +bloodshed in the olden time, when Gorrado Trinci paraded the mangled +remnants of three hundred of his victims, heaped on mule-back, through +Foligno, for a warning to the citizens. As the procession moved along +the ramparts, I found myself in contest with a young man, who readily +fell into conversation. He was very tall, with enormous breadth of +shoulders, and long sinewy arms, like Michelangelo's favourite models. +His head was small, curled over with crisp black hair. Low forehead, +and thick level eyebrows absolutely meeting over intensely bright +fierce eyes. The nose descending straight from the brows, as in a +statue of Hadrian's age. The mouth full-lipped, petulant, and +passionate above a firm round chin. He was dressed in the shirt, white +trousers, and loose white jacket of a contadino; but he did not move +with a peasant's slouch, rather with the elasticity and alertness of +an untamed panther. He told me that he was just about to join a +cavalry regiment; and I could well imagine, when military dignity was +added to that gait, how grandly he would go. This young man, of whom I +heard nothing more after our half-hour's conversation among the +crackling fireworks and roaring cannon, left upon my mind an +indescribable impression of dangerousness--of 'something fierce and +terrible, eligible to burst forth.' Of men like this, then, were +formed the Companies of Adventure who flooded Italy with villany, +ambition, and lawlessness in the fifteenth century. Gattamelata, who +began life as a baker's boy at Narni and ended it with a bronze statue +by Donatello on the public square in Padua, was of this breed. Like +this were the Trinci and their bands of murderers. Like this were the +bravi who hunted Lorenzaccio to death at Venice. Like this was Pietro +Paolo Baglioni, whose fault, in the eyes of Machiavelli, was that he +could not succeed in being 'perfettamente tristo.' Beautiful, but +inhuman; passionate, but cold; powerful, but rendered impotent for +firm and lofty deeds by immorality and treason; how many centuries of +men like this once wasted Italy and plunged her into servitude! Yet +what material is here, under sterner discipline, and with a nobler +national ideal, for the formation of heroic armies. Of such stuff, +doubtless, were the Roman legionaries. When will the Italians learn to +use these men as Fabius or as Caesar, not as the Vitelli and the Trinci +used them? In such meditations, deeply stirred by the meeting of my +own reflections with one who seemed to represent for me in life and +blood the spirit of the place which had provoked them, I said farewell +to Cavallucci, and returned to my bedroom on the city wall. The last +rockets had whizzed and the last cannons had thundered ere I fell +asleep. + + +SPELLO + + +Spello contains some not inconsiderable antiquities--the remains of a +Roman theatre, a Roman gate with the heads of two men and a woman +leaning over it, and some fragments of Roman sculpture scattered +through its buildings. The churches, especially those of S.M. Maggiore +and S. Francesco, are worth a visit for the sake of Pinturicchio. +Nowhere, except in the Piccolomini Library at Siena, can that master's +work in fresco be better studied than here. The satisfaction with +which he executed the wall paintings in S. Maria Maggiore is testified +by his own portrait introduced upon a panel in the decoration of the +Virgin's chamber. The scrupulously rendered details of books, chairs, +window seats, &c., which he here has copied, remind one of Carpaccio's +study of S. Benedict at Venice. It is all sweet, tender, delicate, and +carefully finished; but without depth, not even the depth of +Perugino's feeling. In S. Francesco, Pinturicchio, with the same +meticulous refinement, painted a letter addressed to him by Gentile +Baglioni. It lies on a stool before Madonna and her court of saints. +Nicety of execution, technical mastery of fresco as a medium for Dutch +detail-painting, prettiness of composition, and cheerfulness of +colouring, are noticeable throughout his work here rather than either +thought or sentiment. S. Maria Maggiore can boast a fresco of Madonna +between a young episcopal saint and Catherine of Alexandria from the +hand of Perugino. The rich yellow harmony of its tones, and the +graceful dignity of its emotion, conveyed no less by a certain +Raphaelesque pose and outline than by suavity of facial expression, +enable us to measure the distance between this painter and his +quasi-pupil Pinturicchio. + +We did not, however, drive to Spello to inspect either Roman +antiquities or frescoes, but to see an inscription on the city walls +about Orlando. It is a rude Latin elegiac couplet, saying that, 'from +the sign below, men may conjecture the mighty members of Roland, +nephew of Charles; his deeds are written in history.' Three agreeable +old gentlemen of Spello, who attended us with much politeness, and +were greatly interested in my researches, pointed out a mark +waist-high upon the wall, where Orlando's knee is reported to have +reached. But I could not learn anything about a phallic monolith, +which is said by Guerin or Panizzi to have been identified with the +Roland myth at Spello. Such a column either never existed here, or +had been removed before the memory of the present generation. + + +EASTER MORNING AT ASSISI + + +We are in the lower church of S. Francesco. High mass is being sung, +with orchestra and organ and a choir of many voices. Candles are +lighted on the altar, over-canopied with Giotto's allegories. From the +low southern windows slants the sun, in narrow bands, upon the +many-coloured gloom and embrowned glory of these painted aisles. Women +in bright kerchiefs kneel upon the stones, and shaggy men from the +mountains stand or lean against the wooden benches. There is no moving +from point to point. Where we have taken our station, at the +north-western angle of the transept, there we stay till mass be over. +The whole low-vaulted building glows duskily; the frescoed roof, the +stained windows, the figure-crowded pavements blending their rich but +subdued colours, like hues upon some marvellous moth's wings, or like +a deep-toned rainbow mist discerned in twilight dreams, or like such +tapestry as Eastern queens, in ancient days, wrought for the pavilion +of an empress. Forth from this maze of mingling tints, indefinite in +shade and sunbeams, lean earnest, saintly faces--ineffably +pure--adoring, pitying, pleading; raising their eyes in ecstasy to +heaven, or turning them in ruth toward earth. Men and women of whom +the world was not worthy--at the hands of those old painters they have +received the divine grace, the dovelike simplicity, whereof Italians +in the fourteenth century possessed the irrecoverable secret. Each +face is a poem; the counterpart in painting to a chapter from the +Fioretti di San Francesco. Over the whole scene--in the architecture, +in the frescoes, in the coloured windows, in the gloom, on the +people, in the incense, from the chiming bells, through the +music--broods one spirit: the spirit of him who was 'the co-espoused, +co-transforate with Christ;' the ardent, the radiant, the beautiful in +soul; the suffering, the strong, the simple, the victorious over self +and sin; the celestial who trampled upon earth and rose on wings of +ecstasy to heaven; the Christ-inebriated saint of visions supersensual +and life beyond the grave. Far down below the feet of those who +worship God through him, S. Francis sleeps; but his soul, the +incorruptible part of him, the message he gave the world, is in the +spaces round us. This is his temple. He fills it like an unseen god. +Not as Phoebus or Athene, from their marble pedestals; but as an +abiding spirit, felt everywhere, nowhere seized, absorbing in itself +all mysteries, all myths, all burning exaltations, all abasements, all +love, self-sacrifice, pain, yearning, which the thought of Christ, +sweeping the centuries, hath wrought for men. Let, therefore, choir +and congregation raise their voices on the tide of prayers and +praises; for this is Easter morning--Christ is risen! Our sister, +Death of the Body, for whom S. Francis thanked God in his hymn, is +reconciled to us this day, and takes us by the hand, and leads us to +the gate whence floods of heavenly glory issue from the faces of a +multitude of saints. Pray, ye poor people; chant and pray. If all be +but a dream, to wake from this were loss for you indeed! + + +PERUSIA AUGUSTA + + +The piazza in front of the Prefettura is my favourite resort on these +nights of full moon. The evening twilight is made up partly of sunset +fading over Thrasymene and Tuscany; partly of moonrise from the +mountains of Gubbio and the passes toward Ancona. The hills are capped +with snow, although the season is so forward. Below our parapets the +bulk of S. Domenico, with its gaunt perforated tower, and the finer +group of S. Pietro, flaunting the arrowy 'Pennacchio di Perugia,' jut +out upon the spine of hill which dominates the valley of the Tiber. As +the night gloom deepens, and the moon ascends the sky, these buildings +seem to form the sombre foreground to some French etching. Beyond them +spreads the misty moon-irradiated plain of Umbria. Over all rise +shadowy Apennines, with dim suggestions of Assisi, Spello, Foligno, +Montefalco, and Spoleto on their basements. Little thin whiffs of +breezes, very slight and searching, flit across, and shiver as they +pass from Apennine to plain. The slowly moving population--women in +veils, men winter-mantled--pass to and fro between the buildings and +the grey immensity of sky. Bells ring. The bugles of the soldiers blow +retreat in convents turned to barracks. Young men roam the streets +beneath, singing May songs. Far, far away upon the plain, red through +the vitreous moonlight ringed with thundery gauze, fires of unnamed +castelli smoulder. As we lean from ledges eighty feet in height, gas +vies with moon in chequering illuminations on the ancient walls; +Etruscan mouldings, Roman letters, high-piled hovels, suburban +world-old dwellings plastered like martins' nests against the masonry. + +Sunlight adds more of detail to this scene. To the right of Subasio, +where the passes go from Foligno towards Urbino and Ancona, heavy +masses of thundercloud hang every day; but the plain and +hill-buttresses are clear in transparent blueness. First comes Assisi, +with S.M. degli Angeli below; then Spello; then Foligno; then Trevi; +and, far away, Spoleto; with, reared against those misty battlements, +the village height of Montefalco--the 'ringhiera dell' Umbria,' as +they call it in this country. By daylight, the snow on yonder peaks is +clearly visible, where the Monti della Sibilla tower up above the +sources of the Nera and Velino from frigid wastes of Norcia. The lower +ranges seem as though painted, in films of airiest and palest azure, +upon china; and then comes the broad green champaign, flecked with +villages and farms. Just at the basement of Perugia winds Tiber, +through sallows and grey poplar-trees, spanned by ancient arches of +red brick, and guarded here and there by castellated towers. The mills +beneath their dams and weirs are just as Raphael drew them; and the +feeling of air and space reminds one, on each coign of vantage, of +some Umbrian picture. Every hedgerow is hoary with May-bloom and +honeysuckle. The oaks hang out their golden-dusted tassels. Wayside +shrines are decked with laburnum boughs and iris blossoms plucked from +the copse-woods, where spires of purple and pink orchis variegate the +thin, fine grass. The land waves far and wide with young corn, emerald +green beneath the olive-trees, which take upon their under-foliage +tints reflected from this verdure or red tones from the naked earth. A +fine race of _contadini_, with large, heroically graceful forms, and +beautiful dark eyes and noble faces, move about this garden, intent on +ancient, easy tillage of the kind Saturnian soil. + + +LA MAGIONE + + +On the road from Perugia to Cortona, the first stage ends at La +Magione, a high hill-village commanding the passage from the Umbrian +champaign to the lake of Thrasymene. + +It has a grim square fortalice above it, now in ruins, and a stately +castle to the south-east, built about the time of Braccio. Here took +place that famous diet of Cesare Borgia's enemies, when the son of +Alexander VI. was threatening Bologna with his arms, and bidding fair +to make himself supreme tyrant of Italy in 1502. It was the policy of +Cesare to fortify himself by reducing the fiefs of the Church to +submission, and by rooting out the dynasties which had acquired a +sort of tyranny in Papal cities. The Varani of Camerino and the +Manfredi of Faenza had been already extirpated. There was only too +good reason to believe that the turn of the Vitelli at Citta di +Castello, of the Baglioni at Perugia, and of the Bentivogli at Bologna +would come next. Pandolfo Petrucci at Siena, surrounded on all sides +by Cesare's conquests, and specially menaced by the fortification of +Piombino, felt himself in danger. The great house of the Orsini, who +swayed a large part of the Patrimony of S. Peter's, and were closely +allied to the Vitelli, had even graver cause for anxiety. But such was +the system of Italian warfare, that nearly all these noble families +lived by the profession of arms, and most of them were in the pay of +Cesare. When, therefore, the conspirators met at La Magione, they were +plotting against a man whose money they had taken, and whom they had +hitherto aided in his career of fraud and spoliation. + +The diet consisted of the Cardinal Orsini, an avowed antagonist of +Alexander VI.; his brother Paolo, the chieftain of the clan; +Vitellozzo Vitelli, lord of Citta di Castello; Gian-Paolo Baglioni, +made undisputed master of Perugia by the recent failure of his cousin +Grifonetto's treason; Oliverotto, who had just acquired the March of +Fermo by the murder of his uncle Giovanni da Fogliani; Ermes +Bentivoglio, the heir of Bologna; and Antonio da Venafro, the +secretary of Pandolfo Petrueci. These men vowed hostility on the basis +of common injuries and common fear against the Borgia. But they were +for the most part stained themselves with crime, and dared not trust +each other, and could not gain the confidence of any respectable power +in Italy except the exiled Duke of Urbino. Procrastination was the +first weapon used by the wily Cesare, who trusted that time would sow +among his rebel captains suspicion and dissension. He next made +overtures to the leaders separately, and so far succeeded in his +perfidious policy as to draw Vitellozzo Vitelli, Oliverotto da Fermo, +Paolo Orsini, and Francesco Orsini, Duke of Gravina, into his nets at +Sinigaglia. Under pretext of fair conference and equitable settlement +of disputed claims, he possessed himself of their persons, and had +them strangled--two upon December 31, and two upon January 18, 1503. +Of all Cesare's actions, this was the most splendid for its successful +combination of sagacity and policy in the hour of peril, of persuasive +diplomacy, and of ruthless decision when the time to strike his blow +arrived. + + +CORTONA + + +After leaving La Magione, the road descends upon the lake of +Thrasymene through oak-woods full of nightingales. The lake lay +basking, leaden-coloured, smooth and waveless, under a misty, +rain-charged, sun-irradiated sky. At Passignano, close beside its +shore, we stopped for mid-day. This is a little fishing village of +very poor people, who live entirely by labour on the waters. They +showed us huge eels coiled in tanks, and some fine specimens of the +silver carp--Reina del Lago. It was off one of the eels that we made +our lunch; and taken, as he was, alive from his cool lodging, he +furnished a series of dishes fit for a king. + +Climbing the hill of Cortona seemed a quite interminable business. It +poured a deluge. Our horses were tired, and one lean donkey, who, +after much trouble, was produced from a farmhouse and yoked in front +of them, rendered but little assistance. + +Next day we duly saw the Muse and Lamp in the Museo, the Fra +Angelicos, and all the Signorellis. One cannot help thinking that too +much fuss is made nowadays about works of art--running after them for +their own sakes, exaggerating their importance, and detaching them as +objects of study, instead of taking them with sympathy and +carelessness as pleasant or instructive adjuncts to our actual life. +Artists, historians of art, and critics are forced to isolate +pictures; and it is of profit to their souls to do so. But simple +folk, who have no aesthetic vocation, whether creative or critical, +suffer more than is good for them by compliance with mere fashion. +Sooner or later we shall return to the spirit of the ages which +produced these pictures, and which regarded them with less of an +industrious bewilderment than they evoke at present. + +I am far indeed from wishing to decry art, the study of art, or the +benefits to be derived from its intelligent enjoyment. I only mean to +suggest that we go the wrong way to work at present in this matter. +Picture and sculpture galleries accustom us to the separation of art +from life. Our methods of studying art, making a beginning of +art-study while traveling, tend to perpetuate this separation. It is +only on reflection, after long experience, that we come to perceive +that the most fruitful moments in our art education have been casual +and unsought, in quaint nooks and unexpected places, where nature, +art, and life are happily blent. + +The Palace of the Commune at Cortona is interesting because of the +shields of Florentine governors, sculptured on blocks of grey stone, +and inserted in its outer walls--Peruzzi, Albizzi, Strozzi, Salviati, +among the more ancient--de' Medici at a later epoch. The revolutions +in the Republic of Florence may be read by a herald from these +coats-of-arms and the dates beneath them. + +The landscape of this Tuscan highland satisfies me more and more with +sense of breadth and beauty. From S. Margherita above the town the +prospect is immense and wonderful and wild--up into those brown, +forbidding mountains; down to the vast plain; and over to the cities +of Chiusi, Montepulciano, and Foiano. The jewel of the view is +Trasimeno, a silvery shield encased with serried hills, and set upon +one corner of the scene, like a precious thing apart and meant for +separate contemplation. There is something in the singularity and +circumscribed completeness of the mountain-girded lake, diminished by +distance, which would have attracted Lionardo da Vinci's pencil, had +he seen it. + +Cortona seems desperately poor, and the beggars are intolerable. One +little blind boy, led by his brother, both frightfully ugly and ragged +urchins, pursued us all over the city, incessantly whining 'Signore +Padrone!' It was only on the threshold of the inn that I ventured to +give them a few coppers, for I knew well that any public beneficence +would raise the whole swarm of the begging population round us. +Sitting later in the day upon the piazza of S. Domenico, I saw the +same blind boy taken by his brother to play. The game consists, in the +little creature throwing his arms about the trunk of a big tree, and +running round and round it, clasping it. This seemed to make him quite +inexpressibly happy. His face lit up and beamed with that inner +beatitude blind people show--a kind of rapture shining over it, as +though nothing could be more altogether delightful. This little boy +had the smallpox at eight months, and has never been able to see +since. He looks sturdy, and may live to be of any age--doomed always, +is that possible, to beg? + + +CHIUSI + + +What more enjoyable dinner can be imagined than a flask of excellent +Montepulciano, a well-cooked steak, and a little goat's cheese in the +inn of the Leone d'Oro at Chiusi? The windows are open, and the sun is +setting. Monte Cetona bounds the view to the right, and the wooded +hills of Citta della Pieve to the left. The deep green dimpled valley +goes stretching away toward Orvieto; and at its end a purple mountain +mass, distinct and solitary, which may peradventure be Soracte! The +near country is broken into undulating hills, forested with fine +olives and oaks; and the composition of the landscape, with its +crowning villages, is worthy of a background to an Umbrian picture. +The breadth and depth and quiet which those painters loved, the space +of lucid sky, the suggestion of winding waters in verdant fields, all +are here. The evening is beautiful--golden light streaming softly from +behind us on this prospect, and gradually mellowing to violet and blue +with stars above. + +At Chiusi we visited several Etruscan tombs, and saw their red and +black scrawled pictures. One of the sepulchres was a well-jointed +vault of stone with no wall-paintings. The rest had been scooped out +of the living tufa. This was the excuse for some pleasant hours spent +in walking and driving through the country. Chiusi means for me the +mingling of grey olives and green oaks in limpid sunlight; deep leafy +lanes; warm sandstone banks; copses with nightingales and cyclamens +and cuckoos; glimpses of a silvery lake; blue shadowy distances; the +bristling ridge of Monte Cetona; the conical towers, Becca di Questo +and Becca di Quello, over against each other on the borders; ways +winding among hedgerows like some bit of England in June, but not so +full of flowers. It means all this, I fear, for me far more than +theories about Lars Porsenna and Etruscan ethnology. + + +GUBBIO + + +Gubbio ranks among the most ancient of Italian hill-towns. With its +back set firm against the spine of central Apennines, and piled, house +over house, upon the rising slope, it commands a rich tract of upland +champaign, bounded southward toward Perugia and Foligno by peaked and +rolling ridges. This amphitheatre, which forms its source of wealth +and independence, is admirably protected by a chain of natural +defences; and Gubbio wears a singularly old-world aspect of antiquity +and isolation. Houses climb right to the crests of gaunt bare peaks; +and the brown mediaeval walls with square towers which protected them +upon the mountain side, following the inequalities of the ground, are +still a marked feature in the landscape. It is a town of steep streets +and staircases, with quaintly framed prospects, and solemn vistas +opening at every turn across the lowland. One of these views might be +selected for especial notice. In front, irregular buildings losing +themselves in country as they straggle by the roadside; then the open +post-road with a cypress to the right; afterwards, the rich green +fields, and on a bit of rising ground an ancient farmhouse with its +brown dependencies; lastly, the blue hills above Fossato, and far away +a wrack of tumbling clouds. All this enclosed by the heavy archway of +the Porta Romana, where sunlight and shadow chequer the mellow tones +of a dim fresco, indistinct with age, but beautiful. + +Gubbio has not greatly altered since the middle ages. But poor people +are now living in the palaces of noblemen and merchants. These new +inhabitants have walled up the fair arched windows and slender portals +of the ancient dwellers, spoiling the beauty of the streets without +materially changing the architectural masses. In that witching hour +when the Italian sunset has faded, and a solemn grey replaces the +glowing tones of daffodil and rose, it is not difficult, here dreaming +by oneself alone, to picture the old noble life--the ladies moving +along those open loggias, the young men in plumed caps and curling +hair with one foot on those doorsteps, the knights in armour and the +sumpter mules and red-robed Cardinals defiling through those gates +into the courts within. The modern bricks and mortar with which that +picturesque scene has been overlaid, the ugly oblong windows and +bright green shutters which now interrupt the flowing lines of arch +and gallery; these disappear beneath the fine remembered touch of a +sonnet sung by Folgore, when still the Parties had their day, and this +deserted city was the centre of great aims and throbbing aspirations. + +The names of the chief buildings in Gubbio are strongly suggestive of +the middle ages. They abut upon a Piazza de' Signori. One of them, the +Palazzo del Municipio, is a shapeless unfinished block of masonry. It +is here that the Eugubine tables, plates of brass with Umbrian and +Roman incised characters, are shown. The Palazzo de' Consoli has +higher architectural qualities, and is indeed unique among Italian +palaces for the combination of massiveness with lightness in a +situation of unprecedented boldness. Rising from enormous +substructures mortised into the solid hillside, it rears its vast +rectangular bulk to a giddy height above the town; airy loggias +imposed on great forbidding masses of brown stone, shooting aloft into +a light aerial tower. The empty halls inside are of fair proportions +and a noble size, and the views from the open colonnades in all +directions fascinate. But the final impression made by the building is +one of square, tranquil, massive strength--perpetuity embodied in +masonry--force suggesting facility by daring and successful addition +of elegance to hugeness. Vast as it is, this pile is not forbidding, +as a similarly weighty structure in the North would be. The fine +quality of the stone and the delicate though simple mouldings of the +windows give it an Italian grace. + +These public palaces belong to the age of the Communes, when Gubbio +was a free town, with a policy of its own, and an important part to +play in the internecine struggles of Pope and Empire, Guelf and +Ghibelline. The ruined, deserted, degraded Palazzo Ducale reminds us +of the advent of the despots. It has been stripped of all its +tarsia-work and sculpture. Only here and there a Fe.D., with the +cupping-glass of Federigo di Montefeltro, remains to show that Gubbio +once became the fairest fief of the Urbino duchy. S. Ubaldo, who gave +his name to this duke's son, was the patron of Gubbio, and to him the +cathedral is dedicated--one low enormous vault, like a cellar or +feudal banqueting hall, roofed with a succession of solid Gothic +arches. This strange old church, and the House of Canons, buttressed +on the hill beside it, have suffered less from modernisation than most +buildings in Gubbio. The latter, in particular, helps one to +understand what this city of grave palazzi must have been, and how the +mere opening of old doors and windows would restore it to its +primitive appearance. The House of the Canons has, in fact, not yet +been given over to the use of middle-class and proletariate. + +At the end of a day in Gubbio, it is pleasant to take our ease in the +primitive hostelry, at the back of which foams a mountain-torrent, +rushing downward from the Apennines. The Gubbio wine is very fragrant, +and of a rich ruby colour. Those to whom the tints of wine and jewels +give a pleasure not entirely childish, will take delight in its +specific blending of tawny hues with rose. They serve the table still, +at Gubbio, after the antique Italian fashion, covering it with a +cream-coloured linen cloth bordered with coarse lace--the creases of +the press, the scent of old herbs from the wardrobe, are still upon +it--and the board is set with shallow dishes of warm, white +earthenware, basket-worked in open lattice at the edge, which contain +little separate messes of meat, vegetables, cheese, and comfits. The +wine stands in strange, slender phials of smooth glass, with stoppers; +and the amber-coloured bread lies in fair round loaves upon the cloth. +Dining thus is like sitting down to the supper at Emmaus, in some +picture of Gian Bellini or of Masolino. The very bareness of the +room--its open rafters, plastered walls, primitive settees, and +red-brick floor, on which a dog sits waiting for a bone--enhances the +impression of artistic delicacy in the table. + + +FROM GUBBIO TO FANO + + +The road from Gubbio, immediately after leaving the city, enters a +narrow Alpine ravine, where a thin stream dashes over dark, red rocks, +and pendent saxifrages wave to the winds. The carriage in which we +travelled at the end of May, one morning, had two horses, which our +driver soon supplemented with a couple of white oxen. Slowly and +toilsomely we ascended between the flanks of barren hills--gaunt +masses of crimson and grey crag, clothed at their summits with short +turf and scanty pasture. The pass leads first to the little town of +Scheggia, and is called the Monte Calvo, or bald mountain. At +Scheggia, it joins the great Flaminian Way, or North road of the Roman +armies. At the top there is a fine view over the conical hills that +dominate Gubbio, and, far away, to noble mountains above the Furlo and +the Foligno line of railway to Ancona. Range rises over range, +crossing at unexpected angles, breaking into sudden precipices, and +stretching out long, exquisitely modelled outlines, as only Apennines +can do, in silvery sobriety of colours toned by clearest air. Every +square piece of this austere, wild landscape forms a varied picture, +whereof the composition is due to subtle arrangements of lines always +delicate; and these lines seem somehow to have been determined in +their beauty by the vast antiquity of the mountain system, as though +they all had taken time to choose their place and wear down into +harmony. The effect of tempered sadness was heightened for us by +stormy lights and dun clouds, high in air, rolling vapours and flying +shadows, over all the prospect, tinted in ethereal grisaille. + +After Scheggia, one enters a land of meadow and oak-trees. This is the +sacred central tract of Jupiter Apenninus, whose fane-- + + Delubra Jovis saxoque minantes + Apenninigenis cultae pastoribus arae + +--once rose behind us on the bald Iguvian summits. A second little +pass leads from this region to the Adriatic side of the Italian +watershed, and the road now follows the Barano downward toward the +sea. The valley is fairly green with woods, where mistletoe may here +and there be seen on boughs of oak, and rich with cornfields. Cagli is +the chief town of the district, and here they show one of the best +pictures left to us by Raphael's father, Giovanni Santi. It is a +Madonna, attended by S. Peter, S. Francis, S. Dominic, S. John, and +two angels. One of the angels is traditionally supposed to have been +painted from the boy Raphael, and the face has something which reminds +us of his portraits. The whole composition, excellent in modelling, +harmonious in grouping, soberly but strongly coloured, with a peculiar +blending of dignity and sweetness, grace and vigour, makes one wonder +why Santi thought it necessary to send his son from his own workshop +to study under Perugino. He was himself a master of his art, and this, +perhaps the most agreeable of his paintings, has a masculine sincerity +which is absent from at least the later works of Perugino. + +Some miles beyond Cagli, the real pass of the Furlo begins. It owes +its name to a narrow tunnel bored by Vespasian in the solid rock, +where limestone crags descend on the Barano. The Romans called this +gallery Petra Pertusa, or Intercisa, or more familiarly Forulus, +whence comes the modern name. Indeed, the stations on the old +Flaminian Way are still well marked by Latin designations; for Cagli +is the ancient Calles, and Fossombrone is Forum Sempronii, and Fano +the Fanum Fortunae. Vespasian commemorated this early achievement in +engineering by an inscription carved on the living stone, which still +remains; and Claudian, when he sang the journey of his Emperor +Honorius from Rimini to Rome, speaks thus of what was even then an +object of astonishment to travellers:-- + + Laetior hinc fano recipit fortuna vetusto, + Despiciturque vagus praerupta valle Metaurus, + Qua mons arte patens vivo se perforat arcu + Admittitque viam sectae per viscera rupis. + +The Forulus itself may now be matched, on any Alpine pass, by several +tunnels of far mightier dimensions; for it is narrow, and does not +extend more than 126 feet in length. But it occupies a fine position +at the end of a really imposing ravine. The whole Furlo Pass might, +without too much exaggeration, be described as a kind of Cheddar on +the scale of the Via Mala. The limestone rocks, which rise on either +hand above the gorge to an enormous height, are noble in form and +solemn, like a succession of gigantic portals, with stupendous +flanking obelisks and pyramids. Some of these crag-masses rival the +fantastic cliffs of Capri, and all consist of that southern mountain +limestone which changes from pale yellow to blue grey and dusky +orange. A river roars precipitately through the pass, and the +roadsides wave with many sorts of campanulas--a profusion of azure and +purple bells upon the hard white stone. Of Roman remains there is +still enough (in the way of Roman bridges and bits of broken masonry) +to please an antiquary's eye. But the lover of nature will dwell +chiefly on the picturesque qualities of this historic gorge, so alien +to the general character of Italian scenery, and yet so remote from +anything to which Swiss travelling accustoms one. + +The Furlo breaks out into a richer land of mighty oaks and waving +cornfields, a fat pastoral country, not unlike Devonshire in detail, +with green uplands, and wild-rose tangled hedgerows, and much running +water, and abundance of summer flowers. At a point above Fossombrone, +the Barano joins the Metauro, and here one has a glimpse of faraway +Urbino, high upon its mountain eyrie. It is so rare, in spite of +immemorial belief, to find in Italy a wilderness of wild flowers, that +I feel inclined to make a list of those I saw from our carriage +windows as we rolled down lazily along the road to Fossombrone. Broom, +and cytisus, and hawthorn mingled with roses, gladiolus, and sainfoin. +There were orchises, and clematis, and privet, and wild-vine, vetches +of all hues, red poppies, sky-blue cornflowers, and lilac pimpernel. +In the rougher hedges, dogwood, honeysuckle, pyracanth, and acacia +made a network of white bloom and blushes. Milk-worts of all bright +and tender tints combined with borage, iris, hawkweeds, harebells, +crimson clover, thyme, red snap-dragon, golden asters, and dreamy +love-in-a-mist, to weave a marvellous carpet such as the looms of +Shiraz or of Cashmere never spread. Rarely have I gazed on Flora in +such riot, such luxuriance, such self-abandonment to joy. The air was +filled with fragrances. Songs of cuckoos and nightingales echoed from +the copses on the hillsides. The sun was out, and dancing over all the +landscape. + +After all this, Fano was very restful in the quiet sunset. It has a +sandy stretch of shore, on which the long, green-yellow rollers of the +Adriatic broke into creamy foam, beneath the waning saffron light over +Pesaro and the rosy rising of a full moon. This Adriatic sea carries +an English mind home to many a little watering-place upon our coast. +In colour and the shape of waves it resembles our Channel. + +The sea-shore is Fano's great attraction; but the town has many +churches, and some creditable pictures, as well as Roman antiquities. +Giovanni Santi may here be seen almost as well as at Cagli; and of +Perugino there is one truly magnificent altar-piece--lunette, great +centre panel, and predella--dusty in its present condition, but +splendidly painted, and happily not yet restored or cleaned. It is +worth journeying to Fano to see this. Still better would the journey +be worth the traveller's while if he could be sure to witness such a +game of _Pallone_ as we chanced upon in the Via dell' Arco di +Augusto--lads and grown-men, tightly girt, in shirt sleeves, driving +the great ball aloft into the air with cunning bias and calculation of +projecting house-eaves. I do not understand the game; but it was +clearly played something after the manner of our football, that is to +say; with sides, and front and back players so arranged as to cover +the greatest number of angles of incidence on either wall. + +Fano still remembers that it is the Fane of Fortune. On the fountain +in the market-place stands a bronze Fortuna, slim and airy, offering +her veil to catch the wind. May she long shower health and prosperity +upon the modern watering-place of which she is the patron saint! + + * * * * * + + + + +_THE PALACE OF URBINO_ + + +I + +At Rimini, one spring, the impulse came upon my wife and me to make +our way across San Marino to Urbino. In the Piazza, called +apocryphally after Julius Caesar, I found a proper _vetturino_, with a +good carriage and two indefatigable horses. He was a splendid fellow, +and bore a great historic name, as I discovered when our bargain was +completed. 'What are you called?' I asked him. '_Filippo Visconti, per +servirla!_' was the prompt reply. Brimming over with the darkest +memories of the Italian Renaissance, I hesitated when I heard this +answer. The associations seemed too ominous. And yet the man himself +was so attractive--tall, stalwart, and well looking--no feature of his +face or limb of his athletic form recalling the gross tyrant who +concealed worse than Caligula's ugliness from sight in secret +chambers--that I shook this preconception from my mind. As it turned +out, Filippo Visconti had nothing in common with his infamous namesake +but the name. On a long and trying journey, he showed neither sullen +nor yet ferocious tempers; nor, at the end of it, did he attempt by +any master-stroke of craft to wheedle from me more than his fair pay; +but took the meerschaum pipe I gave him for a keepsake, with the frank +goodwill of an accomplished gentleman. The only exhibition of his hot +Italian blood which I remember did his humanity credit. + +While we were ascending a steep hillside, he jumped from his box to +thrash a ruffian by the roadside for brutal treatment to a little boy. +He broke his whip, it is true, in this encounter; risked a dangerous +quarrel; and left his carriage, with myself and wife inside it, to the +mercy of his horses in a somewhat perilous position. But when he came +back, hot and glowing, from this deed of justice, I could only applaud +his zeal. + +An Italian of this type, handsome as an antique statue, with the +refinement of a modern gentleman and that intelligence which is innate +in a race of immemorial culture, is a fascinating being. He may be +absolutely ignorant in all book-learning. He may be as ignorant as a +Bersagliere from Montalcino with whom I once conversed at Rimini, who +gravely said that he could walk in three months to North America, and +thought of doing it when his term of service was accomplished. But he +will display, as this young soldier did, a grace and ease of address +which are rare in London drawing-rooms; and by his shrewd remarks upon +the cities he has visited, will show that he possesses a fine natural +taste for things of beauty. The speech of such men, drawn from the +common stock of the Italian people, is seasoned with proverbial +sayings, the wisdom of centuries condensed in a few nervous words. +When emotion fires their brain, they break into spontaneous eloquence, +or suggest the motive of a poem by phrases pregnant with imagery. + +For the first stage of the journey out of Rimini, Filippo's two horses +sufficed. The road led almost straight across the level between +quickset hedges in white bloom. But when we reached the long steep +hill which ascends to San Marino, the inevitable oxen were called out, +and we toiled upwards leisurely through cornfields bright with red +anemones and sweet narcissus. At this point pomegranate hedges +replaced the May-thorns of the plain. In course of time our _bovi_ +brought us to the Borgo, or lower town, whence there is a further +ascent of seven hundred feet to the topmost hawk's-nest or acropolis +of the republic. These we climbed on foot, watching the view expand +around us and beneath. Crags of limestone here break down abruptly to +the rolling hills, which go to lose themselves in field and shore. +Misty reaches of the Adriatic close the world to eastward. Cesena, +Rimini, Verucchio, and countless hill-set villages, each isolated on +its tract of verdure conquered from the stern grey soil, define the +points where Montefeltri wrestled with Malatestas in long bygone +years. Around are marly mountain-flanks in wrinkles and gnarled +convolutions like some giant's brain, furrowed by rivers crawling +through dry wasteful beds of shingle. Interminable ranges of gaunt +Apennines stretch, tier by tier, beyond; and over all this landscape, +a grey-green mist of rising crops and new-fledged oak-trees lies like +a veil upon the nakedness of Nature's ruins. + +Nothing in Europe conveys a more striking sense of geological +antiquity than such a prospect. The denudation and abrasion of +innumerable ages, wrought by slow persistent action of weather and +water on an upheaved mountain mass, are here made visible. Every wave +in that vast sea of hills, every furrow in their worn flanks, tells +its tale of a continuous corrosion still in progress. The dominant +impression is one of melancholy. We forget how Romans, countermarching +Carthaginians, trod the land beneath us. The marvel of San Marino, +retaining independence through the drums and tramplings of the last +seven centuries, is swallowed in a deeper sense of wonder. We turn +instinctively in thought to Leopardi's musings on man's destiny at war +with unknown nature-forces and malignant rulers of the universe. + + + Omai disprezza + Te, la natura, il brutto + Poter che, ascoso, a comun danno impera, + E l' infinita vanita del tutto. + +And then, straining our eyes southward, we sweep the dim blue distance +for Recanati, and remember that the poet of modern despair and +discouragement was reared in even such a scene as this. + +The town of San Marino is grey, narrow-streeted, simple; with a great, +new, decent, Greek-porticoed cathedral, dedicated to the eponymous +saint. A certain austerity defines it from more picturesque +hill-cities with a less uniform history. There is a marble statue of +S. Marino in the choir of his church; and in his cell is shown the +stone bed and pillow on which he took austere repose. One narrow +window near the saint's abode commands a proud but melancholy +landscape of distant hills and seaboard. To this, the great absorbing +charm of San Marino, our eyes instinctively, recurrently, take +flight. It is a landscape which by variety and beauty thralls +attention, but which by its interminable sameness might grow almost +overpowering. There is no relief. The gladness shed upon far humbler +Northern lands in May is ever absent here. The German word +_Gemuethlichkeit_, the English phrase 'a home of ancient peace,' are +here alike by art and nature untranslated into visibilities. And yet +(as we who gaze upon it thus are fain to think) if peradventure the +intolerable _ennui_ of this panorama should drive a citizen of San +Marino into out-lands, the same view would haunt him whithersoever he +went--the swallows of his native eyrie would shrill through his +sleep--he would yearn to breathe its fine keen air in winter, and to +watch its iris-hedges deck themselves with blue in spring;--like +Virgil's hero, dying, he would think of San Marino: _Aspicit, et +dulces moriens reminiscitur Argos_. Even a passing stranger may feel +the mingled fascination and oppression of this prospect--the monotony +which maddens, the charm which at a distance grows upon the mind, +environing it with memories. + +Descending to the Borgo, we found that Filippo Visconti had ordered a +luncheon of excellent white bread, pigeons, and omelette, with the +best red muscat wine I ever drank, unless the sharp air of the hills +deceived my appetite. An Italian history of San Marino, including its +statutes, in three volumes, furnished intellectual food. But I confess +to having learned from these pages little else than this: first, that +the survival of the Commonwealth through all phases of European +politics had been semi-miraculous; secondly, that the most eminent San +Marinesi had been lawyers. It is possible on a hasty deduction from +these two propositions (to which, however, I am far from wishing to +commit myself), that the latter is a sufficient explanation of the +former. + +From San Marino the road plunges at a break-neck pace. We are now in +the true Feltrian highlands, whence the Counts of Montefeltro issued +in the twelfth century. Yonder eyrie is San Leo, which formed the key +of entrance to the duchy of Urbino in campaigns fought many hundred +years ago. Perched on the crest of a precipitous rock, this fortress +looks as though it might defy all enemies but famine. And yet San Leo +was taken and re-taken by strategy and fraud, when Montefeltro, +Borgia, Malatesta, Rovere, contended for dominion in these valleys. +Yonder is Sta. Agata, the village to which Guidobaldo fled by night +when Valentino drove him from his dukedom. A little farther towers +Carpegna, where one branch of the Montefeltro house maintained a +countship through seven centuries, and only sold their fief to Rome in +1815. Monte Coppiolo lies behind, Pietra Rubia in front: two other +eagles' nests of the same brood. What a road it is! + +It beats the tracks on Exmoor. The uphill and downhill of Devonshire +scorns compromise or mitigation by _detour_ and zigzag. But here +geography is on a scale so far more vast, and the roadway is so far +worse metalled than with us in England--knotty masses of talc and +nodes of sandstone cropping up at dangerous turnings--that only +Dante's words describe the journey:-- + + Vassi in Sanleo, e discendesi in Noli, + Montasi su Bismantova in cacume + Con esso i pie; ma qui convien ch' uom voli. + +Of a truth, our horses seemed rather to fly than scramble up and down +these rugged precipices; Visconti cheerily animating them with the +brave spirit that was in him, and lending them his wary driver's help +of hand and voice at need. + +We were soon upon a cornice-road between the mountains and the +Adriatic: following the curves of gulch and cleft ravine; winding +round ruined castles set on points of vantage; the sea-line high +above their grass-grown battlements, the shadow-dappled champaign +girdling their bastions mortised on the naked rock. Except for the +blue lights across the distance, and the ever-present sea, these +earthy Apennines would be too grim. Infinite air and this spare veil +of spring-tide greenery on field and forest soothe their sternness. +Two rivers, swollen by late rains, had to be forded. Through one of +these, the Foglia, bare-legged peasants led the way. The horses waded +to their bellies in the tawny water. Then more hills and vales; green +nooks with rippling corn-crops; secular oaks attired in golden +leafage. The clear afternoon air rang with the voices of a thousand +larks overhead. The whole world seemed quivering with light and +delicate ethereal sound. And yet my mind turned irresistibly to +thoughts of war, violence, and pillage. How often has this +intermediate land been fought over by Montefeltro and Brancaleoni, by +Borgia and Malatesta, by Medici and Della Rovere! Its _contadini_ are +robust men, almost statuesque in build, and beautiful of feature. No +wonder that the Princes of Urbino, with such materials to draw from, +sold their service and their troops to Florence, Rome, S. Mark, and +Milan. The bearing of these peasants is still soldierly and proud. Yet +they are not sullen or forbidding like the Sicilians, whose habits of +life, for the rest, much resemble theirs. The villages, there as here, +are few and far between, perched high on rocks, from which the folk +descend to till the ground and reap the harvest. But the southern +_brusquerie_ and brutality are absent from this district. The men have +something of the dignity and slow-eyed mildness of their own huge +oxen. As evening fell, more solemn Apennines upreared themselves to +southward. The Monte d'Asdrubale, Monte Nerone, and Monte Catria hove +into sight. At last, when light was dim, a tower rose above the +neighbouring ridge, a broken outline of some city barred the sky-line. +Urbino stood before us. Our long day's march was at an end. + +The sunset was almost spent, and a four days' moon hung above the +western Apennines, when we took our first view of the palace. It is a +fancy-thralling work of wonder seen in that dim twilight; like some +castle reared by Atlante's magic for imprisonment of Ruggiero, or +palace sought in fairyland by Astolf winding his enchanted horn. Where +shall we find its like, combining, as it does, the buttressed +battlemented bulk of mediaeval strongholds with the airy balconies, +suspended gardens, and fantastic turrets of Italian pleasure-houses? +This unique blending of the feudal past with the Renaissance spirit of +the time when it was built, connects it with the art of Ariosto--or +more exactly with Boiardo's epic. Duke Federigo planned his palace at +Urbino just at the moment when the Count of Scandiano had began to +chaunt his lays of Roland in the Castle of Ferrara. Chivalry, +transmuted by the Italian genius into something fanciful and quaint, +survived as a frail work of art. The men-at-arms of the Condottieri +still glittered in gilded hauberks. Their helmets waved with plumes +and bizarre crests. Their surcoats blazed with heraldries; their +velvet caps with medals bearing legendary emblems. The pomp and +circumstance of feudal war had not yet yielded to the cannon of the +Gascon or the Switzer's pike. The fatal age of foreign invasions had +not begun for Italy. Within a few years Charles VIII.'s holiday +excursion would reveal the internal rottenness and weakness of her +rival states, and the peninsula for half a century to come would be +drenched in the blood of Frenchmen, Germans, Spaniards, fighting for +her cities as their prey. But now Lorenzo de' Medici was still alive. +The famous policy which bears his name held Italy suspended for a +golden time in false tranquillity and independence. The princes who +shared his culture and his love of art were gradually passing into +modern noblemen, abandoning the savage feuds and passions of more +virile centuries, yielding to luxury and scholarly enjoyments. The +castles were becoming courts, and despotisms won by force were +settling into dynasties. + +It was just at this epoch that Duke Federigo built his castle at +Urbino. One of the ablest and wealthiest Condottieri of his time, one +of the best instructed and humanest of Italian princes, he combined in +himself the qualities which mark that period of transition. And these +he impressed upon his dwelling-house, which looks backward to the +mediaeval fortalice and forward to the modern palace. This makes it the +just embodiment in architecture of Italian romance, the perfect +analogue of the 'Orlando Innamorato.' By comparing it with the castle +of the Estes at Ferrara and the Palazzo del Te of the Gonzagas at +Mantua, we place it in its right position between mediaeval and +Renaissance Italy, between the age when principalities arose upon the +ruins of commercial independence and the age when they became dynastic +under Spain. + +The exigencies of the ground at his disposal forced Federigo to give +the building an irregular outline. The fine facade, with its embayed +_loggie_ and flanking turrets, is placed too close upon the city +ramparts for its due effect. We are obliged to cross the deep ravine +which separates it from a lower quarter of the town, and take our +station near the Oratory of S. Giovanni Battista, before we can +appreciate the beauty of its design, or the boldness of the group it +forms with the cathedral dome and tower and the square masses of +numerous out-buildings. Yet this peculiar position of the palace, +though baffling to a close observer of its details, is one of singular +advantage to the inhabitants. Set on the verge of Urbino's towering +eminence, it fronts a wave-tossed sea of vales and mountain summits +toward the rising and the setting sun. There is nothing but +illimitable air between the terraces and loggias of the Duchess's +apartments and the spreading pyramid of Monte Catria. + +A nobler scene is nowhere swept from palace windows than this, which +Castiglione touched in a memorable passage at the end of his +'Cortegiano.' To one who in our day visits Urbino, it is singular how +the slight indications of this sketch, as in some silhouette, bring +back the antique life, and link the present with the past--a hint, +perhaps, for reticence in our descriptions. The gentlemen and ladies +of the court had spent a summer night in long debate on love, rising +to the height of mystical Platonic rapture on the lips of Bembo, when +one of them exclaimed, 'The day has broken!' 'He pointed to the light +which was beginning to enter by the fissures of the windows. Whereupon +we flung the casements wide upon that side of the palace which looks +toward the high peak of Monte Catria, and saw that a fair dawn of rosy +hue was born already in the eastern skies, and all the stars had +vanished except the sweet regent of the heaven of Venus, who holds the +borderlands of day and night; and from her sphere it seemed as though +a gentle wind were breathing, filling the air with eager freshness, +and waking among the numerous woods upon the neighbouring hills the +sweet-toned symphonies of joyous birds.' + + +II + +The House of Montefeltro rose into importance early in the twelfth +century. Frederick Barbarossa erected their fief into a county in +1160. Supported by imperial favour, they began to exercise an +undefined authority over the district, which they afterwards converted +into a duchy. But, though Ghibelline for several generations, the +Montefeltri were too near neighbours of the Papal power to free +themselves from ecclesiastical vassalage. Therefore in 1216 they +sought and obtained the title of Vicars of the Church. Urbino +acknowledged them as semi-despots in their double capacity of Imperial +and Papal deputies. Cagli and Gubbio followed in the fourteenth +century. In the fifteenth, Castel Durante was acquired from the +Brancaleoni by warfare, and Fossombrone from the Malatestas by +purchase. Numerous fiefs and villages fell into their hands upon the +borders of Rimini in the course of a continued struggle with the House +of Malatesta: and when Fano and Pesaro were added at the opening of +the sixteenth century, the domain over which they ruled was a compact +territory, some forty miles square, between the Adriatic and the +Apennines. From the close of the thirteenth century they bore the +title of Counts of Urbino. The famous Conte Guido, whom Dante placed +among the fraudulent in hell, supported the honours of the house and +increased its power by his political action, at this epoch. But it was +not until the year 1443 that the Montefeltri acquired their ducal +title. This was conferred by Eugenius IV. upon Oddantonio, over whose +alleged crimes and indubitable assassination a veil of mystery still +hangs. He was the son of Count Guidantonio, and at his death the +Montefeltri of Urbino were extinct in the legitimate line. A natural +son of Guidantonio had been, however, recognised in his father's +lifetime, and married to Gentile, heiress of Mercatello. This was +Federigo, a youth of great promise, who succeeded his half-brother in +1444 as Count of Urbino. It was not until 1474 that the ducal title +was revived for him. + +Duke Frederick was a prince remarkable among Italian despots for +private virtues and sober use of his hereditary power. He spent his +youth at Mantua, in that famous school of Vittorino da Feltre, where +the sons and daughters of the first Italian nobility received a model +education in humanities, good manners, and gentle physical +accomplishments. More than any of his fellow-students Frederick +profited by this rare scholar's discipline. On leaving school he +adopted the profession of arms, as it was then practised, and joined +the troop of the Condottiere Niccolo Piccinino. Young men of his own +rank, especially the younger sons and bastards of ruling families, +sought military service under captains of adventure. If they +succeeded they were sure to make money. The coffers of the Church and +the republics lay open to their not too scrupulous hands; the wealth +of Milan and Naples was squandered on them in retaining-fees and +salaries for active service. There was always the further possibility +of placing a coronet upon their brows before they died, if haply they +should wrest a town from their employers, or obtain the cession of a +province from a needy Pope. The neighbours of the Montefeltri in +Umbria, Romagna, and the Marches of Ancona were all of them +Condottieri. Malatestas of Rimini and Pesaro, Vitelli of Citta di +Castello, Varani of Camerino, Baglioni of Perugia, to mention only a +few of the most eminent nobles, enrolled themselves under the banners +of plebeian adventurers like Piccinino and Sforza Attendolo. Though +their family connections gave them a certain advantage, the system was +essentially democratic. Gattamelata and Carmagnola sprang from +obscurity by personal address and courage to the command of armies. +Colleoni fought his way up from the grooms to princely station and the +_baton_ of S. Mark. Francesco Sforza, whose father had begun life as a +tiller of the soil, seized the ducal crown of Milan, and founded a +house which ranked among the first in Europe. + +It is not needful to follow Duke Frederick in his military career. We +may briefly remark that when he succeeded to Urbino by his brother's +death in 1444, he undertook generalship on a grand scale. His own +dominions supplied him with some of the best troops in Italy. He was +careful to secure the goodwill of his subjects by attending personally +to their interests, relieving them of imposts, and executing equal +justice. He gained the then unique reputation of an honest prince, +paternally disposed toward his dependents. Men flocked to his +standards willingly, and he was able to bring an important contingent +into any army. These advantages secured for him alliances with +Francesco Sforza, and brought him successively into connection with +Milan, Venice, Florence, the Church of Naples. As a tactician in the +field he held high rank among the generals of the age, and so +considerable were his engagements that he acquired great wealth in the +exercise of his profession. We find him at one time receiving 8000 +ducats a month as war-pay from Naples, with a peace pension of 6000. +While Captain-General of the League, he drew for his own use in war +45,000 ducats of annual pay. Retaining-fees and pensions in the name +of past services swelled his income, the exact extent of which has +not, so far as I am aware, been estimated, but which must have made +him one of the richest of Italian princes. All this wealth he spent +upon his duchy, fortifying and beautifying its cities, drawing youths +of promise to his court, maintaining a great train of life, and +keeping his vassals in good-humour by the lightness of a rule which +contrasted favourably with the exactions of needier despots. + +While fighting for the masters who offered him _condotta_ in the +complicated wars of Italy, Duke Frederick used his arms, when occasion +served, in his own quarrels. Many years of his life were spent in a +prolonged struggle with his neighbour Sigismondo Pandolfo Malatesta, +the bizarre and brilliant tyrant of Rimini, who committed the fatal +error of embroiling himself beyond all hope of pardon with the Church, +and who died discomfited in the duel with his warier antagonist. +Urbino profited by each mistake of Sigismondo, and the history of this +long desultory strife with Rimini is a history of gradual +aggrandisement and consolidation for the Montefeltrian duchy. + +In 1459 Duke Frederick married his second wife, Battista, daughter of +Alessandro Sforza, Lord of Pesaro. Their portraits, painted by Piero +della Francesca, are to be seen in the Uffizzi at Florence. Some years +earlier, Frederick lost his right eye and had the bridge of his nose +broken in a jousting match outside the town-gate of Urbino. After this +accident, he preferred to be represented in profile--the profile so +well known to students of Italian art on medals and basreliefs. It was +not without medical aid and vows fulfilled by a mother's +self-sacrifice to death, if we may trust the diarists of Urbino, that +the ducal couple got an heir. In 1472, however, a son was born to +them, whom they christened Guido Paolo Ubaldo. He proved a youth of +excellent parts and noble nature--apt at study, perfect in all +chivalrous accomplishments. But he inherited some fatal physical +debility, and his life was marred with a constitutional disease, which +then received the name of gout, and which deprived him of the free use +of his limbs. After his father's death in 1482, Naples, Florence, and +Milan continued Frederick's war engagements to Guidobaldo. The prince +was but a boy of ten. Therefore these important _condotte_ must be +regarded as compliments and pledges for the future. They prove to what +a pitch Duke Frederick had raised the credit of his state and war +establishment. Seven years later, Guidobaldo married Elisabetta, +daughter of Francesco Gonzaga, Marquis of Mantua. This union, though a +happy one, was never blessed with children; and in the certainty of +barrenness, the young Duke thought it prudent to adopt a nephew as +heir to his dominions. He had several sisters, one of whom, Giovanna, +had been married to a nephew of Sixtus IV., Giovanni della Rovere, +Lord of Sinigaglia and Prefect of Rome. They had a son, Francesco +Maria, who, after his adoption by Guidobaldo, spent his boyhood at +Urbino. + +The last years of the fifteenth century were marked by the sudden rise +of Cesare Borgia to a power which threatened the liberties of Italy. +Acting as General for the Church, he carried his arms against the +petty tyrants of Romagna, whom he dispossessed and extirpated. His +next move was upon Camerino and Urbino. He first acquired Camerino, +having lulled Guidobaldo into false security by treacherous +professions of goodwill. Suddenly the Duke received intelligence that +the Borgia was marching on him over Cagli. This was in the middle of +June 1502. It is difficult to comprehend the state of weakness in +which Guidobaldo was surprised, or the panic which then seized him. He +made no efforts to rouse his subjects to resistance, but fled by night +with his nephew through rough mountain roads, leaving his capital and +palace to the marauder. Cesare Borgia took possession without striking +a blow, and removed the treasures of Urbino to the Vatican. His +occupation of the duchy was not undisturbed, however; for the people +rose in several places against him, proving that Guidobaldo had +yielded too hastily to alarm. By this time the fugitive was safe in +Mantua, whence he returned, and for a short time succeeded in +establishing himself again at Urbino. But he could not hold his own +against the Borgias, and in December, by a treaty, he resigned his +claims and retired to Venice, where he lived upon the bounty of S. +Mark. It must be said, in justice to the Duke, that his constitutional +debility rendered him unfit for active operations in the field. +Perhaps he could not have done better than thus to bend beneath the +storm. + +The sudden death of Alexander VI. and the election of a Della Rovere +to the Papacy in 1503 changed Guidobaldo's prospects. Julius II. was +the sworn foe of the Borgias and the close kinsman of Urbino's heir. +It was therefore easy for the Duke to walk into his empty palace on +the hill, and to reinstate himself in the domains from which he had so +recently been ousted. The rest of his life was spent in the retirement +of his court, surrounded with the finest scholars and the noblest +gentlemen of Italy. The ill-health which debarred him from the active +pleasures and employments of his station, was borne with uniform +sweetness of temper and philosophy. + +When he died, in 1508, his nephew, Francesco Maria della Rovere, +succeeded to the duchy, and once more made the palace of Urbino the +resort of men-at-arms and captains. He was a prince of very violent +temper: of its extravagance history has recorded three remarkable +examples. He murdered the Cardinal of Pavia with his own hand in the +streets of Ravenna; stabbed a lover of his sister to death at Urbino; +and in a council of war knocked Francesco Guicciardini down with a +blow of his fist. When the history of Italy came to be written, +Guicciardini was probably mindful of that insult, for he painted +Francesco Maria's character and conduct in dark colours. At the same +time this Duke of Urbino passed for one of the first generals of the +age. The greatest stain upon his memory is his behaviour in the year +1527, when, by dilatory conduct of the campaign in Lombardy, he +suffered the passage of Frundsberg's army unopposed, and afterwards +hesitated to relieve Rome from the horrors of the sack. He was the +last Italian Condottiere of the antique type; and the vices which +Machiavelli exposed in that bad system of mercenary warfare were +illustrated on these occasions. During his lifetime, the conditions of +Italy were so changed by Charles V.'s imperial settlement in 1530, +that the occupation of Condottiere ceased to have any meaning. Strozzi +and Farnesi, who afterwards followed this profession, enlisted in the +ranks of France or Spain, and won their laurels in Northern Europe. + +While Leo X. held the Papal chair, the duchy of Urbino was for a while +wrested from the house of Della Rovere, and conferred upon Lorenzo de' +Medici. Francesco Maria made a better fight for his heritage than +Guidobaldo had done. Yet he could not successfully resist the power of +Rome. The Pope was ready to spend enormous sums of money on this petty +war; the Duke's purse was shorter, and the mercenary troops he was +obliged to use, proved worthless in the field. Spaniards, for the +most part, pitted against Spaniards, they suffered the campaigns to +degenerate into a guerilla warfare of pillage and reprisals. In 1517 +the duchy was formally ceded to Lorenzo. But this Medici did not live +long to enjoy it, and his only child Catherine, the future Queen of +France, never exercised the rights which had devolved upon her by +inheritance. The shifting scene of Italy beheld Francesco Maria +reinstated in Urbino after Leo's death in 1522. + +This Duke married Leonora Gonzaga, a princess of the House of Mantua. +Their portraits, painted by Titian, adorn the Venetian room of the +Uffizzi. Of their son, Guidobaldo II., little need be said. He was +twice married, first to Giulia Varano, Duchess by inheritance of +Camerino; secondly, to Vittoria Farnese, daughter of the Duke of +Parma. Guidobaldo spent a lifetime in petty quarrels with his +subjects, whom he treated badly, attempting to draw from their pockets +the wealth which his father and the Montefeltri had won in military +service. He intervened at an awkward period of Italian politics. The +old Italy of despots, commonwealths, and Condottieri, in which his +predecessors played substantial parts, was at an end. The new Italy of +Popes and Austro-Spanish dynasties had hardly settled into shape. +Between these epochs, Guidobaldo II., of whom we have a dim and hazy +presentation on the page of history, seems somehow to have fallen +flat. As a sign of altered circumstances, he removed his court to +Pesaro, and built the great palace of the Della Roveres upon the +public square. + +Guidobaldaccio, as he was called, died in 1574, leaving an only son, +Francesco Maria II., whose life and character illustrate the new age +which had begun for Italy. He was educated in Spain at the court of +Philip II., where he spent more than two years. When he returned, his +Spanish haughtiness, punctilious attention to etiquette, and +superstitious piety attracted observation. The violent temper of the +Della Roveres, which Francesco Maria I. displayed in acts of +homicide, and which had helped to win his bad name for Guidobaldaccio, +took the form of sullenness in the last Duke. The finest episode in +his life was the part he played in the battle of Lepanto, under his +old comrade, Don John of Austria. His father forced him to an +uncongenial marriage with Lucrezia d'Este, Princess of Ferrara. She +left him, and took refuge in her native city, then honoured by the +presence of Tasso and Guarini. He bore her departure with +philosophical composure, recording the event in his diary as something +to be dryly grateful for. Left alone, the Duke abandoned himself to +solitude, religious exercises, hunting, and the economy of his +impoverished dominions. He became that curious creature, a man of +narrow nature and mediocre capacity, who, dedicated to the cult of +self, is fain to pass for saint and sage in easy circumstances. He +married, for the second time, a lady, Livia della Rovere, who belonged +to his own family, but had been born in private station. She brought +him one son, the Prince Federigo-Ubaldo. This youth might have +sustained the ducal honours of Urbino, but for his sage-saint father's +want of wisdom. The boy was a spoiled child in infancy. Inflated with +Spanish vanity from the cradle, taught to regard his subjects as +dependents on a despot's will, abandoned to the caprices of his own +ungovernable temper, without substantial aid from the paternal piety +or stoicism, he rapidly became a most intolerable princeling. His +father married him, while yet a boy, to Claudia de' Medici, and +virtually abdicated in his favour. Left to his own devices, Federigo +chose companions from the troupes of players whom he drew from Venice. +He filled his palaces with harlots, and degraded himself upon the +stage in parts of mean buffoonery. The resources of the duchy were +racked to support these parasites. Spanish rules of etiquette and +ceremony were outraged by their orgies. His bride brought him one +daughter, Vittoria, who afterwards became the wife of Ferdinand, Grand +Duke of Tuscany. Then in the midst of his low dissipation and +offences against ducal dignity, he died of apoplexy at the early age +of eighteen--the victim, in the severe judgment of history, of his +father's selfishness and want of practical ability. + +This happened in 1623. Francesco Maria was stunned by the blow. His +withdrawal from the duties of the sovereignty in favour of such a son +had proved a constitutional unfitness for the duties of his station. +The life he loved was one of seclusion in a round of pious exercises, +petty studies, peddling economies, and mechanical amusements. A +powerful and grasping Pope was on the throne of Rome. Urban at this +juncture pressed Francesco Maria hard; and in 1624 the last Duke of +Urbino devolved his lordships to the Holy See. He survived the formal +act of abdication seven years; when he died, the Pontiff added his +duchy to the Papal States, which thenceforth stretched from Naples to +the bounds of Venice on the Po. + + +III + +Duke Frederick began the palace at Urbino in 1454, when he was still +only Count. The architect was Luziano of Lauranna, a Dalmatian; and +the beautiful white limestone, hard as marble, used in the +construction, was brought from the Dalmatian coast. This stone, like +the Istrian stone of Venetian buildings, takes and retains the chisel +mark with wonderful precision. It looks as though, when fresh, it must +have had the pliancy of clay, so delicately are the finest curves in +scroll or foliage scooped from its substance. And yet it preserves +each cusp and angle of the most elaborate pattern with the crispness +and the sharpness of a crystal. + +When wrought by a clever craftsman, its surface has neither the +waxiness of Parian, nor the brittle edge of Carrara marble; and it +resists weather better than marble of the choicest quality. This may +be observed in many monuments of Venice, where the stone has been long +exposed to sea-air. These qualities of the Dalmatian limestone, no +less than its agreeable creamy hue and smooth dull polish, adapt it to +decoration in low relief. The most attractive details in the palace at +Urbino are friezes carved of this material in choice designs of early +Renaissance dignity and grace. One chimney-piece in the Sala degli +Angeli deserves especial comment. A frieze of dancing Cupids, with +gilt hair and wings, their naked bodies left white on a ground of +ultramarine, is supported by broad flat pilasters. These are engraved +with children holding pots of flowers; roses on one side, carnations +on the other. Above the frieze another pair of angels, one at each +end, hold lighted torches; and the pyramidal cap of the chimney is +carved with two more, flying, and supporting the eagle of the +Montefeltri on a raised medallion. Throughout the palace we notice +emblems appropriate to the Houses of Montefeltro and Della Rovere: +their arms, three golden bends upon a field of azure: the Imperial +eagle, granted when Montefeltro was made a fief of the Empire: the +Garter of England, worn by the Dukes Federigo and Guidobaldo: the +ermine of Naples: the _ventosa_, or cupping-glass, adopted for a +private badge by Frederick: the golden oak-tree on an azure field of +Della Rovere: the palm-tree, bent beneath a block of stone, with its +accompanying motto, _Inclinata Resurgam_: the cipher, FE DX. Profile +medallions of Federigo and Guidobaldo, wrought in the lowest possible +relief, adorn the staircases. Round the great courtyard runs a frieze +of military engines and ensigns, trophies, machines, and implements of +war, alluding to Duke Frederick's profession of Condottiere. The +doorways are enriched with scrolls of heavy-headed flowers, acanthus +foliage, honeysuckles, ivy-berries, birds and boys and sphinxes, in +all the riot of Renaissance fancy. + +This profusion of sculptured _rilievo_ is nearly all that remains to +show how rich the palace was in things of beauty. Castiglione, writing +in the reign of Guidobaldo, says that 'in the opinion of many it is +the fairest to be found in Italy; and the Duke filled it so well with +all things fitting its magnificence, that it seemed less like a palace +than a city. Not only did he collect articles of common use, vessels +of silver, and trappings for chambers of rare cloths of gold and silk, +and suchlike furniture, but he added multitudes of bronze and marble +statues, exquisite pictures, and instruments of music of all sorts. +There was nothing but was of the finest and most excellent quality to +be seen there. Moreover, he gathered together at a vast cost a large +number of the best and rarest books in Greek, Latin, and Hebrew, all +of which he adorned with gold and silver, esteeming them the chiefest +treasure of his spacious palace.' When Cesare Borgia entered Urbino as +conqueror in 1502, he is said to have carried off loot to the value of +150,000 ducats, or perhaps about a quarter of a million sterling. +Vespasiano, the Florentine bookseller, has left us a minute account of +the formation of the famous library of manuscripts, which he valued at +considerably over 30,000 ducats. Yet wandering now through these +deserted halls, we seek in vain for furniture or tapestry or works of +art. The books have been removed to Rome. The pictures are gone, no +man knows whither. The plate has long been melted down. The +instruments of music are broken. If frescoes adorned the corridors, +they have been whitewashed; the ladies' chambers have been stripped of +their rich arras. Only here and there we find a raftered ceiling, +painted in fading colours, which, taken with the stonework of the +chimney, and some fragments of inlaid panel-work on door or window, +enables us to reconstruct the former richness of these princely rooms. + +Exception must be made in favour of two apartments between the towers +upon the southern facade. These were apparently the private rooms of +the Duke and Duchess, and they are still approached by a great winding +staircase in one of the _torricini_. Adorned in indestructible or +irremovable materials, they retain some traces of their ancient +splendour. On the first floor, opening on the vaulted loggia, we find +a little chapel encrusted with lovely work in stucco and marble; +friezes of bulls, sphinxes, sea-horses, and foliage; with a low relief +of Madonna and Child in the manner of Mino da Fiesole. Close by is a +small study with inscriptions to the Muses and Apollo. The cabinet +connecting these two cells has a Latin legend, to say that Religion +here dwells near the temple of the liberal arts: + + Bina vides parvo discrimine juncta sacella, + Altera pars Musis altera sacra Deo est. + +On the floor above, corresponding in position to this apartment, is a +second, of even greater interest, since it was arranged by the Duke +Frederick for his own retreat. The study is panelled in tarsia of +beautiful design and execution. Three of the larger compartments show +Faith, Hope, and Charity; figures not unworthy of a Botticelli or a +Filippino Lippi. The occupations of the Duke are represented on a +smaller scale by armour, _batons_ of command, scientific instruments, +lutes, viols, and books, some open and some shut. The Bible, Homer, +Virgil, Seneca, Tacitus, and Cicero, are lettered; apparently to +indicate his favourite authors. The Duke himself, arrayed in his state +robes, occupies a fourth great panel; and the whole of this elaborate +composition is harmonised by emblems, badges, and occasional devices +of birds, articles of furniture, and so forth. The tarsia, or inlaid +wood of different kinds and colours, is among the best in this kind of +art to be found in Italy, though perhaps it hardly deserves to rank +with the celebrated choir-stalls of Bergamo and Monte Oliveto. Hard by +is a chapel, adorned, like the lower one, with excellent reliefs. The +loggia to which these rooms have access looks across the Apennines, +and down on what was once a private garden. It is now enclosed and +paved for the exercise of prisoners who are confined in one part of +the desecrated palace! + +A portion of the pile is devoted to more worthy purposes; for the +Academy of Raphael here holds its sittings, and preserves a collection +of curiosities and books illustrative of the great painter's life and +works. They have recently placed in a tiny oratory, scooped by +Guidobaldo II. from the thickness of the wall, a cast of Raphael's +skull, which will be studied with interest and veneration. It has the +fineness of modelling combined with shapeliness of form and smallness +of scale which is said to have characterised Mozart and Shelley. + +The impression left upon the mind after traversing this palace in its +length and breadth is one of weariness and disappointment. How shall +we reconstruct the long-past life which filled its rooms with sound, +the splendour of its pageants, the thrill of tragedies enacted here? +It is not difficult to crowd its doors and vacant spaces with liveried +servants, slim pages in tight hose, whose well-combed hair escapes +from tiny caps upon their silken shoulders. We may even replace the +tapestries of Troy which hung one hall, and build again the sideboards +with their embossed gilded plate. But are these chambers really those +where Emilia Pia held debate on love with Bembo and Castiglione; where +Bibbiena's witticisms and Fra Serafino's pranks raised smiles on +courtly lips; where Bernardo Accolti, 'the Unique,' declaimed his +verses to applauding crowds? Is it possible that into yonder hall, +where now the lion of S. Mark looks down alone on staring desolation, +strode the Borgia in all his panoply of war, a gilded glittering +dragon, and from the dais tore the Montefeltri's throne, and from the +arras stripped their ensigns, replacing these with his own Bull and +Valentinus Dux? Here Tasso tuned his lyre for Francesco Maria's +wedding-feast, and read 'Aminta' to Lucrezia d'Este. Here Guidobaldo +listened to the jests and whispered scandals of the Aretine. Here +Titian set his easel up to paint; here the boy Raphael, cap in hand, +took signed and sealed credentials from his Duchess to the Gonfalonier +of Florence. Somewhere in these huge chambers, the courtiers sat +before a torch-lit stage, when Bibbiena's 'Calandria' and +Caetiglione's 'Tirsi,' with their miracles of masques and mummers, +whiled the night away. Somewhere, we know not where, Giuliano de' +Medici made love in these bare rooms to that mysterious mother of +ill-fated Cardinal Ippolito; somewhere, in some darker nook, the +bastard Alessandro sprang to his strange-fortuned life of tyranny and +license, which Brutus-Lorenzino cut short with a traitor's +poignard-thrust in Via Larga. How many men, illustrious for arts and +letters, memorable by their virtues or their crimes, have trod these +silent corridors, from the great Pope Julius down to James III., +self-titled King of England, who tarried here with Clementina Sobieski +through some twelve months of his ex-royal exile! The memories of all +this folk, flown guests and masters of the still-abiding +palace-chambers, haunt us as we hurry through. They are but filmy +shadows. We cannot grasp them, localise them, people surrounding +emptiness with more than withering cobweb forms. + +Death takes a stronger hold on us than bygone life. Therefore, +returning to the vast Throne-room, we animate it with one scene it +witnessed on an April night in 1508. Duke Guidobaldo had died at +Fossombrone, repeating to his friends around his bed these lines of +Virgil: + + Me circum limus niger et deformis arundo Cocyti tardaque + palus inamabilis unda Alligat, et novies Styx interfusa + coercet. + +His body had been carried on the shoulders of servants through those +mountain ways at night, amid the lamentations of gathering multitudes +and the baying of dogs from hill-set farms alarmed by flaring +flambeaux. Now it is laid in state in the great hall. The dais and the +throne are draped in black. The arms and _batons_ of his father hang +about the doorways. His own ensigns are displayed in groups and +trophies, with the banners of S. Mark, the Montefeltrian eagle, and +the cross keys of S. Peter. The hall itself is vacant, save for the +high-reared catafalque of sable velvet and gold damask, surrounded +with wax candles burning steadily. Round it passes a ceaseless stream +of people, coming and going, gazing at their Duke. He is attired in +crimson hose and doublet of black damask. Black velvet slippers are on +his feet, and his ducal cap is of black velvet. The mantle of the +Garter, made of dark-blue Alexandrine velvet, hooded with crimson, +lined with white silk damask, and embroidered with the badge, drapes +the stiff sleeping form. + +It is easier to conjure up the past of this great palace, strolling +round it in free air and twilight; perhaps because the landscape and +the life still moving on the city streets bring its exterior into +harmony with real existence. The southern facade, with its vaulted +balconies and flanking towers, takes the fancy, fascinates the eye, +and lends itself as a fit stage for puppets of the musing mind. Once +more imagination plants trim orange-trees in giant jars of Gubbio ware +upon the pavement where the garden of the Duchess lay--the pavement +paced in these bad days by convicts in grey canvas jackets--that +pavement where Monsignor Bombo courted 'dear dead women' with +Platonic phrase, smothering the Menta of his natural man in lettuce +culled from Academe and thyme of Mount Hymettus. In yonder loggia, +lifted above the garden and the court, two lovers are in earnest +converse. They lean beneath the coffered arch, against the marble of +the balustrade, he fingering his dagger under the dark velvet doublet, +she playing with a clove carnation, deep as her own shame. The man is +Giannandrea, broad-shouldered bravo of Verona, Duke Guidobaldo's +favourite and carpet-count. The lady is Madonna Maria, daughter of +Rome's Prefect, widow of Venanzio Varano, whom the Borgia strangled. +On their discourse a tale will hang of woman's frailty and man's +boldness--Camerino's Duchess yielding to a low-born suitor's stalwart +charms. And more will follow, when that lady's brother, furious +Francesco Maria della Rovere, shall stab the bravo in torch-litten +palace rooms with twenty poignard strokes 'twixt waist and throat, and +their Pandarus shall be sent down to his account by a varlet's +_coltellata_ through the midriff. Imagination shifts the scene, and +shows in that same loggia Rome's warlike Pope, attended by his +cardinals and all Urbino's chivalry. The snowy beard of Julius flows +down upon his breast, where jewels clasp the crimson mantle, as in +Raphael's picture. His eyes are bright with wine; for he has come to +gaze on sunset from the banquet-chamber, and to watch the line of +lamps which soon will leap along that palace cornice in his honour. +Behind him lies Bologna humbled. The Pope returns, a conqueror, to +Rome. Yet once again imagination is at work. A gaunt, bald man, +close-habited in Spanish black, his spare, fine features carved in +purest ivory, leans from that balcony. Gazing with hollow eyes, he +tracks the swallows in their flight, and notes that winter is at hand. +This is the last Duke of Urbino, Francesco Maria II., he whose young +wife deserted him, who made for himself alone a hermit-pedant's round +of petty cares and niggard avarice and mean-brained superstition. He +drew a second consort from the convent, and raised up seed unto his +line by forethought, but beheld his princeling fade untimely in the +bloom of boyhood. Nothing is left but solitude. To the mortmain of the +Church reverts Urbino's lordship, and even now he meditates the terms +of devolution. Jesuits cluster in the rooms behind, with comfort for +the ducal soul and calculations for the interests of Holy See. + +A farewell to these memories of Urbino's dukedom should be taken in +the crypt of the cathedral, where Francesco Maria II., the last Duke, +buried his only son and all his temporal hopes. The place is scarcely +solemn. Its dreary _barocco_ emblems mar the dignity of death. A bulky +_Pieta_ by Gian Bologna, with Madonna's face unfinished, towers up and +crowds the narrow cell. Religion has evanished from this late +Renaissance art, nor has the afterglow of Guido Reni's hectic piety +yet overflushed it. Chilled by the stifling humid sense of an extinct +race here entombed in its last representative, we gladly emerge from +the sepulchral vault into the air of day. + +Filippo Visconti, with a smile on his handsome face, is waiting for us +at the inn. His horses, sleek, well fed, and rested, toss their heads +impatiently. We take our seats in the carriage, open wide beneath a +sparkling sky, whirl past the palace and its ghost-like recollections, +and are halfway on the road to Fossombrone in a cloud of dust and +whirr of wheels before we think of looking back to greet Urbino. There +is just time. The last decisive turning lies in front. We stand +bareheaded to salute the grey mass of buildings ridged along the sky. +Then the open road invites us with its varied scenery and movement. +From the shadowy past we drive into the world of human things, for +ever changefully unchanged, unrestfully the same. This interchange +between dead memories and present life is the delight of travel. + + * * * * * + + + + +_VITTORIA ACCORAMBONI_ + +AND THE TRAGEDY OF WEBSTER + + +I + +During the pontificate of Gregory XIII. (1572-85), Papal authority in +Rome reached its lowest point of weakness, and the ancient splendour +of the Papal court was well-nigh eclipsed. Art and learning had died +out. The traditions of the days of Leo, Julius, and Paul III. were +forgotten. It seemed as though the genius of the Renaissance had +migrated across the Alps. All the powers of the Papacy were directed +to the suppression of heresies and to the re-establishment of +spiritual supremacy over the intellect of Europe. Meanwhile society in +Rome returned to mediaeval barbarism. The veneer of classical +refinement and humanistic urbanity, which for a time had hidden the +natural savagery of the Roman nobles, wore away. The Holy City became +a den of bandits; the territory of the Church supplied a battle-ground +for senseless party strife, which the weak old man who wore the triple +crown was quite unable to control. It is related how a robber +chieftain, Marianazzo, refused the offer of a general pardon from the +Pope, alleging that the profession of brigand was far more lucrative, +and offered greater security of life, than any trade within the walls +of Rome. The Campagna, the ruined citadels about the basements of the +Sabine and Ciminian hills, the quarters of the aristocracy within the +city, swarmed with bravos, who were protected by great nobles and fed +by decent citizens for the advantages to be derived from the +assistance of abandoned and courageous ruffians. Life, indeed, had +become impossible without fixed compact with the powers of +lawlessness. There was hardly a family in Rome which did not number +some notorious criminal among the outlaws. Murder, sacrilege, the love +of adventure, thirst for plunder, poverty, hostility to the ascendant +faction of the moment, were common causes of voluntary or involuntary +outlawry; nor did public opinion regard a bandit's calling as other +than honourable. + +It may readily be imagined that in such a state of society the +grisliest tragedies were common enough in Rome. The history of some of +these has been preserved to us in documents digested from public +trials and personal observation by contemporary writers. That of the +Cenci, in which a notorious act of parricide furnished the plot of a +popular novella, is well known. And such a tragedy, even more rife in +characteristic incidents, and more distinguished by the quality of its +_dramatis personae_, is that of Vittoria Accoramboni. + +Vittoria was born in 1557, of a noble but impoverished family, at +Gubbio, among the hills of Umbria. Her biographers are rapturous in +their praises of her beauty, grace, and exceeding charm of manner. Not +only was her person most lovely, but her mind shone at first with all +the amiable lustre of a modest, innocent, and winning youth. Her +father, Claudio Accoramboni, removed to Rome, where his numerous +children were brought up under the care of their mother, Tarquinia, an +ambitious and unscrupulous woman, bent on rehabilitating the decayed +honours of their house. Here Vittoria in early girlhood soon became +the fashion. She exercised an irresistible influence over all who saw +her, and many were the offers of marriage she refused. At length a +suitor appeared whose condition and connection with the Roman +ecclesiastical nobility rendered him acceptable in the eyes of the +Accoramboni. Francesco Peretti was welcomed as the successful +candidate for Vittoria's hand. His mother, Camilla, was sister to +Felice, Cardinal of Montalto; and her son, Francesco Mignucci, had +changed his surname in compliment to this illustrious relative. The +Peretti were of humble origin. The cardinal himself had tended swine +in his native village; but, supported by an invincible belief in his +own destinies, and gifted with a powerful intellect and determined +character, he passed through all grades of the Franciscan Order to its +generalship, received the bishoprics of Fermo and S. Agata, and +lastly, in the year 1570, assumed the scarlet with the title of +Cardinal Montalto. He was now upon the high way to the Papacy, +amassing money by incessant care, studying the humours of surrounding +factions, effacing his own personality, and by mixing but little in +the intrigues of the court, winning the reputation of a prudent, +inoffensive old man. These were his tactics for securing the Papal +throne; nor were his expectations frustrated; for in 1585 he was +chosen Pope, the parties of the Medici and the Farnesi agreeing to +accept him as a compromise. When Sixtus V. was once firmly seated on +S. Peter's chair, he showed himself in his true colours. An implacable +administrator of severest justice, a rigorous economist, an +iconoclastic foe to paganism, the first act of his reign was to +declare a war of extirpation against the bandits who had reduced Rome +in his predecessor's rule to anarchy. + +It was the nephew, then, of this man, whom historians have judged the +greatest personage of his own times, that Vittoria Accoramboni married +on the 28th of June 1573. For a short while the young couple lived +happily together. According to some accounts of their married life, +the bride secured the favour of her powerful uncle-in-law, who +indulged her costly fancies to the full. It is, however, more probable +that the Cardinal Montalto treated her follies with a grudging +parsimony; for we soon find the Peretti household hopelessly involved +in debt. Discord, too, arose between Vittoria and her husband on the +score of a certain levity in her behaviour; and it was rumoured that +even during the brief space of their union she had proved a faithless +wife. Yet she contrived to keep Francesco's confidence, and it is +certain that her family profited by their connection with the Peretti. +Of her six brothers, Mario, the eldest, was a favourite courtier of +the great Cardinal d'Este. Ottavio was in orders, and through +Montalto's influence obtained the See of Fossombrone. The same +eminent protector placed Scipione in the service of the Cardinal +Sforza. Camillo, famous for his beauty and his courage, followed the +fortunes of Filibert of Savoy, and died in France. Flaminio was still +a boy, dependent, as the sequel of this story shows, upon his sister's +destiny. Of Marcello, the second in age and most important in the +action of this tragedy, it is needful to speak with more +particularity. He was young, and, like the rest of his breed, +singularly handsome--so handsome, indeed, that he is said to have +gained an infamous ascendency over the great Duke of Bracciano, whose +privy chamberlain he had become. Marcello was an outlaw for the murder +of Matteo Pallavicino, the brother of the Cardinal of that name. This +did not, however, prevent the chief of the Orsini house from making +him his favourite and confidential friend. Marcello, who seems to have +realised in actual life the worst vices of those Roman courtiers +described for us by Aretino, very soon conceived the plan of exalting +his own fortunes by trading on his sister's beauty. He worked upon the +Duke of Bracciano's mind so cleverly, that he brought this haughty +prince to the point of an insane passion for Peretti's young wife; and +meanwhile so contrived to inflame the ambition of Vittoria and her +mother, Tarquinia, that both were prepared to dare the worst of crimes +in expectation of a dukedom. The game was a difficult one to play. Not +only had Francesco Peretti first to be murdered, but the inequality of +birth and wealth and station between Vittoria and the Duke of +Bracciano rendered a marriage almost impossible. It was also an affair +of delicacy to stimulate without satisfying the Duke's passion. Yet +Marcello did not despair. The stakes were high enough to justify great +risks; and all he put in peril was his sister's honour, the fame of +the Accoramboni, and the favour of Montalto. Vittoria, for her part, +trusted in her power to ensnare and secure the noble prey both had in +view. + +Paolo Giordano Orsini, born about the year 1537, was reigning Duke of +Bracciano. Among Italian princes he ranked at least upon a par with +the Dukes of Urbino, and his family, by its alliances, was more +illustrious than any of that time in Italy. He was a man of gigantic +stature, prodigious corpulence, and marked personal daring; agreeable +in manners, but subject to uncontrollable fits of passion, and +incapable of self-restraint when crossed in any whim or fancy. Upon +the habit of his body it is needful to insist, in order that the part +he played in this tragedy of intrigue, crime, and passion may be well +defined. He found it difficult to procure a charger equal to his +weight, and he was so fat that a special dispensation relieved him +from the duty of genuflexion in the Papal presence. Though lord of a +large territory, yielding princely revenues, he laboured under heavy +debts; for no great noble of the period lived more splendidly, with +less regard for his finances. In the politics of that age and country, +Paolo Giordano leaned toward France. Yet he was a grandee of Spain, +and had played a distinguished part in the battle of Lepanto. Now the +Duke of Bracciano was a widower. He had been married in 1553 to +Isabella de' Medici, daughter of the Grand Duke Cosimo, sister of +Francesco, Bianca Capello's lover, and of the Cardinal Ferdinando. +Suspicion of adultery with Troilo Orsini had fallen on Isabella, and +her husband, with the full concurrence of her brothers, removed her in +1576 from this world.[7] No one thought the worse of Bracciano for +this murder of his wife. In those days of abandoned vice and intricate +villany, certain points of honour were maintained with scrupulous +fidelity. A wife's adultery was enough to justify the most savage and +licentious husband in an act of semi-judicial vengeance; and the shame +she brought upon his head was shared by the members of her own house, +so that they stood by, consenting to her death. Isabella, it may be +said, left one son, Virginio, who became in due time Duke of +Bracciano. + +It appears that in the year 1581, four years after Vittoria's +marriage, the Duke of Bracciano had satisfied Marcello of his +intention to make her his wife, and of his willingness to countenance +Francesco Peretti's murder. Marcello, feeling sure of his game, +introduced the Duke in private to his sister, and induced her to +overcome any natural repugnance she may have felt for the unwieldy and +gross lover. Having reached this point, it was imperative to push +matters quickly on toward matrimony. + +But how should the unfortunate Francesco be entrapped? They caught him +in a snare of peculiar atrocity, by working on the kindly feelings +which his love for Vittoria had caused him to extend to all the +Acooramboni. Marcello, the outlaw, was her favourite brother, and +Marcello at that time lay in hiding, under the suspicion of more than +ordinary crime, beyond the walls of Rome. Late in the evening of the +18th of April, while the Peretti family were retiring to bed, a +messenger from Marcello arrived, entreating Francesco to repair at +once to Monte Cavallo. Marcello had affairs of the utmost importance +to communicate, and begged his brother-in-law not to fail him at a +grievous pinch. The letter containing this request was borne by one +Dominico d'Aquaviva, _alias_ Il Mancino, a confederate of Vittoria's +waiting-maid. This fellow, like Marcello, was an outlaw; but when he +ventured into Rome he frequented Peretti's house, and had made himself +familiar with its master as a trusty bravo. Neither in the message, +therefore, nor in the messenger was there much to rouse suspicion. The +time, indeed, was oddly chosen, and Marcello had never made a similar +appeal on any previous occasion. Yet his necessities might surely have +obliged him to demand some more than ordinary favour from a brother. +Francesco immediately made himself ready to set out, armed only with +his sword and attended by a single servant. It was in vain that his +wife and his mother reminded him of the dangers of the night, the +loneliness of Monte Cavallo, its ruinous palaces and robber-haunted +caves. He was resolved to undertake the adventure, and went forth, +never to return. As he ascended the hill, he fell to earth, shot with +three harquebuses. His body was afterwards found on Monte Cavallo, +stabbed through and through, without a trace that could identify the +murderers. Only, in the course of subsequent investigations, Il +Mancino (on the 24th of February 1582) made the following +statements:--That Vittoria's mother, assisted by the waiting woman, +had planned the trap; that Marchionne of Gubbio and Paolo Barca of +Bracciano, two of the Duke's men, had despatched the victim. Marcello +himself, it seems, had come from Bracciano to conduct the whole +affair. Suspicion fell immediately upon Vittoria and her kindred, +together with the Duke of Bracciano; nor was this diminished when the +Accoramboni, fearing the pursuit of justice, took refuge in a villa of +the Duke's at Magnanapoli a few days after the murder. + +A cardinal's nephew, even in those troublous times, was not killed +without some noise being made about the matter. Accordingly Pope +Gregory XIII. began to take measures for discovering the authors of +the crime. Strange to say, however, the Cardinal Montalto, +notwithstanding the great love he was known to bear his nephew, begged +that the investigation might be dropped. The coolness with which he +first received the news of Francesco Peretti's death, the +dissimulation with which he met the Pope's expression of sympathy in a +full consistory, his reserve in greeting friends on ceremonial visits +of condolence, and, more than all, the self-restraint he showed in the +presence of the Duke of Bracciano, impressed the society of Rome with +the belief that he was of a singularly moderate and patient temper. It +was thought that the man who could so tamely submit to his nephew's +murder, and suspend the arm of justice when already raised for +vengeance, must prove a mild and indulgent ruler. When, therefore, in +the fifth year after this event, Montalto was elected Pope, men +ascribed his elevation in no small measure to his conduct at the +present crisis. Some, indeed, attributed his extraordinary moderation +and self-control to the right cause. _'Veramente costui e un gran +frate!_' was Gregory's remark at the close of the consistory when +Montalto begged him to let the matter of Peretti's murder rest. '_Of a +truth, that fellow is a consummate hypocrite!_' How accurate this +judgment was, appeared when Sixtus V. assumed the reins of power. The +same man who, as monk and cardinal, had smiled on Bracciano, though he +knew him to be his nephew's assassin, now, as Pontiff and sovereign, +bade the chief of the Orsini purge his palace and dominions of the +scoundrels he was wont to harbour, adding significantly, that if +Felice Peretti forgave what had been done against him in a private +station, he would exact uttermost vengeance for disobedience to the +will of Sixtus. The Duke of Bracciano judged it best, after that +warning, to withdraw from Rome. + +Francesco Peretti had been murdered on the 16th of April 1581. Sixtus +V. was proclaimed on the 24th of April 1585. In this interval Vittoria +underwent a series of extraordinary perils and adventures. First of +all, she had been secretly married to the Duke in his gardens of +Magnanapoli at the end of April 1581. That is to say, Marcello and she +secured their prize, as well as they were able, the moment after +Francesco had been removed by murder. But no sooner had the marriage +become known, than the Pope, moved by the scandal it created, no less +than by the urgent instance of the Orsini and Medici, declared it +void. After some while spent in vain resistance, Bracciano submitted, +and sent Vittoria back to her father's house. By an order issued under +Gregory's own hand, she was next removed to the prison of Corte +Savella, thence to the monastery of S. Cecilia in Trastevere, and +finally to the Castle of S. Angelo. Here, at the end of December 1581, +she was put on trial for the murder of her first husband. In prison +she seems to have borne herself bravely, arraying her beautiful person +in delicate attire, entertaining visitors, exacting from her friends +the honours due to a duchess, and sustaining the frequent examinations +to which she was submitted with a bold, proud front. In the middle of +the month of July her constancy was sorely tried by the receipt of a +letter in the Duke's own handwriting, formally renouncing his +marriage. It was only by a lucky accident that she was prevented on +this occasion from committing suicide. The Papal court meanwhile kept +urging her either to retire to a monastery or to accept another +husband. She firmly refused to embrace the religious life, and +declared that she was already lawfully united to a living husband, the +Duke of Bracciano. It seemed impossible to deal with her; and at last, +on the 8th of November, she was released from prison under the +condition of retirement to Gubbio. The Duke had lulled his enemies to +rest by the pretence of yielding to their wishes. But Marcello was +continually beside him at Bracciano, where we read of a mysterious +Greek enchantress whom he hired to brew love-philters for the +furtherance of his ambitious plots. Whether Bracciano was stimulated +by the brother's arguments or by the witch's potions need not be too +curiously questioned. But it seems in any case certain that absence +inflamed his passion instead of cooling it. + +Accordingly, in September 1583, under the excuse of a pilgrimage to +Loreto, he contrived to meet Vittoria at Trevi, whence he carried her +in triumph to Bracciano. Here he openly acknowledged her as his wife, +installing her with all the splendour due to a sovereign duchess. On +the 10th of October following, he once more performed the marriage +ceremony in the principal church of his fief; and in the January of +1584 he brought her openly to Rome. This act of contumacy to the Pope, +both as feudal superior and as supreme Pontiff, roused all the former +opposition to his marriage. Once more it was declared invalid. Once +more the Duke pretended to give way. But at this juncture Gregory +died; and while the conclave was sitting for the election of the new +Pope, he resolved to take the law into his own hands, and to ratify +his union with Vittoria by a third and public marriage in Rome. On the +morning of the 24th of April 1585, their nuptials were accordingly +once more solemnised in the Orsini palace. Just one hour after the +ceremony, as appears from the marriage register, the news arrived of +Cardinal Montalto's election to the Papacy, Vittoria lost no time in +paying her respects to Camilla, sister of the new Pope, her former +mother-in-law. The Duke visited Sixtus V. in state to compliment him +on his elevation. But the reception which both received proved that +Rome was no safe place for them to live in. They consequently made up +their minds for flight. + +A chronic illness from which Bracciano had lately suffered furnished a +sufficient pretext. This seems to have been something of the nature of +a cancerous ulcer, which had to be treated by the application of raw +meat to open sores. Such details are only excusable in the present +narrative on the ground that Bracciano's disease considerably affects +our moral judgment of the woman who could marry a man thus physically +tainted, and with her husband's blood upon his hands. At any rate, +the Duke's _lupa_ justified his trying what change of air, together +with the sulphur waters of Abano, would do for him. + +The Duke and Duchess arrived in safety at Venice, where they had +engaged the Dandolo palace on the Zuecca. There they only stayed a few +days, removing to Padua, where they had hired palaces of the Foscari +in the Arena and a house called De' Cavalli. At Salo, also, on the +Lake of Garda, they provided themselves with fit dwellings for their +princely state and their large retinues, intending to divide their +time between the pleasures which the capital of luxury afforded and +the simpler enjoyments of the most beautiful of the Italian lakes. But +_la gioia dei profani e un fumo passaggier_. Paolo Giordano Orsini, +Duke of Bracciano, died suddenly at Salo on the 10th of November 1585, +leaving the young and beautiful Vittoria helpless among enemies. What +was the cause of his death? It is not possible to give a clear and +certain answer. We have seen that he suffered from a horrible and +voracious disease, which after his removal from Rome seems to have +made progress. Yet though this malady may well have cut his life +short, suspicion of poison was not, in the circumstances, quite +unreasonable. The Grand Duke of Tuscany, the Pope, and the Orsini +family were all interested in his death. Anyhow, he had time to make a +will in Vittoria's favour, leaving her large sums of money, jewels, +goods, and houses--enough, in fact, to support her ducal dignity with +splendour. His hereditary fiefs and honours passed by right to his +only son, Virginio. + +Vittoria, accompanied by her brother, Marcello, and the whole court of +Bracciano, repaired at once to Padua, where she was soon after joined +by Flaminio, and by the Prince Lodovico Orsini. Lodovico Orsini +assumed the duty of settling Vittoria's affairs under her dead +husband's will. In life he had been the Duke's ally as well as +relative. His family pride was deeply wounded by what seemed to him an +ignoble, as it was certainly an unequal, marriage. He now showed +himself the relentless enemy of the Duchess. Disputes arose between +them as to certain details, which seem to have been legally decided in +the widow's favour. On the night of the 22nd of December, however, +forty men disguised in black and fantastically tricked out to elude +detection, surrounded her palace. Through the long galleries and +chambers hung with arras, eight of them went, bearing torches, in +search of Vittoria and her brothers. Marcello escaped, having fled the +house under suspicion of the murder of one of his own followers. +Flaminio, the innocent and young, was playing on his lute and singing +_Miserere_ in the great hall of the palace. The murderers surprised +him with a shot from one of their harquebuses. He ran, wounded in the +shoulder, to his sister's room. She, it is said, was telling her beads +before retiring for the night. When three of the assassins entered, +she knelt before the crucifix, and there they stabbed her in the left +breast, turning the poignard in the wound, and asking her with savage +insults if her heart was pierced. Her last words were, 'Jesus, I +pardon you.' Then they turned to Flaminio, and left him pierced with +seventy-four stiletto wounds. + +The authorities of Padua identified the bodies of Vittoria and +Flaminio, and sent at once for further instructions to Venice. +Meanwhile it appears that both corpses were laid out in one open +coffin for the people to contemplate. The palace and the church of the +Eremitani, to which they had been removed, were crowded all through +the following day with a vast concourse of the Paduans. Vittoria's +wonderful dead body, pale yet sweet to look upon, the golden hair +flowing around her marble shoulders, the red wound in her breast +uncovered, the stately limbs arrayed in satin as she died, maddened +the populace with its surpassing loveliness. '_Dentibus fremebant_,' +says the chronicler, when they beheld that gracious lady stiff in +death. And of a truth, if her corpse was actually exposed in the +chapel of the Eremitani, as we have some right to assume, the +spectacle must have been impressive. Those grim gaunt frescoes of +Mantegna looked down on her as she lay stretched upon her bier, solemn +and calm, and, but for pallor, beautiful as though in life. No wonder +that the folk forgot her first husband's murder, her less than comely +marriage to the second. It was enough for them that this flower of +surpassing loveliness had been cropped by villains in its bloom. +Gathering in knots around the torches placed beside the corpse, they +vowed vengeance against the Orsini; for suspicion, not unnaturally, +fell on Prince Lodovico. + +The Prince was arrested and interrogated before the court of Padua. He +entered their hall attended by forty armed men, responded haughtily to +their questions, and demanded free passage for his courier to Virginio +Orsini, then at Florence. To this demand the court acceded; but the +precaution of way-laying the courier and searching his person was +very wisely taken. Besides some formal dispatches which announced +Vittoria's assassination, they found in this man's boot a compromising +letter, declaring Virginio a party to the crime, and asserting that +Lodovico had with his own poignard killed their victim. Padua placed +itself in a state of defence, and prepared to besiege the palace of +Prince Lodovico, who also got himself in readiness for battle. +Engines, culverins, and firebrands were directed against the +barricades which he had raised. The militia was called out and the +Brenta was strongly guarded. Meanwhile the Senate of S. Mark had +dispatched the Avogadore, Aloisio Bragadin, with full power to the +scene of action. Lodovico Orsini, it may be mentioned, was in their +service; and had not this affair intervened, he would in a few weeks +have entered on his duties as Governor for Venice of Corfu. + +The bombardment of Orsini's palace began on Christmas Day. Three of +the Prince's men were killed in the first assault; and since the +artillery brought to bear upon him threatened speedy ruin to the house +and its inhabitants, he made up his mind to surrender. 'The Prince +Luigi,' writes one-chronicler of these events, 'walked attired in +brown, his poignard at his side, and his cloak slung elegantly under +his arm. The weapon being taken from him, he leaned upon a balustrade, +and began to trim his nails with a little pair of scissors he happened +to find there.' On the 27th he was strangled in prison by order of the +Venetian Republic. His body was carried to be buried, according to his +own will, in the church of S. Maria dell' Orto at Venice. Two of his +followers were hung next day. Fifteen were executed on the following +Monday; two of these were quartered alive; one of them, the Conte +Paganello, who confessed to having slain Vittoria, had his left side +probed with his own cruel dagger. Eight were condemned to the galleys, +six to prison, and eleven were acquitted. Thus ended this terrible +affair, which brought, it is said, good credit and renown to the lords +of Venice through all nations of the civilised world. It only remains +to be added that Marcello Accoramboni was surrendered to the Pope's +vengeance and beheaded at Ancona, where also his mysterious +accomplice, the Greek sorceress, perished. + + +II + +This story of Vittoria Accoramboni's life and tragic ending is drawn, +in its main details, from a narrative published by Henri Beyle in his +'Chroniques et Novelles.'[8] He professes to have translated it +literally from a manuscript communicated to him by a nobleman of +Mantua; and there are strong internal evidences of the truth of this +assertion. Such compositions are frequent in Italian libraries, nor is +it rare for one of them to pass into the common market--as Mr. +Browning's famous purchase of the tale on which he based his 'Ring +and the Book' sufficiently proves. These pamphlets were produced, in +the first instance, to gratify the curiosity of the educated public in +an age which had no newspapers, and also to preserve the memory of +famous trials. How far the strict truth was represented, or whether, +as in the case of Beatrice Cenci, the pathetic aspect of the tragedy +was unduly dwelt on, depended, of course, upon the mental bias of the +scribe, upon his opportunities of obtaining exact information, and +upon the taste of the audience for whom he wrote. Therefore, in +treating such documents as historical data, we must be upon our +guard. Professor Gnoli, who has recently investigated the whole of +Vittoria's eventful story by the light of contemporary documents, +informs us that several narratives exist in manuscript, all dealing +more or less accurately with the details of the tragedy. One of these +was published in Italian at Brescia in 1586. A Frenchman, De Rosset, +printed the same story in its main outlines at Lyons in 1621. Our own +dramatist, John Webster, made it the subject of a tragedy, which he +gave to the press in 1612. What were his sources of information we do +not know for certain. But it is clear that he was well acquainted with +the history. He has changed some of the names and redistributed some +of the chief parts. Vittoria's first husband, for example, becomes +Camillo; her mother, named Cornelia instead of Tarquinia, is so far +from abetting Peretti's murder and countenancing her daughter's shame, +that she acts the _role_ of a domestic Cassandra. Flaminio and not +Marcello is made the main instrument of Vittoria's crime and +elevation. The Cardinal Montalto is called Monticelso, and his papal +title is Paul IV. instead of Sixtus V. These are details of +comparative indifference, in which a playwright may fairly use his +liberty of art. On the other hand, Webster shows a curious knowledge +of the picturesque circumstances of the tale. The garden in which +Vittoria meets Bracciano is the villa of Magnanapoli; Zanche, the +Moorish slave, combines Vittoria's waiting-woman, Caterina, and the +Greek sorceress who so mysteriously dogged Marcello's footsteps to the +death. The suspicion of Bracciano's murder is used to introduce a +quaint episode of Italian poisoning. + +Webster exercised the dramatist's privilege of connecting various +threads of action in one plot, disregarding chronology, and hazarding +an ethical solution of motives which mere fidelity to fact hardly +warrants. He shows us Vittoria married to Camillo, a low-born and +witless fool, whose only merit consists in being nephew to the +Cardinal Monticelso, afterwards Pope Paul IV.[9] Paulo Giordano +Ursini, Duke of Brachiano, loves Vittoria, and she suggests to him +that, for the furtherance of their amours, his wife, the Duchess +Isabella, sister to Francesco de' Medici, Grand Duke of Florence, +should be murdered at the same time as her own husband, Camillo. +Brachiano is struck by this plan, and with the help of Vittoria's +brother, Flamineo, he puts it at once into execution. Flamineo hires a +doctor who poisons Brachiano's portrait, so that Isabella dies after +kissing it. He also with his own hands twists Camillo's neck during a +vaulting-match, making it appear that he came by his death +accidentally. Suspicion of the murder attaches, however, to Vittoria. +She is tried for her life before Monticelso and De' Medici; acquitted, +and relegated to a house of Convertites or female reformatory. +Brachiano, on the accession of Monticelso to the Papal throne, +resolves to leave Rome with Vittoria. They escape, together with her +mother Cornelia, and her brothers Flamineo and Marcello, to Padua; and +it is here that the last scenes of the tragedy are laid. + +The use Webster made of Lodovico Orsini deserves particular attention. +He introduces this personage in the very first scene as a spendthrift, +who, having run through his fortune, has been outlawed. Count +Lodovico, as he is always called, has no relationship with the Orsini, +but is attached to the service of Francesco de' Medici, and is an old +lover of the Duchess Isabella. When, therefore, the Grand Duke +meditates vengeance on Brachiano, he finds a fitting instrument in the +desperate Lodovico. Together, in disguise, they repair to Padua. +Lodovico poisons the Duke of Brachiano's helmet, and has the +satisfaction of ending his last struggles by the halter. Afterwards, +with companions, habited as a masquer, he enters Vittoria's palace and +puts her to death together with her brother Flamineo. Just when the +deed of vengeance has been completed, young Giovanni Orsini, heir of +Brachiano, enters and orders the summary execution of Lodovico for +this deed of violence. Webster's invention in this plot is confined to +the fantastic incidents attending on the deaths of Isabella, Camillo, +and Brachiano, and to the murder of Marcello by his brother Flamineo, +with the further consequence of Cornelia's madness and death. He has +heightened our interest in Isabella, at the expense of Brachiano's +character, by making her an innocent and loving wife instead of an +adulteress. He has ascribed different motives from the real ones to +Lodovico in order to bring this personage into rank with the chief +actors, though this has been achieved with only moderate success. +Vittoria is abandoned to the darkest interpretation. She is a woman +who rises to eminence by crime, as an unfaithful wife, the murderess +of her husband, and an impudent defier of justice. Her brother, +Flamineo, becomes under Webster's treatment one of those worst human +infamies--a court dependent; ruffian, buffoon, pimp, murderer by +turns. Furthermore, and without any adequate object beyond that of +completing this study of a type he loved, Webster makes him murder his +own brother Marcello by treason. The part assigned to Marcello, it +should be said, is a genial and happy one; and Cornelia, the mother of +the Accoramboni, is a dignified character, pathetic in her suffering. +Webster, it may be added, treats the Cardinal Monticelso as allied in +some special way to the Medici. Yet certain traits in his character, +especially his avoidance of bloodshed and the tameness of his temper +after Camillo has been murdered, seem to have been studied from the +historical Sixtus. + +III + +The character of the 'White Devil, or Vittoria Corombona,' is perhaps +the most masterly creation of Webster's genius. Though her history is +a true one in its leading incidents, the poet, while portraying a real +personage, has conceived an original individuality. It is impossible +to know for certain how far the actual Vittoria was guilty of her +first husband's murder. Her personality fails to detach itself from +the romance of her biography by any salient qualities. But Webster, +with true playwright's instinct, casts aside historical doubts, and +delineates in his heroine a woman of a very marked and terrible +nature. Hard as adamant, uncompromising, ruthless, Vittoria follows +ambition as the loadstar of her life. It is the ambition to reign as +Duchess, far more than any passion for a paramour, which makes her +plot Camillo's and Isabella's murders, and throws her before marriage +into Brachiano's arms. Added to this ambition, she is possessed with +the cold demon of her own imperial and victorious beauty. She has the +courage of her criminality in the fullest sense; and much of the +fascination with which Webster has invested her, depends upon her +dreadful daring. Her portrait is drawn with full and firm touches. +Although she appears but five times on the scene, she fills it from +the first line of the drama to the last. Each appearance adds +effectively to the total impression. We see her first during a +criminal interview with Brachiano, contrived by her brother Flamineo. +The plot of the tragedy is developed in this scene; Vittoria +suggesting, under the metaphor of a dream, that her lover should +compass the deaths of his duchess and her husband. The dream is told +with deadly energy and ghastly picturesqueness. The cruel sneer at its +conclusion, murmured by a voluptuous woman in the ears of an +impassioned paramour, chills us with the sense of concentrated vice. +Her next appearance is before the court, on trial for her husband's +murder. The scene is celebrated, and has been much disputed by +critics. Relying on her own dauntlessness, on her beauty, and on the +protection of Brachiano, Vittoria hardly takes the trouble to plead +innocence or to rebut charges. She stands defiant, arrogant, vigilant, +on guard; flinging the lie in the teeth of her arraigners; quick to +seize the slightest sign of feebleness in their attack; protesting her +guiltlessness so loudly that she shouts truth down by brazen strength +of lung; retiring at the close with taunts; blazing throughout with +the intolerable lustre of some baleful planet. When she enters for the +third time, it is to quarrel with her paramour. He has been stung to +jealousy by a feigned love-letter. She knows that she has given him no +cause; it is her game to lure him by fidelity to marriage. Therefore +she resolves to make his mistake the instrument of her exaltation. +Beginning with torrents of abuse, hurling reproaches at him for her +own dishonour and the murder of his wife, working herself by studied +degrees into a tempest of ungovernable rage, she flings herself upon +the bed, refuses his caresses, spurns and tramples on him, till she +has brought Brachiano, terrified, humbled, fascinated, to her feet. +Then she gradually relents beneath his passionate protestations and +repeated promises of marriage. At this point she speaks but little. +We only feel her melting humour in the air, and long to see the scene +played by such an actress as Madame Bernhardt. When Vittoria next +appears, it is as Duchess by the deathbed of the Duke, her husband. +Her attendance here is necessary, but it contributes little to the +development of her character. We have learned to know her, and expect +neither womanish tears nor signs of affection at a crisis which +touches her heart less than her self-love. Webster, among his other +excellent qualities, knew how to support character by reticence. +Vittoria's silence in this act is significant; and when she retires +exclaiming, 'O me! this place is hell!' we know that it is the outcry, +not of a woman who has lost what made life dear, but of one who sees +the fruits of crime imperilled by a fatal accident. The last scene of +the play is devoted to Vittoria. It begins with a notable altercation +between her and Flamineo. She calls him 'ruffian' and 'villain,' +refusing him the reward of his vile service. This quarrel emerges in +one of Webster's grotesque contrivances to prolong a poignant +situation. Flamineo quits the stage and reappears with pistols. He +affects a kind of madness; and after threatening Vittoria, who never +flinches, he proposes they should end their lives by suicide. She +humours him, but manages to get the first shot. Flamineo falls, +wounded apparently to death. Then Vittoria turns and tramples on him +with her feet and tongue, taunting him in his death agony with the +enumeration of his crimes. Her malice and her energy are equally +infernal. Soon, however, it appears that the whole device was but a +trick of Flamineo's to test his sister. The pistol was not loaded. He +now produces a pair which are properly charged, and proceeds in good +earnest to the assassination of Vittoria. But at this critical moment +Lodovico and his masquers appear; brother and sister both die +unrepentant, defiant to the end. Vittoria's customary pride and her +familiar sneers impress her speech in these last moments with a +trenchant truth to nature: + + _You_ my death's-man! + Methinks thou dost not look horrid enough, + Thou hast too good a face to be a hangman: + If thou be, do thy office in right form; + Fall down upon thy knees, and ask forgiveness! + + * * * * * + + I will be waited on in death; my servant + Shall never go before me. + + * * * * * + + Yes, I shall welcome death + As princes do some great ambassadors: + I'll meet thy weapon half-way. + + * * * * * + + 'Twas a manly blow! + The next thou giv'st, murder some sucking infant; + And then thou wilt be famous. + +So firmly has Webster wrought the character of this white devil, that +we seem to see her before us as in a picture. 'Beautiful as the +leprosy, dazzling as the lightning,' to use a phrase of her +enthusiastic admirer Hazlitt, she takes her station like a lady in +some portrait by Paris Bordone, with gleaming golden hair twisted into +snakelike braids about her temples, with skin white as cream, bright +cheeks, dark dauntless eyes, and on her bosom, where it has been +chafed by jewelled chains, a flush of rose. She is luxurious, but not +so abandoned to the pleasures of the sense as to forget the purpose of +her will and brain. Crime and peril add zest to her enjoyment. When +arraigned in open court before the judgment-seat of deadly and +unscrupulous foes, she conceals the consciousness of guilt, and stands +erect, with fierce front, unabashed, relying on the splendour of her +irresistible beauty and the subtlety of her piercing wit. Chafing with +rage, the blood mounts and adds a lustre to her cheek. It is no flush +of modesty, but of rebellious indignation. The Cardinal, who hates +her, brands her emotion with the name of shame. She rebukes him, +hurling a jibe at his own mother. And when they point with spiteful +eagerness to the jewels blazing on her breast, to the silks and satins +that she rustles in, her husband lying murdered, she retorts: + + Had I foreknown his death, as you suggest, I would have + bespoke my mourning. + +She is condemned, but not vanquished, and leaves the court with a +stinging sarcasm. They send her to a house of Convertites: + + _V.C_. A house of Convertites! what's that? + + _M_. A house of penitent whores. + + _V.C_. Do the noblemen of Rome Erect it for their wives, + that I am sent To lodge there? + +Charles Lamb was certainly in error? when he described Vittoria's +attitude as one of 'innocence-resembling boldness.' In the trial +scene, no less than in the scenes of altercation with Brachiano and +Flamineo, Webster clearly intended her to pass for a magnificent +vixen, a beautiful and queenly termagant. Her boldness is the audacity +of impudence, which does not condescend to entertain the thought of +guilt. Her egotism is so hard and so profound that the very victims +whom she sacrifices to ambition seem in her sight justly punished. Of +Camillo and Isabella, her husband and his wife, she says to Brachiano: + + And both were struck dead by that sacred yew, In that base + shallow grave that was their due. + +IV + +It is tempting to pass from this analysis of Vittoria's life to a +consideration of Webster's drama as a whole, especially in a book +dedicated to Italian byways. For that mysterious man of genius had +explored the dark and devious paths of Renaissance vice, and had +penetrated the secrets of Italian wickedness with truly appalling +lucidity. His tragedies, though worthless as historical documents, +have singular value as commentaries upon history, as revelations to us +of the spirit of the sixteenth century in its deepest gloom. + +Webster's plays, owing to the condensation of their thought and the +compression of their style, are not easy to read for the first time. +He crowds so many fantastic incidents into one action, and burdens his +discourse with so much profoundly studied matter, that we rise from +the perusal of his works with a blurred impression of the fables, a +deep sense of the poet's power and personality, and an ineffaceable +recollection of one or two resplendent scenes. His Roman history-play +of 'Appius and Virginia' proves that he understood the value of a +simple plot, and that he was able, when he chose, to work one out with +conscientious calmness. But the two Italian dramas upon which his fame +is justly founded, by right of which he stands alone among the +playwrights of all literatures, are marked by a peculiar and wayward +mannerism. Each part is etched with equal effort after luminous effect +upon a back-ground of lurid darkness; and the whole play is made up +of these parts, without due concentration on a master-motive. The +characters are definite in outline, but, taken together in the conduct +of a single plot, they seem to stand apart, like figures in a _tableau +vivant_; nor do they act and react each upon the other in the play of +interpenetrative passions. That this mannerism was deliberately +chosen, we have a right to believe. 'Willingly, and not ignorantly, in +this kind have I faulted,' is the answer Webster gives to such as may +object that he has not constructed his plays upon the classic model. +He seems to have had a certain sombre richness of tone and intricacy +of design in view, combining sensational effect and sententious +pregnancy of diction in works of laboured art, which, when adequately +represented to the ear and eye upon the stage, might at a touch obtain +the animation they now lack for chamber-students. + +When familiarity has brought us acquainted with his style, when we +have disentangled the main characters and circumstances from their +adjuncts, we perceive that he treats poignant and tremendous +situations with a concentrated vigour special to his genius; that he +has studied each word and trait of character, and that he has prepared +by gradual approaches and degrees of horror for the culmination of his +tragedies. The sentences which seem at first sight copied from a +commonplace book, are found to be appropriate. Brief lightning flashes +of acute perception illuminate the midnight darkness of his all but +unimaginably depraved characters. Sharp unexpected touches evoke +humanity in the _fantoccini_ of his wayward art. No dramatist has +shown more consummate ability in heightening terrific effects, in +laying bare the innermost mysteries of crime, remorse, and pain, +combined to make men miserable. It has been said of Webster that, +feeling himself deficient in the first poetic qualities, he +concentrated his powers upon one point, and achieved success by sheer +force of self-cultivation. There is perhaps some truth in this. At any +rate, his genius was of a narrow and peculiar order, and he knew well +how to make the most of its limitations. Yet we must not forget that +he felt a natural bias toward the dreadful stuff with which he deals. +The mystery of iniquity had an irresistible attraction for his mind. +He was drawn to comprehend and reproduce abnormal elements of +spiritual anguish. The materials with which he builds his tragedies +are sought for in the ruined places of lost souls, in the agonies of +madness and despair, in the sarcasms of criminal and reckless atheism, +in slow tortures, griefs beyond endurance, the tempests of remorseful +death, the spasms of fratricidal bloodshed. He is often melodramatic +in the means employed to bring these psychological conditions home to +us. He makes too free use of poisoned engines, daggers, pistols, +disguised murderers, and so forth. Yet his firm grasp upon the +essential qualities of diseased and guilty human nature saves him, +even at his wildest, from the unrealities and extravagances into which +less potent artists of the _drame sanglant_--Marston, for +example--blundered. + +With Webster, the tendency to brood on horrors was no result of +calculation. It belonged to his idiosyncrasy. He seems to have been +suckled from birth at the breast of that _Mater Tenebrarum_, our Lady +of Darkness, whom De Quincey in one of his 'Suspiria de Profundis' +describes among the Semnai Theai, the august goddesses, the mysterious +foster-nurses of suffering humanity. He cannot say the simplest thing +without giving it a ghastly or sinister turn. If one of his characters +draws a metaphor from pie-crust, he must needs use language of the +churchyard: + + You speak as if a man + Should know what fowl is coffined in a baked meat + Afore you cut it open. + +Hideous similes are heaped together in illustration of the commonest +circumstances: + + Places at court are but like beds in the hospital, where + this man's head lies at that man's foot, and so lower and + lower. + + When knaves come to preferment, they rise as gallowses are + raised in the Low Countries, one upon another's shoulders. + + I would sooner eat a dead pigeon taken from the soles of the + feet of one sick of the plague than kiss one of you fasting. + +A soldier is twitted with serving his master: + + As witches do their serviceable spirits, + Even with thy prodigal blood. + +An adulterous couple get this curse: + + Like mistletoe on sear elms spent by weather, + Let him cleave to her, and both rot together. + +A bravo is asked: + + Dost thou imagine thou canst slide on blood, + And not be tainted with a shameful fall? + Or, like the black and melancholic yew-tree, + Dost think to root thyself in dead men's graves, + And yet to prosper? + +It is dangerous to extract philosophy of life from any dramatist. Yet +Webster so often returns to dark and doleful meditations, that we may +fairly class him among constitutional pessimists. Men, according to +the grimness of his melancholy, are: + + Only like dead walls or vaulted graves, + That, ruined, yield no echo. + O this gloomy world! + In what a shadow or deep pit of darkness + Doth womanish and fearful mankind live! + + * * * * * + + We are merely the stars' tennis-balls, struck and banded + Which way please them. + + * * * * * + + Pleasure of life! what is't? only the good hours of an ague. + +A Duchess is 'brought to mortification,' before her strangling by the +executioner, in this high fantastical oration: + + Thou art a box of worm-seed, at best but a salvatory of + green mummy. What's this flesh? A little crudded milk, + fantastical puff-paste, &c. &c. + +Man's life in its totality is summed up with monastic cynicism in +these lyric verses: + + Of what is't fools make such vain keeping? + Sin their conception, their birth weeping, + Their life a general mist of error, + Their death a hideous storm of terror. + +The greatness of the world passes by with all its glory: + + Vain the ambition of kings, + Who seek by trophies and dead things + To leave a living name behind, + And weave but nets to catch the wind. + +It would be easy to surfeit criticism with similar examples; where +Webster is writing in sarcastic, meditative, or deliberately +terror-stirring moods. The same dark dye of his imagination shows +itself even more significantly in circumstances where, in the work of +any other artist, it would inevitably mar the harmony of the picture. +A lady, to select one instance, encourages her lover to embrace her at +the moment of his happiness. She cries: + + Sir, be confident! + What is't distracts you? This is flesh and blood, sir; + 'Tis not the figure cut in alabaster, + Kneels at my husband's tomb. + +Yet so sustained is Webster's symphony of sombre tints, that we do not +feel this sepulchral language, this 'talk fit for a charnel' (to use +one of his own phrases), to be out of keeping. It sounds like a +presentiment of coming woes, which, as the drama grows to its +conclusion, gather and darken on the wretched victims of his bloody +plot. + +It was with profound sagacity, or led by some deep-rooted instinct, +that Webster sought the fables of his two great tragedies, 'The White +Devil' and 'The Duchess of Malfi,' in Italian annals. Whether he had +visited Italy in his youth, we cannot say; for next to nothing is +known about Webster's life. But that he had gazed long and earnestly +into the mirror held up by that enchantress of the nations in his age, +is certain. Aghast and fascinated by the sins he saw there flaunting +in the light of day--sins on whose pernicious glamour Ascham, Greene, +and Howell have insisted with impressive vehemence--Webster discerned +in them the stuff he needed for philosophy and art. Withdrawing from +that contemplation, he was like a spirit 'loosed out of hell to speak +of horrors.' Deeper than any poet of the time, deeper than any even of +the Italians, he read the riddle of the sphinx of crime. He found +there something akin to his own imaginative mood, something which he +alone could fully comprehend and interpret. From the superficial +narratives of writers like Bandello he extracted a spiritual essence +which was, if not the literal, at least the ideal, truth involved in +them. + +The enormous and unnatural vices, the domestic crimes of cruelty, +adultery, and bloodshed, the political scheming and the subtle arts of +vengeance, the ecclesiastical tyranny and craft, the cynical +scepticism and lustre of luxurious godlessness, which made Italy in +the midst of her refinement blaze like 'a bright and ominous star' +before the nations; these were the very elements in which the genius +of Webster--salamander-like in flame--could live and flourish. Only +the incidents of Italian history, or of French history in its +Italianated epoch, were capable of supplying him with the proper type +of plot. It was in Italy alone, or in an Italianated country, such as +England for a brief space in the reign of the first Stuart threatened +to become, that the well-nigh diabolical wickedness of his characters +might have been realised. An audience familiar with Italian novels +through Belleforest and Painter, inflamed by the long struggle of the +Reformation against the scarlet abominations of the Papal See, +outraged in their moral sense by the political paradoxes of +Machiavelli, horror-stricken at the still recent misdoings of Borgias +and Medici and Farnesi, alarmed by that Italian policy which had +conceived the massacre of S. Bartholomew in France, and infuriated by +that ecclesiastical hypocrisy which triumphed in the same; such an +audience were at the right point of sympathy with a poet who undertook +to lay the springs of Southern villany before them bare in a dramatic +action. But, as the old proverb puts it, 'Inglese Italianato e un +diavolo incarnato.' 'An Englishman assuming the Italian habit is a +devil in the flesh.' The Italians were depraved, but spiritually +feeble. The English playwright, when he brought them on the stage, +arrayed with intellectual power and gleaming with the lurid splendour +of a Northern fancy, made them tenfold darker and more terrible. To +the subtlety and vices of the South he added the melancholy, +meditation, and sinister insanity of his own climate. He deepened the +complexion of crime and intensified lawlessness by robbing the Italian +character of levity. Sin, in his conception of that character, was +complicated with the sense of sin, as it never had been in a +Florentine or a Neapolitan. He had not grasped the meaning of the +Machiavellian conscience, in its cold serenity and disengagement from +the dread of moral consequence. Not only are his villains stealthy, +frigid, quick to evil, merciless, and void of honour; but they brood +upon their crimes and analyse their motives. In the midst of their +audacity they are dogged by dread of coming retribution. At the crisis +of their destiny they look back upon their better days with +intellectual remorse. In the execution of their bloodiest schemes they +groan beneath the chains of guilt they wear, and quake before the +phantoms of their haunted brains. + +Thus passion and reflection, superstition and profanity, deliberate +atrocity and fear of judgment, are united in the same nature; and to +make the complex still more strange, the play-wright has gifted these +tremendous personalities with his own wild humour and imaginative +irony. The result is almost monstrous, such an ideal of character as +makes earth hell. And yet it is not without justification. To the +Italian text has been added the Teutonic commentary, and both are +fused by a dramatic genius into one living whole. + +One of these men is Flamineo, the brother of Vittoria Corombona, upon +whose part the action of the 'White Devil' depends. He has been bred +in arts and letters at the university of Padua; but being poor and of +luxurious appetites, he chooses the path of crime in courts for his +advancement. A duke adopts him for his minion, and Flamineo acts the +pander to this great man's lust. He contrives the death of his +brother-in-law, suborns a doctor to poison the Duke's wife, and +arranges secret meetings between his sister and the paramour who is to +make her fortune and his own. His mother appears like a warning Ate to +prevent her daughter's crime. In his rage he cries: + + What fury raised _thee_ up? Away, away! + +And when she pleads the honour of their house he answers: + + Shall I, + Having a path so open and so free + To my preferment, still retain your milk + In my pale forehead? + +Later on, when it is necessary to remove another victim, he runs his +own brother through the body and drives his mother to madness. Yet, in +the midst of these crimes, we are unable to regard him as a simple +cut-throat. His irony and reckless courting of damnation open-eyed to +get his gust of life in this world, make him no common villain. He can +be brave as well as fierce. When the Duke insults him he bandies taunt +for taunt: + + _Brach_. No, you pander? + + _Flam_. What, me, my lord? + Am I your dog? + + _B_. A bloodhound; do you brave, do you stand me? + + _F_. Stand you! let those that have diseases run; + I need no plasters. + + _B_. Would you be kicked? + + _F_. Would you have your neck broke? + I tell you, duke, I am not in Russia; + My shins must be kept whole. + + _B_. Do you know me? + + _F_. Oh, my lord, methodically: + As in this world there are degrees of evils, + So in this world there are degrees of devils. + You're a great duke, I your poor secretary. + +When the Duke dies and his prey escapes him, the rage of +disappointment breaks into this fierce apostrophe: + + I cannot conjure; but if prayers or oaths. Will get the + speech of him, though forty devils Wait on him in his livery + of flames, I'll speak to him and shake him by the hand, + Though I be blasted. + +As crimes thicken round him, and he still despairs of the reward for +which he sold himself, conscience awakes: + + I have lived + Riotously ill, like some that live in court, + And sometimes when my face was full of smiles Have felt the + maze of conscience in my breast. + +The scholar's scepticism, which lies at the root of his perversity, +finds utterance in this meditation upon death: + + Whither shall I go now? O Lucian, thy ridiculous purgatory! + to find Alexander the Great cobbling shoes, Pompey tagging + points, and Julius Caesar making hair-buttons! + + Whether I resolve to fire, earth, water, air, or all the + elements by scruples, I know not, nor greatly care. + +At the last moment he yet can say: + + We cease to grieve, cease to be Fortune's slaves, Nay, cease + to die, by dying. + +And again, with the very yielding of his spirit: + + My life was a black charnel. + +It will be seen that in no sense does Flamineo resemble Iago. He is +not a traitor working by craft and calculating ability to +well-considered ends. He is the desperado frantically clutching at an +uncertain and impossible satisfaction. Webster conceives him as a +self-abandoned atheist, who, maddened by poverty and tainted by +vicious living, takes a fury to his heart, and, because the goodness +of the world has been for ever lost to him, recklessly seeks the bad. + +Bosola, in the 'Duchess of Malfi,' is of the same stamp. He too has +been a scholar. He is sent to the galleys 'for a notorious murder,' +and on his release he enters the service of two brothers, the Duke of +Calabria and the Cardinal of Aragon, who place him as their +intelligencer at the court of their sister. + + + _Bos_. It seems you would create me + One of your familiars. + + _Ferd_. Familiar! what's that? + + _Bos_. Why, a very quaint invisible devil in flesh, + An intelligencer. + + _Ferd_. Such a kind of thriving thing + I would wish thee; and ere long thou may'st arrive + At a higher place by it. + +Lured by hope of preferment, Bosola undertakes the office of spy, +tormentor, and at last of executioner. For: + + Discontent and want + Is the best clay to mould a villain of. + +But his true self, though subdued to be what he quaintly styles 'the +devil's quilted anvil,' on which 'all sins are fashioned and the blows +never heard,' continually rebels against this destiny. Compared with +Flamineo, he is less unnaturally criminal. His melancholy is more +fantastic, his despair more noble. Throughout the course of craft and +cruelty on which he is goaded by a relentless taskmaster, his nature, +hardened as it is, revolts. + +At the end, when Bosola presents the body of the murdered Duchess to +her brother, Webster has wrought a scene of tragic savagery that +surpasses almost any other that the English stage can show. The +sight, of his dead sister maddens Ferdinand, who, feeling the eclipse +of reason gradually absorb his faculties, turns round with frenzied +hatred on the accomplice of his fratricide. Bosola demands the price +of guilt. Ferdinand spurns him with the concentrated eloquence of +despair and the extravagance of approaching insanity. The murderer +taunts his master coldly and laconically, like a man whose life is +wrecked, who has waded through blood to his reward, and who at the +last moment discovers the sacrifice of his conscience and masculine +freedom to be fruitless. Remorse, frustrated hopes, and thirst for +vengeance convert Bosola from this hour forward into an instrument of +retribution. The Duke and his brother the Cardinal are both brought to +bloody deaths by the hand which they had used to assassinate their +sister. + +It is fitting that something should be said about Webster's conception +of the Italian despot. Brachiano and Ferdinand, the employers of +Flamineo and Bosola, are tyrants such as Savonarola described, and as +we read of in the chronicles of petty Southern cities. Nothing is +suffered to stand between their lust and its accomplishment. They +override the law by violence, or pervert its action to their own +advantage: + + The law to him + Is like a foul black cobweb to a spider; + He makes it his dwelling and a prison + To entangle those shall feed him. + +They are eaten up with parasites, accomplices, and all the creatures +of their crimes: + + He and his brother are like plum-trees that grow crooked + over standing pools; they are rich and over-laden with + fruit, but none but crows, pies, and caterpillars feed on + them. + +In their lives they are without a friend; for society in guilt brings +nought of comfort, and honours are but emptiness: + + Glories, like glow-worms, afar off shine bright; + But looked to near, have neither heat nor light. + +Their plots and counterplots drive repose far from them: + + There's but three furies found in spacious hell; + But in a great man's breast three thousand dwell. + +Fearful shapes afflict their fancy; shadows of ancestral crime or +ghosts of their own raising: + + For these many years + None of our family dies, but there is seen + The shape of an old woman; which is given + By tradition to us to have been murdered + By her nephews for her riches. + +Apparitions haunt them: + + How tedious is a guilty conscience! + When I look into the fish-ponds in my garden, + Methinks I see a thing armed with a rake + That seems to strike at me. + +Continually scheming against the objects of their avarice and hatred, +preparing poisons or suborning bravoes, they know that these same arts +will be employed against them. The wine-cup hides arsenic; the +headpiece is smeared with antimony; there is a dagger behind every +arras, and each shadow is a murderer's. When death comes, they meet it +trembling. What irony Webster has condensed in Brachiano's outcry: + + On pain of death, let no man name death to me; + It is a word infinitely horrible. + +And how solemn are the following reflections on the death of princes: + + O thou soft natural death, that art joint-twin + To sweetest slumber! no rough-bearded comet + Stares on thy mild departure; the dull owl + Beats not against thy casement, the hoarse wolf + Scents not thy carrion: pity winds thy corse, + Whilst horror waits on princes. + +After their death, this is their epitaph: + + These wretched eminent things + Leave no more fame behind'em than should one + Fall in a frost and leave his print in snow. + +Of Webster's despots, the finest in conception and the firmest in +execution is Ferdinand of Aragon. Jealousy of his sister and avarice +take possession of him and torment him like furies. The flash of +repentance over her strangled body is also the first flash of +insanity. He survives to present the spectacle of a crazed lunatic, +and to be run through the body by his paid assassin. In the Cardinal +of Aragon, Webster paints a profligate Churchman, no less voluptuous, +blood-guilty, and the rest of it, than his brother the Duke of +Calabria. It seems to have been the poet's purpose in each of his +Italian tragedies to unmask Rome as the Papal city really was. In the +lawless desperado, the intemperate tyrant, and the godless +ecclesiastic, he portrayed the three curses from which Italian society +was actually suffering. + +It has been needful to dwell upon the gloomy and fantastic side of +Webster's genius. But it must not be thought that he could touch no +finer chord. Indeed, it might be said that in the domain of pathos he +is even more powerful than in that of horror. His mastery in this +region is displayed in the creation of that dignified and beautiful +woman, the Duchess of Malfi, who, with nothing in her nature, had she +but lived prosperously, to divide her from the sisterhood of gentle +ladies, walks, shrined in love and purity and conscious rectitude, +amid the snares and pitfalls of her persecutors, to die at last the +victim of a brother's fevered avarice and a desperado's egotistical +ambition. The apparatus of infernal cruelty, the dead man's hand, the +semblances of murdered sons and husband, the masque of madmen, the +dirge and doleful emblems of the tomb with which she is environed in +her prison by the torturers who seek to goad her into lunacy, are +insufficient to disturb the tranquillity and tenderness of her nature. +When the rope is being fastened to her throat, she does not spend her +breath in recriminations, but turns to the waiting-woman and says: + + Farewell, Cariola! + I pray thee look thou givest my little boy + Some syrup for his cold, and let the girl + Say her prayers ere she sleep. + +In the preceding scenes we have had enough, nay, over-much, of +madness, despair, and wrestling with doom. This is the calm that comes +when death is present, when the tortured soul lays down its burden of +the flesh with gladness. But Webster has not spared another touch of +thrilling pathos. + +The death-struggle is over; the fratricide has rushed away, a maddened +man; the murderer is gazing with remorse upon the beautiful dead body +of his lady, wishing he had the world wherewith to buy her back to +life again; when suddenly she murmurs 'Mercy!' Our interest, already +overstrained, revives with momentary hope. But the guardians of the +grave will not be exorcised; and 'Mercy!' is the last groan of the +injured Duchess. + +Webster showed great skill in his delineation of the Duchess. He had +to paint a woman in a hazardous situation: a sovereign stooping in her +widowhood to wed a servant; a lady living with the mystery of this +unequal marriage round her like a veil. He dowered her with no salient +qualities of intellect or heart or will; but he sustained our sympathy +with her, and made us comprehend her. To the last she is a Duchess; +and when she has divested state and bowed her head to enter the low +gate of heaven--too low for coronets--her poet shows us, in the lines +already quoted, that the woman still survives. + +The same pathos surrounds the melancholy portrait of Isabella in +'Vittoria Corombona.' But Isabella, in that play, serves chiefly to +enhance the tyranny of her triumphant rival. The main difficulty under +which these scenes of rarest pathos would labour, were they brought +upon the stage, is their simplicity in contrast with the ghastly and +contorted horrors that envelop them. A dialogue abounding in the +passages I have already quoted--a dialogue which bandies 'O you +screech-owl!' and 'Thou foul black cloud!'--in which a sister's +admonition to her brother to think twice of suicide assumes a form so +weird as this: + + I prithee, yet remember, + Millions are now in graves, which at last day + Like mandrakes shall rise shrieking.-- + +such a dialogue could not be rendered save by actors strung up to a +pitch of almost frenzied tension. To do full justice to what in +Webster's style would be spasmodic were it not so weighty, and at the +same time to maintain the purity of outline and melodious rhythm of +such characters as Isabella, demands no common histrionic power. + +In attempting to define Webster's touch upon Italian tragic story, I +have been led perforce to concentrate attention on what is painful and +shocking to our sense of harmony in art. He was a vigorous and +profoundly imaginative playwright. But his most enthusiastic admirers +will hardly contend that good taste or moderation determined the +movement of his genius. Nor, though his insight into the essential +dreadfulness of Italian tragedy was so deep, is it possible to +maintain that his portraiture of Italian life was true to its more +superficial aspects. What place would there be for a Correggio or a +Raphael in such a world as Webster's? Yet we know that the art of +Raphael and Correggio is in exact harmony with the Italian temperament +of the same epoch which gave birth to Cesare Borgia and Bianca +Gapello. The comparatively slighter sketch of Iachimo in 'Cymbeline' +represents the Italian as he felt and lived, better than the laboured +portrait of Flamineo. Webster's Italian tragedies are consequently +true, not so much to the actual conditions of Italy, as to the moral +impression made by those conditions on a Northern imagination. + + * * * * * + + + + +_AUTUMN WANDERINGS_ + +I.--ITALIAM PETIMUS + + +_Italiam Petimus!_ We left our upland home before daybreak on a clear +October morning. There had been a hard frost, spangling the meadows +with rime-crystals, which twinkled where the sun's rays touched them. +Men and women were mowing the frozen grass with thin short Alpine +scythes; and as the swathes fell, they gave a crisp, an almost +tinkling sound. Down into the gorge, surnamed of Avalanche, our horses +plunged; and there we lost the sunshine till we reached the Bear's +Walk, opening upon the vales of Albula, and Julier, and Schyn. But up +above, shone morning light upon fresh snow, and steep torrent-cloven +slopes reddening with a hundred fading plants; now and then it caught +the grey-green icicles that hung from cliffs where summer streams had +dripped. There is no colour lovelier than the blue of an autumn sky in +the high Alps, defining ridges powdered with light snow, and melting +imperceptibly downward into the warm yellow of the larches and the +crimson of the bilberry. Wiesen was radiantly beautiful: those aerial +ranges of the hills that separate Albula from Julier soared +crystal-clear above their forests; and for a foreground, on the green +fields starred with lilac crocuses, careered a group of children on +their sledges. Then came the row of giant peaks--Pitz d'Aela, +Tinzenhorn, and Michelhorn, above the deep ravine of Albula--all seen +across wide undulating golden swards, close-shaven and awaiting +winter. Carnations hung from cottage windows in full bloom, casting +sharp angular black shadows on white walls. + +_Italiam petimus!_ We have climbed the valley of the Julier, following +its green, transparent torrent. A night has come and gone at Muehlen. +The stream still leads us up, diminishing in volume as we rise, up +through the fleecy mists that roll asunder for the sun, disclosing +far-off snowy ridges and blocks of granite mountains. The lifeless, +soundless waste of rock, where only thin winds whistle out of silence +and fade suddenly into still air, is passed. Then comes the descent, +with its forests of larch and cembra, golden and dark green upon a +ground of grey, and in front the serried shafts of the Bernina, and +here and there a glimpse of emerald lake at turnings of the road. +Autumn is the season for this landscape. Through the fading of +innumerable leaflets, the yellowing of larches, and something +vaporous in the low sun, it gains a colour not unlike that of the +lands we seek. By the side of the lake at Silvaplana the light was +strong and warm, but mellow. Pearly clouds hung over the Maloja, and +floating overhead cast shadows on the opaque water, which may +literally be compared to chrysoprase. The breadth of golden, brown, +and russet tints upon the valley at this moment adds softness to its +lines of level strength. Devotees of the Engadine contend that it +possesses an austere charm beyond the common beauty of Swiss +landscape; but this charm is only perfected in autumn. The fresh snow +on the heights that guard it helps. And then there are the forests of +dark pines upon those many knolls and undulating mountain-flanks +beside the lakes. Sitting and dreaming there in noonday sun, I kept +repeating to myself _Italiam petimus!_ + +A hurricane blew upward from the pass as we left Silvaplana, ruffling +the lake with gusts of the Italian wind. By Silz Maria we came in +sight of a dozen Italian workmen, arm linked in arm in two rows, +tramping in rhythmic stride, and singing as they went. Two of them +were such nobly built young men, that for a moment the beauty of the +landscape faded from my sight, and I was saddened. They moved to their +singing, like some of Mason's or Frederick Walker's figures, with the +free grace of living statues, and laughed as we drove by. And yet, +with all their beauty, industry, sobriety, intelligence, these +Italians of the northern valleys serve the sterner people of the +Grisons like negroes, doing their roughest work at scanty wages. + +So we came to the vast Alpine wall, and stood on a bare granite slab, +and looked over into Italy, as men might lean from the battlements of +a fortress. Behind lies the Alpine valley, grim, declining slowly +northward, with wind-lashed lakes and glaciers sprawling from +storm-broken pyramids of gneiss. Below spread the unfathomable depths +that lead to Lombardy, flooded with sunlight, filled with swirling +vapour, but never wholly hidden from our sight. For the blast kept +shifting the cloud-masses, and the sun streamed through in spears and +bands of sheeny rays. Over the parapet our horses dropped, down +through sable spruce and amber larch, down between tangles of rowan +and autumnal underwood. Ever as we sank, the mountains rose--those +sharp embattled precipices, toppling spires, impendent chasms blurred +with mist, that make the entrance into Italy sublime. Nowhere do the +Alps exhibit their full stature, their commanding puissance, with such +majesty as in the gates of Italy; and of all those gates I think there +is none to compare with Maloja, none certainly to rival it in +abruptness of initiation into the Italian secret. Below Vico Soprano +we pass already into the violets and blues of Titian's landscape. Then +come the purple boulders among chestnut trees; then the double +dolomite-like peak of Pitz Badin and Promontogno. + +It is sad that words can do even less than painting could to bring +this window-scene at Promontogno before another eye. The casement just +frames it. In the foreground are meadow slopes, thinly, capriciously +planted with chestnut trees and walnuts, each standing with its shadow +cast upon the sward. A little farther falls the torrent, foaming down +between black jaws of rain-stained granite, with the wooden buildings +of a rustic mill set on a ledge of rock. Suddenly above this landscape +soars the valley, clothing its steep sides on either hand with pines; +and there are emerald isles of pasture on the wooded flanks; and then +cliffs, where the red-stemmed larches glow; and at the summit, +shooting into ether with a swathe of mist around their basement, soar +the double peaks, the one a pyramid, the other a bold broken crystal +not unlike the Finsteraarhorn seen from Furka. These are connected by +a snowy saddle, and snow is lying on their inaccessible crags in +powdery drifts. Sunlight pours between them into the ravine. The green +and golden forests now join from either side, and now recede, +according as the sinuous valley brings their lines together or +disparts them. There is a sound of cow-bells on the meadows; and the +roar of the stream is dulled or quickened as the gusts of this October +wind sweep by or slacken. _Italiam petimus!_ + +_Tangimus Italiam!_ Chiavenna is a worthy key to this great gate +Italian. We walked at night in the open galleries of the cathedral +cloister--white, smoothly curving, well-proportioned loggie, enclosing +a green space, whence soars the campanile to the stars. The moon had +sunk, but her light still silvered the mountains that stand at watch +round Chiavenna; and the castle rock was flat and black against that +dreamy background. Jupiter, who walked so lately for us on the long +ridge of the Jacobshorn above our pines, had now an ample space of sky +over Lombardy to light his lamp in. Why is it, we asked each other, as +we smoked our pipes and strolled, my friend and I;--why is it that +Italian beauty does not leave the spirit so untroubled as an Alpine +scene? Why do we here desire the flower of some emergent feeling to +grow from the air, or from the soil, or from humanity to greet us? +This sense of want evoked by Southern beauty is perhaps the antique +mythopoeic yearning. But in our perplexed life it takes another form, +and seems the longing for emotion, ever fleeting, ever new, +unrealised, unreal, insatiable. + + +II.--OVER THE APENNINES + + + +At Parma we slept in the Albergo della Croce Bianca, which is more a +bric-a-brac shop than an inn; and slept but badly, for the good folk +of Parma twanged guitars and exercised their hoarse male voices all +night in the street below. We were glad when Christian called us, at 5 +A.M., for an early start across the Apennines. This was the day of a +right Roman journey. In thirteen and a half hours, leaving Parma at 6, +and arriving in Sarzana at 7.30, we flung ourselves across the spine +of Italy, from the plains of Eridanus to the seashore of Etruscan +Luna. I had secured a carriage and extra post-horses the night before; +therefore we found no obstacles upon the road, but eager drivers, +quick relays, obsequious postmasters, change, speed, perpetual +movement. The road itself is a noble one, and nobly entertained in all +things but accommodation for travellers. At Berceto, near the summit +of the pass, we stopped just half an hour, to lunch off a mouldy hen +and six eggs; but that was all the halt we made. + +As we drove out of Parma, striking across the plain to the _ghiara_ of +the Taro, the sun rose over the austere autumnal landscape, with its +withered vines and crimson haws. Christian, the mountaineer, who at +home had never seen the sun rise from a flat horizon, stooped from the +box to call attention to this daily recurring miracle, which on the +plain of Lombardy is no less wonderful than on a rolling sea. From the +village of Fornovo, where the Italian League was camped awaiting +Charles VIII. upon that memorable July morn in 1495, the road strikes +suddenly aside, gains a spur of the descending Apennines, and keeps +this vantage till the pass of La Cisa is reached. Many windings are +occasioned by thus adhering to aretes, but the total result is a +gradual ascent with free prospect over plain and mountain. The +Apennines, built up upon a smaller scale than the Alps, perplexed in +detail and entangled with cross sections and convergent systems, lend +themselves to this plan of carrying highroads along their ridges +instead of following the valley. + +What is beautiful in the landscape of that northern watershed is the +subtlety, delicacy, variety, and intricacy of the mountain outlines. +There is drawing wherever the eye falls. Each section of the vast +expanse is a picture of tossed crests and complicated undulations. And +over the whole sea of stationary billows, light is shed like an +ethereal raiment, with spare colour--blue and grey, and parsimonious +green--in the near foreground. The detail is somewhat dry and +monotonous; for these so finely moulded hills are made up of washed +earth, the immemorial wrecks of earlier mountain ranges. Brown +villages, not unlike those of Midland England, low houses built of +stone and tiled with stone, and square-towered churches, occur at rare +intervals in cultivated hollows, where there are fields and fruit +trees. Water is nowhere visible except in the wasteful river-beds. As +we rise, we break into a wilder country, forested with oak, where oxen +and goats are browsing. The turf is starred with lilac gentian and +crocus bells, but sparely. Then comes the highest village, Berceto, +with keen Alpine air. After that, broad rolling downs of yellowing +grass and russet beech-scrub lead onward to the pass La Cisa. The +sense of breadth in composition is continually satisfied through this +ascent by the fine-drawn lines, faint tints, and immense air-spaces of +Italian landscape. Each little piece reminds one of England; but the +geographical scale is enormously more grandiose, and the effect of +majesty proportionately greater. + +From La Cisa the road descends suddenly; for the southern escarpment +of the Apennine, as of the Alpine, barrier is pitched at a far steeper +angle than the northern. Yet there is no view of the sea. That is +excluded by the lower hills which hem the Magra. The upper valley is +beautiful, with verdant lawns and purple hillsides breaking down into +thick chestnut woods, through which we wound at a rapid pace for +nearly an hour. The leaves were still green, mellowing to golden; but +the fruit was ripe and heavy, ready at all points to fall. In the +still October air the husks above our heads would loosen, and the +brown nuts rustle through the foliage, and with a dull short thud, +like drops of thunder-rain, break down upon the sod. At the foot of +this rich forest, wedged in between huge buttresses, we found +Pontremoli, and changed our horses here for the last time. It was +Sunday, and the little town was alive with country-folk; tall stalwart +fellows wearing peacock's feathers in their black slouched hats, and +nut-brown maids. + +From this point the valley of the Magra is exceeding rich with fruit +trees, vines, and olives. The tendrils of the vine are yellow now, and +in some places hued like generous wine; through their thick leaves the +sun shot crimson. In one cool garden, as the day grew dusk, I noticed +quince trees laden with pale fruit entangled with pomegranates--green +spheres and ruddy amid burnished leaves. By the roadside too were many +berries of bright hues; the glowing red of haws and hips, the amber of +the pyracanthus, the rose tints of the spindle-wood. These make autumn +even lovelier than spring. And then there was a wood of chestnuts +carpeted with pale pinkling, a place to dream of in the twilight. But +the main motive of this landscape was the indescribable Carrara range, +an island of pure form and shooting peaks, solid marble, crystalline +in shape and texture, faintly blue against the blue sky, from which +they were but scarce divided. These mountains close the valley to +south-east, and seem as though they belonged to another and more +celestial region. + +Soon the sunlight was gone, and moonrise came to close the day, as we +rolled onward to Sarzana, through arundo donax and vine-girdled olive +trees and villages, where contadini lounged upon the bridges. There +was a stream of sound in our ears, and in my brain a rhythmic dance of +beauties caught through the long-drawn glorious golden autumn-day. + + +III.--FOSDINOVO + + +The hamlet and the castle of Fosdinovo stand upon a mountain-spur +above Sarzana, commanding the valley of the Magra and the plains of +Luni. This is an ancient fief of the Malaspina House, and is still in +the possession of the Marquis of that name. + +The road to Fosdinovo strikes across the level through an avenue of +plane trees, shedding their discoloured leaves. It then takes to the +open fields, bordered with tall reeds waving from the foss on either +hand, where grapes are hanging to the vines. The country-folk allow +their vines to climb into the olives, and these golden festoons are a +great ornament to the grey branches. The berries on the trees are +still quite green, and it is a good olive season. Leaving the main +road, we pass a villa of the Malaspini, shrouded in immense thickets +of sweet bay and ilex, forming a grove for the Nymphs or Pan. Here may +you see just such clean stems and lucid foliage as Gian Bellini +painted, inch by inch, in his Peter Martyr picture. The place is +neglected now; the semicircular seats of white Carrara marble are +stained with green mosses, the altars chipped, the fountains choked +with bay leaves; and the rose trees, escaped from what were once trim +garden alleys, have gone wandering a-riot into country hedges. There +is no demarcation between the great man's villa and the neighbouring +farms. From this point the path rises, and the barren hillside is +a-bloom with late-flowering myrtles. Why did the Greeks consecrate +these myrtle-rods to Death as well as Love? Electra complained that +her father's tomb had not received the honour of the myrtle branch; +and the Athenians wreathed their swords with myrtle in memory of +Harmodius. Thinking of these matters, I cannot but remember lines of +Greek, which have themselves the rectitude and elasticity of myrtle +wands: + +(Greek:) + + kai prospeson eklaus' eremias tuchon + spondas te lusas askon hon phero xenois + espeisa tumbo d'amphetheka mursinas. + +As we approach Fosdinovo, the hills above us gain sublimity; the +prospect over plain and sea--the fields where Luna was, the widening +bay of Spezzia--grows ever grander. The castle is a ruin, still +capable of partial habitation, and now undergoing repair--the state in +which a ruin looks most sordid and forlorn. How strange it is, too, +that, to enforce this sense of desolation, sad dishevelled weeds cling +ever to such antique masonry! Here are the henbane, the sow-thistle, +the wild cucumber. At Avignon, at Orvieto, at Dolce Acqua, at Les +Baux, we never missed them. And they have the dusty courtyards, the +massive portals, where portcullises still threaten, of Fosdinovo to +themselves. Over the gate, and here and there on corbels, are carved +the arms of Malaspina--a barren thorn-tree, gnarled with the +geometrical precision of heraldic irony. + +Leaning from the narrow windows of this castle, with the spacious view +to westward, I thought of Dante. For Dante in this castle was the +guest of Moroello Malaspina, what time he was yet finishing the +'Inferno.' There is a little old neglected garden, full to south, +enclosed upon a rampart which commands the Borgo, where we found frail +canker-roses and yellow amaryllis. Here, perhaps, he may have sat +with ladies--for this was the Marchesa's pleasaunce; or may have +watched through a short summer's night, until he saw that _tremolar +della marina_, portending dawn, which afterwards he painted in the +'Purgatory.' + +From Fosdinovo one can trace the Magra work its way out seaward, not +into the plain where once the _candentia moenia Lunae_ flashed sunrise +from their battlements, but close beside the little hills which back +the southern arm of the Spezzian gulf. At the extreme end of that +promontory, called Del Corvo, stood the Benedictine convent of S. +Croce; and it was here in 1309, if we may trust to tradition, that +Dante, before his projected journey into France, appeared and left the +first part of his poem with the Prior. Fra Ilario, such was the good +father's name, received commission to transmit the 'Inferno' to +Uguccione della Faggiuola; and he subsequently recorded the fact of +Dante's visit in a letter which, though its genuineness has been +called in question, is far too interesting to be left without +allusion. The writer says that on occasion of a journey into lands +beyond the Riviera, Dante visited this convent, appearing silent and +unknown among the monks. To the Prior's question what he wanted, he +gazed upon the brotherhood, and only answered, 'Peace!' Afterwards, in +private conversation, he communicated his name and spoke about his +poem. A portion of the 'Divine Comedy' composed in the Italian tongue +aroused Ilario's wonder, and led him to inquire why his guest had not +followed the usual course of learned poets by committing his thoughts +to Latin. Dante replied that he had first intended to write in that +language, and that he had gone so far as to begin the poem in +Virgilian hexameters. Reflection upon the altered conditions of +society in that age led him, however, to reconsider the matter; and he +was resolved to tune another lyre, 'suited to the sense of modern +men.' 'For,' said he, 'it is idle to set solid food before the lips +of sucklings.' + +If we can trust Fra Ilario's letter as a genuine record, which is +unhappily a matter of some doubt, we have in this narration not only a +picturesque, almost a melodramatically picturesque glimpse of the +poet's apparition to those quiet monks in their seagirt house of +peace, but also an interesting record of the destiny which presided +over the first great work of literary art in a distinctly modern +language. + + +IV.--LA SPEZZIA + + +While we were at Fosdinovo the sky filmed over, and there came a halo +round the sun. This portended change; and by evening, after we had +reached La Spezzia, earth, sea, and air were conscious of a coming +tempest. At night I went down to the shore, and paced the sea-wall +they have lately built along the Rada. The moon was up, but overdriven +with dry smoky clouds, now thickening to blackness over the whole bay, +now leaving intervals through which the light poured fitfully and +fretfully upon the wrinkled waves; and ever and anon they shuddered +with electric gleams which were not actual lightning. Heaven seemed to +be descending on the sea; one might have fancied that some powerful +charms were drawing down the moon with influence malign upon those +still resisting billows. For not as yet the gulf was troubled to its +depth, and not as yet the breakers dashed in foam against the +moonlight-smitten promontories. There was but an uneasy murmuring of +wave to wave; a whispering of wind, that stooped its wing and hissed +along the surface, and withdrew into the mystery of clouds again; a +momentary chafing of churned water round the harbour piers, subsiding +into silence petulant and sullen. I leaned against an iron stanchion +and longed for the sea's message. But nothing came to me, and the +drowned secret of Shelley's death those waves which were his grave +revealed not. + + Howler and scooper of storms! capricious and dainty sea! + +Meanwhile the incantation swelled in shrillness, the electric shudders +deepened. Alone in this elemental overture to tempest I took no note +of time, but felt, through self-abandonment to the symphonic +influence, how sea and air, and clouds akin to both, were dealing with +each other complainingly, and in compliance to some maker of unrest +within them. A touch upon my shoulder broke this trance; I turned and +saw a boy beside me in a coastguard's uniform. Francesco was on patrol +that night; but my English accent soon assured him that I was no +_contrabbandiere_, and he too leaned against the stanchion and told me +his short story. He was in his nineteenth year, and came from +Florence, where his people live in the Borgo Ognissanti. He had all +the brightness of the Tuscan folk, a sort of innocent malice mixed +with _espieglerie_. It was diverting to see the airs he gave himself +on the strength of his new military dignity, his gun, and uniform, and +night duty on the shore. I could not help humming to myself _Non piu +andrai_; for Francesco was a sort of Tuscan Cherubino. We talked about +picture galleries and libraries in Florence, and I had to hear his +favourite passages from the Italian poets. And then there came the +plots of Jules Verne's stories and marvellous narrations about _l' +uomo cavallo, l' uomo volante, l' uomo pesce_. The last of these +personages turned out to be Paolo Boynton (so pronounced), who had +swam the Arno in his diving dress, passing the several bridges, and +when he came to the great weir 'allora tutti stare con bocca aperta.' +Meanwhile the storm grew serious, and our conversation changed. +Francesco told me about the terrible sun-stricken sand shores of the +Riviera, burning in summer noon, over which the coast-guard has to +tramp, their perils from falling stones in storm, and the trains that +come rushing from those narrow tunnels on the midnight line of march. +It is a hard life; and the thirst for adventure which drove this +boy--'il piu matto di tutta la famiglia'--to adopt it, seems well-nigh +quenched. And still, with a return to Giulio Verne, he talked +enthusiastically of deserting, of getting on board a merchant ship, +and working his way to southern islands where wonders are. + +A furious blast swept the whole sky for a moment almost clear. The +moonlight fell, with racing cloud-shadows, upon sea and hills, the +lights of Lerici, the great _fanali_ at the entrance of the gulf, and +Francesco's upturned handsome face. Then all again was whirled in mist +and foam; one breaker smote the sea wall in a surge of froth, another +plunged upon its heels; with inconceivable swiftness came rain; +lightning deluged the expanse of surf, and showed the windy trees bent +landward by the squall. It was long past midnight now, and the storm +was on us for the space of three days. + + +V.--PORTO VENERE + + +For the next three days the wind went worrying on, and a line of surf +leapt on the sea-wall always to the same height. The hills all around +were inky black and weary. + +At night the wild libeccio still rose, with floods of rain and +lightning poured upon the waste. I thought of the Florentine patrol. +Is he out in it, and where? + +At last there came a lull. When we rose on the fourth morning, the +sky was sulky, spent and sleepy after storm--the air as soft and tepid +as boiled milk or steaming flannel. We drove along the shore to Porto +Venere, passing the arsenals and dockyards, which have changed the +face of Spezzia since Shelley knew it. This side of the gulf is not so +rich in vegetation as the other, probably because it lies open to the +winds from the Carrara mountains. The chestnuts come down to the shore +in many places, bringing with them the wild mountain-side. To make up +for this lack of luxuriance, the coast is furrowed with a succession +of tiny harbours, where the fishing-boats rest at anchor. There are +many villages upon the spurs of hills, and on the headlands naval +stations, hospitals, lazzaretti, and prisons. A prickly bindweed (the +_Smilax Sarsaparilla_) forms a feature in the near landscape, with its +creamy odoriferous blossoms, coral berries, and glossy thorned leaves. + +A turn of the road brought Porto Venere in sight, and on its grey +walls flashed a gleam of watery sunlight. The village consists of one +long narrow street, the houses on the left side hanging sheer above +the sea. Their doors at the back open on to cliffs which drop about +fifty feet upon the water. A line of ancient walls, with mediaeval +battlements and shells of chambers suspended midway between earth and +sky, runs up the rock behind the town; and this wall is pierced with a +deep gateway above which the inn is piled. We had our lunch in a room +opening upon the town-gate, adorned with a deep-cut Pisan arch +enclosing images and frescoes--a curious episode in a place devoted to +the jollity of smugglers and seafaring folk. The whole house was such +as Tintoretto loved to paint--huge wooden rafters; open chimneys with +pent-house canopies of stone, where the cauldrons hung above logs of +chestnut; rude low tables spread with coarse linen embroidered at the +edges, and laden with plates of fishes, fruit, quaint glass, +big-bellied jugs of earthenware, and flasks of yellow wine. The people +of the place were lounging round in lazy attitudes. There were odd +nooks and corners everywhere; unexpected staircases with windows +slanting through the thickness of the town-wall; pictures of saints; +high-zoned serving women, on whose broad shoulders lay big coral +beads; smoke-blackened roofs, and balconies that opened on the sea. +The house was inexhaustible in motives for pictures. + +We walked up the street, attended by a rabble rout of boys--_diavoli +scatenati_--clean, grinning, white-teethed, who kept incessantly +shouting, 'Soldo, soldo!' I do not know why these sea-urchins are so +far more irrepressible than their land brethren. But it is always thus +in Italy. They take an imperturbable delight in noise and mere +annoyance. I shall never forget the sea-roar of Porto Venere, with +that shrill obligate, 'Soldo, soldo, soldo!' rattling like a dropping +fire from lungs of brass. + +At the end of Porto Venere is a withered and abandoned city, climbing +the cliffs of S. Pietro; and on the headland stands the ruined church, +built by Pisans with alternate rows of white and black marble, upon +the site of an old temple of Venus. This is a modest and pure piece of +Gothic architecture, fair in desolation, refined and dignified, and +not unworthy in its grace of the dead Cyprian goddess. Through its +broken lancets the sea-wind whistles and the vast reaches of the +Tyrrhene gulf are seen. Samphire sprouts between the blocks of marble, +and in sheltered nooks the caper hangs her beautiful purpureal snowy +bloom. + +The headland is a bold block of white limestone stained with red. It +has the pitch of Exmoor stooping to the sea near Lynton. To north, as +one looks along the coast, the line is broken by Porto Fino's +amethystine promontory; and in the vaporous distance we could trace +the Riviera mountains, shadowy and blue. The sea came roaring, rolling +in with tawny breakers; but, far out, it sparkled in pure azure, and +the cloud-shadows over it were violet. Where Corsica should have been +seen, soared banks of fleecy, broad-domed alabaster clouds. + +This point, once dedicated to Venus, now to Peter--both, be it +remembered, fishers of men--is one of the most singular in Europe. The +island of Palmaria, rich in veined marbles, shelters the port; so that +outside the sea rages, while underneath the town, reached by a narrow +strait, there is a windless calm. It was not without reason that our +Lady of Beauty took this fair gulf to herself; and now that she has +long been dispossessed, her memory lingers yet in names. For Porto +Venere remembers her, and Lerici is only Eryx. There is a grotto here, +where an inscription tells us that Byron once 'tempted the Ligurian +waves.' It is just such a natural sea-cave as might have inspired +Euripides when he described the refuge of Orestes in 'Iphigenia.' + + +VI.--LERICI + + +Libeccio at last had swept the sky clear. The gulf was ridged with +foam-fleeced breakers, and the water churned into green, tawny wastes. +But overhead there flew the softest clouds, all silvery, dispersed in +flocks. It is the day for pilgrimage to what was Shelley's home. + +After following the shore a little way, the road to Lerici breaks into +the low hills which part La Spezzia from Sarzana. The soil is red, and +overgrown with arbutus and pinaster, like the country around Cannes. +Through the scattered trees it winds gently upwards, with frequent +views across the gulf, and then descends into a land rich with +olives--a genuine Riviera landscape, where the mountain-slopes are +hoary, and spikelets of innumerable light-flashing leaves twinkle +against a blue sea, misty-deep. The walls here are not unfrequently +adorned with basreliefs of Carrara marble--saints and madonnas very +delicately wrought, as though they were love-labours of sculptors who +had passed a summer on this shore. San Terenzio is soon discovered low +upon the sands to the right, nestling under little cliffs; and then +the high-built castle of Lerici comes in sight, looking across, the bay +to Porto Venere--one Aphrodite calling to the other, with the foam +between. The village is piled around its cove with tall and +picturesquely coloured houses; the molo and the fishing-boats lie just +beneath the castle. There is one point of the descending carriage road +where all this gracefulness is seen, framed by the boughs of olive +branches, swaying, wind-ruffled, laughing the many-twinkling smiles of +ocean back from their grey leaves. Here _Erycina ridens_ is at home. +And, as we stayed to dwell upon the beauty of the scene, came women +from the bay below--barefooted, straight as willow wands, with +burnished copper bowls upon their heads. These women have the port of +goddesses, deep-bosomed, with the length of thigh and springing ankles +that betoken strength no less than elasticity and grace. The hair of +some of them was golden, rippling in little curls around brown brows +and glowing eyes. Pale lilac blent with orange on their dress, and +coral beads hung from their ears. + +At Lerici we took a boat and pushed into the rolling breakers. +Christian now felt the movement of the sea for the first time. This +was rather a rude trial, for the grey-maned monsters played, as it +seemed, at will with our cockle-shell, tumbling in dolphin curves to +reach the shore. Our boatmen knew all about Shelley and the Casa +Magni. It is not at Lerici, but close to San Terenzio, upon the south +side of the village. Looking across the bay from the molo, one could +clearly see its square white mass, tiled roof, and terrace built on +rude arcades with a broad orange awning. Trelawny's description hardly +prepares one for so considerable a place. I think the English exiles +of that period must have been exacting if the Casa Magni seemed to +them no better than a bathing-house. + +We left our boat at the jetty, and walked through some gardens to the +villa. There we were kindly entertained by the present occupiers, +who, when I asked them whether such visits as ours were not a great +annoyance, gently but feelingly replied: 'It is not so bad now as it +used to be.' The English gentleman who rents the Casa Magni has known +it uninterruptedly since Shelley's death, and has used it for +_villeggiatura_ during the last thirty years. We found him in the +central sitting-room, which readers of Trelawny's 'Recollections' have +so often pictured to themselves. The large oval table, the settees +round the walls, and some of the pictures are still unchanged. As we +sat talking, I laughed to think of that luncheon party, when Shelley +lost his clothes, and came naked, dripping with sea-water, into the +room, protected by the skirts of the sympathising waiting-maid. And +then I wondered where they found him on the night when he stood +screaming in his sleep, after the vision of his veiled self, with its +question, '_Siete soddisfatto_?' + +There were great ilexes behind the house in Shelley's time, which have +been cut down, and near these he is said to have sat and written the +'Triumph of Life.' Some new houses, too, have been built between the +villa and the town; otherwise the place is unaltered. Only an awning +has been added to protect the terrace from the sun. I walked out on +this terrace, where Shelley used to listen to Jane's singing. The sea +was fretting at its base, just as Mrs. Shelley says it did when the +Don Juan disappeared. + +From San Terenzio we walked back to Lerici through olive woods, +attended by a memory which toned the almost overpowering beauty of the +place to sadness. + + +VII.--VIAREGGIO + + +The same memory drew us, a few days later, to the spot where +Shelley's body was burned. Viareggio is fast becoming a fashionable +watering-place for the people of Florence and Lucca, who seek fresher +air and simpler living than Livorno offers. It has the usual new inns +and improvised lodging-houses of such places, built on the outskirts +of a little fishing village, with a boundless stretch of noble sands. +There is a wooden pier on which we walked, watching the long roll of +waves, foam-flaked, and quivering with moonlight. The Apennines faded +into the grey sky beyond, and the sea-wind was good to breathe. There +is a feeling of 'immensity, liberty, action' here, which is not common +in Italy. It reminds us of England; and to-night the Mediterranean had +the rough force of a tidal sea. + +Morning revealed beauty enough in Viareggio to surprise even one who +expects from Italy all forms of loveliness. The sand-dunes stretch for +miles between the sea and a low wood of stone pines, with the Carrara +hills descending from their glittering pinnacles by long lines to the +headlands of the Spezzian Gulf. The immeasurable distance was all +painted in sky-blue and amethyst; then came the golden green of the +dwarf firs; and then dry yellow in the grasses of the dunes; and then +the many-tinted sea, with surf tossed up against the furthest cliffs. +It is a wonderful and tragic view, to which no painter but the Roman +Costa has done justice; and he, it may be said, has made this +landscape of the Carrarese his own. The space between sand and +pine-wood was covered with faint, yellow, evening primroses. They +flickered like little harmless flames in sun and shadow, and the +spires of the Carrara range were giant flames transformed to marble. +The memory of that day described by Trelawny in a passage of immortal +English prose, when he and Byron and Leigh Hunt stood beside the +funeral pyre, and libations were poured, and the 'Cor Cordium' was +found inviolate among the ashes, turned all my thoughts to flame +beneath the gentle autumn sky. + +Still haunted by these memories, we took the carriage road to Pisa, +over which Shelley's friends had hurried to and fro through those last +days. It passes an immense forest of stone-pines--aisles and avenues; +undergrowth of ilex, laurustinus, gorse, and myrtle; the crowded +cyclamens, the solemn silence of the trees; the winds hushed in their +velvet roof and stationary domes of verdure. + + * * * * * + + + + +_PARMA_ + + +Parma is perhaps the brightest _Residenzstadt_ of the second class in +Italy. Built on a sunny and fertile tract of the Lombard plain, within +view of the Alps, and close beneath the shelter of the Apennines, it +shines like a well-set gem with stately towers and cheerful squares in +the midst of verdure. The cities of Lombardy are all like large +country houses: walking out of their gates, you seem to be stepping +from a door or window that opens on a trim and beautiful garden, where +mulberry-tree is married to mulberry by festoons of vines, and where +the maize and sunflower stand together in rows between patches of flax +and hemp. But it is not in order to survey the union of well-ordered +husbandry with the civilities of ancient city-life that we break the +journey at Parma between Milan and Bologna. We are attracted rather by +the fame of one great painter, whose work, though it may be studied +piecemeal in many galleries of Europe, in Parma has a fulness, +largeness, and mastery that can nowhere else be found. In Parma alone +Correggio challenges comparison with Raphael, with Tintoret, with all +the supreme decorative painters who have deigned to make their art the +handmaid of architecture. Yet even in the cathedral and the church of +S. Giovanni, where Correggio's frescoes cover cupola and chapel wall, +we could scarcely comprehend his greatness now--so cruelly have time +and neglect dealt with those delicate dream-shadows of celestial +fairyland--were it not for an interpreter, who consecrated a lifetime +to the task of translating his master's poetry of fresco into the +prose of engraving. That man was Paolo Toschi--a name to be ever +venerated by all lovers of the arts; since without his guidance we +should hardly know what to seek for in the ruined splendours of the +domes of Parma, or even seeking, how to find the object of our search. +Toschi's labour was more effectual than that of a restorer however +skilful, more loving than that of a follower however faithful. He +respected Correggio's handiwork with religious scrupulousness, adding +not a line or tone or touch of colour to the fading frescoes; but he +lived among them, aloft on scaffoldings, and face to face with the +originals which he designed to reproduce. By long and close +familiarity, by obstinate and patient interrogation, he divined +Correggio's secret, and was able at last to see clearly through the +mist of cobweb and mildew and altar smoke, and through the still more +cruel travesty of so-called restoration. What he discovered, he +faithfully committed first to paper in water colours, and then to +copperplate with the burin, so that we enjoy the privilege of seeing +Correggio's masterpieces as Toschi saw them, with the eyes of genius +and of love and of long scientific study. It is not too much to say +that some of Correggio's most charming compositions--for example, the +dispute of S. Augustine and S. John--have been resuscitated from the +grave by Toschi's skill. The original offers nothing but a mouldering +surface from which the painter's work has dropped in scales. The +engraving presents a design which we doubt not was Correggio's, for it +corresponds in all particulars to the style and spirit of the master. +To be critical in dealing with so successful an achievement of +restoration and translation is difficult. Yet it may be admitted once +and for all that Toschi has not unfrequently enfeebled his original. +Under his touch Correggio loses somewhat of his sensuous audacity, his +dithyrambic ecstasy, and approaches the ordinary standard of +prettiness and graceful beauty. The Diana of the Camera di S. Paolo, +for instance, has the strong calm splendour of a goddess: the same +Diana in Toschi's engraving seems about to smile with girlish joy. In +a word, the engraver was a man of a more common stamp--more timid and +more conventional than the painter. But this is after all a trifling +deduction from the value of his work. + +Our debt to Paolo Toschi is such that it would be ungrateful not to +seek some details of his life. The few that can be gathered even at +Parma are brief and bald enough. The newspaper articles and funeral +panegyrics which refer to him are as barren as all such occasional +notices in Italy have always been; the panegyrist seeming more anxious +about his own style than eager to communicate information. Yet a bare +outline of Toschi's biography may be supplied. He was born at Parma in +1788. His father was cashier of the post-office, and his mother's name +was Anna Maria Brest. Early in his youth he studied painting at Parma +under Biagio Martini; and in 1809 he went to Paris, where he learned +the art of engraving from Bervic and of etching from Oortman. In Paris +he contracted an intimate friendship with the painter Gerard. But +after ten years he returned to Parma, where he established a company +and school of engravers in concert with his friend Antonio Isac. Maria +Louisa, the then Duchess, under whose patronage the arts flourished at +Parma (witness Bodoni's exquisite typography), soon recognised his +merit, and appointed him Director of the Ducal Academy. He then formed +the project of engraving a series of the whole of Correggio's +frescoes. The undertaking was a vast one. Both the cupolas of S. John +and the cathedral, together with the vault of the apse of S. +Giovanni[10] and various portions of the side aisles, and the +so-called Camera di S. Paolo, are covered by frescoes of Correggio and +his pupil Parmegiano. These frescoes have suffered so much from +neglect and time, and from unintelligent restoration, that it is +difficult in many cases to determine their true character. Yet Toschi +did not content himself with selections, or shrink from the task of +deciphering and engraving the whole. He formed a school of disciples, +among whom were Carlo Raimondi of Milan, Antonio Costa of Venice, +Edward Eichens of Berlin, Aloisio Juvara of Naples, Antonio Dalco, +Giuseppe Magnani, and Lodovico Bisola of Parma, and employed them as +assistants in his work. Death overtook him in 1854, before it was +finished, and now the water-colour drawings which are exhibited in the +Gallery of Parma prove to what extent the achievement fell short of +his design. Enough, however, was accomplished to place the chief +masterpieces of Correggio beyond the possibility of utter oblivion. + +To the piety of his pupil Carlo Raimondi, the bearer of a name +illustrious in the annals of engraving, we owe a striking portrait of +Toschi. The master is represented on his seat upon the scaffold in the +dizzy half-light of the dome. The shadowy forms of saints and angels +are around him. He has raised his eyes from his cartoon to study one +of these. In his right hand is the opera-glass with which he +scrutinises the details of distant groups. The upturned face, with its +expression of contemplative intelligence, is like that of an +astronomer accustomed to commerce with things above the sphere of +common life, and ready to give account of all that he has gathered +from his observation of a world not ours. In truth the world created +by Correggio and interpreted by Toschi is very far removed from that +of actual existence. No painter has infused a more distinct +individuality into his work, realising by imaginative force and +powerful projection an order of beauty peculiar to himself, before +which it is impossible to remain quite indifferent. We must either +admire the manner of Correggio, or else shrink from it with the +distaste which sensual art is apt to stir in natures of a severe or +simple type. + +What, then, is the Correggiosity of Correggio? In other words, what is +the characteristic which, proceeding from the personality of the +artist, is impressed on all his work? The answer to this question, +though by no means simple, may perhaps be won by a process of gradual +analysis. The first thing that strikes us in the art of Correggio is, +that he has aimed at the realistic representation of pure unrealities. +His saints and angels are beings the like of whom we have hardly seen +upon the earth. Yet they are displayed before us with all the movement +and the vivid truth of nature. Next we feel that what constitutes the +superhuman, visionary quality of these creatures, is their uniform +beauty of a merely sensuous type. They are all created for pleasure, +not for thought or passion or activity or heroism. The uses of their +brains, their limbs, their every feature, end in enjoyment; innocent +and radiant wantonness is the condition of their whole existence. +Correggio conceived the universe under the one mood of sensuous joy: +his world was bathed in luxurious light; its inhabitants were capable +of little beyond a soft voluptuousness. Over the domain of tragedy he +had no sway, and very rarely did he attempt to enter on it: nothing, +for example, can be feebler than his endeavour to express anguish in +the distorted features of Madonna, S. John, and the Magdalen, who are +bending over the dead body of a Christ extended in the attitude of +languid repose. In like manner he could not deal with subjects which +demand a pregnancy of intellectual meaning. He paints the three Fates +like young and joyous Bacchantes, places rose-garlands and +thyrsi in their hands instead of the distaff and the thread of human +destinies, and they might figure appropriately upon the panels of a +banquet-chamber in Pompeii. In this respect Correggio might be termed +the Rossini of painting. The melodies of the 'Stabat Mater'--_Fac ut +portem_ or _Quis est homo_--are the exact analogues in music of +Correggio's voluptuous renderings of grave or mysterious motives. Nor, +again, did he possess that severe and lofty art of composition which +subordinates the fancy to the reason, and which seeks for the highest +intellectual beauty in a kind of architectural harmony supreme above +the melodies of gracefulness in detail. The Florentines and those who +shared their spirit--Michelangelo and Lionardo and Raphael--deriving +this principle of design from the geometrical art of the Middle Ages, +converted it to the noblest uses in their vast well-ordered +compositions. But Correggio ignored the laws of scientific +construction. It was enough for him to produce a splendid and +brilliant effect by the life and movement of his figures, and by the +intoxicating beauty of his forms. His type of beauty, too, is by no +means elevated. Lionardo painted souls whereof the features and the +limbs are but an index. The charm of Michelangelo's ideal is like a +flower upon a tree of rugged strength. Raphael aims at the loveliness +which cannot be disjoined from goodness. But Correggio is contented +with bodies 'delicate and desirable.' His angels are genii +disimprisoned from the perfumed chalices of flowers, houris of an +erotic paradise, elemental spirits of nature wantoning in Eden in her +prime. To accuse the painter of conscious immorality or of what is +stigmatised as sensuality, would be as ridiculous as to class his +seraphic beings among the products of the Christian imagination. They +belong to the generation of the fauns; like fauns, they combine a +certain savage wildness, a dithyrambic ecstasy of inspiration, a +delight in rapid movement as they revel amid clouds or flowers, with +the permanent and all-pervading sweetness of the master's style. When +infantine or childlike, these celestial sylphs are scarcely to be +distinguished for any noble quality of beauty from Murillo's cherubs, +and are far less divine than the choir of children who attend Madonna +in Titian's 'Assumption.' But in their boyhood and their prime of +youth, they acquire a fulness of sensuous vitality and a radiance that +are peculiar to Correggio. The lily-bearer who helps to support S. +Thomas beneath the dome of the cathedral at Parma, the groups of +seraphs who crowd behind the Incoronata of S. Giovanni, and the two +wild-eyed open-mouthed S. Johns stationed at each side of the +celestial throne, are among the most splendid instances of the +adolescent loveliness conceived by Correggio. Where the painter found +their models may be questioned but not answered; for he has made them +of a different fashion from the race of mortals: no court of Roman +emperor or Turkish sultan, though stocked with the flowers of +Bithynian and Circassian youth, have seen their like. Mozart's +Cherubino seems to have sat for all of them. At any rate they +incarnate the very spirit of the songs he sings. + +As a consequence of this predilection for sensuous and voluptuous +forms, Correggio had no power of imagining grandly or severely. +Satisfied with material realism in his treatment even of sublime +mysteries, he converts the hosts of heaven into a 'fricassee of +frogs,' according to the old epigram. His apostles, gazing after the +Virgin who has left the earth, are thrown into attitudes so violent +and so dramatically foreshortened, that seen from below upon the +pavement of the cathedral, little of their form is distinguishable +except legs and arms in vehement commotion. Very different is Titian's +conception of this scene. To express the spiritual meaning, the +emotion of Madonna's transit, with all the pomp which colour and +splendid composition can convey, is Titian's sole care; whereas +Correggio appears to have been satisfied with realising the tumult of +heaven rushing to meet earth, and earth straining upwards to ascend to +heaven in violent commotion--a very orgasm of frenetic rapture. The +essence of the event is forgotten: its external manifestation alone is +presented to the eye; and only the accessories of beardless angels and +cloud-encumbered cherubs are really beautiful amid a surge of limbs in +restless movement. More dignified, because designed with more repose, +is the Apocalypse of S. John painted upon the cupola of S. Giovanni. +The apostles throned on clouds, with which the dome is filled, gaze +upward to one point. Their attitudes are noble; their form is heroic; +in their eyes there is the strange ecstatic look by which Correggio +interpreted his sense of supernatural vision: it is a gaze not of +contemplation or deep thought, but of wild half-savage joy, as if +these saints also had become the elemental genii of cloud and air, +spirits emergent from ether, the salamanders of an empyrean +intolerable to mortal sense. The point on which their eyes converge, +the culmination of their vision, is the figure of Christ. Here all the +weakness of Correggio's method is revealed. He had undertaken to +realise by no ideal allegorical suggestion, by no symbolism of +architectural grouping, but by actual prosaic measurement, by +corporeal form in subjection to the laws of perspective and +foreshortening, things which in their very essence admit of only a +figurative revelation. Therefore his Christ, the centre of all those +earnest eyes, is contracted to a shape in which humanity itself is +mean, a sprawling figure which irresistibly reminds one of a frog. The +clouds on which the saints repose are opaque and solid; cherubs in +countless multitudes, a swarm of merry children, crawl about upon +these feather-beds of vapour, creep between the legs of the apostles, +and play at bopeep behind their shoulders. There is no propriety in +their appearance there. They take no interest in the beatific vision. +They play no part in the celestial symphony; nor are they capable of +more than merely infantine enjoyment. Correggio has sprinkled them +lavishly like living flowers about his cloudland, because he could not +sustain a grave and solemn strain of music, but was forced by his +temperament to overlay the melody with roulades. Gazing at these +frescoes, the thought came to me that Correggio was like a man +listening to sweetest flute-playing, and translating phrase after +phrase as they passed through his fancy into laughing faces, breezy +tresses, and rolling mists. Sometimes a grander cadence reached his +ear; and then S. Peter with the keys, or S. Augustine of the mighty +brow, or the inspired eyes of S. John, took form beneath his pencil. +But the light airs returned, and rose and lily faces bloomed again for +him among the clouds. It is not therefore in dignity or sublimity that +Correggio excels, but in artless grace and melodious tenderness. The +Madonna della Scala clasping her baby with a caress which the little +child returns, S. Catherine leaning in a rapture of ecstatic love to +wed the infant Christ, S. Sebastian in the bloom of almost boyish +beauty, are the so-called sacred subjects to which the painter was +adequate, and which he has treated with the voluptuous tenderness we +find in his pictures of Leda and Danae and Io. Could these saints and +martyrs descend from Correggio's canvas, and take flesh, and breathe, +and begin to live; of what high action, of what grave passion, of what +exemplary conduct in any walk of life would they be capable? That is +the question which they irresistibly suggest; and we are forced to +answer, None! The moral and religious world did not exist for +Correggio. His art was but a way of seeing carnal beauty in a dream +that had no true relation to reality. + +Correggio's sensibility to light and colour was exactly on a par with +his feeling for form. He belongs to the poets of chiaroscuro and the +poets of colouring; but in both regions he maintains the individuality +so strongly expressed in his choice of purely sensuous beauty. +Tintoretto makes use of light and shade for investing his great +compositions with dramatic intensity. Rembrandt interprets sombre and +fantastic moods of the mind by golden gloom and silvery irradiation, +translating thought into the language of penumbral mystery. Lionardo +studies the laws of light scientifically, so that the proper roundness +and effect of distance should be accurately rendered, and all the +subtleties of nature's smiles be mimicked. Correggio is content with +fixing on his canvas the [Greek: anerithmon gelasma], the +many-twinkling laughter of light in motion, rained down through fleecy +clouds or trembling foliage, melting into half-shadows, bathing and +illuminating every object with a soft caress. There are no tragic +contrasts of splendour sharply defined on blackness, no mysteries of +half-felt and pervasive twilight, no studied accuracies of noonday +clearness in his work. Light and shadow are woven together on his +figures like an impalpable Coan gauze, aerial and transparent, +enhancing the palpitations of voluptuous movement which he loved. His +colouring, in like manner, has none of the superb and mundane pomp +which the Venetians affected; it does not glow or burn or beat the +fire of gems into our brain; joyous and wanton, it seems to be exactly +such a beauty-bloom as sense requires for its satiety. There is +nothing in his hues to provoke deep passion or to stimulate the +yearnings of the soul: the pure blushes of the dawn and the crimson +pyres of sunset are nowhere in the world that he has painted. But that +chord of jocund colour which may fitly be married to the smiles of +light, the blues which are found in laughing eyes, the pinks that +tinge the cheeks of early youth, and the warm yet silvery tones of +healthy flesh, mingle as in a marvellous pearl-shell on his pictures. +Both chiaroscuro and colouring have this supreme purpose in art, to +effect the sense like music, and like music to create a mood in the +soul of the spectator. Now the mood which Correggio stimulates is one +of natural and thoughtless pleasure. To feel his influence, and at the +same moment to be the subject of strong passion, or fierce lust, or +heroic resolve, or profound contemplation, or pensive melancholy, is +impossible. Wantonness, innocent because unconscious of sin, immoral +because incapable of any serious purpose, is the quality which +prevails in all that he has painted. The pantomimes of a Mohammedan +paradise might be put upon the stage after patterns supplied by this +least spiritual of painters. + +It follows from this analysis that the Correggiosity of Correggio, +that which sharply distinguished him from all previous artists, was +the faculty of painting a purely voluptuous dream of beautiful beings +in perpetual movement, beneath the laughter of morning light, in a +world of never-failing April hues. When he attempts to depart from the +fairyland of which he was the Prospero, and to match himself with the +masters of sublime thought or earnest passion, he proves his weakness. +But within his own magic circle he reigns supreme, no other artist +having blended the witcheries of colouring, chiaroscuro,and faunlike +loveliness of form into a harmony so perfect in its sensuous charm. +Bewitched by the strains of the siren, we pardon affectations of +expression, emptiness of meaning, feebleness of composition, +exaggerated and melodramatic attitudes. There is what Goethe called a +demonic influence in the art of Correggio: 'In poetry,' said Goethe to +Eckermann, 'especially in that which is unconscious, before which +reason and understanding fall short, and which therefore produces +effects so far surpassing all conception, there is always something +demonic.' It is not to be wondered that Correggio, possessed of this +demonic power in the highest degree, and working to a purely sensuous +end, should have exercised a fatal influence over art. His successors, +attracted by an intoxicating loveliness which they could not analyse, +which had nothing in common with the reason or the understanding, but +was like a glamour cast upon the soul in its most secret +sensibilities, threw themselves blindly into the imitation of +Correggio's faults. His affectation, his want of earnest thought, his +neglect of composition, his sensuous realism, his all-pervading +sweetness, his infantine prettiness, his substitution of +thaumaturgical effects for conscientious labour, admitted only too +easy imitation, and were but too congenial with the spirit of the late +Renaissance. Cupolas through the length and breadth of Italy began to +be covered with clouds and simpering cherubs in the convulsions of +artificial ecstasy. The attenuated elegance of Parmigiano, the +attitudinising of Anselmi's saints and angels, and a general sacrifice +of what is solid and enduring to sentimental gewgaws on the part of +all painters who had submitted to the magic of Correggio, proved how +easy it was to go astray with the great master. Meanwhile no one could +approach him in that which was truly his own--the delineation of a +transient moment in the life of sensuous beauty, the painting of a +smile on Nature's face, when light and colour tremble in harmony with +the movement of joyous living creatures. Another demonic nature of a +far more powerful type contributed his share to the ruin of art in +Italy. Michelangelo's constrained attitudes and muscular anatomy were +imitated by painters and sculptors, who thought that the grand style +lay in the presentation of theatrical athletes, but who could not +seize the secret whereby the great master made even the bodies of men +and women--colossal trunks and writhen limbs--interpret the meanings +of his deep and melancholy soul. + +It is a sad law of progress in art, that when the aesthetic impulse is +on the wane, artists should perforce select to follow the weakness +rather than the vigour, of their predecessors. While painting was in +the ascendant, Raphael could take the best of Perugino and discard the +worst; in its decadence Parmigiano reproduces the affectations of +Correggio, and Bernini carries the exaggerations of Michelangelo to +absurdity. All arts describe a parabola. The force which produces +them causes them to rise throughout their growth up to a certain +point, and then to descend more gradually in a long and slanting line +of regular declension. There is no real break of continuity. The end +is the result of simple exhaustion. Thus the last of our Elizabethan +dramatists, Shirley and Crowne and Killigrew, pushed to its ultimate +conclusion the principle inherent in Marlowe, not attempting to break +new ground, nor imitating the excellences so much as the defects of +their forerunners. Thus too the Pointed style of architecture in +England gave birth first to what is called the Decorated, next to the +Perpendicular, and finally expired in the Tudor. Each step was a step +of progress--at first for the better--at last for the worse--but +logical, continuous, necessitated.[11] + +It is difficult to leave Correggio without at least posing the +question of the difference between moralised and merely sensual art. +Is all art excellent in itself and good in its effect that is +beautiful and earnest? There is no doubt that Correggio's work is in a +way most beautiful; and it bears unmistakable signs of the master +having given himself with single-hearted devotion to the expression of +that phase of loveliness which he could apprehend. In so far we must +admit that his art is both excellent and solid. Yet we are unable to +conceive that any human being could be made better--stronger for +endurance, more fitted for the uses of the world, more sensitive to +what is noble in nature--by its contemplation. At the best Correggio +does but please us in our lighter moments, and we are apt to feel that +the pleasure he has given is of an enervating kind. To expect obvious +morality of any artist is confessedly absurd. It is not the artist's +province to preach, or even to teach, except by remote suggestion. Yet +the mind of the artist may be highly moralised, and then he takes rank +not merely with the ministers to refined pleasure, but also with the +educators of the world. He may, for example, be penetrated with a just +sense of humanity like Shakspere, or with a sublime temperance like +Sophocles, instinct with prophetic intuition like Michelangelo, or +with passionate experience like Beethoven. The mere sight of the work +of Pheidias is like breathing pure health-giving air. Milton and Dante +were steeped in religious patriotism; Goethe was pervaded with +philosophy, and Balzac with scientific curiosity. Ariosto, Cervantes, +and even Boccaccio are masters in the mysteries of common life. In all +these cases the tone of the artist's mind is felt throughout his work: +what he paints, or sings, or writes, conveys a lesson while it +pleases. On the other hand, depravity in an artist or a poet +percolates through work which has in it nothing positive of evil, and +a very miasma of poisonous influence may rise from the apparently +innocuous creations of a tainted soul. Now Correggio is moralised in +neither way--neither as a good nor as a bad man, neither as an acute +thinker nor as a deliberate voluptuary. He is simply sensuous. On his +own ground he is even very fresh and healthy: his delineation of +youthful maternity, for example, is as true as it is beautiful; and +his sympathy with the gleefulness of children is devoid of +affectation. We have then only to ask ourselves whether the defect in +him of all thought and feeling which is not at once capable of +graceful fleshly incarnation, be sufficient to lower him in the scale +of artists. This question must of course be answered according to our +definition of the purposes of art. There is no doubt that the most +highly organised art--that which absorbs the most numerous human +qualities and effects a harmony between the most complex elements--is +the noblest. Therefore the artist who combines moral elevation and +power of thought with a due appreciation of sensual beauty, is more +elevated and more beneficial than one whose domain is simply that of +carnal loveliness. Correggio, if this be so, must take a comparatively +low rank. Just as we welcome the beautiful athlete for the radiant +life that is in him, but bow before the personality of Sophocles, +whose perfect form enshrined a noble and highly educated soul, so we +gratefully accept Correggio for his grace, while we approach the +consummate art of Michelangelo with reverent awe. It is necessary in +aesthetics as elsewhere to recognise a hierarchy of excellence, the +grades of which are determined by the greater or less +comprehensiveness of the artist's nature expressed in his work. At the +same time, the calibre of the artist's genius must be estimated; for +eminent greatness even of a narrow kind will always command our +admiration: and the amount of his originality has also to be taken +into account. What is unique has, for that reason alone, a claim on +our consideration. Judged in this way, Correggio deserves a place, +say, in the sweet planet Venus, above the moon and above Mercury, +among the artists who have not advanced beyond the contemplations +which find their proper outcome in love. Yet, even thus, he aids the +culture of humanity. 'We should take care,' said Goethe, apropos of +Byron, to Eckermann, 'not to be always looking for culture in the +decidedly pure and moral. Everything that is great promotes +cultivation as soon as we are aware of it.' + + * * * * * + + + + +_CANOSSA_ + + +Italy is less the land of what is venerable in antiquity, than of +beauty, by divine right young eternally in spite of age. This is due +partly to her history and art and literature, partly to the temper of +the races who have made her what she is, and partly to her natural +advantages. Her oldest architectural remains, the temples of Paestum +and Girgenti, or the gates of Perugia and Volterra, are so adapted to +Italian landscape and so graceful in their massive strength, that we +forget the centuries which have passed over them. We leap as by a +single bound from the times of Roman greatness to the new birth of +humanity in the fourteenth century, forgetting the many years during +which Italy, like the rest of Europe, was buried in what our ancestors +called Gothic barbarism. The illumination cast upon the classic period +by the literature of Rome and by the memory of her great men is so +vivid, that we feel the days of the Republic and the Empire to be near +us; while the Italian Renaissance is so truly a revival of that former +splendour, a resumption of the music interrupted for a season, that it +is extremely difficult to form any conception of the five long +centuries which elapsed between the Lombard invasion in 568 and the +accession of Hildebrand to the Pontificate in 1073. So true is it that +nothing lives and has reality for us but what is spiritual, +intellectual, self-possessed in personality and consciousness. When +the Egyptian priest said to Solon, 'You Greeks are always children,' +he intended a gentle sarcasm, but he implied a compliment; for the +quality of imperishable youth belonged to the Hellenic spirit, and has +become the heritage of every race which partook of it. And this spirit +in no common degree has been shared by the Italians of the earlier and +the later classic epoch. The land is full of monuments pertaining to +those two brilliant periods; and whenever the voice of poet has spoken +or the hand of artist has been at work, that spirit, as distinguished +from the spirit of mediaevalism, has found expression. + +Yet it must be remembered that during the five centuries above +mentioned Italy was given over to Lombards, Franks, and Germans. +Feudal institutions, alien to the social and political ideals of the +classic world, took a tolerably firm hold on the country. The Latin +element remained silent, passive, in abeyance, undergoing an important +transformation. It was in the course of those five hundred years that +the Italians as a modern people, separable from their Roman ancestors, +were formed. At the close of this obscure passage in Italian history, +their communes, the foundation of Italy's future independence, and the +source of her peculiar national development, appeared in all the +vigour and audacity of youth. At its close the Italian genius +presented Europe with its greatest triumph of constructive ability, +the Papacy. At its close again the series of supreme artistic +achievements, starting with the architecture of churches and public +palaces, passing on to sculpture and painting, and culminating in +music, which only ended with the temporary extinction of national +vitality in the seventeenth century, was simultaneously begun in all +the provinces of the peninsula. + +So important were these five centuries of incubation for Italy, and so +little is there left of them to arrest the attention of the student, +dazzled as he is by the ever-living glories of Greece, Rome, and the +Renaissance, that a visit to the ruins of Canossa is almost a duty. +There, in spite of himself, by the very isolation and forlorn +abandonment of what was once so formidable a seat of feudal despotism +and ecclesiastical tyranny, he is forced to confront the obscure but +mighty spirit of the middle ages. There, if anywhere, the men of those +iron-hearted times anterior to the Crusades will acquire distinctness +for his imagination, when he recalls the three main actors in the +drama enacted on the summit of Canossa's rock in the bitter winter of +1077. + +Canossa lies almost due south of Reggio d'Emilia, upon the slopes of +the Apennines. Starting from Reggio, the carriage-road keeps to the +plain for some while in a westerly direction, and then bends away +towards the mountains. As we approach their spurs, the ground begins +to rise. The rich Lombard tilth of maize and vine gives place to +English-looking hedgerows, lined with oaks, and studded with handsome +dark tufts of green hellebore. The hills descend in melancholy +earth-heaps on the plain, crowned here and there with ruined castles. +Four of these mediaeval strongholds, called Bianello, Montevetro, +Monteluzzo, and Montezano, give the name of Quattro Castelli to the +commune. The most important of them, Bianello, which, next to Canossa, +was the strongest fortress possessed by the Countess Matilda and her +ancestors, still presents a considerable mass of masonry, roofed and +habitable. The group formed a kind of advance-guard for Canossa +against attack from Lombardy. After passing Quattro Castelli we enter +the hills, climbing gently upwards between barren slopes of ashy grey +earth--the _debris_ of most ancient Apennines--crested at favourable +points with lonely towers. In truth the whole country bristles with +ruined forts, making it clear that during the middle ages Canossa was +but the centre of a great military system, the core and kernel of a +fortified position which covered an area to be measured by scores of +square miles, reaching far into the mountains, and buttressed on the +plain. As yet, however, after nearly two hours' driving, Canossa has +not come in sight. At last a turn in the road discloses an opening in +the valley of the Enza to the left: up this lateral gorge we see first +the Castle of Rossena on its knoll of solid red rock, flaming in the +sunlight; and then, further withdrawn, detached from all surrounding +objects, and reared aloft as though to sweep the sea of waved and +broken hills around it, a sharp horn of hard white stone. That is +Canossa--the _alba Canossa_, the _candida petra_ of its rhyming +chronicler. There is no mistaking the commanding value of its +situation. At the same time the brilliant whiteness of Canossa's +rocky hill, contrasted with the red gleam of Rossena, and outlined +against the prevailing dulness of these earthy Apennines, secures a +picturesque individuality concordant with its unique history and +unrivalled strength. + +There is still a journey of two hours before the castle can be +reached: and this may be performed on foot or horseback. The path +winds upward over broken ground; following the _arete_ of curiously +jumbled and thwarted hill-slopes; passing beneath the battlements of +Rossena, whence the unfortunate Everelina threw herself in order to +escape the savage love of her lord and jailor; and then skirting those +horrid earthen _balze_ which are so common and so unattractive a +feature of Apennine scenery. The most hideous _balze_ to be found in +the length and breadth of Italy are probably those of Volterra, from +which the citizens themselves recoil with a kind of terror, and which +lure melancholy men by intolerable fascination on to suicide. For ever +crumbling, altering with frost and rain, discharging gloomy glaciers +of slow-crawling mud, and scarring the hillside with tracts of +barrenness, these earth-precipices are among the most ruinous and +discomfortable failures of nature. They have not even so much of +wildness or grandeur as forms, the saving merit of nearly all wasteful +things in the world, and can only be classed with the desolate +_ghiare_ of Italian river-beds. + +Such as they are, these _balze_ form an appropriate preface to the +gloomy and repellent isolation of Canossa. The rock towers from a +narrow platform to the height of rather more than 160 feet from its +base. The top is fairly level, forming an irregular triangle, of which +the greatest length is about 260 feet, and the width about 100 feet. +Scarcely a vestige of any building can be traced either upon the +platform or the summit, with the exception of a broken wall and +windows supposed to belong to the end of the sixteenth century. The +ancient castle, with its triple circuit of walls, enclosing barracks +for the garrison, lodgings for the lord and his retainers, a stately +church, a sumptuous monastery, storehouses, stables, workshops, and +all the various buildings of a fortified stronghold, have utterly +disappeared. The very passage of approach cannot be ascertained; for +it is doubtful whether the present irregular path that scales the +western face of the rock be really the remains of some old staircase, +corresponding to that by which Mont S. Michel in Normandy is ascended. +One thing is tolerably certain--that the three walls of which we hear +so much from the chroniclers, and which played so picturesque a part +in the drama of Henry IV.'s penance, surrounded the cliff at its base, +and embraced a large acreage of ground. The citadel itself must have +been but the acropolis or keep of an extensive fortress. + +There has been plenty of time since the year 1255, when the people of +Reggio sacked and destroyed Canossa, for Nature to resume her +undisputed sway by obliterating the handiwork of men; and at present +Nature forms the chief charm of Canossa. Lying one afternoon of May on +the crisp short grass at the edge of a precipice purple with iris in +full blossom, I surveyed, from what were once the battlements of +Matilda's castle, a prospect than which there is none more +spirit-stirring by reason of its beauty and its manifold associations +in Europe. The lower castle-crowded hills have sunk. Reggio lies at +our feet, shut in between the crests of Monte Carboniano and Monte +delle Celle. Beyond Reggio stretches Lombardy--the fairest and most +memorable battlefield of nations, the richest and most highly +cultivated garden of civilised industry. Nearly all the Lombard cities +may be seen, some of them faint like bluish films of vapour, some +clear with dome and spire. There is Modena and her Ghirlandina. Carpi, +Parma, Mirandola, Verona, Mantua, lie well defined and russet on the +flat green map; and there flashes a bend of lordly Po; and there the +Euganeans rise like islands, telling us where Padua and Ferrara nestle +in the amethystine haze Beyond and above all to the northward sweep +the Alps, tossing their silvery crests up into the cloudless sky from +the violet mist that girds their flanks and drowns their basements. +Monte Adamello and the Ortler, the cleft of the Brenner, and the sharp +peaks of the Venetian Alps are all distinctly visible. An eagle flying +straight from our eyrie might traverse Lombardy and light among the +snow-fields of the Valtelline between sunrise and sundown. Nor is the +prospect tame to southward. Here the Apennines roll, billow above +billow, in majestic desolation, soaring to snow summits in the +Pellegrino region. As our eye attempts to thread that labyrinth of +hill and vale, we tell ourselves that those roads wind to Tuscany, and +yonder stretches Garfagnana, where Ariosto lived and mused in +honourable exile from the world he loved. + +It was by one of the mountain passes that lead from Lucca northward +that the first founder of Canossa is said to have travelled early in +the tenth century. Sigifredo, if the tradition may be trusted, was +very wealthy; and with his money he bought lands and signorial rights +at Reggio, bequeathing to his children, when he died about 945, a +patrimony which they developed into a petty kingdom. Azzo, his second +son, fortified Canossa, and made it his principal place of residence. +When Lothair, King of Italy, died in 950, leaving his beautiful widow +to the ill-treatment of his successor, Berenger, Adelaide found a +protector in this Azzo. She had been imprisoned on the Lake of Garda; +but managing to escape in man's clothes to Mantua, she thence sent +news of her misfortunes to Canossa. Azzo lost no time in riding with +his knights to her relief, and brought her back in safety to his +mountain fastness. It is related that Azzo was afterwards instrumental +in calling Otho into Italy and procuring his marriage with Adelaide, +in consequence of which events Italy became a fief of the Empire. +Owing to the part he played at this time, the Lord of Canossa was +recognised as one of the most powerful vassals of the German Emperor +in Lombardy. Honours were heaped upon him; and he grew so rich and +formidable that Berenger, the titular King of Italy, laid siege to his +fortress of Canossa. The memory of this siege, which lasted for three +years and a half, is said still to linger in the popular traditions of +the place. When Azzo died at the end of the tenth century, he left to +his son Tedaldo the title of Count of Reggio and Modena; and this +title was soon after raised to that of Marquis. The Marches governed +as Vicar of the Empire by Tedaldo included Reggio, Modena, Ferrara, +Brescia, and probably Mantua. They stretched, in fact, across the +north of Italy, forming a quadrilateral between the Alps and +Apennines. Like his father, Tedaldo adhered consistently to the +Imperial party; and when he died and was buried at Canossa, he in his +turn bequeathed to his son Bonifazio a power and jurisdiction +increased by his own abilities. Bonifazio held the state of a +sovereign at Canossa, adding the duchy of Tuscany to his father's +fiefs, and meeting the allied forces of the Lombard barons in the +field of Coviolo like an independent potentate. His power and +splendour were great enough to rouse the jealousy of the Emperor; but +Henry III. seems to have thought it more prudent to propitiate this +proud vassal, and to secure his kindness, than to attempt his +humiliation. Bonifazio married Beatrice, daughter of Frederick, Duke +of Lorraine--her whose marble sarcophagus in the Campo Santo at Pisa +is said to have inspired Niccola Pisano with his new style of +sculpture. Their only child, Matilda, was born, probably at Lucca, in +1046; and six years after her birth, Bonifazio, who had swayed his +subjects like an iron-handed tyrant, was murdered. To the great House +of Canossa, the rulers of one-third of Italy, there now remained only +two women, Bonifazio's widow Beatrice, and his daughter Matilda. +Beatrice married Godfrey, Duke of Lorraine, who was recognised by +Henry IV. as her husband and as feudatory of the Empire in the full +place of Boniface. He died about 1070; and in this year Matilda was +married by proxy to his son, Godfrey the Hunchback, whom, however, +she did not see till the year 1072. The marriage was not a happy one; +and the question has even been disputed among Matilda's biographers +whether it was ever consummated. At any rate it did not last long; for +Godfrey was killed at Antwerp in 1076. In this year Matilda also lost +her mother, Beatrice, who died at Pisa, and was buried in the +cathedral. + +By this rapid enumeration of events it will be seen how the power and +honours of the House of Canossa, including Tuscany, Spoleto, and the +fairest portions of Lombardy, had devolved upon a single woman of the +age of thirty at the moment when the fierce quarrel between Pope and +Emperor began in the year 1076. Matilda was destined to play a great, +a striking, and a tragic part in the opening drama of Italian history. +Her decided character and uncompromising course of action have won for +her the name of 'la gran donna d'Italia,' and have caused her memory +to be blessed or execrated, according as the temporal pretensions and +spiritual tyranny of the Papacy may have found supporters or opponents +in posterity. She was reared from childhood in habits of austerity and +unquestioning piety. Submission to the Church became for her not +merely a rule of conduct, but a passionate enthusiasm. She identified +herself with the cause of four successive Popes, protected her idol, +the terrible and iron-hearted Hildebrand, in the time of his +adversity; remained faithful to his principles after his death; and +having served the Holy See with all her force and all that she +possessed through all her lifetime, she bequeathed her vast dominions +to it on her deathbed. Like some of the greatest mediaeval +characters--like Hildebrand himself--Matilda was so thoroughly of one +piece, that she towers above the mists of ages with the massive +grandeur of an incarnated idea. She is for us the living statue of a +single thought, an undivided impulse, the more than woman born to +represent her age. Nor was it without reason that Dante symbolised in +her the love of Holy Church; though students of the 'Purgatory' will +hardly recognise the lovely maiden, singing and plucking flowers +beside the stream of Lethe, in the stern and warlike chatelaine of +Canossa. Unfortunately we know but little of Matilda's personal +appearance. Her health was not strong; and it is said to have been +weakened, especially in her last illness, by ascetic observances. Yet +she headed her own troops, armed with sword and cuirass, avoiding +neither peril nor fatigue in the quarrels of her master Gregory. Up to +the year 1622 two strong suits of mail were preserved at Quattro +Castelli, which were said to have been worn by her in battle, and +which were afterwards sold on the market-place at Reggio. This habit +of donning armour does not, however, prove that Matilda was +exceptionally vigorous; for in those savage times she could hardly +have played the part of heroine without participating personally in +the dangers of warfare. + +No less monumental in the plastic unity of his character was the monk +Hildebrand, who for twenty years before his elevation to the Papacy +had been the maker of Popes and the creator of the policy of Rome. +When he was himself elected in the year 1073, and had assumed the name +of Gregory VII., he immediately began to put in practice the plans for +Church aggrandisement he had slowly matured during the previous +quarter of a century. To free the Church from its subservience to the +Empire, to assert the Pope's right to ratify the election of the +Emperor and to exercise the right of jurisdiction over him, to place +ecclesiastical appointments in the sole power of the Roman See, and to +render the celibacy of the clergy obligatory, were the points he had +resolved to carry. Taken singly and together, these chief aims of +Hildebrand's policy had but one object--the magnification of the +Church at the expense both of the people and of secular authorities, +and the further separation of the Church from the ties and sympathies +of common life that bound it to humanity. To accuse Hildebrand of +personal ambition would be but shallow criticism, though it is clear +that his inflexible and puissant nature found a savage selfish +pleasure in trampling upon power and humbling pride at warfare with +his own. Yet his was in no sense an egotistic purpose like that which +moved the Popes of the Renaissance to dismember Italy for their +bastards. Hildebrand, like Matilda, was himself the creature of a +great idea. These two potent personalities completely understood each +other, and worked towards a single end. Tho mythopoeic fancy might +conceive of them as the male and female manifestations of one dominant +faculty, the spirit of ecclesiastical dominion incarnate in a man and +woman of almost super-human mould. + +Opposed to them, as the third actor in the drama of Canossa, was a man +of feebler mould. Henry IV., King of Italy, but not yet crowned +Emperor, had none of his opponents' unity of purpose or monumental +dignity of character. At war with his German feudatories, browbeaten +by rebellious sons, unfaithful and cruel to his wife, vacillating in +the measures he adopted to meet his divers difficulties, at one time +tormented by his conscience into cowardly submission, and at another +treasonably neglectful of the most solemn obligations, Henry was no +match for the stern wills against which he was destined to break in +unavailing passion. Early disagreements with Gregory had culminated in +his excommunication. The German nobles abandoned his cause; and Henry +found it expedient to summon a council in Augsburg for the settlement +of matters in dispute between the Empire and the Papacy. Gregory +expressed his willingness to attend this council, and set forth from +Rome accompanied by the Countess Matilda in December 1076. He did not, +however, travel further than Vercelli, for news here reached him that +Henry was about to enter Italy at the head of a powerful army. Matilda +hereupon persuaded the Holy Father to place himself in safety among +her strongholds of Canossa. Thither accordingly Gregory retired before +the ending of that year; and bitter were the sarcasms uttered by the +imperial partisans in Italy upon this protection offered by a fair +countess to the monk who had been made a Pope. The foul calumnies of +that bygone age would be unworthy of even so much as this notice, if +we did not trace in them the ineradicable Italian tendency to cynical +insinuation--a tendency which has involved the history of the +Renaissance Popes in an almost impenetrable mist of lies and +exaggerations. Henry was in truth upon his road to Italy, but with a +very different attendance from that which Gregory expected. +Accompanied by Bertha, his wife, and his boy son Conrad, the Emperor +elect left Spires in the condition of a fugitive, crossed Burgundy, +spent Christmas at Besancon, and journeyed to the foot of Mont Cenis. +It is said that he was followed by a single male servant of mean +birth; and if the tale of his adventures during the passage of the +Alps can be credited, history presents fewer spectacles more +picturesque than the straits to which this representative of the +Caesars, this supreme chief of feudal civility, this ruler destined +still to be the leader of mighty armies and the father of a line of +monarchs, was exposed. Concealing his real name and state, he induced +some shepherds to lead him and his escort through the thick snows to +the summit of Mont Cenis; and by the help of these men the imperial +party were afterwards let down the snow-slopes on the further side by +means of ropes. Bertha and her women were sewn up in hides and dragged +across the frozen surface of the winter drifts. It was a year +memorable for its severity. Heavy snow had fallen in October, which +continued ice-bound and unyielding till the following April. + +No sooner had Henry reached Turin, than he set forward again in the +direction of Canossa. The fame of his arrival had preceded him, and +he found that his party was far stronger in Italy than he had ventured +to expect. Proximity to the Church of Rome divests its fulminations of +half their terrors. The Italian bishops and barons, less superstitious +than the Germans, and with greater reason to resent the domineering +graspingness of Gregory, were ready to espouse the Emperor's cause. +Henry gathered a formidable force as he marched onward across +Lombardy; and some of the most illustrious prelates and nobles of the +South were in his suite. A more determined leader than Henry proved +himself to be, might possibly have forced Gregory to some +accommodation, in spite of the strength of Canossa and the Pope's +invincible obstinacy, by proper use of these supporters. Meanwhile the +adherents of the Church were mustered in Matilda's fortress; among +whom may be mentioned Azzo, the progenitor of Este and Brunswick; +Hugh, Abbot of Clugny; and the princely family of Piedmont. 'I am +become a second Rome,' exclaims Canossa, in the language of Matilda's +rhyming chronicler; 'all honours are mine; I hold at once both Pope +and King, the princes of Italy and those of Gaul, those of Rome, and +those from far beyond the Alps.' The stage was ready; the audience had +assembled; and now the three great actors were about to meet. +Immediately upon his arrival at Canossa, Henry sent for his cousin, +the Countess Matilda, and besought her to intercede for him with +Gregory. He was prepared to make any concessions or to undergo any +humiliations, if only the ban of excommunication might be removed; +nor, cowed as he was by his own superstitious conscience, and by the +memory of the opposition he had met with from his German vassals, does +he seem to have once thought of meeting force with force, and of +returning to his northern kingdom triumphant in the overthrow of +Gregory's pride. Matilda undertook to plead his cause before the +Pontiff. But Gregory was not to be moved so soon to mercy. 'If Henry +has in truth repented,' he replied, 'let him lay down crown and +sceptre, and declare himself unworthy of the name of king.' The only +point conceded to the suppliant was that he should be admitted in the +garb of a penitent within the precincts of the castle. Leaving his +retinue outside the walls, Henry entered the first series of outworks, +and was thence conducted to the second, so that between him and the +citadel itself there still remained the third of the surrounding +bastions. Here he was bidden to wait the Pope's pleasure; and here, in +the midst of that bitter winter weather, while the fierce winds of the +Apennines were sweeping sleet upon him in their passage from Monte +Pellegrino to the plain, he knelt barefoot, clothed in sackcloth, +fasting from dawn till eve, for three whole days. On the morning of +the fourth day, judging that Gregory was inexorable, and that his suit +would not be granted, Henry retired to the Chapel of S. Nicholas, +which stood within this second precinct. There he called to his aid +the Abbot of Clugny and the Countess, both of whom were his relations, +and who, much as they might sympathise with Gregory, could hardly be +supposed to look with satisfaction on their royal kinsman's outrage. +The Abbot told Henry that nothing in the world could move the Pope; +but Matilda, when in turn he fell before her knees and wept, engaged +to do for him the utmost. She probably knew that the moment for +unbending had arrived, and that her imperious guest could not with +either decency or prudence prolong the outrage offered to the civil +chief of Christendom. It was the 25th of January when the Emperor +elect was brought, half dead with cold and misery, into the Pope's +presence. There he prostrated himself in the dust, crying aloud for +pardon. It is said that Gregory first placed his foot upon Henry's +neck, uttering these words of Scripture: 'Super aspidem et basiliscum +ambulabis, et conculcabis leonem et draconem,' and that then he raised +him from the earth and formally pronounced his pardon. The prelates +and nobles who took part in this scene were compelled to guarantee +with their own oaths the vows of obedience pronounced by Henry; so +that in the very act of reconciliation a new insult was offered to +him. After this Gregory said mass, and permitted Henry to communicate; +and at the close of the day a banquet was served, at which the King +sat down to meat with the Pope and the Countess. + +It is probable that, while Henry's penance was performed in the castle +courts beneath the rock, his reception by the Pope, and all that +subsequently happened, took place in the citadel itself. But of this +we have no positive information. Indeed the silence of the chronicles +as to the topography of Canossa is peculiarly unfortunate for lovers +of the picturesque in historic detail, now that there is no +possibility of tracing the outlines of the ancient building. Had the +author of the 'Vita Mathildis' (Muratori, vol. v.) foreseen that his +beloved Canossa would one day be nothing but a mass of native rock, he +would undoubtedly have been more explicit on these points; and much +that is vague about an event only paralleled by our Henry II.'s +penance before Becket's shrine at Canterbury, might now be clear. + +Very little remains to be told about Canossa. During the same year, +1077, Matilda made the celebrated donation of her fiefs to Holy +Church. This was accepted by Gregory in the name of S. Peter, and it +was confirmed by a second deed during the pontificate of Urban IV. in +1102. Though Matilda subsequently married Guelfo d'Este, son of the +Duke of Bavaria, she was speedily divorced from him; nor was there any +heir to a marriage ridiculous by reason of disparity of age, the +bridegroom being but eighteen, while the bride was forty-three in the +year of her second nuptials. During one of Henry's descents into +Italy, he made an unsuccessful attack upon Canossa, assailing it at +the head of a considerable force one October morning in 1092. +Matilda's biographer informs us that the mists of autumn veiled his +beloved fortress from the eyes of the beleaguerers. They had not even +the satisfaction of beholding the unvanquished citadel; and, what was +more, the banner of the Emperor was seized and dedicated as a trophy +in the Church of S. Apollonio. In the following year the Countess +opened her gates of Canossa to an illustrious fugitive, Adelaide, the +wife of her old foeman, Henry, who had escaped with difficulty from +the insults and the cruelty of her husband. After Henry's death, his +son, the Emperor Henry V., paid Matilda a visit in her castle of +Bianello, addressed her by the name of mother, and conferred upon her +the vice-regency of Liguria. At the age of sixty-nine she died, in +1115, at Bondeno de' Roncori, and was buried, not among her kinsmen at +Canossa, but in an abbey of S. Benedict near Mantua. With her expired +the main line of the noble house she represented; though Canossa, now +made a fief of the Empire in spite of Matilda's donation, was given to +a family which claimed descent from Bonifazio's brother Conrad--a +young man killed in the battle of Coviolo. This family, in its turn, +was extinguished in the year 1570; but a junior branch still exists at +Verona. It will be remembered that Michelangelo Buonarroti claimed +kinship with the Count of Canossa; and a letter from the Count is +extant acknowledging the validity of his pretension. + +As far back as 1255 the people of Reggio destroyed the castle; nor did +the nobles of Canossa distinguish themselves in subsequent history +among those families who based their despotisms on the _debris_ of the +Imperial power in Lombardy. It seemed destined that Canossa and all +belonging to it should remain as a mere name and memory of the +outgrown middle ages. Estensi, Carraresi, Visconti, Bentivogli, and +Gonzaghi belong to a later period of Lombard history, and mark the +dawn of the Renaissance. + +As I lay and mused that afternoon of May upon the short grass, cropped +by two grey goats, whom a little boy was tending, it occurred to me to +ask the woman who had served me as guide, whether any legend remained +in the country concerning the Countess Matilda. She had often, +probably, been asked this question by other travellers. Therefore she +was more than usually ready with an answer, which, as far as I could +understand her dialect, was this. Matilda was a great and potent +witch, whose summons the devil was bound to obey. One day she aspired, +alone of all her sex, to say mass; but when the moment came for +sacring the elements, a thunderbolt fell from the clear sky, and +reduced her to ashes.[12] That the most single-hearted handmaid of the +Holy Church, whose life was one long devotion to its ordinances, +should survive in this grotesque myth, might serve to point a satire +upon the vanity of earthly fame. The legend in its very extravagance +is a fanciful distortion of the truth. + + * * * * * + + + + +_FORNOVO_ + + +In the town of Parma there is one surpassingly strange relic of the +past. The palace of the Farnesi, like many a haunt of upstart tyranny +and beggared pride on these Italian plains, rises misshapen and +disconsolate above the stream that bears the city's name. The squalor +of this grey-brown edifice of formless brick, left naked like the +palace of the same Farnesi at Piacenza, has something even horrid in +it now that only vague memory survives of its former uses. The +princely _sprezzatura_ of its ancient occupants, careless of these +unfinished courts and unroofed galleries amid the splendour of their +purfled silks and the glitter of their torchlight pageantry, has +yielded to sullen cynicism--the cynicism of arrested ruin and +unreverend age. All that was satisfying to the senses and distracting +to the eyesight in their transitory pomp has passed away, leaving a +sinister and naked shell. Remembrance can but summon up the crimes, +the madness, the trivialities of those dead palace-builders. An +atmosphere of evil clings to the dilapidated walls, as though the +tainted spirit of the infamous Pier Luigi still possessed the spot, on +which his toadstool brood of princelings sprouted in the mud of their +misdeeds. Enclosed in this huge labyrinth of brickwork is the relic of +which I spoke. It is the once world-famous Teatro Farnese, raised in +the year 1618 by Ranunzio Farnese for the marriage of Odoardo Farnese +with Margaret of Austria. Giambattista Aleotti, a native of +pageant-loving Ferrara, traced the stately curves and noble orders of +the galleries, designed the columns that support the raftered roof, +marked out the orchestra, arranged the stage, and breathed into the +whole the spirit of Palladio's most heroic neo-Latin style. Vast, +built of wood, dishevelled, with broken statues and blurred coats of +arms, with its empty scene, its uncurling frescoes, its hangings all +in rags, its cobwebs of two centuries, its dust and mildew and +discoloured gold--this theatre, a sham in its best days, and now that +ugliest of things, a sham unmasked and naked to the light of day, is +yet sublime, because of its proportioned harmony, because of its grand +Roman manner. The sight and feeling of it fasten upon the mind and +abide in the memory like a nightmare,--like one of Piranesi's weirdest +and most passion-haunted etchings for the _Carceri_. Idling there at +noon in the twilight of the dust-bedarkened windows, we fill the tiers +of those high galleries with ladies, the space below with grooms and +pages; the stage is ablaze with torches, and an Italian Masque, such +as our Marlowe dreamed of, fills the scene. But it is impossible to +dower these fancies with even such life as in healthier, happier +ruins phantasy may lend to imagination's figments. This theatre is +like a maniac's skull, empty of all but unrealities and mockeries of +things that are. The ghosts we raise here could never have been living +men and women: _questi sciaurati non fur mai vivi._ So clinging is the +sense of instability that appertains to every fragment of that dry-rot +tyranny which seized by evil fortune in the sunset of her golden day +on Italy. + +In this theatre I mused one morning after visiting Fornovo; and the +thoughts suggested by the battlefield found their proper atmosphere in +the dilapidated place. What, indeed, is the Teatro Farnese but a +symbol of those hollow principalities which the despot and the +stranger built in Italy after the fatal date of 1494, when national +enthusiasm and political energy were expiring in a blaze of art, and +when the Italians as a people had ceased to be; but when the phantom +of their former life, surviving in high works of beauty, was still +superb by reason of imperishable style! How much in Italy of the +Renaissance was, like this plank-built plastered theatre, a glorious +sham! The sham was seen through then; and now it stands unmasked: and +yet, strange to say, so perfect is its form that we respect the sham +and yield our spirits to the incantation of its music. + +The battle of Fornovo, as modern battles go, was a paltry affair; and +even at the time it seemed sufficiently without result. Yet the +trumpets which rang on July 6, 1495, for the onset, sounded the +_reveil_ of the modern world; and in the inconclusive termination of +the struggle of that day, the Italians were already judged and +sentenced as a nation. The armies who met that morning represented +Italy and France,--Italy, the Sibyl of Renaissance; France, the Sibyl +of Revolution. At the fall of evening Europe was already looking +northward; and the last years of the fifteenth century were opening +an act which closed in blood at Paris on the ending of the eighteenth. + +If it were not for thoughts like these, no one, I suppose, would take +the trouble to drive for two hours out of Parma to the little village +of Fornovo--a score of bare grey hovels on the margin of a pebbly +river-bed beneath the Apennines. The fields on either side, as far as +eye can see, are beautiful indeed in May sunlight, painted here with +flax, like shallow sheets of water reflecting a pale sky, and there +with clover red as blood. Scarce unfolded leaves sparkle like +flamelets of bright green upon the knotted vines, and the young corn +is bending all one way beneath a western breeze. But not less +beautiful than this is the whole broad plain of Lombardy; nor are the +nightingales louder here than in the acacia trees around Pavia. As we +drive, the fields become less fertile, and the hills encroach upon the +level, sending down their spurs upon that waveless plain like blunt +rocks jutting out into a tranquil sea. When we reach the bed of the +Taro, these hills begin to narrow on either hand, and the road rises. +Soon they open out again with gradual curving lines, forming a kind of +amphitheatre filled up from flank to flank with the _ghiara_ or pebbly +bottom of the Taro. The Taro is not less wasteful than any other of +the brotherhood of streams that pour from Alp or Apennine to swell the +Po. It wanders, an impatient rivulet, through a wilderness of +boulders, uncertain of its aim, shifting its course with the season of +the year, unless the jaws of some deep-cloven gully hold it tight and +show how insignificant it is. As we advance, the hills approach again; +between their skirts there is nothing but the river-bed; and now on +rising ground above the stream, at the point of juncture between the +Ceno and the Taro, we find Fornovo. Beyond the village the valley +broadens out once more, disclosing Apennines capped with winter snow. +To the right descends the Ceno. To the left foams the Taro, following +whose rocky channel we should come at last to Pontremoli and the +Tyrrhenian sea beside Sarzana. On a May-day of sunshine like the +present, the Taro is a gentle stream. A waggon drawn by two white oxen +has just entered its channel, guided by a contadino with goat-skin +leggings, wielding a long goad. The patient creatures stem the water, +which rises to the peasant's thighs and ripples round the creaking +wheels. Swaying to and fro, as the shingles shift upon the river-bed, +they make their way across; and now they have emerged upon the stones; +and now we lose them in a flood of sunlight. + +It was by this pass that Charles VIII. in 1495 returned from Tuscany, +when the army of the League was drawn up waiting to intercept and +crush him in the mousetrap of Fornovo. No road remained for Charles +and his troops but the rocky bed of the Taro, running, as I have +described it, between the spurs of steep hills. It is true that the +valley of the Baganza leads, from a little higher up among the +mountains, into Lombardy. But this pass runs straight to Parma; and to +follow it would have brought the French upon the walls of a strong +city. Charles could not do otherwise than descend upon the village of +Fornovo, and cut his way thence in the teeth of the Italian army over +stream and boulder between the gorges of throttling mountain. The +failure of the Italians to achieve what here upon the ground appears +so simple, delivered Italy hand-bound to strangers. Had they but +succeeded in arresting Charles and destroying his forces at Fornovo, +it is just possible that then--even then, at the eleventh hour--Italy +might have gained the sense of national coherence, or at least have +proved herself capable of holding by her leagues the foreigner at bay. +As it was, the battle of Fornovo, in spite of Venetian bonfires and +Mantuan Madonnas of Victory, made her conscious of incompetence and +convicted her of cowardice. After Fornovo, her sons scarcely dared to +hold their heads up in the field against invaders; and the battles +fought upon her soil were duels among aliens for the prize of Italy. + +In order to comprehend the battle of Fornovo in its bearings on +Italian history, we must go back to the year 1492, and understand the +conditions of the various States of Italy at that date. On April 8 in +that year, Lorenzo de' Medici, who had succeeded in maintaining a +political equilibrium in the peninsula, expired, and was succeeded by +his son Piero, a vain and foolhardy young man, from whom no guidance +could be expected. On July 25, Innocent VIII. died, and was succeeded +by the very worst Pope who has ever occupied S. Peter's chair, +Roderigo Borgia, Alexander VI. It was felt at once that the old order +of things had somehow ended, and that a new era, the destinies of +which as yet remained incalculable, was opening for Italy. The chief +Italian powers, hitherto kept in equipoise by the diplomacy of Lorenzo +de' Medici, were these--the Duchy of Milan, the Republic of Venice, +the Republic of Florence, the Papacy, and the kingdom of Naples. +Minor States, such as the Republics of Genoa and Siena, the Duchies of +Urbino and Ferrara, the Marquisate of Mantua, the petty tyrannies of +Romagna, and the wealthy city of Bologna, were sufficiently important +to affect the balance of power, and to produce new combinations. For +the present purpose it is, however, enough to consider the five great +Powers. + +After the peace of Constance, which freed the Lombard Communes from +Imperial interference in the year 1183, Milan, by her geographical +position, rose rapidly to be the first city of North Italy. Without +narrating the changes by which she lost her freedom as a Commune, it +is enough to state that, earliest of all Italian cities, Milan passed +into the hands of a single family. The Visconti managed to convert +this flourishing commonwealth, with all its dependencies, into their +private property, ruling it exclusively for their own profit, using +its municipal institutions as the machinery of administration, and +employing the taxes which they raised upon its wealth for purely +selfish ends. When the line of the Visconti ended in the year 1447, +their tyranny was continued by Francesco Sforza, the son of a poor +soldier of adventure, who had raised himself by his military genius, +and had married Bianca, the illegitimate daughter of the last +Visconti. On the death of Francesco Sforza in 1466, he left two sons, +Galeazzo Maria and Lodovico, surnamed Il Moro, both of whom were +destined to play a prominent part in history. Galeazzo Maria, +dissolute, vicious, and cruel to the core, was murdered by his injured +subjects in the year 1476. His son, Giovanni Galeazzo, aged eight, +would in course of time have succeeded to the Duchy, had it not been +for the ambition of his uncle Lodovico. Lodovico contrived to name +himself as Regent for his nephew, whom he kept, long after he had come +of age, in a kind of honourable prison. Virtual master in Milan, but +without a legal title to the throne, unrecognised in his authority by +the Italian powers, and holding it from day to day by craft and fraud, +Lodovico at last found his situation untenable; and it was this +difficulty of an usurper to maintain himself in his despotism which, +as we shall see, brought the French into Italy. + +Venice, the neighbour and constant foe of Milan, had become a close +oligarchy by a process of gradual constitutional development, which +threw her government into the hands of a few nobles. She was +practically ruled by the hereditary members of the Grand Council. Ever +since the year 1453, when Constantinople fell beneath the Turk, the +Venetians had been more and more straitened in their Oriental +commerce, and were thrown back upon the policy of territorial +aggrandisement in Italy, from which they had hitherto refrained as +alien to the temperament of the Republic. At the end of the fifteenth +century Venice therefore became an object of envy and terror to the +Italian States. They envied her because she alone was tranquil, +wealthy, powerful, and free. They feared her because they had good +reason to suspect her of encroachment; and it was foreseen that if she +got the upper hand in Italy, all Italy would be the property of the +families inscribed upon the Golden Book. It was thus alone that the +Italians comprehended government. The principle of representation +being utterly unknown, and the privileged burghers in each city being +regarded as absolute and lawful owners of the city and of everything +belonging to it, the conquest of a town by a republic implied the +political extinction of that town and the disfranchisement of its +inhabitants in favour of the conquerors. + +Florence at this epoch still called itself a Republic; and of all +Italian commonwealths it was by far the most democratic. Its history, +unlike that of Venice, had been the history of continual and brusque +changes, resulting in the destruction of the old nobility, in the +equalisation of the burghers, and in the formation of a new +aristocracy of wealth. Prom this class of _bourgeois_ nobles sprang +the Medici, who, by careful manipulation of the State machinery, by +the creation of a powerful party devoted to their interests, by +flattery of the people, by corruption, by taxation, and by constant +scheming, raised themselves to the first place in the commonwealth, +and became its virtual masters. In the year 1492 Lorenzo de' Medici, +the most remarkable chief of this despotic family, died, bequeathing +his supremacy in the Republic to a son of marked incompetence. + +Since the Pontificate of Nicholas V. the See of Rome had entered upon +a new period of existence. The Popes no longer dreaded to reside in +Rome, but were bent upon making the metropolis of Christendom both +splendid as a seat of art and learning, and also potent as the capital +of a secular kingdom. Though their fiefs in Romagna and the March were +still held but loosely, though their provinces swarmed with petty +despots who defied the Papal authority, and though the princely Roman +houses of Colonna and Orsini were still strong enough to terrorise the +Holy Father in the Vatican, it was now clear that the Papal See must +in the end get the better of its adversaries, and consolidate itself +into a first-rate Power. The internal spirit of the Papacy at this +time corresponded to its external policy. It was thoroughly +secularised by a series of worldly and vicious pontiffs, who had clean +forgotten what their title, Vicar of Christ, implied. They +consistently used their religious prestige to enforce their secular +authority, while by their temporal power they caused their religious +claims to be respected. Corrupt and shameless, they indulged +themselves in every vice, openly acknowledged their children, and +turned Italy upside down in order to establish favourites and bastards +in the principalities they seized as spoils of war. + +The kingdom of Naples differed from any other state of Italy. Subject +continually to foreign rulers since the decay of the Greek Empire, +governed in succession by the Normans, the Hohenstauffens, and the +House of Anjou, it had never enjoyed the real independence, or the +free institutions, of the northern provinces; nor had it been +Italianised in the same sense as the rest of the peninsula. Despotism, +which assumed so many forms in Italy, was here neither the tyranny of +a noble house, nor the masked autocracy of a burgher, nor yet the +forceful sway of a condottiere. It had a dynastic character, +resembling the monarchy of one of the great European nations, but +modified by the peculiar conditions of Italian statecraft. Owing to +this dynastic and monarchical complexion of the Neapolitan kingdom, +semi-feudal customs flourished in the south far more than in the north +of Italy. The barons were more powerful; and the destinies of the +Regno often turned upon their feuds and quarrels with the Crown. At +the same time the Neapolitan despots shared the uneasy circumstances +of all Italian potentates, owing to the uncertainty of their tenure, +both as conquerors and aliens, and also as the nominal vassals of the +Holy See. The rights of suzerainty which the Normans had yielded to +the Papacy over their southern conquests, and which the Popes had +arbitrarily exercised in favour of the Angevine princes, proved a +constant source of peril to the rest of Italy by rendering the +succession to the crown of Naples doubtful. On the extinction of the +Angevine line, however, the throne was occupied by a prince who had no +valid title but that of the sword to its possession. Alfonso of Aragon +conquered Naples in 1442, and neglecting his hereditary dominion, +settled in his Italian capital. Possessed with the enthusiasm for +literature which was then the ruling passion of the Italians, and very +liberal to men of learning, Alfonso won for himself the surname of +Magnanimous. On his death, in 1458, he bequeathed his Spanish +kingdom, together with Sicily and Sardinia, to his brother, and left +the fruits of his Italian conquest to his bastard, Ferdinand. This +Ferdinand, whose birth was buried in profound obscurity, was the +reigning sovereign in the year 1492. Of a cruel and sombre +temperament, traitorous and tyrannical, Ferdinand was hated by his +subjects as much as Alfonso had been loved. He possessed, however, to +a remarkable degree, the qualities which at that epoch constituted a +consummate statesman; and though the history of his reign is the +history of plots and conspiracies, of judicial murders and forcible +assassinations, of famines produced by iniquitous taxation, and of +every kind of diabolical tyranny, Ferdinand contrived to hold his own, +in the teeth of a rebellious baronage or a maddened population. His +political sagacity amounted almost to a prophetic instinct in the last +years of his life, when he became aware that the old order was +breaking up in Italy, and had cause to dread that Charles VIII. of +France would prove his title to the kingdom of Naples by force of +arms.[13] + +Such were the component parts of the Italian body politic, with the +addition of numerous petty principalities and powers, adhering more or +less consistently to one or other of the greater States. The whole +complex machine was bound together by no sense of common interest, +animated by no common purpose, amenable to no central authority. Even +such community of feeling as one spoken language gives, was lacking. +And yet Italy distinguished herself clearly from the rest of Europe, +not merely as a geographical fact, but also as a people intellectually +and spiritually one. The rapid rise of humanism had aided in producing +this national self-consciousness. Every State and every city was +absorbed in the recovery of culture and in the development of art and +literature. Far in advance of the other European nations, the Italians +regarded the rest of the world as barbarous, priding themselves the +while, in spite of mutual jealousies and hatreds, on their Italic +civilisation. They were enormously wealthy. The resources of the Papal +treasury, the private fortunes of the Florentine bankers, the riches +of the Venetian merchants might have purchased all that France or +Germany possessed of value. The single Duchy of Milan yielded to its +masters 700,000 golden florins of revenue, according to the +computation of De Comines. In default of a confederative system, the +several States were held in equilibrium by diplomacy. By far the most +important people, next to the despots and the captains of adventure, +were ambassadors and orators. War itself had become a matter of +arrangement, bargain, and diplomacy. The game of stratagem was played +by generals who had been friends yesterday and might be friends again +to-morrow, with troops who felt no loyalty whatever for the standards +under which they listed. To avoid slaughter and to achieve the ends of +warfare by parade and demonstration was the interest of every one +concerned. Looking back upon Italy of the fifteenth century, taking +account of her religious deadness and moral corruption, estimating the +absence of political vigour in the republics and the noxious tyranny +of the despots, analysing her lack of national spirit, and comparing +her splendid life of cultivated ease with the want of martial energy, +we can see but too plainly that contact with a simpler and stronger +people could not but produce a terrible catastrophe. The Italians +themselves, however, were far from comprehending this. Centuries of +undisturbed internal intrigue had accustomed them to play the game of +forfeits with each other, and nothing warned them that the time was +come at which diplomacy, finesse, and craft would stand them in ill +stead against rapacious conquerors. + +The storm which began to gather over Italy in the year 1492 had its +first beginning in the North. Lodovico Sforza's position in the Duchy +of Milan was becoming every day more difficult, when a slight and to +all appearances insignificant incident converted his apprehension of +danger into panic. It was customary for the States of Italy to +congratulate a new Pope on his election by their ambassadors; and this +ceremony had now to be performed for Roderigo Borgia. Lodovico +proposed that his envoys should go to Rome together with those of +Venice, Naples, and Florence; but Piero de' Medici, whose vanity made +him wish to send an embassy in his own name, contrived that Lodovico's +proposal should be rejected both by Florence and the King of Naples. +So strained was the situation of Italian affairs that Lodovico saw in +this repulse a menace to his own usurped authority. Feeling himself +isolated among the princes of his country, rebuffed by the Medici, and +coldly treated by the King of Naples, he turned in his anxiety to +France, and advised the young king, Charles VIII., to make good his +claim upon the Regno. It was a bold move to bring the foreigner thus +into Italy; and even Lodovico, who prided himself upon his sagacity, +could not see how things would end. He thought his situation so +hazardous, however, that any change must be for the better. Moreover, +a French invasion of Naples would tie the hands of his natural foe, +King Ferdinand, whose granddaughter, Isabella of Aragon, had married +Giovanni Galeazzo Sforza, and was now the rightful Duchess of Milan. +When the Florentine ambassador at Milan asked him how he had the +courage to expose Italy to such peril, his reply betrayed the egotism +of his policy: 'You talk to me of Italy; but when have I looked Italy +in the face? No one ever gave a thought to my affairs. I have, +therefore, had to give them such security as I could.' + +Charles VIII. was young, light-brained, romantic, and ruled by +_parvenus_, who had an interest in disturbing the old order of the +monarchy. He lent a willing ear to Lodovico's invitation, backed as +this was by the eloquence and passion of numerous Italian refugees and +exiles. Against the advice of his more prudent counsellors, he taxed +all the resources of his kingdom, and concluded treaties on +disadvantageous terms with England, Germany, and Spain, in order that +he might be able to concentrate all his attention upon the Italian +expedition. At the end of the year 1493, it was known that the +invasion was resolved upon. Gentile Becchi, the Florentine envoy at +the Court of France, wrote to Piero de' Medici: 'If the King succeeds, +it is all over with Italy--_tutta a bordello._' The extraordinary +selfishness of the several Italian States at this critical moment +deserves to be noticed. The Venetians, as Paolo Antonio Soderini +described them to Piero de' Medici, 'are of opinion that to keep +quiet, and to see other potentates of Italy spending and suffering, +cannot but be to their advantage. They trust no one, and feel sure +they have enough money to be able at any moment to raise sufficient +troops, and so to guide events according to their inclinations.' As +the invasion was directed against Naples, Ferdinand of Aragon +displayed the acutest sense of the situation. 'Frenchmen,' he +exclaimed, in what appears like a prophetic passion when contrasted +with the cold indifference of others no less really menaced, 'have +never come into Italy without inflicting ruin; and this invasion, if +rightly considered, cannot but bring universal ruin, although it seems +to menace us alone.' In his agony Ferdinand applied to Alexander VI. +But the Pope looked coldly upon him, because the King of Naples, with +rare perspicacity, had predicted that his elevation to the Papacy +would prove disastrous to Christendom. Alexander preferred to ally +himself with Venice and Milan. Upon this Ferdinand wrote as follows: +'It seems fated that the Popes should leave no peace in Italy. We are +compelled to fight; but the Duke of Bari (_i.e._ Lodovico Sforza) +should think what may ensue from the tumult he is stirring up. He who +raises this wind will not be able to lay the tempest when he likes. +Let him look to the past, and he will see how every time that our +internal quarrels have brought Powers from beyond the Alps into Italy, +these have oppressed and lorded over her.' + +Terribly verified as these words were destined to be,--and they were +no less prophetic in their political sagacity than Savonarola's +prediction of the Sword and bloody Scourge,--it was now too late to +avert the coming ruin. On March 1, 1494, Charles was with his army at +Lyons. Early in September he had crossed the pass of Mont Genevre and +taken up his quarters in the town of Asti. There is no need to +describe in detail the holiday march of the French troops through +Lombardy, Tuscany, and Rome, until, without having struck a blow of +consequence, the gates of Naples opened to receive the conqueror upon +February 22, 1495. Philippe de Comines, who parted from the King at +Asti and passed the winter as his envoy at Venice, has more than once +recorded his belief that nothing but the direct interposition of +Providence could have brought so mad an expedition to so successful a +conclusion. 'Dieu monstroit conduire l'entreprise,' No sooner, +however, was Charles installed in Naples than the States of Italy +began to combine against him. Lodovico Sforza had availed himself of +the general confusion consequent upon the first appearance of the +French, to poison his nephew. He was, therefore, now the titular, as +well as virtual, Lord of Milan. So far, he had achieved what he +desired, and had no further need of Charles. The overtures he now made +to the Venetians and the Pope terminated in a League between these +Powers for the expulsion of the French from Italy. Germany and Spain +entered into the same alliance; and De Comines, finding himself +treated with marked coldness by the Signory of Venice, despatched a +courier to warn Charles in Naples of the coming danger. After a stay +of only fifty days in his new capital, the French King hurried +northward. Moving quickly through the Papal States and Tuscany, he +engaged his troops in the passes of the Apennines near Pontremoli, and +on July 5, 1495, took up his quarters in the village of Fornovo. De +Comines reckons that his whole fighting force at this time did not +exceed 9,000 men, with fourteen pieces of artillery. Against him at +the opening of the valley was the army of the League, numbering some +35,000 men, of whom three-fourths were supplied by Venice, the rest by +Lodovico Sforza and the German Emperor. Francesco Gonzaga, Marquis of +Mantua, was the general of the Venetian forces; and on him, therefore, +fell the real responsibility of the battle. + +De Comines remarks on the imprudence of the allies, who allowed +Charles to advance as far as Fornovo, when it was their obvious policy +to have established themselves in the village and so have caught the +French troops in a trap. It was a Sunday when the French marched down +upon Fornovo. Before them spread the plain of Lombardy, and beyond it +the white crests of the Alps. 'We were,' says De Comines, 'in a valley +between two little mountain flanks, and in that valley ran a river +which could easily be forded on foot, except when it is swelled with +sudden rains. The whole valley was a bed of gravel and big stones, +very difficult for horses, about a quarter of a league in breadth, and +on the right bank lodged our enemies.' Any one who has visited Fornovo +can understand the situation of the two armies. Charles occupied the +village on the right bank of the Taro. On the same bank, extending +downward toward the plain, lay the host of the allies; and in order +that Charles should escape them, it was necessary that he should cross +the Taro, just below its junction with the Ceno, and reach Lombardy by +marching in a parallel line with his foes. + +All through the night of Sunday it thundered and rained incessantly; +so that on the Monday morning the Taro was considerably swollen. At +seven o'clock the King sent for De Comines, who found him already +armed and mounted on the finest horse he had ever seen. The name of +this charger was _Savoy_. He was black, one-eyed, and of middling +height; and to his great courage, as we shall see, Charles owed life +upon that day. The French army, ready for the march, now took to the +gravelly bed of the Taro, passing the river at a distance of about a +quarter of a league from the allies. As the French left Fornovo, the +light cavalry of their enemies entered the village and began to attack +the baggage. At the same time the Marquis of Mantua, with the flower +of his men-at-arms, crossed the Taro and harassed the rear of the +French host; while raids from the right bank to the left were +constantly being made by sharpshooters and flying squadrons. 'At this +moment,' says De Comines, 'not a single man of us could have escaped +if our ranks had once been broken.' The French army was divided into +three main bodies. The vanguard consisted of some 350 men-at-arms, +3000 Switzers, 300 archers of the Guard, a few mounted crossbow-men, +and the artillery. Next came the Battle, and after this the rearguard. +At the time when the Marquis of Mantua made his attack, the French +rearguard had not yet crossed the river. Charles quitted the van, put +himself at the head of his chivalry, and charged the Italian horsemen, +driving them back, some to the village and others to their camp. De +Comines observes, that had the Italian knights been supported in this +passage of arms by the light cavalry of the Venetian force, called +Stradiots, the French must have been outnumbered, thrown into +confusion, and defeated. As it was, these Stradiots were engaged in +plundering the baggage of the French; and the Italians, accustomed to +bloodless encounters, did not venture, in spite of their immense +superiority of numbers, to renew the charge. In the pursuit of +Gonzaga's horsemen Charles outstripped his staff, and was left almost +alone to grapple with a little band of mounted foemen. It was here +that his noble horse, Savoy, saved his person by plunging and charging +till assistance came up from the French, and enabled the King to +regain his van. + +It is incredible, considering the nature of the ground and the number +of the troops engaged, that the allies should not have returned to the +attack and have made the passage of the French into the plain +impossible. De Comines, however, assures us that the actual engagement +only lasted a quarter of an hour, and the pursuit of the Italians +three quarters of an hour. After they had once resolved to fly, they +threw away their lances and betook themselves to Reggio and Parma. So +complete was their discomfiture, that De Comines gravely blames the +want of military genius and adventure in the French host. If, instead +of advancing along the left bank of the Taro and there taking up his +quarters for the night, Charles had recrossed the stream and pursued +the army of the allies, he would have had the whole of Lombardy at his +discretion. As it was, the French army encamped not far from the scene +of the action in great discomfort and anxiety. De Comines had to +bivouac in a vineyard, without even a mantle to wrap round him, having +lent his cloak to the King in the morning; and as it had been pouring +all day, the ground could not have afforded very luxurious quarters. +The same extraordinary luck which had attended the French in their +whole expedition, now favoured their retreat; and the same +pusillanimity which the allies had shown at Fornovo, prevented them +from re-forming and engaging with the army of Charles upon the plain. +One hour before daybreak on Tuesday morning, the French broke up their +camp and succeeded in clearing the valley. That night they lodged at +Fiorenzuola, the next at Piacenza, and so on; till on the eighth day +they arrived at Asti without having been so much as incommoded by the +army of the allies in their rear. + +Although the field of Fornovo was in reality so disgraceful to the +Italians, they reckoned it a victory upon the technical pretence that +the camp and baggage of the French had been seized. Illuminations and +rejoicings made the piazza of S. Mark in Venice gay, and Francesco da +Gonzaga had the glorious Madonna della Vittoria painted for him by +Mantegna, in commemoration of what ought only to have been remembered +with shame. + +A fitting conclusion to this sketch, connecting its close with the +commencement, may be found in some remarks upon the manner of warfare +to which the Italians of the Renaissance had become accustomed, and +which proved so futile on the field of Fornovo. During the middle +ages, and in the days of the Communes, the whole male population of +Italy had fought light-armed on foot. Merchant and artisan left the +counting-house and the workshop, took shield and pike, and sallied +forth to attack the barons in their castles, or to meet the Emperor's +troops upon the field. It was with this national militia that the +citizens of Florence freed their _Contado_ of the nobles, and the +burghers of Lombardy gained the battle of Legnano. In course of time, +by a process of change which it is not very easy to trace, heavily +armed cavalry began to take the place of infantry in mediaeval warfare. +Men-at-arms, as they were called, encased from head to foot in iron, +and mounted upon chargers no less solidly caparisoned, drove the +foot-soldiers before them at the points of their long lances. Nowhere +in Italy do they seem to have met with the fierce resistance which the +bears of the Swiss Oberland and the bulls of Uri offered to the +knights of Burgundy. No Tuscan Arnold von Winkelried clasped a dozen +lances to his bosom that the foeman's ranks might thus be broken at +the cost of his own life; nor did it occur to the Italian burghers to +meet the charge of the horsemen with squares protected by bristling +spears. They seem, on the contrary, to have abandoned military service +with the readiness of men whose energies were already absorbed in the +affairs of peace. To become a practised and efficient man-at-arms +required long training and a life's devotion. So much time the +burghers of the free towns could not spare to military service, while +the petty nobles were only too glad to devote themselves to so +honourable a calling. Thus it came to pass that a class of +professional fighting-men was gradually formed in Italy, whose +services the burghers and the princes bought, and by whom the wars of +the peninsula were regularly farmed by contract. Wealth and luxury in +the great cities continued to increase; and as the burghers grew more +comfortable, they were less inclined to take the field in their own +persons, and more disposed to vote large sums of money for the +purchase of necessary aid. At the same time this system suited the +despots, since it spared them the peril of arming their own subjects, +while they taxed them to pay the services of foreign captains. War +thus became a commerce. Romagna, the Marches of Ancona, and other +parts of the Papal dominions, supplied a number of petty nobles whose +whole business in life it was to form companies of trained horsemen, +and with these bands to hire themselves out to the republics and the +despots. Gain was the sole purpose of these captains. They sold their +service to the highest bidder, fighting irrespectively of principle or +patriotism, and passing with the coldest equanimity from the camp of +one master to that of his worst foe. It was impossible that true +military spirit should survive this prostitution of the art of war. A +species of mock warfare prevailed in Italy. Battles were fought with a +view to booty more than victory; prisoners were taken for the sake of +ransom; bloodshed was carefully avoided, for the men who fought on +either side in any pitched field had been comrades with their present +foemen in the last encounter, and who could tell how soon the general +of the one host might not need his rival's troops to recruit his own +ranks? Like every genuine institution of the Italian Renaissance, +warfare was thus a work of fine art, a masterpiece of intellectual +subtlety; and like the Renaissance itself, this peculiar form of +warfare was essentially transitional. The cannon and the musket were +already in use; and it only required one blast of gunpowder to turn +the sham-fight of courtly, traitorous, finessing captains of adventure +into something terribly more real. To men like the Marquis of Mantua +war had been a highly profitable game of skill; to men like the +Marechal de Gie it was a murderous horseplay; and this difference the +Italians were not slow to perceive. When they cast away their lances +at Fornovo, and fled--in spite of their superior numbers--never to +return, one fair-seeming sham of the fifteenth century became a vision +of the past. + + * * * * * + + + + +_FLORENCE AND THE MEDICI_ + + Di Firenze in prima si divisono intra loro i nobili, dipoi i + nobili e il popolo, e in ultimo il popolo e la plebe; e + molte volte occorse che una di queste parti rimasa + superiore, si divise in due.--MACHIAVELLI. + + +I + +Florence, like all Italian cities, owed her independence to the duel +of the Papacy and Empire. The transference of the imperial authority +beyond the Alps had enabled the burghs of Lombardy and Tuscany to +establish a form of self-government. This government was based upon +the old municipal organisation of duumvirs and decemvirs. It was, in +fact, nothing more or less than a survival from the ancient Roman +system. The proof of this was, that while vindicating their rights as +towns, the free cities never questioned the validity of the imperial +title. Even after the peace of Constance in 1183, when Frederick +Barbarossa acknowledged their autonomy, they received within their +walls a supreme magistrate, with power of life and death and ultimate +appeal in all decisive questions, whose title of Potesta indicated +that he represented the imperial power--Potestas. It was not by the +assertion of any right, so much as by the growth of custom, and by the +weakness of the Emperors, that in course of time each city became a +sovereign State. The theoretical supremacy of the Empire prevented any +other authority from taking the first place in Italy. On the other +hand, the practical inefficiency of the Emperors to play their part +encouraged the establishment of numerous minor powers amenable to no +controlling discipline. + +The free cities derived their strength from industry, and had nothing +in common with the nobles of the surrounding country. Broadly +speaking, the population of the towns included what remained in Italy +of the old Roman people. This Roman stock was nowhere stronger than in +Florence and Venice--Florence defended from barbarian incursions by +her mountains and marshes, Venice by the isolation of her lagoons. The +nobles, on the contrary, were mostly of foreign origin--Germans, +Franks, and Lombards, who had established themselves as feudal lords +in castles apart from the cities. The force which the burghs acquired +as industrial communities was soon turned against these nobles. The +larger cities, like Milan and Florence, began to make war upon the +lords of castles, and to absorb into their own territory the small +towns and villages around them. Thus in the social economy of the +Italians there were two antagonistic elements ready to range +themselves beneath any banners that should give the form of legitimate +warfare to their mutual hostility. It was the policy of the Church in +the twelfth century to support the cause of the cities, using them as +a weapon against the Empire, and stimulating the growing ambition of +the burghers. In this way Italy came to be divided into the two +world-famous factions known as Guelf and Ghibelline. The struggle +between Guelf and Ghibelline was the struggle of the Papacy for the +depression of the Empire, the struggle of the great burghs face to +face with feudalism, the struggle of the old Italie stock enclosed in +cities with the foreign nobles established in fortresses. When the +Church had finally triumphed by the extirpation of the House of +Hohenstaufen, this conflict of Guelf and Ghibelline was really ended. +Until the reign of Charles V. no Emperor interfered to any purpose in +Italian affairs. At the same time the Popes ceased to wield a +formidable power. Having won the battle by calling in the French, they +suffered the consequences of this policy by losing their hold on Italy +during the long period of their exile at Avignon. The Italians, left +without either Pope or Emperor, were free to pursue their course of +internal development, and to prosecute their quarrels among +themselves. But though the names of Guelf and Ghibelline lost their +old significance after the year 1266 (the date of King Manfred's +death), these two factions had so divided Italy that they continued to +play a prominent part in her annals. Guelf still meant constitutional +autonomy, meant the burgher as against the noble, meant industry as +opposed to feudal lordship. Ghibelline meant the rule of the few over +the many, meant tyranny, meant the interest of the noble as against +the merchant and the citizen. These broad distinctions must be borne +in mind, if we seek to understand how it was that a city like Florence +continued to be governed by parties, the European force of which had +passed away. + + +II + + +Florence first rose into importance during the papacy of Innocent III. +Up to this date she had been a town of second-rate distinction even in +Tuscany. Pisa was more powerful by arms and commerce. Lucca was the +old seat of the dukes and marquises of Tuscany. But between the years +1200 and 1250 Florence assumed the place she was to hold +thenceforward, by heading the league of Tuscan cities formed to +support the Guelf party against the Ghibellines. Formally adopting the +Guelf cause, the Florentines made themselves the champions of +municipal liberty in Central Italy; and while they declared war +against the Ghibelline cities, they endeavoured to stamp out the very +name of noble in their State. It is not needful to describe the +varying fortunes of the Guelfs and Ghibellines, the burghers and the +nobles, during the thirteenth and the first half of the fourteenth +centuries. Suffice it to say that through all the vicissitudes of that +stormy period the name Guelf became more and more associated with +republican freedom in Florence. At last, after the final triumph of +that party in 1253, the Guelfs remained victors in the city. +Associating the glory of their independence with Guelf principles, the +citizens of Florence perpetuated within their State a faction that, in +its turn, was destined to prove perilous to liberty. + +When it became clear that the republic was to rule itself henceforth +untrammelled by imperial interference, the people divided themselves +into six districts, and chose for each district two Ancients, who +administered the government in concert with the Potesta and the +Captain of the People. The Ancients were a relic of the old Roman +municipal organisation. The Potesta who was invariably a noble +foreigner selected by the people, represented the extinct imperial +right, and exercised the power of life and death within the city. The +Captain of the People, who was also a foreigner, headed the burghers +in their military capacity, for at that period the troops were levied +from the citizens themselves in twenty companies. The body of the +citizens, or the _popolo_, were ultimately sovereigns in the State. +Assembled under the banners of their several companies, they formed a +_parlamento_ for delegating their own power to each successive +government. Their representatives, again, arranged in two councils, +called the Council of the People and the Council of the Commune, under +the presidency of the Captain of the People and the Potesta, ratified +the measures which had previously been proposed and carried by the +executive authority or Signoria. Under this simple State system the +Florentines placed themselves at the head of the Tuscan League, fought +the battles of the Church, asserted their sovereignty by issuing the +golden florin of the republic, and flourished until 1266. + + +III + + +In that year an important change was effected in the Constitution. +The whole population of Florence consisted, on the one hand, of nobles +or Grandi, as they were called in Tuscany, and on the other hand of +working people. The latter, divided into traders and handicraftsmen, +were distributed in guilds called Arti; and at that time there were +seven Greater and five Lesser Arti, the most influential of all being +the Guild of the Wool Merchants. These guilds had their halls for +meeting, their colleges of chief officers, their heads, called Consoli +or Priors, and their flags. In 1266 it was decided that the +administration of the commonwealth should be placed simply and wholly +in the hands of the Arti, and the Priors of these industrial companies +became the lords or Signory of Florence. No inhabitant of the city who +had not enrolled himself as a craftsman in one of the guilds could +exercise any function of burghership. To be _scioperato_, or without +industry, was to be without power, without rank or place of honour in +the State. The revolution which placed the Arts at the head of the +republic had the practical effect of excluding the Grandi altogether +from the government. Violent efforts were made by these noble +families, potent through their territorial possessions and foreign +connections, and trained from boyhood in the use of arms, to recover +the place from which the new laws thrust them: but their menacing +attitude, instead of intimidating the burghers, roused their anger and +drove them to the passing of still more stringent laws. In 1293, after +the Ghibellines had been defeated in the great battle of Campaldino, a +series of severe enactments, called the Ordinances of Justice, were +decreed against the unruly Grandi. All civic rights were taken from +them; the severest penalties were attached to their slightest +infringement of municipal law; their titles to land were limited; the +privilege of living within the city walls was allowed them only under +galling restrictions; and, last not least, a supreme magistrate, named +the Gonfalonier of Justice, was created for the special purpose of +watching them and carrying out the penal code against them. +Henceforward Florence was governed exclusively by merchants and +artisans. The Grandi hastened to enrol themselves in the guilds, +exchanging their former titles and dignities for the solid privilege +of burghership. The exact parallel to this industrial constitution for +a commonwealth, carrying on wars with emperors and princes, holding +haughty captains in its pay, and dictating laws to subject cities, +cannot, I think, be elsewhere found in history. It is as unique as the +Florence of Dante and Giotto is unique. While the people was guarding +itself thus stringently against the Grandi, a separate body was +created for the special purpose of extirpating the Ghibellines. A +permanent committee of vigilance, called the College or the Captains +of the Guelf Party, was established. It was their function to +administer the forfeited possessions of Ghibelline rebels, to hunt out +suspected citizens, to prosecute them for Ghibellinism, to judge them, +and to punish them as traitors to the commonwealth. This body, like a +little State within the State, proved formidable to the republic +itself through the unlimited and undefined sway it exercised over +burghers whom it chose to tax with treason. In course of time it +became the oligarchical element within the Florentine democracy, and +threatened to change the free constitution of the city into a +government conducted by a few powerful families. + +There is no need to dwell in detail on the internal difficulties of +Florence during the first half of the fourteenth century. Two main +circumstances, however, require to be briefly noticed. These are (i) +the contest of the Blacks and Whites, so famous through the part +played in it by Dante; and (ii) the tyranny of the Duke[1] of Athens, +Walter de Brienne. The feuds of the Blacks and Whites broke up the +city into factions, and produced such anarchy that at last it was +found necessary to place the republic under the protection of foreign +potentates. Charles of Valois was first chosen, and after him the Duke +of Athens, who took up his residence in the city. Entrusted with +dictatorial authority, he used his power to form a military despotism. +Though his reign of violence lasted rather less than a year, it bore +important fruits; for the tyrant, seeking to support himself upon the +favour of the common people, gave political power to the Lesser Arts +at the expense of the Greater, and confused the old State-system by +enlarging the democracy. The net result of these events for Florence +was, first, that the city became habituated to rancorous party-strife, +involving exiles and proscriptions; and, secondly, that it lost its +primitive social hierarchy of classes. + + +IV + + +After the Guelfs had conquered the Ghibellines, and the people had +absorbed the Grandi in their guilds, the next chapter in the troubled +history of Florence was the division of the Popolo against itself. +Civil strife now declared itself as a conflict between labour and +capital. The members of the Lesser Arts, craftsmen who plied trades +subordinate to those of the Greater Arts, rose up against their social +and political superiors, demanding a larger share in the government, a +more equal distribution of profits, higher wages, and privileges that +should place them on an absolute equality with the wealthy merchants. +It was in the year 1378 that the proletariate broke out into +rebellion. Previous events had prepared the way for this revolt. First +of all, the republic had been democratised through the destruction of +the Grandi and through the popular policy pursued to gain his own ends +by the Duke of Athens. Secondly, society had been shaken to its very +foundation by the great plague of 1348. Both Boccaccio and Matteo +Villani draw lively pictures of the relaxed morality and loss of order +consequent upon this terrible disaster; nor had thirty years sufficed +to restore their relative position to grades and ranks confounded by +an overwhelming calamity. We may therefore reckon the great plague of +1348 among the causes which produced the anarchy of 1378. Rising in a +mass to claim their privileges, the artisans ejected the Signory from +the Public Palace, and for awhile Florence was at the mercy of the +mob. It is worthy of notice that the Medici, whose name is scarcely +known before this epoch, now came for one moment to the front. +Salvestro de' Medici was Gonfalonier of Justice at the time when the +tumult first broke out. He followed the faction of the handicraftsmen, +and became the hero of the day. I cannot discover that he did more +than extend a sort of passive protection to their cause. Yet there is +no doubt that the attachment of the working classes to the House of +Medici dates from this period. The rebellion of 1378 is known in +Florentine history as the Tumult of the Ciompi. The name Ciompi +strictly means the Wool-Carders. One set of operatives in the city, +and that the largest, gave its title to the whole body of the +labourers. For some months these craftsmen governed the republic, +appointing their own Signory and passing laws in their own interest; +but, as is usual, the proletariate found itself incapable of sustained +government. The ambition and discontent of the Ciompi foamed +themselves away, and industrious working men began to see that trade +was languishing and credit on the wane. By their own act at last they +restored the government to the Priors of the Greater Arti. Still the +movement had not been without grave consequences. It completed the +levelling of classes, which had been steadily advancing from the first +in Florence. After the Ciompi riot there was no longer not only any +distinction between noble and burgher, but the distinction between +greater and lesser guilds was practically swept away. The classes, +parties, and degrees in the republic were so broken up, ground down, +and mingled, that thenceforth the true source of power in the State +was wealth combined with personal ability. In other words, the proper +political conditions had been formed for unscrupulous adventurers. +Florence had become a democracy without social organisation, which +might fall a prey to oligarchs or despots. What remained of deeply +rooted feuds or factions--animosities against the Grandi, hatred for +the Ghibellines, jealousy of labour and capital--offered so many +points of leverage for stirring the passions of the people and for +covering personal ambition with a cloak of public zeal. The time was +come for the Albizzi to attempt an oligarchy, and for the Medici to +begin the enslavement of the State. + + +V + + +The Constitution of Florence offered many points of weakness to the +attacks of such intriguers. In the first place it was in its origin +not a political but an industrial organisation--a simple group of +guilds invested with the sovereign authority. Its two most powerful +engines, the Gonfalonier of Justice and the Guelf College, had been +formed, not with a view to the preservation of the government, but +with the purpose of quelling the nobles and excluding a detested +faction. It had no permanent head, like the Doge of Venice; no fixed +senate like the Venetian Grand Council; its chief magistrates, the +Signory, were elected for short periods of two months, and their mode +of election was open to the gravest criticism. Supposed to be chosen +by lot, they were really selected from lists drawn up by the factions +in power from time to time. These factions contrived to exclude the +names of all but their adherents from the bags, or _borse_, in which +the burghers eligible for election had to be inscribed. Furthermore, +it was not possible for this shifting Signory to conduct affairs +requiring sustained effort and secret deliberation; therefore recourse +was being continually had to dictatorial Commissions. The people, +summoned in parliament upon the Great Square, were asked to confer +plenipotentiary authority upon a committee called _Balia_, who +proceeded to do what they chose in the State, and who retained power +after the emergency for which they were created passed away. The same +instability in the supreme magistracy led to the appointment of +special commissioners for war, and special councils, or _Pratiche_, +for the management of each department. Such supplementary commissions +not only proved the weakness of the central authority, but they were +always liable to be made the instruments of party warfare. The Guelf +College was another and a different source of danger to the State. Not +acting under the control of the Signory, but using its own initiative, +this powerful body could proscribe and punish burghers on the mere +suspicion of Ghibellinism. Though the Ghibelline faction had become an +empty name, the Guelf College excluded from the franchise all and +every whom they chose on any pretext to admonish. Under this mild +phrase, _to admonish_, was concealed a cruel exercise of tyranny--it +meant to warn a man that he was suspected of treason, and that he had +better relinquish the exercise of his burghership. By free use of this +engine of Admonition, the Guelf College rendered their enemies +voiceless in the State, and were able to pack the Signory and the +councils with their own creatures. Another important defect in the +Florentine Constitution was the method of imposing taxes. This was +done by no regular system. The party in power made what estimate it +chose of a man's capacity to bear taxation, and called upon him for +extraordinary loans. In this way citizens were frequently driven into +bankruptcy and exile; and since to be a debtor to the State deprived a +burgher of his civic rights, severe taxation was one of the best ways +of silencing and neutralising a dissentient. + +I have enumerated these several causes of weakness in the Florentine +State-system, partly because they show how irregularly the +Constitution had been formed by the patching and extension of a simple +industrial machine to suit the needs of a great commonwealth; partly +because it was through these defects that the democracy merged +gradually into a despotism. The art of the Medici consisted in a +scientific comprehension of these very imperfections, a methodic use +of them for their own purposes, and a steady opposition to any +attempts made to substitute a stricter system. The Florentines had +determined to be an industrial community, governing themselves on the +co-operative principle, dividing profits, sharing losses, and exposing +their magistrates to rigid scrutiny. All this in theory was excellent. +Had they remained an unambitious and peaceful commonwealth, engaged in +the wool and silk trade, it might have answered. Modern Europe might +have admired the model of a communistic and commercial democracy. But +when they engaged in aggressive wars, and sought to enslave +sister-cities like Pisa and Lucca, it was soon found that their simple +trading constitution would not serve. They had to piece it out with +subordinate machinery, cumbrous, difficult to manage, ill-adapted to +the original structure. Each limb of this subordinate machinery, +moreover, was a _point d'appui_ for insidious and self-seeking party +leaders. + +Florence, in the middle of the fourteenth century, was a vast beehive +of industry. Distinctions of rank among burghers, qualified to vote +and hold office, were theoretically unknown. Highly educated men, of +more than princely wealth, spent their time in shops and +counting-houses, and trained their sons to follow trades. Military +service at this period was abandoned by the citizens; they preferred +to pay mercenary troops for the conduct of their wars. Nor was there, +as in Venice, any outlet for their energies upon the seas. Florence +had no navy, no great port--she only kept a small fleet for the +protection of her commerce. Thus the vigour of the commonwealth was +concentrated on itself; while the influence of the citizens, through +their affiliated trading-houses, correspondents, and agents, extended +like a network over Europe. In a community of this kind it was natural +that wealth--rank and titles being absent--should alone confer +distinction. Accordingly we find that out of the very bosom of the +people a new plutocratic aristocracy begins to rise. The Grandi are +no more; but certain families achieve distinction by their riches, +their numbers, their high spirit, and their ancient place of honour in +the State. These nobles of the purse obtained the name of _Popolani +Nobili_; and it was they who now began to play at high stakes for the +supreme power. In all the subsequent vicissitudes of Florence every +change takes place by intrigue and by clever manipulation of the +political machine. Recourse is rarely had to violence of any kind, and +the leaders of revolutions are men of the yard-measure, never of the +sword. The despotism to which the republic eventually succumbed was no +less commercial than the democracy had been. Florence in the days of +her slavery remained a _Popolo_. + + +VI + + +The opening of the second half of the fourteenth century had been +signalised by the feuds of two great houses, both risen from the +people. These were the Albizzi and the Ricci. At this epoch there had +been a formal closing of the lists of burghers;--henceforth no new +families who might settle in the city could claim the franchise, vote +in the assemblies, or hold magistracies. The Guelf College used their +old engine of admonition to persecute _novi homines_, whom they +dreaded as opponents. At the head of this formidable organisation the +Albizzi placed themselves, and worked it with such skill that they +succeeded in driving the Ricci out of all participation in the +government. The tumult of the Ciompi formed but an episode in their +career toward oligarchy; indeed, that revolution only rendered the +political material of the Florentine republic more plastic in the +hands of intriguers, by removing the last vestiges of class +distinctions and by confusing the old parties of the State. + +When the Florentines in 1387 engaged in their long duel with Gian +Galeazzo Visconti, the difficulty of conducting this war without some +permanent central authority still further confirmed the power of the +rising oligarchs. The Albizzi became daily more autocratic, until in +1393 their chief, Maso degli Albizzi, a man of strong will and prudent +policy, was chosen Gonfalonier of Justice. Assuming the sway of a +dictator he revised the list of burghers capable of holding office, +struck out the private opponents of his house, and excluded all names +but those of powerful families who were well affected towards an +aristocratic government. The great house of the Alberti were exiled in +a body, declared rebels, and deprived of their possessions, for no +reason except that they seemed dangerous to the Albizzi. It was in +vain that the people murmured against these arbitrary acts. The new +rulers were omnipotent in the Signory, which they packed with their +own men, in the great guilds, and in the Guelf College. All the +machinery invented by the industrial community for its self-management +and self-defence was controlled and manipulated by a close body of +aristocrats, with the Albizzi at their head. It seemed as though +Florence, without any visible alteration in her forms of government, +was rapidly becoming an oligarchy even less open than the Venetian +republic. Meanwhile the affairs of the State were most flourishing. +The strong-handed masters of the city not only held the Duke of Milan +in check, and prevented him from turning Italy into a kingdom; they +furthermore acquired the cities of Pisa, Livorno, Arezzo, +Montepulciano, and Cortona, for Florence, making her the mistress of +all Tuscany, with the exception of Siena, Lucca, and Volterra. Maso +degli Albizzi was the ruling spirit of the commonwealth, spending the +enormous sum of 11,500,000 golden florins on war, raising sumptuous +edifices, protecting the arts, and acting in general like a powerful +and irresponsible prince. + +In spite of public prosperity there were signs, however, that this +rule of a few families could not last. Their government was only +maintained by continual revision of the lists of burghers, by +elimination of the disaffected, and by unremitting personal industry. +They introduced no new machinery into the Constitution whereby the +people might be deprived of its titular sovereignty, or their own +dictatorship might be continued with a semblance of legality. Again, +they neglected to win over the new nobles (_nobili popolani_) in a +body to their cause; and thus they were surrounded by rivals ready to +spring upon them when a false step should be made. The Albizzi +oligarchy was a masterpiece of art, without any force to sustain it +but the craft and energy of its constructors. It had not grown up, +like the Venetian oligarchy, by the gradual assimilation to itself of +all the vigour in the State. It was bound, sooner or later, to yield +to the renascent impulse of democracy inherent in Florentine +institutions. + + +VII + + +Maso degli Albizzi died in 1417. He was succeeded in the government by +his old friend, Niccolo da Uzzano, a man of great eloquence and +wisdom, whose single word swayed the councils of the people as he +listed. Together with him acted Maso's son, Rinaldo, a youth of even +more brilliant talents than his father, frank, noble, and +high-spirited, but far less cautious. + +The oligarchy, which these two men undertook to manage, had +accumulated against itself the discontent of overtaxed, disfranchised, +jealous burghers. The times, too, were bad. Pursuing the policy of +Maso, the Albizzi engaged the city in a tedious and unsuccessful war +with Filippo Maria Visconti, which cost 350,000 golden florins, and +brought no credit. In order to meet extraordinary expenses they raised +new public loans, thereby depreciating the value of the old Florentine +funds. "What was worse, they imposed forced subsidies with grievous +inequality upon the burghers, passing over their friends and +adherents, and burdening their opponents with more than could be +borne. This imprudent financial policy began the ruin of the Albizzi. +It caused a clamour in the city for a new system of more just +taxation, which was too powerful to be resisted. The voice of the +people made itself loudly heard; and with the people on this occasion +sided Giovanni de' Medici. This was in 1427. + +It is here that the Medici appear upon that memorable scene where in +the future they are to play the first part. Giovanni de' Medici did +not belong to the same branch of his family as the Salvestro who +favoured the people at the time of the Ciompi Tumult. But he adopted +the same popular policy. To his sons Cosimo and Lorenzo he bequeathed +on his deathbed the rule that they should invariably adhere to the +cause of the multitude, found their influence on that, and avoid the +arts of factious and ambitious leaders. In his own life he had pursued +this course of conduct, acquiring a reputation for civic moderation +and impartiality that endeared him to the people and stood his +children in good stead. Early in his youth Giovanni found himself +almost destitute by reason of the imposts charged upon him by the +oligarchs. He possessed, however, the genius for money-making to a +rare degree, and passed his manhood as a banker, amassing the largest +fortune of any private citizen in Italy. In his old age he devoted +himself to the organisation of his colossal trading business, and +abstained, as far as possible, from political intrigues. Men observed +that they rarely met him in the Public Palace or on the Great Square. + +Cosimo de' Medici was thirty years old when his father Giovanni died, +in 1429. During his youth he had devoted all his time and energy to +business, mastering the complicated affairs of Giovanni's +banking-house, and travelling far and wide through Europe to extend +its connections. This education made him a consummate financier; and +those who knew him best were convinced that his ambition was set on +great things. However quietly he might begin, it was clear that he +intended to match himself, as a leader of the plebeians, against the +Albizzi. The foundations he prepared for future action were equally +characteristic of the man, of Florence, and of the age. Commanding the +enormous capital of the Medicean bank he contrived, at any sacrifice +of temporary convenience, to lend money to the State for war expenses, +engrossing in his own hands a large portion of the public debt of +Florence. At the same time his agencies in various European capitals +enabled him to keep his own wealth floating far beyond the reach of +foes within the city. A few years of this system ended in so complete +a confusion between Cosimo's trade and the finances of Florence that +the bankruptcy of the Medici, however caused, would have compromised +the credit of the State and the fortunes of the fund-holders. Cosimo, +in a word, made himself necessary to Florence by the wise use of his +riches. Furthermore, he kept his eye upon the list of burghers, +lending money to needy citizens, putting good things in the way of +struggling traders, building up the fortunes of men who were disposed +to favour his party in the State, ruining his opponents by the +legitimate process of commercial competition, and, when occasion +offered, introducing new voters into the Florentine Council by paying +off the debts of those who were disqualified by poverty from using the +franchise. While his capital was continually increasing he lived +frugally, and employed his wealth solely for the consolidation of his +political influence. By these arts Cosimo became formidable to the +oligarchs and beloved by the people. His supporters were numerous, and +held together by the bonds of immediate necessity or personal +cupidity. The plebeians and the merchants were all on his side. The +Grandi and the Ammoniti, excluded from the State by the practices of +the Albizzi, had more to hope from the Medicean party than from the +few families who still contrived to hold the reins of government. It +was clear that a conflict to the death must soon commence between the +oligarchy and this new faction. + + +VIII + + +At last, in 1433, war was declared. The first blow was struck by +Rinaldo degli Albizzi, who put himself in the wrong by attacking a +citizen indispensable to the people at large, and guilty of no +unconstitutional act. On September 7th of that year, a year decisive +for the future destinies of Florence, he summoned Cosimo to the Public +Palace, which he had previously occupied with troops at his command. +There he declared him a rebel to the State, and had him imprisoned in +a little square room in the central tower. The tocsin was sounded; the +people were assembled in parliament upon the piazza. The Albizzi held +the main streets with armed men, and forced the Florentines to place +plenipotentiary power for the administration of the commonwealth at +this crisis in the hands of a Balia, or committee selected by +themselves. It was always thus that acts of high tyranny were effected +in Florence. A show of legality was secured by gaining the compulsory +sanction of the people, driven by soldiery into the public square, and +hastily ordered to recognise the authority of their oppressors. + +The bill of indictment against the Medici accused them of sedition in +the year 1378--that is, in the year of the Ciompi Tumult--and of +treasonable practice during the whole course of the Albizzi +administration. It also strove to fix upon them the odium of the +unsuccessful war against the town of Lucca. As soon as the Albizzi had +unmasked their batteries, Lorenzo de' Medici managed to escape from +the city, and took with him his brother Cosimo's children to Venice. +Cosimo remained shut up within the little room called Barberia in +Arnolfo's tower. From that high eagle's nest the sight can range +Valdarno far and wide. Florence with her towers and domes lies below; +and the blue peaks of Carrara close a prospect westward than +which, with its villa-jewelled slopes and fertile gardens, there is +nought more beautiful upon the face of earth. The prisoner can have +paid but little heed to this fair landscape. He heard the frequent +ringing of the great bell that called the Florentines to council, the +tramp of armed men on the piazza, the coming and going of the burghers +in the palace halls beneath. On all sides lurked anxiety and fear of +death. Each mouthful he tasted might be poisoned. For many days he +partook of only bread and water, till his gaoler restored his +confidence by sharing all his meals. In this peril he abode +twenty-four days. The Albizzi, in concert with the Balia they had +formed, were consulting what they might venture to do with him. Some +voted for his execution. Others feared the popular favour, and thought +that if they killed Cosimo this act would ruin their own power. The +nobler natures among them determined to proceed by constitutional +measures. At last, upon September 29th, it was settled that Cosimo +should be exiled to Padua for ten years. The Medici were declared +Grandi, by way of excluding them from political rights. But their +property remained untouched; and on October 3rd, Cosimo was released. + +On the same day Cosimo took his departure. His journey northward +resembled a triumphant progress. He left Florence a simple burgher; he +entered Venice a powerful prince. Though the Albizzi seemed to have +gained the day, they had really cut away the ground beneath their +feet. They committed the fatal mistake of doing both too much and too +little--too much because they declared war against an innocent man, +and roused the sympathies of the whole people in his behalf; too +little, because they had not the nerve to complete their act by +killing him outright and extirpating his party. Machiavelli, in one of +his profoundest and most cynical critiques, remarks that few men know +how to be thoroughly bad with honour to themselves. Their will is +evil; but the grain of good in them--some fear of public opinion, +some repugnance to committing a signal crime--paralyses their arm at +the moment when it ought to have been raised to strike. He instances +Gian Paolo Baglioni's omission to murder Julius II., when that Pope +placed himself within his clutches at Perugia. He might also have +instanced Rinaldo degli Albizzi's refusal to push things to +extremities by murdering Cosimo. It was the combination of despotic +violence in the exile of Cosimo with constitutional moderation in the +preservation of his life, that betrayed the weakness of the oligarchs +and restored confidence to the Medicean party. + + +IX + + +In the course of the year 1434 this party began to hold up its head. +Powerful as the Albizzi were, they only retained the government by +artifice; and now they had done a deed which put at nought their +former arts and intrigues. A Signory favourable to the Medici came +into office, and on September 26th, 1434, Rinaldo in his turn was +summoned to the palace and declared a rebel. He strove to raise the +forces of his party, and entered the piazza at the head of eight +hundred men. The menacing attitude of the people, however, made +resistance perilous. Rinaldo disbanded his troops, and placed himself +under the protection of Pope Eugenius IV., who was then resident in +Florence. This act of submission proved that Rinaldo had not the +courage or the cruelty to try the chance of civil war. Whatever his +motives may have been, he lost his hold upon the State beyond +recovery. On September 29th, a new parliament was summoned; on October +2nd, Cosimo was recalled from exile and the Albizzi were banished. The +intercession of the Pope procured for them nothing but the liberty to +leave Florence unmolested. Einaldo turned his back upon the city he +had governed, never to set foot in it again. On October 6th, Cosimo, +having passed through Padua, Ferrara, and Modena like a conqueror, +reentered the town amid the plaudits of the people, and took up his +dwelling as an honoured guest in the Palace of the Republic. The +subsequent history of Florence is the history of his family. In after +years the Medici loved to remember this return of Cosimo. His +triumphal reception was painted in fresco on the walls of their villa +at Cajano under the transparent allegory of Cicero's entrance into +Rome. + + +X + + +By their brief exile the Medici had gained the credit of injured +innocence, the fame of martyrdom in the popular cause. Their foes had +struck the first blow, and in striking at them had seemed to aim +against the liberties of the republic. The mere failure of their +adversaries to hold the power they had acquired, handed over this +power to the Medici; and the reprisals which the Medici began to take +had the show of justice, not of personal hatred, or petty vengeance. +Cosimo was a true Florentine. He disliked violence, because he knew +that blood spilt cries for blood. His passions, too, were cool and +temperate. No gust of anger, no intoxication of success, destroyed his +balance. His one object, the consolidation of power for his family on +the basis of popular favour, was kept steadily in view; and he would +do nothing that might compromise that end. Yet he was neither generous +nor merciful. We therefore find that from the first moment of his +return to Florence he instituted a system of pitiless and unforgiving +persecution against his old opponents. The Albizzi were banished, root +and branch, with all their followers, consigned to lonely and often to +unwholesome stations through the length and breadth of Italy. If they +broke the bonds assigned them, they were forthwith declared traitors +and their property was confiscated. After a long series of years, by +merely keeping in force the first sentence pronounced upon them, +Cosimo had the cruel satisfaction of seeing the whole of that proud +oligarchy die out by slow degrees in the insufferable tedium of +solitude and exile. Even the high-souled Palla degli Strozzi, who had +striven to remain neutral, and whose wealth and talents were devoted +to the revival of classical studies, was proscribed because to Cosimo +he seemed too powerful. Separated from his children, he died in +banishment at Padua. In this way the return of the Medici involved the +loss to Florence of some noble citizens, who might perchance have +checked the Medicean tyranny if they had stayed to guide the State. +The plebeians, raised to wealth and influence by Cosimo before his +exile, now took the lead in the republic. He used these men as +catspaws, rarely putting himself forward or allowing his own name to +appear, but pulling the wires of government in privacy by means of +intermediate agents. The Medicean party was called at first _Puccini_ +from a certain Puccio, whose name was better known in caucus or +committee than that of his real master. + +To rule through these creatures of his own making taxed all the +ingenuity of Cosimo; but his profound and subtle intellect was suited +to the task, and he found unlimited pleasure in the exercise of his +consummate craft. We have already seen to what extent he used his +riches for the acquisition of political influence. Now that he had +come to power, he continued the same method, packing the Signory and +the Councils with men whom he could hold by debt between his thumb and +finger. His command of the public moneys enabled him to wink at +peculation in State offices; it was part of his system to bind +magistrates and secretaries to his interest by their consciousness of +guilt condoned but not forgotten. Not a few, moreover, owed their +living to the appointments he procured for them. While he thus +controlled the wheel-work of the commonwealth by means of organised +corruption, he borrowed the arts of his old enemies to oppress +dissentient citizens. If a man took an independent line in voting, +and refused allegiance to the Medicean party, he was marked out for +persecution. No violence was used; but he found himself hampered in +his commerce--money, plentiful for others, became scarce for him; his +competitors in trade were subsidised to undersell him. And while the +avenues of industry were closed, his fortune was taxed above its +value, until he had to sell at a loss in order to discharge his public +obligations. In the first twenty years of the Medicean rule, seventy +families had to pay 4,875,000 golden florins of extraordinary imposts, +fixed by arbitrary assessment. + +The more patriotic members of his party looked with dread and loathing +on this system of corruption and exclusion. To their remonstrances +Cosimo replied in four memorable sayings: 'Better the State spoiled +than the State not ours.' 'Governments cannot be carried on with +paternosters.' 'An ell of scarlet makes a burgher.' 'I aim at finite +ends.' These maxims represent the whole man,--first, in his egotism, +eager to gain Florence for his family, at any risk of her ruin; +secondly, in his cynical acceptance of base means to selfish ends; +thirdly, in his bourgeois belief that money makes a man, and fine +clothes suffice for a citizen; fourthly, in his worldly ambition bent +on positive success. It was, in fact, his policy to reduce Florence to +the condition of a rotten borough: nor did this policy fail. One +notable sign of the influence he exercised was the change which now +came over the foreign relations of the republic. Up to the date of his +dictatorship Florence had uniformly fought the battle of freedom in +Italy. It was the chief merit of the Albizzi oligarchy that they +continued the traditions of the mediaeval State, and by their vigorous +action checked the growth of the Visconti. Though they engrossed the +government they never forgot that they were first of all things +Florentines, and only in the second place men who owed their power and +influence to office. In a word, they acted like patriotic Tories, like +republican patricians. Therefore they would not ally themselves with +tyrants or countenance the enslavement of free cities by armed +despots. Their subjugation of the Tuscan burghs to Florence was itself +part of a grand republican policy. Cosimo changed all this. When the +Visconti dynasty ended by the death of Filippo Maria in 1447, there +was a chance of restoring the independence of Lombardy. Milan in +effect declared herself a republic, and by the aid of Florence she +might at this moment have maintained her liberty. Cosimo, however, +entered into treaty with Francesco Sforza, supplied him with money, +guaranteed him against Florentine interference, and saw with +satisfaction how he reduced the duchy to his military tyranny. The +Medici were conscious that they, selfishly, had most to gain by +supporting despots who in time of need might help them to confirm +their own authority. With the same end in view, when the legitimate +line of the Bentivogli was extinguished, Cosimo hunted out a bastard +pretender of that family, presented him to the chiefs of the +Bentivogli faction, and had him placed upon the seat of his supposed +ancestors at Bologna. This young man, a certain Santi da Cascese, +presumed to be the son of Ercole de' Bentivogli, was an artisan in a +wool factory when Cosimo set eyes upon him. At first Santi refused the +dangerous honour of governing a proud republic; but the intrigues of +Cosimo prevailed, and the obscure craftsman ended his days a powerful +prince. + +By the arts I have attempted to describe, Cosimo in the course of his +long life absorbed the forces of the republic into himself. While he +shunned the external signs of despotic power he made himself the +master of the State. His complexion was of a pale olive; his stature +short; abstemious and simple in his habits, affable in conversation, +sparing of speech, he knew how to combine that burgher-like civility +for which the Romans praised Augustus, with the reality of a despotism +all the more difficult to combat because it seemed nowhere and was +everywhere. When he died, at the age of seventy-five, in 1464, the +people whom he had enslaved, but whom he had neither injured nor +insulted, honoured him with the title of _Pater Patriae_. This was +inscribed upon his tomb in S. Lorenzo. He left to posterity the fame +of a great and generous patron,[14] the infamy of a cynical, +self-seeking, bourgeois tyrant. Such combinations of contradictory +qualities were common enough at the time of the Renaissance. Did not +Machiavelli spend his days in tavern-brawls and low amours, his nights +among the mighty spirits of the dead, with whom, when he had changed +his country suit of homespun for the habit of the Court, he found +himself an honoured equal? + + +XI + + +Cosimo had shown consummate skill by governing Florence through a +party created and raised to influence by himself. The jealousy of +these adherents formed the chief difficulty with which his son Piero +had to contend. Unless the Medici could manage to kick down the ladder +whereby they had risen, they ran the risk of losing all. As on a +former occasion, so now they profited by the mistakes of their +antagonists. Three chief men of their own party, Diotisalvi Neroni, +Agnolo Acciaiuoli, and Luca Pitti, determined to shake off the yoke of +their masters, and to repay the Medici for what they owed by leading +them to ruin. Niccolo Soderini, a patriot, indignant at the slow +enslavement of his country, joined them. At first they strove to +undermine the credit of the Medici with the Florentines by inducing +Piero to call in the moneys placed at interest by his father in the +hands of private citizens. This act was unpopular; but it did not +suffice to move a revolution. To proceed by constitutional measures +against the Medici was judged impolitic. Therefore the conspirators +decided to take, if possible, Piero's life. The plot failed, chiefly +owing to the coolness and the cunning of the young Lorenzo, Piero's +eldest son. Public sympathy was strongly excited against the +aggressors. Neroni, Acciaiuoli, and Soderini were exiled. Pitti was +allowed to stay, dishonoured, powerless, and penniless, in Florence. +Meanwhile, the failure of their foes had only served to strengthen the +position of the Medici. The ladder had saved them the trouble of +kicking it down. + +The congratulations addressed on this occasion to Piero and Lorenzo by +the ruling powers of Italy show that the Medici were already regarded +as princes outside Florence. Lorenzo and Giuliano, the two sons of +Piero, travelled abroad to the Courts of Milan and Ferrara with the +style and state of more than simple citizens. At home they occupied +the first place on all occasions of public ceremony, receiving royal +visitors on terms of equality, and performing the hospitalities of the +republic like men who had been born to represent its dignities. +Lorenzo's marriage to Clarice Orsini, of the noble Roman house, was +another sign that the Medici were advancing on the way toward +despotism. Cosimo had avoided foreign alliances for his children. His +descendants now judged themselves firmly planted enough to risk the +odium of a princely match for the sake of the support outside the city +they might win. + + +XII + + + +Piero de' Medici died in December 1469. His son Lorenzo was then +barely twenty-two years of age. The chiefs of the Medicean party, +all-powerful in the State, held a council, in which they resolved to +place him in the same position as his father and grandfather. This +resolve seems to have been formed after mature deliberation, on the +ground that the existing conditions of Italian politics rendered it +impossible to conduct the government without a presidential head. +Florence, though still a democracy, required a permanent chief to +treat on an equality with the princes of the leading cities. Here we +may note the prudence of Cosimo's foreign policy. When he helped to +establish despots in Milan and Bologna he was rendering the presidency +of his own family in Florence necessary. + +Lorenzo, having received this invitation, called attention to his +youth and inexperience. Yet he did not refuse it; and, after a +graceful display of diffidence, he accepted the charge, entering thus +upon that famous political career, in the course of which he not only +established and maintained a balance of power in Italy, with Florence +for the central city, but also contrived to remodel the government of +the republic in the interest of his own family and to strengthen the +Medici by relations with the Papal See. + +The extraordinary versatility of this man's intellectual and social +gifts, his participation in all the literary and philosophical +interests of his century, his large and liberal patronage of art, and +the gaiety with which he joined the people of Florence in their +pastimes--Mayday games and Carnival festivities--strengthened his hold +upon the city in an age devoted to culture and refined pleasure. +Whatever was most brilliant in the spirit of the Italian Benaissance +seemed to be incarnate in Lorenzo. Not merely as a patron and a +dilettante, but as a poet and a critic, a philosopher and scholar, he +proved himself adequate to the varied intellectual ambitions of his +country. Penetrated with the passion for erudition which distinguished +Florence in the fifteenth century, familiar with her painters and her +sculptors, deeply read in the works of her great poets, he conceived +the ideal of infusing the spirit of antique civility into modern life, +and of effecting for society what the artists were performing in their +own sphere. To preserve the native character of the Florentine genius, +while he added the grace of classic form, was the aim to which his +tastes and instincts led him. At the same time, while he made himself +the master of Florentine revels and the Augustus of Renaissance +literature, he took care that beneath his carnival masks and +ball-dress should be concealed the chains which he was forging for the +republic. + +What he lacked, with so much mental brilliancy, was moral greatness. +The age he lived in was an age of selfish despots, treacherous +generals, godless priests. It was an age of intellectual vigour and +artistic creativeness; but it was also an age of mean ambition, sordid +policy, and vitiated principles. Lorenzo remained true in all respects +to the genius of this age: true to its enthusiasm for antique culture, +true to its passion for art, true to its refined love of pleasure; but +true also to its petty political intrigues, to its cynical +selfishness, to its lack of heroism. For Florence he looked no higher +and saw no further than Cosimo had done. If culture was his pastime, +the enslavement of the city by bribery and corruption was the hard +work of his manhood. As is the case with much Renaissance art, his +life was worth more for its decorative detail than for its +constructive design. In richness, versatility, variety, and +exquisiteness of execution, it left little to be desired; yet, viewed +at a distance, and as a whole, it does not inspire us with a sense of +architectonic majesty. + + +XIII + + +Lorenzo's chief difficulties arose from the necessity under which, +like Cosimo, he laboured of governing the city through its old +institutions by means of a party. To keep the members of this party in +good temper, and to gain their approval for the alterations he +effected in the State machinery of Florence, was the problem of his +life. The successful solution of this problem was easier now, after +two generations of the Medicean ascendency, than it had been at first. +Meanwhile the people were maintained in good humour by public shows, +ease, plenty, and a general laxity of discipline. The splendour of +Lorenzo's foreign alliances and the consideration he received from all +the Courts of Italy contributed in no small measure to his popularity +and security at home. By using his authority over Florence to inspire +respect abroad, and by using his foreign credit to impose upon the +burghers, Lorenzo displayed the tact of a true Italian diplomatist. +His genius for statecraft, as then understood, was indeed of a rare +order, equally adapted to the conduct of a complicated foreign policy +and to the control of a suspicious and variable Commonwealth. In one +point alone he was inferior to his grandfather. He neglected commerce, +and allowed his banking business to fall into disorder so hopeless +that in course of time he ceased to be solvent. Meanwhile his personal +expenses, both as a prince in his own palace, and as the +representative of majesty in Florence, continually increased. The +bankruptcy of the Medici, it had long been foreseen, would involve the +public finances in serious confusion. And now, in order to retrieve +his fortunes, Lorenzo was not only obliged to repudiate his debts to +the exchequer, but had also to gain complete disposal of the State +purse. It was this necessity that drove him to effect the +constitutional revolution of 1480, by which he substituted a Privy +Council of seventy members for the old Councils of the State, +absorbing the chief functions of the commonwealth into this single +body, whom he practically nominated at pleasure. The same want of +money led to the great scandal of his reign--the plundering of the +Monte delle Doti, or State Insurance Office Fund for securing dowers +to the children of its creditors. + + +XIV + + +While tracing the salient points of Lorenzo de' Medici's +administration I have omitted to mention the important events which +followed shortly after his accession to power in 1469. What happened +between that date and 1480 was not only decisive for the future +fortunes of the Casa Medici, but it was also eminently characteristic +of the perils and the difficulties which beset Italian despots. The +year 1471 was signalised by a visit by the Duke Galeazzo Maria Sforza +of Milan, and his wife Bona of Savoy, to the Medici in Florence. They +came attended by their whole Court--body guards on horse and foot, +ushers, pages, falconers, grooms, kennel-varlets, and huntsmen. +Omitting the mere baggage service, their train counted two thousand +horses. To mention this incident would be superfluous, had not so +acute an observer as Machiavelli marked it out as a turning-point in +Florentine history. Now, for the first time, the democratic +commonwealth saw its streets filled with a mob of courtiers. Masques, +balls, and tournaments succeeded each other with magnificent variety; +and all the arts of Florence were pressed into the service of these +festivals. Machiavelli says that the burghers lost the last remnant of +their old austerity of manners, and became, like the degenerate +Romans, ready to obey the masters who provided them with brilliant +spectacles. They gazed with admiration on the pomp of Italian +princes, their dissolute and godless living, their luxury and prodigal +expenditure; and when the Medici affected similar habits in the next +generation, the people had no courage to resist the invasion of their +pleasant vices. + +In the same year, 1471, Volterra was reconquered for the Florentines +by Frederick of Urbino. The honours of this victory, disgraced by a +brutal sack of the conquered city, in violation of its articles of +capitulation, were reserved for Lorenzo, who returned in triumph to +Florence. More than ever he assumed the prince, and in his person +undertook to represent the State. + +In the same year, 1471, Francesco della Rovere was raised to the +Papacy with the memorable name of Sixtus IV. Sixtus was a man of +violent temper and fierce passions, restless and impatiently +ambitious, bent on the aggrandisement of the beautiful and wanton +youths, his nephews. Of these the most aspiring was Girolamo Riario, +for whom Sixtus bought the town of Imola from Taddeo Manfredi, in +order that he might possess the title of count and the nucleus of a +tyranny in the Romagna. This purchase thwarted the plans of Lorenzo, +who wished to secure the same advantages for Florence. Smarting with +the sense of disappointment, he forbade the Roman banker, Francesco +Pazzi, to guarantee the purchase-money. By this act Lorenzo made two +mortal foes--the Pope and Francesco Pazzi. Francesco was a thin, pale, +atrabilious fanatic, all nerve and passion, with a monomaniac +intensity of purpose, and a will inflamed and guided by imagination--a +man formed by nature for conspiracy, such a man, in fact, as Shakspere +drew in Cassius. Maddened by Lorenzo's prohibition, he conceived the +notion of overthrowing the Medici in Florence by a violent blow. +Girolamo Riario entered into his views. So did Francesco Salviati, +Archbishop of Pisa, who had private reasons for hostility. These men +found no difficulty in winning over Sixtus to their plot; nor is it +possible to purge the Pope of participation in what followed. I need +not describe by what means Francesco drew the other members of his +family into the scheme, and how he secured the assistance of armed +cut-throats. Suffice it to say that the chief conspirators, with the +exception of the Count Girolamo, betook themselves to Florence, and +there, after the failure of other attempts, decided to murder Lorenzo +and his brother Giuliano in the cathedral on Sunday, April 26th, 1478. +The moment when the priest at the high altar finished the mass, was +fixed for the assassination. Everything was ready. The conspirators, +by Judas kisses and embracements, had discovered that the young men +wore no protective armour under their silken doublets. Pacing the +aisle behind the choir, they feared no treason. And now the lives of +both might easily have been secured, if at the last moment the courage +of the hired assassins had not failed them. Murder, they said, was +well enough; but they could not bring themselves to stab men before +the newly consecrated body of Christ. In this extremity a priest was +found who, 'being accustomed to churches,' had no scruples. He and +another reprobate were told off to Lorenzo. Francesco de' Pazzi +himself undertook Giuliano. The moment for attack arrived. Francesco +plunged his dagger into the heart of Giuliano. Then, not satisfied +with this death-blow, he struck again, and in his heat of passion +wounded his own thigh. Lorenzo escaped with a flesh-wound from the +poniard of the priest, and rushed into the sacristy, where his friend +Poliziano shut and held the brazen door. The plot had failed; for +Giuliano, of the two brothers, was the one whom the conspirators would +the more willingly have spared. The whole church was in an uproar. The +city rose in tumult. Rage and horror took possession of the people. +They flew to the Palazzo Pubblico and to the houses of the Pazzi, +hunted the conspirators from place to place, hung the archbishop by +the neck from the palace windows, and, as they found fresh victims +for their fury, strung them one by one in a ghastly row at his side +above the Square. About one hundred in all were killed. None who had +joined in the plot escaped; for Lorenzo had long arms, and one man, +who fled to Constantinople, was delivered over to his agents by the +Sultan. Out of the whole Pazzi family only Guglielmo, the husband of +Bianca de' Medici, was spared. When the tumult was over, Andrea del +Castagno painted the portraits of the traitors head-downwards upon the +walls of the Bargello Palace, in order that all men might know what +fate awaited the foes of the Medici and of the State of Florence.[15] +Meanwhile a bastard son of Giuliano's was received into the Medicean +household, to perpetuate his lineage. This child, named Giulio, was +destined to be famous in the annals of Italy and Florence under the +title of Pope Clement VII. + + +XV + + +As is usual when such plots miss their mark, the passions excited +redounded to the profit of the injured party. The commonwealth felt +that the blow struck at Lorenzo had been aimed at their majesty. +Sixtus, on the other hand, could not contain his rage at the failure +of so ably planned a _coup de main_. Ignoring that he had sanctioned +the treason, that a priest had put his hand to the dagger, that the +impious deed had been attempted in a church before the very Sacrament +of Christ, whose vicar on earth he was, the Pope now excommunicated +the republic. The reason he alleged was, that the Florentines had +dared to hang an archbishop. + +Thus began a war to the death between Sixtus and Florence. The Pope +inflamed the whole of Italy, and carried on a ruinous campaign in +Tuscany. It seemed as though the republic might lose her subject +cities, always ready to revolt when danger threatened the sovereign +State. Lorenzo's position became critical. Sixtus made no secret of +the hatred he bore him personally, declaring that he fought less with +Florence than with the Medici. To support the odium of this long war +and this heavy interdict alone, was more than he could do. His allies +forsook him. Naples was enlisted on the Pope's side. Milan and the +other States of Lombardy were occupied with their own affairs, and +held aloof. In this extremity he saw that nothing but a bold step +could save him. The league formed by Sixtus must be broken up at any +risk, and, if possible, by his own ability. On December 6th, 1479, +Lorenzo left Florence, unarmed and unattended, took ship at Leghorn, +and proceeded to the court of the enemy, King Ferdinand, at Naples. +Ferdinand was a cruel and treacherous sovereign, who had murdered his +guest, Jacopo Piccinino, at a banquet given in his honour. But +Ferdinand was the son of Alfonso, who, by address and eloquence, had +gained a kingdom from his foe and jailor, Filippo Maria Visconti. +Lorenzo calculated that he too, following Alfonso's policy, might +prove to Ferdinand how little there was to gain from an alliance with +Rome, how much Naples and Florence, firmly united together for offence +and defence, might effect in Italy. + +Only a student of those perilous times can appreciate the courage and +the genius, the audacity combined with diplomatic penetration, +displayed by Lorenzo at this crisis. He calmly walked into the lion's +den, trusting he could tame the lion and teach it, and all in a few +days. Nor did his expectation fail. Though Lorenzo was rather ugly +than handsome, with a dark skin, heavy brows, powerful jaws, and nose +sharp in the bridge and broad at the nostrils, without grace of +carriage or melody of voice, he possessed what makes up for personal +defects--the winning charm of eloquence in conversation, a subtle wit, +profound knowledge of men, and tact allied to sympathy, which placed +him always at the centre of the situation. Ferdinand received him +kindly. The Neapolitan nobles admired his courage and were fascinated +by his social talents. On March 1st, 1480, he left Naples again, +having won over the King by his arguments. When he reached Florence he +was able to declare that he brought home a treaty of peace and +alliance signed by the most powerful foe of the republic. The success +of this bold enterprise endeared Lorenzo more than ever to his +countrymen. In the same year they concluded a treaty with Sixtus, who +was forced against his will to lay down arms by the capture of Otranto +and the extreme peril of Turkish invasion. After the year 1480 Lorenzo +remained sole master in Florence, the arbiter and peacemaker of the +rest of Italy. + + +XVI + + +The conjuration of the Pazzi was only one in a long series of similar +conspiracies. Italian despots gained their power by violence and +wielded it with craft. Violence and craft were therefore used against +them. When the study of the classics had penetrated the nation with +antique ideas of heroism, tyrannicide became a virtue. Princes were +murdered with frightful frequency. Thus Gian Maria Visconti was put to +death at Milan in 1412; Galeazzo Maria Sforza in 1484; the Chiarelli +of Fabriano were massacred in 1435; the Baglioni of Perugia in 1500; +Girolamo Gentile planned the assassination of Galeazzo Sforza at Genoa +in 1476; Niccolo d'Este conspired against his uncle Ercole in 1476; +Stefano Porcari attempted the life of Nicholas V. at Rome in 1453; +Lodovico Sforza narrowly escaped a violent death in 1453. I might +multiply these instances beyond satiety. As it is, I have selected +but a few examples falling, all but one, within the second half of the +fifteenth century. Nearly all these attempts upon the lives of princes +were made in church during the celebration of sacred offices. There +was no superfluity of naughtiness, no wilful sacrilege, in this choice +of an occasion. It only testified to the continual suspicion and +guarded watchfulness maintained by tyrants. To strike at them except +in church was almost impossible. Meanwhile the fate of the +tyrannicides was uniform. Successful or not, they perished. Yet so +grievous was the pressure of Italian despotism, so glorious was the +ideal of Greek and Roman heroism, so passionate the temper of the +people, that to kill a prince at any cost to self appeared the crown +of manliness. This bloodshed exercised a delirious fascination: pure +and base, personal and patriotic motives combined to add intensity of +fixed and fiery purpose to the murderous impulse. Those then who, like +the Medici, aspired to tyranny and sought to found a dynasty of +princes, entered the arena against a host of unknown and unseen +gladiators. + + +XVII + + +On his deathbed, in 1492, Lorenzo lay between two men--Angelo +Poliziano and Girolamo Savonarola. Poliziano incarnated the genial, +radiant, godless spirit of fifteenth-century humanism. Savonarola +represented the conscience of Italy, self-convicted, amid all her +greatness, of crimes that called for punishment. It is said that when +Lorenzo asked the monk for absolution, Savonarola bade him first +restore freedom to Florence. Lorenzo, turned his face to the wall and +was silent. How indeed could he make this city in a moment free, after +sixty years of slow and systematic corruption? Savonarola left him, +and he died unshriven. This legend is doubtful, though it rests on +excellent if somewhat partial authority. It has, at any rate, the +value of a mythus, since it epitomises the attitude assumed by the +great preacher to the prince. Florence enslaved, the soul of Lorenzo +cannot lay its burden down, but must go with all its sins upon it to +the throne of God. + +The year 1492 was a memorable year for Italy. In this year Lorenzo's +death removed the keystone of the arch that had sustained the fabric +of Italian federation. In this year Roderigo Borgia was elected Pope. +In this year Columbus discovered America; Vasco de Gama soon after +opened a new way to the Indies, and thus the commerce of the world +passed from Italy to other nations. In this year the conquest of +Granada gave unity to the Spanish nation. In this year France, through +the lifelong craft of Louis XI., was for the first time united under a +young hot-headed sovereign. On every side of the political horizon +storms threatened. It was clear that a new chapter of European history +had been opened. Then Savonarola raised his voice, and cried that the +crimes of Italy, the abominations of the Church, would speedily be +punished. Events led rapidly to the fulfilment of this prophecy. +Lorenzo's successor, Piero de' Medici, was a vain, irresolute, and +hasty princeling, fond of display, proud of his skill in fencing and +football-playing, with too much of the Orsini blood in his hot veins, +with too little of the Medicean craft in his weak head. The Italian +despots felt they could not trust Piero, and this want of confidence +was probably the first motive that impelled Lodovico Sforza to call +Charles VIII. into Italy in 1494. + +It will not be necessary to dwell upon this invasion of the French, +except in so far as it affected Florence. Charles passed rapidly +through Lombardy, engaged his army in the passes of the Apennines, and +debouched upon the coast where the Magra divided Tuscany from Liguria. +Here the fortresses of Sarzana and Pietra Santa, between the marble +bulwark of Carrara and the Tuscan sea, stopped his further progress. +The keys were held by the Florentines. To force these strong positions +and to pass beyond them seemed impossible. It might have been +impossible if Piero de' Medici had possessed a firmer will. As it was, +he rode off to the French camp, delivered up the forts to Charles, +bound the King by no engagements, and returned not otherwise than +proud of his folly to Florence. A terrible reception awaited him. The +Florentines, in their fury, had risen and sacked the Medicean palace. +It was as much as Piero, with his brothers, could do to escape beyond +the hills to Venice. The despotism of the Medici, so carefully built +up, so artfully sustained and strengthened, was overthrown in a single +day. + + +XVIII + + +Before considering what happened in Florence after the expulsion of +the Medici, it will be well to pause a moment and review the state in +which Lorenzo had left his family. Piero, his eldest son, recognised +as chief of the republic after his father's death, was married to +Alfonsina Orsini, and was in his twenty-second year. Giovanni, his +second son, a youth of seventeen, had just been made cardinal. This +honour, of vast importance for the Casa Medici in the future, he owed +to his sister Maddalena's marriage to Franceschetto Cybo, son of +Innocent VIII. The third of Lorenzo's sons, named Giuliano, was a boy +of thirteen. Giulio, the bastard son of the elder Giuliano, was +fourteen. These four princes formed the efficient strength of the +Medici, the hope of the house; and for each of them, with the +exception of Piero, who died in exile, and of whom no more notice need +be taken, a brilliant destiny was still in store. In the year 1495, +however, they now wandered, homeless and helpless, through the cities +of Italy, each of which was shaken to its foundations by the French +invasion. + + +XIX + + +Florence, left without the Medici, deprived of Pisa and other subject +cities by the passage of the French army, with no leader but the monk +Savonarola, now sought to reconstitute her liberties. During the +domination of the Albizzi and the Medici the old order of the +commonwealth had been completely broken up. The Arti had lost their +primitive importance. The distinctions between the Grandi and the +Popolani had practically passed away. In a democracy that has +submitted to a lengthened course of tyranny, such extinction of its +old life is inevitable. Yet the passion for liberty was still +powerful; and the busy brains of the Florentines were stored with +experience gained from their previous vicissitudes, from \ the study +of antique history, and from the observation of existing constitutions +in the towns of Italy. They now determined to reorganise the State +upon the model of the Venetian republic. The Signory was to remain, +with its old institution of Priors, Gonfalonier, and College, elected +for brief periods. These magistrates were to take the initiative in +debate, to propose measures, and to consider plans of action. The real +power of the State, for voting supplies and ratifying the measures of +the Signory, was vested in a senate of one thousand members, called +the Grand Council, from whom a smaller body of forty, acting as +intermediates between the Council and the Signory, were elected. It is +said that the plan of this constitution originated with Savonarola; +nor is there any doubt that he used all his influence in the pulpit of +the Duomo to render it acceptable to the people. Whoever may have been +responsible for its formation, the new government was carried in +1495, and a large hall for the assembly of the Grand Council was +opened in the Public Palace. + +Savonarola, meanwhile, had become the ruling spirit of Florence. He +gained his great power as a preacher: he used it like a monk. The +motive principle of his action was the passion for reform. To bring +the Church back to its pristine state of purity, without altering its +doctrine or suggesting any new form of creed; to purge Italy of +ungodly customs; to overthrow the tyrants who encouraged evil living, +and to place the power of the State in the hands of sober citizens: +these were his objects. Though he set himself in bold opposition to +the reigning Pope, he had no desire to destroy the spiritual supremacy +of S. Peter's see. Though he burned with an enthusiastic zeal for +liberty, and displayed rare genius for administration, he had no +ambition to rule Florence like a dictator. Savonarola was neither a +reformer in the northern sense of the word, nor yet a political +demagogue. His sole wish was to see purity of manners and freedom of +self-government re-established. With this end in view he bade the +Florentines elect Christ as their supreme chief; and they did so. For +the same end he abstained from appearing in the State Councils, and +left the Constitution to work by its own laws. His personal influence +he reserved for the pulpit; and here he was omnipotent. The people +believed in him as a prophet. They turned to him as the man who knew +what he wanted--as the voice of liberty, the soul of the new regime, +the genius who could breathe into the commonwealth a breath of fresh +vitality. When, therefore, Savonarola preached a reform of manners, he +was at once obeyed. Strict laws were passed enforcing sobriety, +condemning trades of pleasure, reducing the gay customs of Florence to +puritanical austerity. + +Great stress has been laid upon this reaction of the monk-led populace +against the vices of the past. Yet the historian is bound to pronounce +that the reform effected by Savonarola was rather picturesque than +vital. Like all violent revivals of pietism, it produced a no less +violent reaction. The parties within the city who resented the +interference of a preaching friar, joined with the Pope in Rome, who +hated a contumacious schismatic in Savonarola. Assailed by these two +forces at the same moment, and driven upon perilous ground by his own +febrile enthusiasm, Savonarola succumbed. He was imprisoned, tortured, +and burned upon the public square in 1498. + +What Savonarola really achieved for Florence was not a permanent +reform of morality, but a resuscitation of the spirit of freedom. His +followers, called in contempt _I Piagnoni_, or the Weepers, formed the +path of the commonwealth in future; and the memory of their martyr +served as a common bond of sympathy to unite them in times of trial. +It was a necessary consequence of the peculiar part he played that the +city was henceforth divided into factions representing mutually +antagonistic principles. These factions were not created by +Savonarola; but his extraordinary influence accentuated, as it were, +the humours that lay dormant in the State. Families favourable to the +Medici took the name of _Palleschi_. Men who chafed against +puritanical reform, and who were eager for any government that should +secure them their old licence, were known as _Compagnacci_. Meanwhile +the oligarchs, who disliked a democratic Constitution, and thought it +possible to found an aristocracy without the intervention of the +Medici, came to be known as _Gli Ottimati_. Florence held within +itself, from this epoch forward to the final extinction of liberty, +four great parties: the _Piagnoni_, passionate for political freedom +and austerity of life; the _Palleschi_, favourable to the Medicean +cause, and regretful of Lorenzo's pleasant rule; the _Compagnacci_, +intolerant of the reformed republic, neither hostile nor loyal to the +Medici, but desirous of personal licence; the _Ottimati_, astute and +selfish, watching their own advantage, ever-mindful to form a narrow +government of privileged families, disinclined to the Medici, except +when they thought the Medici might be employed as instruments in their +intrigues. + + +XX + + +During the short period of Savonarola's ascendency, Florence was in +form at least a Theocracy, without any titular head but Christ; and as +long as the enthusiasm inspired by the monk lasted, as long as his +personal influence endured, the Constitution of the Grand Council +worked well. After his death it was found that the machinery was too +cumbrous. While adopting the Venetian form of government, the +Florentines had omitted one essential element--the Doge. By referring +measures of immediate necessity to the Grand Council, the republic +lost precious time. Dangerous publicity, moreover, was incurred; and +so large a body often came to no firm resolution. There was no +permanent authority in the State; no security that what had been +deliberated would be carried out with energy; no titular chief, who +could transact affairs with foreign potentates and their ambassadors. +Accordingly, in 1502, it was decreed that the Gonfalonier should hold +office for life--should be in fact a Doge. To this important post of +permanent president Piero Soderini was appointed; and in his hands +were placed the chief affairs of the republic. + +At this point Florence, after all her vicissitudes, had won her way to +something really similar to the Venetian Constitution. Yet the +similarity existed more in form than in fact. The government of +burghers in a Grand Council, with a Senate of forty, and a Gonfalonier +for life, had not grown up gradually and absorbed into itself the +vital forces of the commonwealth. It was a creation of inventive +intelligence, not of national development, in Florence. It had against +it the jealousy of the Ottimati, who felt themselves overshadowed by +the Gonfalonier; the hatred of the Palleschi, who yearned for the +Medici; the discontent of the working classes, who thought the +presence of a Court in Florence would improve trade; last, but not +least, the disaffection of the Compagnacci, who felt they could not +flourish to their heart's content in a free commonwealth. Moreover, +though the name of liberty was on every lip, though the Florentines +talked, wrote, and speculated more about constitutional independence +than they had ever done, the true energy of free institutions had +passed from the city. The corrupt government of Cosimo and Lorenzo +bore its natural fruit now. Egotistic ambition and avarice supplanted +patriotism and industry. It is necessary to comprehend these +circumstances, in order that the next revolution may be clearly +understood. + + +XXI + + +During the ten years which elapsed between 1502 and 1512, Piero +Soderini administered Florence with an outward show of great +prosperity. He regained Pisa, and maintained an honourable foreign +policy in the midst of the wars stirred up by the League of Cambray. +Meanwhile the young princes of the House of Medici had grown to +manhood in exile. The Cardinal Giovanni was thirty-seven in 1512. His +brother Giuliano was thirty-three. Both of these men were better +fitted than their brother Piero to fight the battles of the family. +Giovanni, in particular, had inherited no small portion of the +Medicean craft. During the troubled reign of Julius II. he kept very +quiet, cementing his connections with powerful men in Rome, but making +no effort to regain his hold on Florence. Now the moment for striking +a decisive blow had come. After the battle of Ravenna in 1512, the +French were driven out of Italy, and the Sforzas returned to Milan; +the Spanish troops, under the Viceroy Cardona, remained masters of the +country. Following the camp of these Spaniards, Giovanni de' Medici +entered Tuscany in August, and caused the restoration of the Medici +to be announced in Florence. The people, assembled by Soderini, +resolved to resist to the uttermost. No foreign army should force them +to receive the masters whom they had expelled. Yet their courage +failed on August 29th, when news reached them of the capture and the +sack of Prato. Prato is a sunny little city a few miles distant from +the walls of Florence, famous for the beauty of its women, the +richness of its gardens, and the grace of its buildings. Into this gem +of cities the savage soldiery of Spain marched in the bright autumnal +weather, and turned the paradise into a hell. It is even now +impossible to read of what they did in Prato without shuddering.[16] +Cruelty and lust, sordid greed for gold, and cold delight in +bloodshed, could go no further. Giovanni de' Medici, by nature mild +and voluptuous, averse to violence of all kinds, had to smile +approval, while the Spanish Viceroy knocked thus with mailed hand for +him at the door of Florence. The Florentines were paralysed with +terror. They deposed Soderini and received the Medici. Giovanni and +Giuliano entered their devastated palace in the Via Larga, abolished +the Grand Council, and dealt with the republic as they listed. + + +XXII + + +There was no longer any medium in Florence possible between either +tyranny or some such government as the Medici had now destroyed. The +State was too rotten to recover even the modified despotism of +Lorenzo's days. Each transformation had impaired some portion of its +framework, broken down some of its traditions, and sowed new seeds of +egotism in citizens who saw all things round them change but +self-advantage. Therefore Giovanni and Giuliano felt themselves secure +in flattering the popular vanity by an empty parade of the old +institutions. They restored the Signory and the Gonfalonier, elected +for intervals of two months by officers appointed for this purpose by +the Medici. Florence had the show of a free government. But the Medici +managed all things; and soldiers, commanded by their creature, Paolo +Vettori, held the Palace and the Public Square. The tyranny thus +established was less secure, inasmuch as it openly rested upon +violence, than Lorenzo's power had been; nor were there signs wanting +that the burghers could ill brook their servitude. The conspiracy of +Pietro Paolo Boscoli and Agostino Capponi proved that the Medicean +brothers ran daily risk of life. Indeed, it is not likely that they +would have succeeded in maintaining their authority--for they were +poor and ill-supported by friends outside the city--except for one +most lucky circumstance: that was the election of Giovanni de' Medici +to the Papacy in 1513. + +The creation of Leo X. spread satisfaction throughout Italy. +Politicians trusted that he would display some portion of his father's +ability, and restore peace to the nation. Men of arts and letters +expected everything from a Medicean Pope, who had already acquired the +reputation of polite culture and open-handed generosity. They at any +rate were not deceived. Leo's first words on taking his place in the +Vatican were addressed to his brother Giuliano: 'Let us enjoy the +Papacy, now that God has given it to us;' and his notion of enjoyment +was to surround himself with court-poets, jesters, and musicians, to +adorn his Roman palaces with frescoes, to collect statues and +inscriptions, to listen to Latin speeches, and to pass judgment upon +scholarly compositions. Any one and every one who gave him sensual or +intellectual pleasure, found his purse always open. He lived in the +utmost magnificence, and made Rome the Paris of the Renaissance for +brilliance, immorality, and self-indulgent ease. The politicians had +less reason to be satisfied. Instead of uniting the Italians and +keeping the great Powers of Europe in check, Leo carried on a series +of disastrous petty wars, chiefly with the purpose of establishing the +Medici as princes. He squandered the revenues of the Church, and left +enormous debts behind him--an exchequer ruined and a foreign policy so +confused that peace for Italy could only be obtained by servitude. + +Florence shared in the general rejoicing which greeted Leo's accession +to the Papacy. He was the first Florentine citizen who had received +the tiara, and the popular vanity was flattered by this honour to the +republic. Political theorists, meanwhile, began to speculate what +greatness Florence, in combination with Rome, might rise to. The Pope +was young; he ruled a large territory, reduced to order by his warlike +predecessors. It seemed as though the republic, swayed by him, might +make herself the first city in Italy, and restore the glories of her +Guelf ascendency upon the platform of Renaissance statecraft. There +was now no overt opposition to the Medici in Florence. How to govern +the city from Rome, and how to advance the fortunes of his brother +Giuliano and his nephew Lorenzo (Piero's son, a young man of +twenty-one), occupied the Pope's most serious attention. For Lorenzo +Leo obtained the Duchy of Urbino and the hand of a French princess. +Giuliano was named Gonfalonier of the Church. He also received the +French title of Duke of Nemours and the hand of Filiberta, Princess of +Savoy. Leo entertained a further project of acquiring the crown of +Southern Italy for his brother, and thus of uniting Rome, Florence, +and Naples under the headship of his house. Nor were the Medicean +interests neglected in the Church. Giulio, the Pope's bastard cousin, +was made cardinal. He remained in Rome, acting as vice-chancellor and +doing the hard work of the Papal Government for the pleasure-loving +pontiff. + +To Lorenzo, Duke of Urbino, the titular head of the family, was +committed the government of Florence. During their exile, wandering +from court to court in Italy, the Medici had forgotten what it was to +be burghers, and had acquired the manners of princes. Leo alone +retained enough of caution to warn his nephew that the Florentines +must still be treated as free people. He confirmed the constitution of +the Signory and the Privy Council of seventy established by his +father, bidding Lorenzo, while he ruled this sham republic, to avoid +the outer signs of tyranny. The young duke at first behaved with +moderation, but he could not cast aside his habits of a great lord. +Florence now for the first time saw a regular court established in her +midst, with a prince, who, though he bore a foreign title, was in fact +her master. The joyous days of Lorenzo the Magnificent returned. +Masquerades and triumphs filled the public squares. Two clubs of +pleasure, called the Diamond and the Branch--badges adopted by the +Medici to signify their firmness in disaster and their power of +self-recovery--were formed to lead the revels. The best sculptors and +painters devoted their genius to the invention of costumes and cars. +The city affected to believe that the age of gold had come again. + + +XXIII + + +Fortune had been very favourable to the Medici. They had returned as +princes to Florence. Giovanni was Pope. Giuliano was Gonfalonier of +the Church. Giulio was Cardinal and Archbishop of Florence. Lorenzo +ruled the city like a sovereign. But this prosperity was no less brief +than it was brilliant. A few years sufficed to sweep off all the +chiefs of the great house. Giuliano died in 1516, leaving only a +bastard son Ippolito. Lorenzo died in 1519, leaving a bastard son +Alessandro, and a daughter, six days old, who lived to be the Queen of +France. Leo died in 1521. There remained now no legitimate male +descendants from the stock of Cosimo. The honours and pretensions of +the Medici devolved upon three bastards--on the Cardinal Giulio, and +the two boys, Alessandro and Ippolito. Of these, Alessandro was a +mulatto, his mother having been a Moorish slave in the Palace of +Urbino; and whether his father was Giulio, or Giuliano, or a base +groom, was not known for certain. To such extremities were the Medici +reduced. In order to keep their house alive, they were obliged to +adopt this foundling. It is true that the younger branch of the +family, descended from Lorenzo, the brother of Cosimo, still +flourished. At this epoch it was represented by Giovanni, the great +general known as the Invincible, whose bust so strikingly resembles +that of Napoleon. But between this line of the Medici and the elder +branch there had never been true cordiality. The Cardinal mistrusted +Giovanni. It may, moreover, be added, that Giovanni was himself doomed +to death in the year 1526. + +Giulio de' Medici was left in 1521 to administer the State of Florence +single-handed. He was archbishop, and he resided in the city, holding +it with the grasp of an absolute ruler. Yet he felt his position +insecure. The republic had no longer any forms of self-government; nor +was there a magistracy to whom the despot could delegate his power in +his absence. Giulio's ambition was fixed upon the Papal crown. The +bastards he was rearing were but children. Florence had therefore to +be furnished with some political machinery that should work of itself. +The Cardinal did not wish to give freedom to the city, but clockwork. +He was in the perilous situation of having to rule a commonwealth +without life, without elasticity, without capacity of self-movement, +yet full of such material as, left alone, might ferment, and breed a +revolution. In this perplexity, he had recourse to advisers. The most +experienced politicians, philosophical theorists, practical +diplomatists, and students of antique history were requested to +furnish him with plans for a new constitution, just as you ask an +architect to give you the plan of a new house. This was the field-day +of the doctrinaires. Now was seen how much political sagacity the +Florentines had gained while they were losing liberty. We possess +these several drafts of constitutions. Some recommend tyranny; some +incline to aristocracy, or what Italians called _Governo Stretto_; +some to democracy, or _Governo Largo_; some to an eclectic compound of +the other forms, or _Governo Misto_. More consummate masterpieces of +constructive ingenuity can hardly be imagined. What is omitted in all, +is just what no doctrinaire, no nostrum can communicate--the breath of +life, the principle of organic growth. Things had come, indeed, to a +melancholy pass for Florence when her tyrant, in order to confirm his +hold upon her, had to devise these springs and irons to support her +tottering limbs. + + +XXIV + + +While the archbishop and the doctors were debating, a plot was +hatching in the Rucellai Gardens. It was here that the Florentine +Academy now held their meetings. For this society Machiavelli wrote +his 'Treatise on the Art of War,' and his 'Discourses upon Livy.' The +former was an exposition of Machiavelli's scheme for creating a +national militia, as the only safeguard for Italy, exposed at this +period to the invasions of great foreign armies. The latter is one of +the three or four masterpieces produced by the Florentine school of +critical historians. Stimulated by the daring speculations of +Machiavelli, and fired to enthusiasm by their study of antiquity, the +younger academicians formed a conspiracy for murdering Giulio de' +Medici, and restoring the republic on a Roman model. An intercepted +letter betrayed their plans. Two of the conspirators were taken and +beheaded. Others escaped. But the discovery of this conjuration put a +stop to Giulio's scheme of reforming the State. Henceforth he ruled +Florence like a despot, mild in manners, cautious in the exercise of +arbitrary power, but firm in his autocracy. The Condottiere. +Alessandro Vitelli, with a company of soldiers, was taken into service +for the protection of his person and the intimidation of the citizens. + +In 1523, the Pope, Adrian VI., expired after a short papacy, from +which he gained no honour and Italy no profit. Giulio hurried to Rome, +and, by the clever use of his large influence, caused himself to be +elected with the title of Clement VII. In Florence he left Silvio +Passerini, Cardinal of Cortona, as his vicegerent and the guardian of +the two boys Alessandro and Ippolito. The discipline of many years had +accustomed the Florentines to a government of priests. Still the +burghers, mindful of their ancient liberties, were galled by the yoke +of a Cortonese, sprung up from one of their subject cities; nor could +they bear the bastards who were being reared to rule them. Foreigners +threw it in their teeth that Florence, the city glorious of art and +freedom, was become a stable for mules--_stalla da muli_, in the +expressive language of popular sarcasm. Bastardy, it may be said in +passing, carried with it small dishonour among the Italians. The +Estensi were all illegitimate; the Aragonese house in Naples sprang +from Alfonso's natural son; and children of Popes ranked among the +princes. Yet the uncertainty of Alessandro's birth and the base +condition of his mother made the prospect of this tyrant peculiarly +odious; while the primacy of a foreign cardinal in the midst of +citizens whose spirit was still unbroken, embittered the cup of +humiliation. The Casa Medici held its authority by a slender thread, +and depended more upon the disunion of the burghers than on any power +of its own. It could always reckon on the favour of the lower +populace, who gained profit and amusement from the presence of a +court. The Ottimati again hoped more from a weak despotism than from a +commonwealth, where their privileges would have been merged in the +mass of the Grand Council. Thus the sympathies of the plebeians and +the selfishness of the rich patricians prevented the republic from +asserting itself. On this meagre basis of personal cupidity the Medici +sustained themselves. What made the situation still more delicate, and +at the same time protracted the feeble rule of Clement, was that +neither the Florentines nor the Medici had any army. Face to face with +a potentate so considerable as the Pope, a free State could not be +established without military force. On the other hand, the Medici, +supported by a mere handful of mercenaries, had no power to resist a +popular rising if any external event should inspire the middle classes +with a hope of liberty. + + +XXV + + +Clement assumed the tiara at a moment of great difficulty. Leo had +ruined the finance of Rome. France and Spain were still contending for +the possession of Italy. While acting as Vice-Chancellor, Giulio de' +Medici had seemed to hold the reins with a firm grasp, and men +expected that he would prove a powerful Pope; but in those days he had +Leo to help him; and Leo, though indolent, was an abler man than his +cousin. He planned, and Giulio executed. Obliged to act now for +himself, Clement revealed the weakness of his nature. That weakness +was irresolution, craft without wisdom, diplomacy without knowledge of +men. He raised the storm, and showed himself incapable of guiding it. +This is not the place to tell by what a series of crooked schemes and +cross purposes he brought upon himself the ruin of the Church and +Rome, to relate his disagreement with the Emperor, or to describe +again the sack of the Eternal City by the rabble of the Constable de +Bourbon's army. That wreck of Rome in 1527 was the closing scene of +the Italian Renaissance--the last of the Apocalyptic tragedies +foretold by Savonarola--the death of the old age. + +When the Florentines knew what was happening in Rome, they rose and +forced the Cardinal Passerini to depart with the Medicean bastards +from the city. The youth demanded arms for the defence of the town, +and they received them. The whole male population was enrolled in a +militia. The Grand Council was reformed, and the republic was restored +upon the basis of 1495. Niccolo Capponi was elected Gonfalonier. The +name of Christ was again registered as chief of the commonwealth--to +such an extent did the memory of Savonarola still sway the popular +imagination. The new State hastened to form an alliance with France, +and Malatesta Baglioni was chosen as military Commander-in-Chief. +Meanwhile the city armed itself for siege--Michel Angelo Buonarroti +and Francesco da San Gallo undertaking the construction of new forts +and ramparts. These measures were adopted with sudden decision, +because it was soon known that Clement had made peace with the +Emperor, and that the army which had sacked Rome was going to be +marched on Florence. + + +XXVI + + +In the month of August 1529 the Prince of Orange assembled his forces +at Terni, and thence advanced by easy stages into Tuscany. As he +approached, the Florentines laid waste their suburbs, and threw down +their wreath of towers, in order that the enemy might have no +harbourage or points of vantage for attack. Their troops were +concentrated within the city, where a new Gonfalonier, Francesco +Carducci, furiously opposed to the Medici, and attached to the +Piagnoni party, now ruled. On September 4th the Prince of Orange +appeared before the walls, and opened the memorable siege. It lasted +eight months, at the end of which time, betrayed by their generals, +divided among themselves, and worn out with delays, the Florentines +capitulated. Florence was paid as compensation for the insult offered +to the pontiff in the sack of Rome. + +The long yoke of the Medici had undermined the character of the +Florentines. This, their last glorious struggle for liberty, was but a +flash in the pan--a final flare-up of the dying lamp. The city was not +satisfied with slavery; but it had no capacity for united action. The +Ottimati were egotistic and jealous of the people. The Palleschi +desired to restore the Medici at any price--some of them frankly +wishing for a principality, others trusting that the old +quasi-republican government might still be reinstated. The Red +Republicans, styled Libertini and Arrabbiati, clung together in blind +hatred of the Medicean party; but they had no further policy to guide +them. The Piagnoni, or Frateschi, stuck to the memory of Savonarola, +and believed that angels would descend to guard the battlements when +human help had failed. These enthusiasts still formed the true nerve +of the nation--the class that might have saved the State, if salvation +had been possible. Even as it was, the energy of their fanaticism +prolonged the siege until resistance seemed no longer physically +possible. The hero developed by the crisis was Francesco Ferrucci, a +plebeian who had passed his youth in manual labour, and who now +displayed rare military genius. He fell fighting outside the walls of +Florence. Had he commanded the troops from the beginning, and remained +inside the city, it is just possible that the fate of the war might +have been less disastrous. As it was, Malatesta Baglioni, the +Commander-in-Chief, turned out an arrant scoundrel. He held secret +correspondence with Clement and the Prince of Orange. It was he who +finally sold Florence to her foes, 'putting on his head,' as the Doge +of Venice said before the Senate, 'the cap of the biggest traitor upon +record.' + + +XXVII + + +What remains of Florentine history may be briefly told. Clement, now +the undisputed arbiter of power and honour in the city, chose +Alessandro de' Medici to be prince. Alessandro was created Duke of +Civita di Penna, and married to a natural daughter of Charles V. +Ippolito was made a cardinal. Ippolito would have preferred a secular +to a priestly kingdom; nor did he conceal his jealousy for his cousin. +Therefore Alessandro had him poisoned. Alessandro in his turn was +murdered by his kinsman, Lorenzino de' Medici. Lorenzino paid the +usual penalty of tyrannicide some years later. When Alessandro was +killed in 1539, Clement had himself been dead five years. Thus the +whole posterity of Cosimo de' Medici, with the exception of Catherine, +Queen of France, was utterly extinguished. But the Medici had struck +root so firmly in the State, and had so remodelled it upon the type of +tyranny, that the Florentines were no longer able to do without them. +The chiefs of the Ottimati selected Cosimo, the representative of +Giovanni the Invincible, for their prince, and thus the line of the +elder Lorenzo came at last to power. This Cosimo was a boy of +eighteen, fond of field-sports, and unused to party intrigues. When +Francesco Guicciardini offered him a privy purse of one hundred and +twenty thousand ducats annually, together with the presidency of +Florence, this wily politician hoped that he would rule the State +through Cosimo, and realise at last that dream of the Ottimati, a +_Governo Stretto_ or _di Pochi_. He was notably mistaken in his +calculations. The first days of Cosimo's administration showed that +he possessed the craft of his family and the vigour of his immediate +progenitors, and that he meant to be sole master in Florence. He it +was who obtained the title of Grand Duke of Tuscany from the Pope--a +title confirmed by the Emperor, fortified by Austrian alliances, and +transmitted through his heirs to the present century. + + +XXVIII + + +In this sketch of Florentine history, I have purposely omitted all +details that did not bear upon the constitutional history of the +republic, or on the growth of the Medici as despots; because I wanted +to present a picture of the process whereby that family contrived to +fasten itself upon the freest and most cultivated State in Italy. This +success the Medici owed mainly to their own obstinacy, and to the +weakness of republican institutions in Florence. Their power was +founded upon wealth in the first instance, and upon the ingenuity with +which they turned the favour of the proletariate to use. It was +confirmed by the mistakes and failures of their enemies, by Rinaldo +degli Albizzi's attack on Cosimo, by the conspiracy of Neroni and +Pitti against Piero, and by Francesco de' Pazzi's attempt to +assassinate Lorenzo. It was still further strengthened by the Medicean +sympathy for arts and letters--a sympathy which placed both Cosimo and +Lorenzo at the head of the Renaissance movement, and made them worthy +to represent Florence, the city of genius, in the fifteenth century. +While thus founding and cementing their dynastic influence upon the +basis of a widespread popularity, the Medici employed persistent +cunning in the enfeeblement of the Republic. It was their policy not +to plant themselves by force or acts of overt tyranny, but to corrupt +ambitious citizens, to secure the patronage of public officers, and to +render the spontaneous working of the State machinery impossible. By +pursuing this policy over a long series of years they made the revival +of liberty in 1494, and again in 1527, ineffectual. While exiled from +Florence, they never lost the hope of returning as masters, so long as +the passions they had excited, and they alone could gratify, remained +in full activity. These passions were avarice and egotism, the greed +of the grasping Ottimati, the jealousy of the nobles, the +self-indulgence of the proletariate. Yet it is probable they might +have failed to recover Florence, on one or other of these two +occasions, but for the accident which placed Giovanni de' Medici on +the Papal chair, and enabled him to put Giulio in the way of the same +dignity. From the accession of Leo in 1513 to the year 1527 the Medici +ruled Florence from Rome, and brought the power of the Church into the +service of their despotism. After that date they were still further +aided by the imperial policy of Charles V., who chose to govern Italy +through subject princes, bound to himself by domestic alliances and +powerful interests. One of these was Cosimo, the first Grand Duke of +Tuscany. + + * * * * * + + + + +_THE DEBT OF ENGLISH TO ITALIAN LITERATURE_ + + +To an Englishman one of the chief interests of the study of Italian +literature is derived from the fact that, between England and Italy, +an almost uninterrupted current of intellectual intercourse has been +maintained throughout the last five centuries. The English have never, +indeed, at any time been slavish imitators of the Italians; but Italy +has formed the dreamland of the English fancy, inspiring poets with +their most delightful thoughts, supplying them with subjects, and +implanting in their minds that sentiment of Southern beauty which, +engrafted on our more passionately imaginative Northern nature, has +borne rich fruit in the works of Chaucer, Spenser, Marlowe, Shakspere, +Milton, and the poets of this century. + +It is not strange that Italy should thus in matters of culture have +been the guide and mistress of England. Italy, of all the European +nations, was the first to produce high art and literature in the dawn +of modern civilisation. Italy was the first to display refinement in +domestic life, polish of manners, civilities of intercourse. In Italy +the commerce of courts first developed a society of men and women, +educated by the same traditions of humanistic culture. In Italy the +principles of government were first discussed and reduced to theory. +In Italy the zeal for the classics took its origin; and scholarship, +to which we owe our mental training, was at first the possession of +none almost but Italians. It therefore followed that during the age of +the Renaissance any man of taste or genius, who desired to share the +newly discovered privileges of learning, had to seek Italy. Every one +who wished to be initiated into the secrets of science or philosophy, +had to converse with Italians in person or through books. Every one +who was eager to polish his native language, and to render it the +proper vehicle of poetic thought, had to consult the masterpieces of +Italian literature. To Italians the courtier, the diplomatist, the +artist, the student of statecraft and of military tactics, the +political theorist, the merchant, the man of laws, the man of arms, +and the churchman turned for precedents and precepts. The nations of +the North, still torpid and somnolent in their semi-barbarism, needed +the magnetic touch of Italy before they could awake to intellectual +life. Nor was this all. Long before the thirst for culture possessed +the English mind, Italy had appropriated and assimilated all that +Latin literature contained of strong or splendid to arouse the thought +and fancy of the modern world; Greek, too, was rapidly becoming the +possession of the scholars of Florence and Rome; so that English men +of letters found the spirit of the ancients infused into a modern +literature; models of correct and elegant composition existed for them +in a language easy, harmonious, and not dissimilar in usage to their +own. + +The importance of this service, rendered by Italians to the rest of +Europe, cannot be exaggerated. By exploring, digesting, and +reproducing the classics, Italy made the labour of scholarship +comparatively light for the Northern nations, and extended to us the +privilege of culture without the peril of losing originality in the +enthusiasm for erudition. Our great poets could handle lightly, and +yet profitably, those masterpieces of Greece and Rome, beneath the +weight of which, when first discovered, the genius of the Italians had +wavered. To the originality of Shakspere an accession of wealth +without weakness was brought by the perusal of Italian works, in which +the spirit of the antique was seen as in a modern mirror. Then, in +addition to this benefit of instruction, Italy gave to England a gift +of pure beauty, the influence of which, in refining our national +taste, harmonising the roughness of our manners and our language, and +stimulating our imagination, has been incalculable. It was a not +unfrequent custom for young men of ability to study at the Italian +universities, or at least to undertake a journey to the principal +Italian cities. From their sojourn in that land of loveliness and +intellectual life they returned with their Northern brains most +powerfully stimulated. To produce, by masterpieces of the imagination, +some work of style that should remain as a memento of that glorious +country, and should vie on English soil with the art of Italy, was +their generous ambition. Consequently the substance of the stories +versified by our poets, the forms of our metres, and the cadences of +our prose periods reveal a close attention to Italian originals. + +This debt of England to Italy in the matter of our literature began +with Chaucer. Truly original and national as was the framework of the +'Canterbury Tales,' we can hardly doubt but that Chaucer was +determined in the form adopted for his poem by the example of +Boccaccio. The subject-matter, also, of many of his tales was taken +from Boccaccio's prose or verse. For example, the story of Patient +Grizzel is founded upon one of the legends of the 'Decameron,' while +the Knight's Tale is almost translated from the 'Teseide' of +Boccaccio, and Troilus and Creseide is derived from the 'Filostrato' +of the same author. The Franklin's Tale and the Reeve's Tale +are also based either on stories of Boccaccio or else on French +'Fabliaux,' to which Chaucer, as well as Boccaccio, had access. I do +not wish to lay too much stress upon Chaucer's direct obligations to +Boccaccio, because it is incontestable that the French 'Fabliaux,' +which supplied them both with subjects, were the common property of +the mediaeval nations. But his indirect debt in all that concerns +elegant handling of material, and in the fusion of the romantic with +the classic spirit, which forms the chief charm of such tales as the +Palamon and Arcite, can hardly be exaggerated. Lastly, the seven-lined +stanza, called _rime royal_, which Chaucer used with so much effect in +narrative poetry, was probably borrowed from the earlier Florentine +'Ballata,' the last line rhyming with its predecessor being +substituted for the recurrent refrain. Indeed, the stanza itself, as +used by our earliest poets, may be found in Guido Cavalcanti's +'Ballatetta,' beginning, _Posso degli occhi miei_. + +Between Chaucer and Surrey the Muse of England fell asleep; but when +in the latter half of the reign of Henry VIII. she awoke again, it was +as a conscious pupil of the Italian that she attempted new strains and +essayed fresh metres. 'In the latter end of Henry VIII.'s reign,' says +Puttenham, 'sprang up a new company of courtly makers, of whom Sir T. +Wyatt the elder, and Henry Earl of Surrey, were the two chieftains, +who, having travelled into Italy, and there tasted the sweet and +stately measures and style of the Italian poesy, as novices newly +crept out of the schools of Dante, Ariosto, and Petrarch, they greatly +polished our rude and homely manner of vulgar poesy, from that it had +been before, and for that cause may justly be said the first reformers +of our English metre and style.' The chief point in which Surrey +imitated his 'master, Francis Petrarcha,' was in the use of the +sonnet. He introduced this elaborate form of poetry into our +literature; and how it has thriven with us, the masterpieces of +Spenser, Shakspere, Milton, Wordsworth, Keats, Rossetti attest. As +practised by Dante and Petrarch, the sonnet is a poem of fourteen +lines, divided into two quatrains and two triplets, so arranged that +the two quatrains repeat one pair of rhymes, while the two triplets +repeat another pair. Thus an Italian sonnet of the strictest form is +composed upon four rhymes, interlaced with great art. But much +divergence from this rigid scheme of rhyming was admitted even by +Petrarch, who not unfrequently divided the six final lines of the +sonnet into three couplets, interwoven in such a way that the two last +lines never rhymed.[17] + +It has been necessary to say thus much about the structure of the +Italian sonnet, in order to make clear the task which lay before +Surrey and Wyatt, when they sought to transplant it into English. +Surrey did not adhere to the strict fashion of Petrarch: his sonnets +consist either of three regular quatrains concluded with a couplet, +or else of twelve lines rhyming alternately and concluded with a +couplet. Wyatt attempted to follow the order and interlacement of the +Italian rhymes more closely, but he too concluded his sonnet with a +couplet. This introduction of the final couplet was a violation of the +Italian rule, which may be fairly considered as prejudicial to the +harmony of the whole structure, and which has insensibly caused the +English sonnet to terminate in an epigram. The famous sonnet of Surrey +on his love, Geraldine, is an excellent example of the metrical +structure as adapted to the supposed necessities of English rhyming, +and as afterwards adhered to by Shakspere in his long series of +love-poems. Surrey, while adopting the form of the sonnet, kept quite +clear of the Petrarchist's mannerism. His language is simple and +direct: there is no subtilising upon far-fetched conceits, no +wire-drawing of exquisite sentimentalism, although he celebrates in +this, as in his other sonnets, a lady for whom he appears to have +entertained no more than a Platonic or imaginary passion. Surrey was a +great experimentalist in metre. Besides the sonnet, he introduced into +England blank verse, which he borrowed from the Italian _versi +sciolti_, fixing that decasyllable iambic rhythm for English +versification in which our greatest poetical triumphs have been +achieved. + +Before quitting the subject of the sonnet it would, however, be well +to mention the changes which were wrought in its structure by early +poets desirous of emulating the Italians. Shakspere, as already +hinted, adhered to the simple form introduced by Surrey: his stanzas +invariably consist of three separate quatrains followed by a couplet. +But Sir Philip Sidney, whose familiarity with Italian literature was +intimate, and who had resided long in Italy, perceived that without a +greater complexity and interweaving of rhymes the beauty of the poem +was considerably impaired. He therefore combined the rhymes of the two +quatrains, as the Italians had done, leaving himself free to follow +the Italian fashion in the conclusion, or else to wind up after +English usage with a couplet. Spenser and Drummond follow the rule of +Sidney; Drayton and Daniel, that of Surrey and Shakspere. It was not +until Milton that an English poet preserved the form of the Italian +sonnet in its strictness; but, after Milton, the greatest +sonnet-writers--Wordsworth, Keats, and Rossetti--have aimed at +producing stanzas as regular as those of Petrarch. + +The great age of our literature--the age of Elizabeth--was essentially +one of Italian influence. In Italy the Renaissance had reached its +height: England, feeling the new life which had been infused into arts +and letters, turned instinctively to Italy, and adopted her canons of +taste. 'Euphues' has a distinct connection with the Italian discourses +of polite culture. Sidney's 'Arcadia' is a copy of what Boccaccio had +attempted in his classical romances, and Sanazzaro in his +pastorals.[18] Spenser approached the subject of the 'Faery Queen' +with his head full of Ariosto and the romantic poets of Italy. His +sonnets are Italian; his odes embody the Platonic philosophy of the +Italians.[19] The extent of Spenser's deference to the Italians in +matters of poetic art may be gathered from this passage in the +dedication to Sir Walter Raleigh of the 'Faery Queen:' + + I have followed all the antique poets historical: first + Homer, who in the persons of Agamemnon and Ulysses hath + ensampled a good governor and a virtuous man, the one in his + Ilias, the other in his Odysseis; then Virgil, whose like + intention was to do in the person of AEneas; after him + Ariosto comprised them both in his Orlando; and lately Tasso + dissevered them again, and formed both parts in two persons, + namely, that part which they in Philosophy call Ethice, or + virtues of a private man, coloured in his Rinaldo, the other + named Politico in his Goffredo. + +From this it is clear that, to the mind of Spenser, both Ariosto and +Tasso were authorities of hardly less gravity than Homer and Virgil. +Raleigh, in the splendid sonnet with which he responds to this +dedication, enhances the fame of Spenser by affecting to believe that +the great Italian, Petrarch, will be jealous of him in the grave. To +such an extent were the thoughts of the English poets occupied with +their Italian masters in the art of song. + +It was at this time, again, that English literature was enriched by +translations of Ariosto and Tasso--the one from the pen of Sir John +Harrington, the other from that of Fairfax. Both were produced in the +metre of the original--the octave stanza, which, however, did not at +that period take root in England. At the same period the works of many +of the Italian novelists, especially Bandello and Cinthio and +Boccaccio, were translated into English; Painter's 'Palace of +Pleasure' being a treasure-house of Italian works of fiction. Thomas +Hoby translated Castiglione's 'Courtier' in 1561. As a proof of the +extent to which Italian books were read in England at the end of the +sixteenth century, we may take a stray sentence from a letter of +Harvey, in which he disparages the works of Robert Greene:--'Even +Guicciardine's silver histories and Ariosto's golden cantos grow out +of request: and the Countess of Pembroke's "Arcadia" is not green +enough for queasy stomachs; but they must have seen Greene's +"Arcadia," and I believe most eagerly longed for Greene's "Faery +Queen."' + +Still more may be gathered on the same topic from the indignant +protest uttered by Roger Ascham in his 'Schoolmaster' (pp. 78-91, date +1570) against the prevalence of Italian customs, the habit of Italian +travel, and the reading of Italian books translated into English. +Selections of Italian stories rendered into English were extremely +popular; and Greene's tales, which had such vogue that Nash says of +them, 'glad was that printer that might be so blest to pay him dear +for the very dregs of his wit,' were all modelled on the Italian. The +education of a young man of good family was not thought complete +unless he had spent some time in Italy, studied its literature, +admired its arts, and caught at least some tincture of its manners. +Our rude ancestors brought back with them from these journeys many +Southern vices, together with the culture they had gone to seek. The +contrast between the plain dealing of the North and the refined +Machiavellism of the South, between Protestant earnestness in religion +and Popish scepticism, between the homely virtues of England and the +courtly libertinism of Venice or Florence, blunted the moral sense, +while it stimulated the intellectual activity of the English +travellers, and too often communicated a fatal shock to their +principles. _Inglese Italianato e un diavolo incarnato_ passed into a +proverb: we find it on the lips of Parker, of Howell, of Sidney, of +Greene, and of Ascham; while Italy itself was styled by severe +moralists the court of Circe. In James Howell's 'Instructions for +forreine travell' we find this pregnant sentence: 'And being now in +Italy, that great limbique of working braines, he must be very +circumspect in his carriage, for she is able to turne a Saint into a +devill, and deprave the best natures, if one will abandon himselfe, +and become a prey to dissolut courses and wantonesse.' Italy, in +truth, had already become corrupt, and the fruit of her contact with +the nations of the North was seen in the lives of such scholars as +Robert Greene, who confessed that he returned from his travels +instructed 'in all the villanies under the sun.' Many of the scandals +of the Court of James might be ascribed to this aping of Southern +manners. + +Yet, together with the evil of depraved morality, the advantage of +improved culture was imported from Italy into England; and the +constitution of the English genius was young and healthy enough to +purge off the mischief, while it assimilated what was beneficial. This +is very manifest in the history of our drama, which, taking it +altogether, is at the same time the purest and the most varied that +exists in literature; while it may be affirmed without exaggeration +that one of the main impulses to free dramatic composition in England +was communicated by the attraction everything Italian possessed for +the English fancy. It was in the drama that the English displayed the +richness and the splendour of the Renaissance, which had blazed so +gorgeously and at times so balefully below the Alps. The Italy of the +Renaissance fascinated our dramatists with a strange wild glamour--the +contrast of external pageant and internal tragedy, the alternations of +radiance and gloom, the terrible examples of bloodshed, treason, and +heroism emergent from ghastly crimes. Our drama began with a +translation of Ariosto's 'Suppositi' and ended with Davenant's 'Just +Italian.' In the very dawn of tragic composition Greene versified a +portion of the 'Orlando Furioso,' and Marlowe devoted one of his most +brilliant studies to the villanies of a Maltese Jew. Of Shakspere's +plays five are incontestably Italian: several of the rest are +furnished with Italian names to suit the popular taste. Ben Jonson +laid the scene of his most subtle comedy of manners, 'Volpone,' in +Venice, and sketched the first cast of 'Every Man in his Humour' for +Italian characters. Tourneur, Ford, and Webster were so dazzled by the +tragic lustre of the wickedness of Italy that their finest dramas, +without exception, are minute and carefully studied psychological +analyses of great Italian tales of crime. The same, in a less degree, +is true of Middleton and Dekker. Massinger makes a story of the Sforza +family the subject of one of his best plays. Beaumont and Fletcher +draw the subjects of comedies and tragedies alike from the Italian +novelists. Fletcher in his 'Faithful Shepherdess' transfers the +pastoral style of Tasso and Guarini to the North. So close is the +connection between our tragedy and Italian novels that Marston and +Ford think fit to introduce passages of Italian dialogue into the +plays of 'Giovanni and Annabella' and 'Antonio and Mellida.' But the +best proof of the extent to which Italian life and literature had +influenced our dramatists, may be easily obtained by taking down +Halliwell's 'Dictionary of Old Plays,' and noticing that about every +third drama has an Italian title. Meanwhile the poems composed by the +chief dramatists--Shakspere's 'Venus and Adonis,' Marlowe's 'Hero and +Leander,' Marston's 'Pygmalion,' and Beaumont's 'Hermaphrodite'--are +all of them conceived in the Italian style, by men who had either +studied Southern literature, or had submitted to its powerful aesthetic +influences. The Masques, moreover, of Jonson, of Lyly, of Fletcher, +and of Chapman are exact reproductions upon the English court theatres +of such festival pageants as were presented to the Medici at Florence +or to the Este family at Ferrara.[20] Throughout our drama the +influence of Italy, direct or indirect, either as supplying our +playwrights with subjects or as stimulating their imagination, may +thus be traced. Yet the Elizabethan drama is in the highest sense +original. As a work of art pregnant with deepest wisdom, and +splendidly illustrative of the age which gave it birth, it far +transcends anything that Italy produced in the same department. Our +poets have a more masculine judgment, more fiery fancy, nobler +sentiment, than the Italians of any age but that of Dante. What Italy +gave, was the impulse toward creation, not patterns to be +imitated--the excitement of the imagination by a spectacle of so much +grandeur, not rules and precepts for production--the keen sense of +tragic beauty, not any tradition of accomplished art. + +The Elizabethan period of our literature was, in fact, the period +during which we derived most from the Italian nation. + +The study of the Italian language went hand in hand with the study of +Greek and Latin, so that the three together contributed to form the +English taste. Between us and the ancient world stood the genius of +Italy as an interpreter. Nor was this connection broken until far on +into the reign of Charles II. What Milton owed to Italy is clear not +only from his Italian sonnets, but also from the frequent mention of +Dante and Petrarch in his prose works, from his allusions to Boiardo +and Ariosto in the 'Paradise Lost,' and from the hints which he +probably derived from Pulci, Tasso and Andreini. It would, indeed, be +easy throughout his works to trace a continuous vein of Italian +influence in detail. But, more than this, Milton's poetical taste in +general seems to have been formed and ripened by familiarity with the +harmonies of the Italian language. In his Tractate on Education +addressed to Mr. Hartlib, he recommends that boys should be instructed +in the Italian pronunciation of vowel sounds, in order to give +sonorousness and dignity to elocution. This slight indication supplies +us with a key to the method of melodious structure employed by Milton +in his blank verse. Those who have carefully studied the harmonies of +the 'Paradise Lost,' know how all-important are the assonances of the +vowel sounds of _o_ and _a_ in its most musical passages. It is just +this attention to the liquid and sonorous recurrences of open vowels +that we should expect from a poet who proposed to assimilate his +diction to that of the Italians. + +After the age of Milton the connection between Italy and England is +interrupted. In the seventeenth century Italy herself had sunk into +comparative stupor, and her literature was trivial. France not only +swayed the political destinies of Europe, but also took the lead in +intellectual culture. Consequently, our poets turned from Italy to +France, and the French spirit pervaded English literature throughout +the period of the Restoration and the reigns of William and Queen Anne. +Yet during this prolonged reaction against the earlier movement of +English literature, as manifested in Elizabethanism, the influence of +Italy was not wholly extinct. Dryden's 'Tales from Boccaccio' are no +insignificant contribution to our poetry, and his 'Palamon and +Arcite,' through Chaucer, returns to the same source. But when, at the +beginning of this century, the Elizabethan tradition was revived, then +the Italian influence reappeared more vigorous than ever. The metre of +'Don Juan,' first practised by Frere and then adopted by Lord Byron, +is Pulci's octave stanza; the manner is that of Berni, Folengo, and +the Abbe Casti, fused and heightened by the brilliance of Byron's +genius into a new form. The subject of Shelley's strongest work of art +is Beatrice Cenci. Rogers's poem is styled 'Italy.' Byron's dramas are +chiefly Italian. Leigh Hunt repeats the tale of Francesca da Rimini. +Keats versifies Boccaccio's 'Isabella.' Passing to contemporary poets, +Rossetti has acclimatised in English the metres and the manner of the +earliest Italian lyrists. Swinburne dedicates his noblest song to the +spirit of liberty in Italy. Even George Eliot and Tennyson have each +of them turned stories of Boccaccio into verse. The best of Mrs. +Browning's poems, 'Casa Guidi Windows' and 'Aurora Leigh,' are steeped +in Italian thought and Italian imagery. Browning's longest poem is a +tale of Italian crime; his finest studies in the 'Men and Women' are +portraits of Italian character of the Renaissance period. But there is +more than any mere enumeration of poets and their work can set forth, +in the connection between Italy and England. That connection, so far +as the poetical imagination is concerned, is vital. As poets in the +truest sense of the word, we English live and breathe through sympathy +with the Italians. The magnetic touch which is required to inflame the +imagination of the North, is derived from Italy. The nightingales of +English song who make our oak and beech copses resonant in spring with +purest melody, are migratory birds, who have charged their souls in +the South with the spirit of beauty, and who return to warble native +wood-notes in a tongue which is their own. + +What has hitherto been said about the debt of the English poets to +Italy, may seem to imply that our literature can be regarded as to +some extent a parasite on that of the Italians. Against such a +conclusion no protest too energetic could be uttered. What we have +derived directly from the Italian poets are, first, some +metres--especially the sonnet and the octave stanza, though the latter +has never taken firm root in England. 'Terza rima,' attempted by +Shelley, Byron, Morris, and Mrs. Browning, has not yet become +acclimatised. Blank verse, although originally remodelled by Surrey +upon the _versi sciolti_ of the Italians, has departed widely from +Italian precedent, first by its decasyllabic structure, whereas +Italian verse consists of hendecasyllables; and, secondly, by its +greater force, plasticity, and freedom. The Spenserian stanza, again, +is a new and original metre peculiar to our literature; though it is +possible that but for the complex structures of Italian lyric verse, +it might not have been fashioned for the 'Faery Queen.' Lastly, the +so-called heroic couplet is native to England; at any rate, it is in +no way related to Italian metre. Therefore the only true Italian +exotic adopted without modification into our literature is the sonnet. + +In the next place, we owe to the Italians the subject-matter of many +of our most famous dramas and our most delightful tales in verse. But +the English treatment of these histories and fables has been uniformly +independent and original. Comparing Shakspere's 'Romeo and Juliet' +with Bandello's tale, Webster's 'Duchess of Malfy' with the version +given from the Italian in Painter's 'Palace of Pleasure,' and +Chaucer's Knight's Tale with the 'Teseide' of Boccaccio, we perceive +at once that the English poets have used their Italian models merely +as outlines to be filled in with freedom, as the canvas to be +embroidered with a tapestry of vivid groups. Nothing is more manifest +than the superiority of the English genius over the Italian in all +dramatic qualities of intense passion, profound analysis, and living +portrayal of character in action. The mere rough detail of Shakspere's +'Othello' is to be found in Cinthio's Collection of Novelle; but let +an unprejudiced reader peruse the original, and he will be no more +deeply affected by it than by any touching story of treachery, +jealousy, and hapless innocence. The wily subtleties of Iago, the +soldierly frankness of Cassio, the turbulent and volcanic passions of +Othello, the charm of Desdemona, and the whole tissue of vivid +incidents which make 'Othello' one of the most tremendous extant +tragedies of characters in combat, are Shakspere's, and only +Shakspere's. This instance, indeed, enables us exactly to indicate +what the English owed to Italy and what was essentially their own. +From that Southern land of Circe about which they dreamed, and which +now and then they visited, came to their imaginations a +spirit-stirring breath of inspiration. It was to them the country of +marvels, of mysterious crimes, of luxurious gardens and splendid +skies, where love was more passionate and life more picturesque, and +hate more bloody and treachery more black, than in our Northern +climes. Italy was a spacious grove of wizardry, which mighty poets, on +the quest of fanciful adventure, trod with fascinated senses and +quickened pulses. But the strong brain which converted what they heard +and read and saw of that charmed land into the stuff of golden romance +or sable tragedy, was their own. + +English literature has been defined a literature of genius. + +Our greatest work in art has been achieved not so much by inspiration, +subordinate to sentiments of exquisite good taste or guided by +observance of classical models, as by audacious sallies of pure +inventive power. This is true as a judgment of that constellation +which we call our drama, of the meteor Byron, of Milton and Dryden, +who are the Jupiter and Mars of our poetic system, and of the stars +which stud our literary firmament under the names of Shelley, Keats, +Wordsworth, Chatterton, Scott, Coleridge, Clough, Blake, Browning, +Swinburne, Tennyson. There are only a very few of the English poets, +Pope and Gray, for example, in whom the free instincts of genius are +kept systematically in check by the laws of the reflective +understanding. Now Italian literature is in this respect all unlike +our own. It began, indeed, with Dante, as a literature pre-eminently +of genius; but the spirit of scholarship assumed the sway as early as +the days of Petrarch and Boccaccio, and after them Italian has been +consistently a literature of taste. By this I mean that even the +greatest Italian poets have sought to render their style correct, have +endeavoured to subordinate their inspiration to what they considered +the rules of sound criticism, and have paid serious attention to their +manner as independent of the matter they wished to express. The +passion for antiquity, so early developed in Italy, delivered the +later Italian poets bound hand and foot into the hands of Horace. +Poliziano was content to reproduce the classic authors in a mosaic +work of exquisite translations. Tasso was essentially a man of talent, +producing work of chastened beauty by diligent attention to the rule +and method of his art. Even Ariosto submitted the liberty of his swift +spirit to canons of prescribed elegance. While our English poets have +conceived and executed without regard for the opinion of the learned +and without obedience to the usages of language--Shakspere, for +example, producing tragedies which set Aristotle at defiance, and +Milton engrafting Latinisms on the native idiom--the Italian poets +thought and wrote with the fear of Academies before their eyes, and +studied before all things to maintain the purity of the Tuscan tongue. +The consequence is that the Italian and English literatures are +eminent for very different excellences. All that is forcible in the +dramatic presentation of life and character and action, all that is +audacious in imagination and capricious in fancy, whatever strength +style can gain from the sallies of original and untrammelled +eloquence, whatever beauty is derived from spontaneity and native +grace, belong in abundant richness to the English. On the other hand, +the Italian poets present us with masterpieces of correct and studied +diction, with carefully elaborated machinery, and with a style +maintained at a uniform level of dignified correctness. The weakness +of the English proceeds from inequality and extravagance; it is the +weakness of self-confident vigour, intolerant of rule, rejoicing in +its own exuberant resources. The weakness of the Italian is due to +timidity and moderation; it is the weakness that springs not so much +from a lack of native strength as from the over-anxious expenditure of +strength upon the attainment of finish, polish, and correctness. Hence +the two nations have everything to learn from one another. Modern +Italian poets may seek by contact with Shakspere and Milton to gain a +freedom from the trammels imposed upon them by the slavish followers +of Petrarch; while the attentive perusal of Tasso should be +recommended to all English people who have no ready access to the +masterpieces of Greek and Latin literature. + +Another point of view may be gained by noticing the pre-dominant tone +of the two literatures. Whenever English poetry is really great, it +approximates to the tragic and the stately; whereas the Italians are +peculiarly felicitous in the smooth and pleasant style, which combines +pathos with amusement, and which does not trespass beyond the region +of beauty into the domain of sublimity or terror. Italian poetry is +analogous to Italian painting and Italian music: it bathes the soul in +a plenitude of charms, investing even the most solemn subjects with +loveliness. Rembrandt and Albert Duerer depict the tragedies of the +Sacred History with a serious and awful reality: Italian painters, +with a few rare but illustrious exceptions, shrink from approaching +them from any point of view but that of harmonious melancholy. Even so +the English poets stir the soul to its very depths by their profound +and earnest delineations of the stern and bitter truths of the world: +Italian poets environ all things with the golden haze of an artistic +harmony; so that the soul is agitated by no pain at strife with the +persuasions of pure beauty. + + * * * * * + + + + +_POPULAR SONGS OF TUSCANY_ + + +It is a noticeable fact about the popular songs of Tuscany that they +are almost exclusively devoted to love. The Italians in general have +no ballad literature resembling that of our Border or that of Spain. +The tragic histories of their noble families, the great deeds of their +national heroes, and the sufferings of their country during centuries +of warfare, have left but few traces in their rustic poetry. It is +true that some districts are less utterly barren than others in these +records of the past. The Sicilian people's poetry, for example, +preserves a memory of the famous Vespers; and one or two terrible +stories of domestic tragedy, like the tale of Rosmunda in 'La Donna +Lombarda,' the romance of the Baronessa di Carini, and the so-called +Caso di Sciacca, may still be heard upon the lips of the people. But +these exceptions are insignificant in comparison with the vast mass of +songs which deal with love; and I cannot find that Tuscany, where the +language of this minstrelsy is purest, and where the artistic +instincts of the race are strongest, has anything at all approaching +to our ballads.[21] Though the Tuscan contadini are always singing, it +rarely happens that + + The plaintive numbers flow + For old, unhappy, far-off things, + And battles long ago. + +On the contrary, we may be sure, when we hear their voices ringing +through the olive-groves or macchi, that they are chanting + + Some more humble lay, + Familiar matter of to-day,-- + Some natural sorrow, loss, or pain, + That has been, and may be again; + +or else, since their melodies are by no means uniformly sad, some +ditty of the joyousness of springtime or the ecstasy of love. + +This defect of anything corresponding to our ballads of 'Chevy Chase,' +or 'Sir Patrick Spens,' or 'Gil Morrice,' in a poetry which is still +so vital with the life of past centuries, is all the more remarkable +because Italian history is distinguished above that of other nations +by tragic episodes peculiarly suited to poetic treatment. Many of +these received commemoration in the fourteenth century from Dante; +others were embodied in the _novelle_ of Boccaccio and Cinthio and +Bandello, whence they passed into the dramas of Shakspere, Webster, +Ford, and their contemporaries. But scarcely an echo can be traced +through all the volumes of the recently collected popular songs. We +must seek for an explanation of this fact partly in the conditions of +Italian life, and partly in the nature of the Italian imagination. +Nowhere in Italy do we observe that intimate connection between the +people at large and the great nobles which generates the sympathy of +clanship. Politics in most parts of the peninsula fell at a very +early period into the hands either of irresponsible princes, who ruled +like despots, or else of burghers, who administered the state within +the walls of their Palazzo Pubblico. The people remained passive +spectators of contemporary history. The loyalty of subjects to their +sovereign which animates the Spanish ballads, the loyalty of retainers +to their chief which gives life to the tragic ballads of the Border, +did not exist in Italy. Country-folk felt no interest in the doings of +Visconti or Medici or Malatesti sufficient to arouse the enthusiasm of +local bards or to call forth the celebration of their princely +tragedies in verse. Amid the miseries of foreign wars and home +oppression, it seemed better to demand from verse and song some +mitigation of the woes of life, some expression of personal emotion, +than to record the disasters which to us at a distance appear poetic +in their grandeur. + +These conditions of popular life, although unfavourable to the +production of ballad poetry, would not, however, have been sufficient +by themselves to check its growth, if the Italians had been strongly +impelled to literature of this type by their nature. The real reason +why their _Volkslieder_ are amorous and personal is to be found in the +quality of their imagination. The Italian genius is not creatively +imaginative in the highest sense. The Italians have never, either in +the ancient or the modern age, produced a great drama or a national +epic, the 'AEneid' and the 'Divine Comedy' being obviously of different +species from the 'Iliad' or the 'Nibelungen Lied.' Modern Italians, +again, are distinguished from the French, the Germans, and the English +in being the conscious inheritors of an older, august, and strictly +classical civilisation. The great memories of Rome weigh down their +faculties of invention. It would also seem as though they shrank in +their poetry from the representation of what is tragic and +spirit-stirring. They incline to what is cheerful, brilliant, or +pathetic. The dramatic element in human life, external to the +personality of the poet, which exercised so strong a fascination over +our ballad-bards and playwrights, has but little attraction for the +Italian. When he sings, he seeks to express his own individual +emotions--his love, his joy, his jealousy, his anger, his despair. The +language which he uses is at the same time direct in its intensity, +and hyperbolical in its display of fancy; but it lacks those +imaginative touches which exalt the poetry of personal passion into a +sublimer region. Again, the Italians are deficient in a sense of the +supernatural. The wraiths that cannot rest because their love is still +unsatisfied, the voices which cry by night over field and fell, the +water-spirits and forest fairies, the second-sight of coming woes, the +presentiment of death, the warnings and the charms and spells, which +fill the popular poetry of all Northern nations, are absent in Italian +songs. In the whole of Tigri's collection I only remember one mention +of a ghost. It is not that the Italians are deficient in superstitions +of all kinds. Every one has heard of their belief in the evil eye, for +instance. But they do not connect this kind of fetichism with their +poetry; and even their greatest poets, with the exception of Dante, +have shown no capacity or no inclination for enhancing the imaginative +effect of their creations by an appeal to the instinct of mysterious +awe. + +The truth is that the Italians as a race are distinguished as much by +a firm grasp upon the practical realities of existence as by powerful +emotions. They have but little of that dreamy _Schwaermerei_ with which +the people of the North are largely gifted. The true sphere of their +genius is painting. What appeals to the imagination through the eyes, +they have expressed far better than any other modern nation. But +their poetry, like their music, is deficient in tragic sublimity and +in the higher qualities of imaginative creation. + +It may seem paradoxical to say this of the nation which produced +Dante. But we must remember not to judge races by single and +exceptional men of genius. Petrarch, the Troubadour of exquisite +emotions, Boccaccio, who touches all the keys of life so lightly, +Ariosto, with the smile of everlasting April on his lips, and Tasso, +excellent alone when he confines himself to pathos or the picturesque, +are no exceptions to what I have just said. Yet these poets pursued +their art with conscious purpose. The tragic splendour of Greece, the +majesty of Rome, were not unknown to them. Far more is it true that +popular poetry in Italy, proceeding from the hearts of uncultivated +peasants and expressing the national character in its simplicity, +displays none of the stuff from which the greatest works of art in +verse, epics and dramas, can be wrought. But within its own sphere of +personal emotion, this popular poetry is exquisitely melodious, +inexhaustibly rich, unique in modern literature for the direct +expression which it has given to every shade of passion. + +Signor Tigri's collection,[22] to which I shall confine my attention +in this paper, consists of eleven hundred and eighty-five _rispetti_, +with the addition of four hundred and sixty-one _stornelli_. Rispetto, +it may be said in passing, is the name commonly given throughout Italy +to short poems, varying from six to twelve lines, constructed on the +principle of the octave stanza. That is to say, the first part of the +rispetto consists of four or six lines with alternate rhymes, while +one or more couplets, called the _ripresa_, complete the poem.[23] +The stornello, or ritournelle, never exceeds three lines, and owes +its name to the return which it makes at the end of the last line to +the rhyme given by the emphatic word of the first. Browning, in his +poem of 'Fra Lippo Lippi,' has accustomed English ears to one common +species of the stornello,[24] which sets out with the name of a +flower, and rhymes with it, as thus: + + Fior di narciso. + Prigionero d'amore mi son reso, + Nel rimirare il tuo leggiadro viso. + +The divisions of those two sorts of songs, to which Tigri gives names +like The Beauty of Women, The Beauty of Men, Falling in Love, +Serenades, Happy Love, Unhappy Love, Parting, Absence, Letters, Return +to Home, Anger and Jealousy, Promises, Entreaties and Reproaches, +Indifference, Treachery and Abandonment, prove with what fulness the +various phases of the tender passion are treated. Through the whole +fifteen hundred the one theme of Love is never relinquished. Only two +persons, 'I' and 'thou,' appear upon the scene; yet so fresh and so +various are the moods of feeling, that one can read them from first to +last without too much satiety. + +To seek for the authors of these ditties would be useless. Some of +them may be as old as the fourteenth century; others may have been +made yesterday. Some are the native product of the Tuscan mountain +villages, especially of the regions round Pistoja and Siena, where on +the spurs of the Apennines the purest Italian is vernacular. Some, +again, are importations from other provinces, especially from Sicily +and Naples, caught up by the peasants of Tuscany and adapted to their +taste and style; for nothing travels faster than a _Volkslied_. Born +some morning in a noisy street of Naples, or on the solitary slopes of +Radicofani, before the week is out, a hundred voices are repeating it. +Waggoners and pedlars carry it across the hills to distant towns. It +floats with the fishermen from bay to bay, and marches with the +conscript to his barrack in a far-off province. Who was the first to +give it shape and form? No one asks, and no one cares. A student well +acquainted with the habits of the people in these matters says, 'If +they knew the author of a ditty, they would not learn it, far less if +they discovered that it was a scholar's.' If the cadence takes their +ear, they consecrate the song at once by placing it upon the honoured +list of 'ancient lays.' Passing from lip to lip and from district to +district, it receives additions and alterations, and becomes the +property of a score of provinces. Meanwhile the poet from whose soul +it blossomed that first morning like a flower, remains contented with +obscurity. The wind has carried from his lips the thistledown of song, +and sown it on a hundred hills and meadows, far and wide. After such +wise is the birth of all truly popular compositions. Who knows, for +instance, the veritable author of many of those mighty German chorals +which sprang into being at the period of the Reformation? The first +inspiration was given, probably, to a single mind; but the melody, as +it has reached us, is the product of a thousand. This accounts for the +variations which in different dialects and districts the same song +presents. Meanwhile, it is sometimes possible to trace the authorship +of a ballad with marked local character to an improvisatore famous in +his village, or to one of those professional rhymesters whom the +country-folk employ in the composition of love-letters to their +sweethearts at a distance.[25] Tommaseo, in the preface to his 'Canti +Popolari,' mentions in particular a Beatrice di Pian degli Ontani, +whose poetry was famous through the mountains of Pistoja; and Tigri +records by name a little girl called Cherubina, who made rispetti by +the dozen as she watched her sheep upon the hills. One of the songs in +his collection (p. 181) contains a direct reference to the village +letter-writer:-- + + Salutatemi, bella, lo scrivano; + Non lo conosco e non so chi si sia. + A me mi pare un poeta sovrano, + Tanto gli e sperto nella poesia.[26] + +While I am writing thus about the production and dissemination of +these love-songs, I cannot help remembering three days and nights +which I once spent at sea between Genoa and Palermo, in the company of +some conscripts who were going to join their regiment in Sicily. They +were lads from the Milanese and Liguria, and they spent a great +portion of their time in composing and singing poetry. One of them had +a fine baritone voice; and when the sun had set, his comrades gathered +round him and begged him to sing to them 'Con quella patetica tua +voce.' Then followed hours of singing, the low monotonous melodies of +his ditties harmonising wonderfully with the tranquillity of night, so +clear and calm that the sky and all its stars were mirrored on the +sea, through which we moved as if in a dream. Sometimes the songs +provoked conversation, which, as is usual in Italy, turned mostly upon +'le bellezze delle donne.' I remember that once an animated discussion +about the relative merits of blondes and brunettes nearly ended in a +quarrel, when the youngest of the whole band, a boy of about +seventeen, put a stop to the dispute by theatrically raising his eyes +and arms to heaven and crying, 'Tu sei innamorato d' una grande Diana +cacciatrice nera, ed io d' una bella Venere bionda.' Though they were +but village lads, they supported their several opinions with arguments +not unworthy of Firenzuola, and showed the greatest delicacy of +feeling in the treatment of a subject which could scarcely have failed +to reveal any latent coarseness. + +The purity of all the Italian love-songs collected by Tigri is very +remarkable.[27] Although the passion expressed in them is Oriental in +its vehemence, not a word falls which could offend a virgin's ear. The +one desire of lovers is lifelong union in marriage. The _damo_--for so +a sweetheart is termed in Tuscany--trembles until he has gained the +approval of his future mother-in-law, and forbids the girl he is +courting to leave her house to talk to him at night:-- + + Dice che tu ti affacci alia finestra; + Ma non ti dice che tu vada fuora, + Perche, la notte, e cosa disonesta. + +All the language of his love is respectful. _Signore_, or master of my +soul, _madonna, anima mia, dolce mio ben, nobil persona,_ are the +terms of adoration with which he approaches his mistress. The +elevation of feeling and perfect breeding which Manzoni has so well +delineated in the loves of Renzo and Lucia are traditional among +Italian country-folk. They are conscious that true gentleness is no +matter of birth or fortune:-- + + E tu non mi lasciar per poverezza, + Che poverta non guasta gentilezza.[28] + + +This in itself constitutes an important element of culture, and +explains to some extent the high romantic qualities of their +impassioned poetry. The beauty of their land reveals still more. 'O +fortunatos nimium sua si bona norint!' Virgil's exclamation is as true +now as it was when he sang the labours of Italian country-folk some +nineteen centuries ago. To a traveller from the north there is a +pathos even in the contrast between the country in which these +children of a happier climate toil, and those bleak, winter-beaten +fields where our own peasants pass their lives. The cold nights and +warm days of Tuscan springtime are like a Swiss summer. They make rich +pasture and a hardy race of men. Tracts of corn and oats and rye +alternate with patches of flax in full flower, with meadows yellow +with buttercups or pink with ragged robin; the young vines, running +from bough to bough of elm and mulberry, are just coming into leaf. +The poplars are fresh with bright green foliage. On the verge of this +blooming plain stand ancient cities ringed with hills, some rising to +snowy Apennines, some covered with white convents and sparkling with +villas. Cypresses shoot, black and spirelike, amid grey clouds of +olive-boughs upon the slopes; and above, where vegetation borders on +the barren rock, are masses of ilex and arbutus interspersed with +chestnut-trees not yet in leaf. Men and women are everywhere at work, +ploughing with great white oxen, or tilling the soil with spades six +feet in length--Sabellian ligones. The songs of nightingales among +acacia-trees, and the sharp scream of swallows wheeling in air, mingle +with the monotonous chant that always rises from the country-people at +their toil. Here and there on points of vantage, where the hill-slopes +sink into the plain, cluster white villages with flower-like +campanili. It is there that the veglia, or evening rendezvous of +lovers, the serenades and balls and feste, of which one hears so much +in the popular minstrelsy, take place. Of course it would not be +difficult to paint the darker shades of this picture. Autumn comes, +when the contadini of Lucca and Siena and Pistoja go forth to work in +the unwholesome marshes of the Maremma, or of Corsica and Sardinia. +Dismal superstitions and hereditary hatreds cast their blight over a +life externally so fair. The bad government of centuries has perverted +in many ways the instincts of a people naturally mild and cheerful and +peace-loving. But as far as nature can make men happy, these +husbandmen are surely to be reckoned fortunate, and in their songs we +find little to remind us of what is otherwise than sunny in their lot. + +A translator of these _Volkslieder_ has to contend with difficulties +of no ordinary kind. The freshness of their phrases, the spontaneity +of their sentiments, and the melody of their unstudied cadences, are +inimitable. So again is the peculiar effect of their frequent +transitions from the most fanciful imagery to the language of prose. +No mere student can hope to rival, far less to reproduce, in a foreign +tongue, the charm of verse which sprang untaught from the hearts of +simple folk, which lives unwritten on the lips of lovers, and which +should never be dissociated from singing.[29] There are, besides, +peculiarities in the very structure of the popular rispetto. The +constant repetition of the same phrase with slight variations, +especially in the closing lines of the _ripresa_ of the Tuscan +rispetto, gives an antique force and flavour to these ditties, like +that which we appreciate in our own ballads, but which may easily, in +the translation, degenerate into weakness and insipidity. The Tuscan +rhymester, again, allows himself the utmost licence. It is usual to +find mere assonances like _bene_ and _piacere, oro_ and _volo, ala_ +and _alata_, in the place of rhymes; while such remote resemblances of +sound as _colli_ and _poggi_, _lascia_ and _piazza_, are far from +uncommon. To match these rhymes by joining 'home' and 'alone,' 'time' +and 'shine,' &c, would of course be a matter of no difficulty; but it +has seemed to me on the whole best to preserve, with some exceptions, +such accuracy as the English ear requires. I fear, however, that, +after all, these wild-flowers of song, transplanted to another climate +and placed in a hothouse, will appear but pale and hectic by the side +of their robuster brethren of the Tuscan hills. + +In the following serenade many of the peculiarities which +I have just noticed occur. I have also adhered to the irregularity of +rhyme which may be usually observed about the middle of the poem (p. +103):-- + + Sleeping or waking, thou sweet face, + Lift up thy fair and tender brow: + List to thy love in this still place; + He calls thee to thy window now: + But bids thee not the house to quit, + Since in the night this were not meet. + Come to thy window, stay within; + I stand without, and sing and sing: + Come to thy window, stay at home; + I stand without, and make my moan. + +Here is a serenade of a more impassioned character (p. 99):-- + + I come to visit thee, my beauteous queen, + Thee and the house where thou art harboured: + All the long way upon my knees, my queen, + I kiss the earth where'er thy footsteps tread. + I kiss the earth, and gaze upon the wall, + Whereby thou goest, maid imperial! + I kiss the earth, and gaze upon the house, + Whereby thou farest, queen most beauteous! + +In the next the lover, who has passed the whole night beneath his +sweetheart's window, takes leave at the break of day. The feeling of +the half-hour before dawn, when the sound of bells rises to meet the +growing light, and both form a prelude to the glare and noise of day, +is expressed with much unconscious poetry (p. 105):-- + + I see the dawn e'en now begin to peer: + Therefore I take my leave, and cease to sing, + See how the windows open far and near, + And hear the bells of morning, how they ring! + Through heaven and earth the sounds of ringing swell; + Therefore, bright jasmine flower, sweet maid, farewell! + Through heaven and Rome the sound of ringing goes; + Farewell, bright jasmine flower, sweet maiden rose! +The next is more quaint (p. 99):-- + + I come by night, I come, my soul aflame; + I come in this fair hour of your sweet sleep; + And should I wake you up, it were a shame. + I cannot sleep, and lo! I break your sleep. + To wake you were a shame from your deep rest; + Love never sleeps, nor they whom Love hath blest. + +A very great many rispetti are simple panegyrics of the beloved, to +find similitude for whose beauty heaven and earth are ransacked. The +compliment of the first line in the following song is perfect (p. +23):-- + + Beauty was born with you, fair maid: + The sun and moon inclined to you; + On you the snow her whiteness laid + The rose her rich and radiant hue: + Saint Magdalen her hair unbound, + And Cupid taught you how to wound-- + How to wound hearts Dan Cupid taught: + Your beauty drives me love-distraught. + +The lady in the next was December's child (p. 25):-- + + O beauty, born in winter's night, + Born in the month of spotless snow: + Your face is like a rose so bright; + Your mother may be proud of you! + She may be proud, lady of love, + Such sunlight shines her house above: + She may be proud, lady of heaven, + Such sunlight to her home is given. + +The sea wind is the source of beauty to another (p. 16):-- + + Nay, marvel not you are so fair; + For you beside the sea were born: + The sea-waves keep you fresh and fair, + Like roses on their leafy thorn. + If roses grow on the rose-bush, + Your roses through midwinter blush; + If roses bloom on the rose-bed, + Your face can show both white and red. + +The eyes of a fourth are compared, after quite a new and original +fashion, to stars (p. 210):-- + + The moon hath risen her plaint to lay + Before the face of Love Divine. + Saying in heaven she will not stay, + Since you have stolen what made her shine: + Aloud she wails with sorrow wan,-- + She told her stars and two are gone: + They are not there; you have them now; + They are the eyes in your bright brow. + +Nor are girls less ready to praise their lovers, but that they do not +dwell so much on physical perfection. Here is a pleasant greeting (p. +124):-- + + O welcome, welcome, lily white, + Thou fairest youth of all the valley! + When I'm with you, my soul is light; + I chase away dull melancholy. + I chase all sadness from my heart: + Then welcome, dearest that thou art! + I chase all sadness from my side: + Then welcome, O my love, my pride! + I chase all sadness far away: + Then welcome, welcome, love, to-day! + +The image of a lily is very prettily treated in the next (p 79):-- + + I planted a lily yestreen at my window; + I set it yestreen, and to-day it sprang up: + When I opened the latch and leaned out of my window, + It shadowed my face with its beautiful cup. + O lily, my lily, how tall you are grown! + Remember how dearly I loved you, my own. + O lily, my lily, you'll grow to the sky! + Remember I love you for ever and aye. + +The same thought of love growing like a flower receives another turn +(p. 69):-- + + On yonder hill I saw a flower; + And, could it thence be hither borne, + I'd plant it here within my bower, + And water it both eve and morn. + Small water wants the stem so straight; + 'Tis a love-lily stout as fate. + Small water wants the root so strong: + 'Tis a love-lily lasting long. + Small water wants the flower so sheen: + 'Tis a love-lily ever green. + +Envious tongues have told a girl that her complexion is not good. She +replies, with imagery like that of Virgil's 'Alba ligustra cadunt, +vaccinia nigra leguntur' (p. 31):-- + + Think it no grief that I am brown, + For all brunettes are born to reign: + White is the snow, yet trodden down; + Black pepper kings need not disdain: + White snow lies mounded on the vales + Black pepper's weighed in brazen scales. + +Another song runs on the same subject (p. 38):-- + + The whole world tells me that I'm brown, + The brown earth gives us goodly corn: + The clove-pink too, however brown, + Yet proudly in the hand 'tis borne. + They say my love is black, but he + Shines like an angel-form to me: + They say my love is dark as night; + To me he seems a shape of light. + +The freshness of the following spring song recalls the ballads of the +Val de Vire in Normandy (p. 85):-- + + It was the morning of the first of May, + Into the close I went to pluck a flower; + And there I found a bird of woodland gay, + Who whiled with songs of love the silent hour. + O bird, who fliest from fair Florence, how + Dear love begins, I prithee teach me now!-- + Love it begins with music and with song, + And ends with sorrow and with sighs ere long. + +Love at first sight is described (p. 79):-- + + The very moment that we met, + That moment love began to beat: + One glance of love we gave, and swore + Never to part for evermore; + We swore together, sighing deep, + Never to part till Death's long sleep. + +Here too is a memory of the first days of love (p. 79):-- + + If I remember, it was May + When love began between us two: + The roses in the close were gay, + The cherries blackened on the bough. + O cherries black and pears so green! + Of maidens fair you are the queen. + Fruit of black cherry and sweet pear! + Of sweethearts you're the queen, I swear. + +The troth is plighted with such promises as these (p. 230):-- + + Or ere I leave you, love divine, + Dead tongues shall stir and utter speech, + And running rivers flow with wine, + And fishes swim upon the beach; + Or ere I leave or shun you, these + Lemons shall grow on orange-trees. + +The girl confesses her love after this fashion (p. 86):-- + + Passing across the billowy sea, + I let, alas, my poor heart fall; + I bade the sailors bring it me; + They said they had not seen it fall. + I asked the sailors, one and two; + They said that I had given it you. + I asked the sailors, two and three; + They said that I had given it thee. +It is not uncommon to speak of love as a sea. Here is a curious play +upon this image (p. 227):-- + + Ho, Cupid! Sailor Cupid, ho! + Lend me awhile that bark of thine; + For on the billows I will go, + To find my love who once was mine: + And if I find her, she shall wear + A chain around her neck so fair, + Around her neck a glittering bond, + Four stars, a lily, a diamond. + +It is also possible that the same thought may occur in the second line +of the next ditty (p. 120):-- + + Beneath the earth I'll make a way + To pass the sea and come to you. + People will think I'm gone away; + But, dear, I shall be seeing you. + People will say that I am dead; + But we'll pluck roses white and red: + People will think I'm lost for aye; + But we'll pluck roses, you and I. + +All the little daily incidents are beautified by love. Here is a +lover who thanks the mason for making his window so close upon the +road that he can see his sweetheart as she passes (p. 118):-- + + Blest be the mason's hand who built + This house of mine by the roadside, + And made my window low and wide + For me to watch my love go by. + And if I knew when she went by, + My window should be fairly gilt; + And if I knew what time she went, + My window should be flower-besprent. + +Here is a conceit which reminds one of the pretty epistle of +Philostratus, in which the footsteps of the beloved are called +_[Greek: erereismena philempta]_ (p. 117):-- + + What time I see you passing by; + I sit and count the steps you take: + You take the steps; I sit and sigh: + Step after step, my sighs awake. + Tell me, dear love, which more abound, + My sighs or your steps on the ground? + Tell me, dear love, which are the most, + Your light steps or the sighs they cost? + +A girl complains that she cannot see her lover's house (p. 117):- + + I lean upon the lattice, and look forth + To see the house where my lover dwells. + There grows an envious tree that spoils my mirth: + Cursed be the man who set it on these hills! + But when those jealous boughs are all unclad, + I then shall see the cottage of my lad: + When once that tree is rooted from the hills, + I'll see the house wherein my lover dwells. + +In the same mood a girl who has just parted from her sweetheart is +angry with the hill beyond which he is travelling (p. 167):-- + + I see and see, yet see not what I would: + I see the leaves atremble on the tree: + I saw my love where on the hill he stood, + Yet see him not drop downward to the lea. + O traitor hill, what will you do? + I ask him, live or dead, from you. + O traitor hill, what shall it be? + I ask him, live or dead, from thee. + +All the songs of love in absence are very quaint. Here is one which +calls our nursery rhymes to mind (p. 119):-- + +I would I were a bird so free, +That I had wings to fly away: +Unto that window I would flee, +Where stands my love and grinds all day. +Grind, miller, grind; the water's deep! +I cannot grind; love makes me weep. +Grind, miller, grind; the waters flow! +I cannot grind; love wastes me so. + +The next begins after the same fashion, but breaks into a very shower +of benedictions (p. 118):-- + + Would God I were a swallow free, + That I had wings to fly away: + Upon the miller's door I'd be, + Where stands my love and grinds all day: + Upon the door, upon the sill, + Where stays my love;--God bless him still! + God bless my love, and blessed be + His house, and bless my house for me; + Yea, blest be both, and ever blest + My lover's house, and all the rest! + +The girl alone at home in her garden sees a wood-dove flying by and +calls to it (p. 179):-- + + O dove, who fliest far to yonder hill, + Dear dove, who in the rock hast made thy nest, + Let me a feather from thy pinion pull, + For I will write to him who loves me best. + And when I've written it and made it clear, + I'll give thee back thy feather, dove so dear: + And when I've written it and sealed it, then + I'll give thee back thy feather love-laden. + +A swallow is asked to lend the same kind service (p. 179):-- + + O swallow, swallow, flying through the air, + Turn, turn, I prithee, from thy flight above! + Give me one feather from thy wing so fair, + For I will write a letter to my love. + When I have written it and made it clear, + I'll give thee back thy feather, swallow dear; + When I have written it on paper white, + I'll make, I swear, thy missing feather right; + When once 'tis written on fair leaves of gold, + I'll give thee back thy wing and flight so bold. + + +Long before Tennyson's song in the 'Princess,' it would seem that +swallows were favourite messengers of love. In the next song which I +translate, the repetition of one thought with delicate variation is +full of character (p. 178):-- + + O swallow, flying over hill and plain, + If thou shouldst find my love, oh bid him come! + And tell him, on these mountains I remain + Even as a lamb who cannot find her home: + And tell him, I am left all, all alone, + Even as a tree whose flowers are overblown: + And tell him, I am left without a mate + Even as a tree whose boughs are desolate: + And tell him, I am left uncomforted + Even as the grass upon the meadows dead. + +The following is spoken by a girl who has been watching the lads of +the village returning from their autumn service in the plain, and +whose damo comes the last of all (p. 240):-- + + O dear my love, you come too late! + What found you by the way to do? + I saw your comrades pass the gate, + But yet not you, dear heart, not you! + If but a little more you'd stayed, + With sighs you would have found me dead; + If but a while you'd keep me crying, + With sighs you would have found me dying. + +The _amantium irae_ find a place too in these rustic ditties. A girl +explains to her sweetheart (p. 240):-- + + 'Twas told me and vouchsafed for true, + Your kin are wroth as wroth can be; + For loving me they swear at you, + They swear at you because of me; + Your father, mother, all your folk, + Because you love me, chafe and choke! + Then set your kith and kin at ease; + Set them at ease and let me die: + Set the whole clan of them at ease; + Set them at ease and see me die! + +Another suspects that her damo has paid his suit to a rival (p. +200):-- + + On Sunday morning well I knew + Where gaily dressed you turned your feet; + And there were many saw it too, + And came to tell me through the street: + And when they spoke, I smiled, ah me! + But in my room wept privately; + And when they spoke, I sang for pride, + But in my room alone I sighed. + +Then come reconciliations (p. 223):-- + + Let us make peace, my love, my bliss! + For cruel strife can last no more. + If you say nay, yet I say yes: + 'Twixt me and you there is no war. + Princes and mighty lords make peace; + And so may lovers twain, I wis: + Princes and soldiers sign a truce; + And so may two sweethearts like us: + Princes and potentates agree; + And so may friends like you and me. + +There is much character about the following, which is spoken by the +damo (p. 223):-- + + As yonder mountain height I trod, + I chanced to think of your dear name; + I knelt with clasped hands on the sod, + And thought of my neglect with shame: + I knelt upon the stone, and swore + Our love should bloom as heretofore. + +Sometimes the language of affection takes a more imaginative tone, as +in the following (p. 232):-- + + Dearest, what time you mount to heaven above, + I'll meet you holding in my hand my heart: + You to your breast shall clasp me full of love, + And I will lead you to our Lord apart. + + Our Lord, when he our love so true hath known, + Shall make of our two hearts one heart alone; + One heart shall make of our two hearts, to rest + In heaven amid the splendours of the blest. + +This was the woman's. Here is the man's (p. 113):-- + + If I were master of all loveliness, + I'd make thee still more lovely than thou art: + If I were master of all wealthiness, + Much gold and silver should be thine, sweetheart: + If I were master of the house of hell, + I'd bar the brazen gates in thy sweet face; + Or ruled the place where purging spirits dwell, + I'd free thee from that punishment apace. + Were I in paradise and thou shouldst come, + I'd stand aside, my love, to make thee room; + Were I in paradise, well seated there, + I'd quit my place to give it thee, my fair! + +Sometimes, but very rarely, weird images are sought to clothe passion, +as in the following (p. 136):-- + + Down into hell I went and thence returned: + Ah me! alas! the people that were there! + I found a room where many candles burned, + And saw within my love that languished there. + When as she saw me, she was glad of cheer, + And at the last she said: Sweet soul of mine; + Dost thou recall the time long past, so dear, + When thou didst say to me, Sweet soul of mine? + Now kiss me on the mouth, my dearest, here; + Kiss me that I for once may cease to pine! + So sweet, ah me, is thy dear mouth, so dear, + That of thy mercy prithee sweeten mine! + Now, love, that thou hast kissed me, now, I say, + Look not to leave this place again for aye. + +Or again in this (p. 232):-- + + Methinks I hear, I hear a voice that cries: + Beyond the hill it floats upon the air. + It is my lover come to bid me rise, + If I am fain forthwith toward heaven to fare. + But I have answered him, and said him No! + I've given my paradise, my heaven, for you: + Till we together go to paradise, + I'll stay on earth and love your beauteous eyes. + +But it is not with such remote and eerie thoughts that the rustic muse +of Italy can deal successfully. Far better is the following +half-playful description of love-sadness (p. 71):-- + + Ah me, alas! who know not how to sigh! + Of sighs I now full well have learned the art: + Sighing at table when to eat I try, + Sighing within my little room apart, + Sighing when jests and laughter round me fly, + Sighing with her and her who know my heart: + I sigh at first, and then I go on sighing; + 'Tis for your eyes that I am ever sighing: + I sigh at first, and sigh the whole year through; + And 'tis your eyes that keep me sighing so. + +The next two rispetti, delicious in their naivete, might seem to have +been extracted from the libretto of an opera, but that they lack the +sympathising chorus, who should have stood at hand, ready to chime in +with 'he,' 'she,' and 'they,' to the 'I,' 'you,' and 'we' of the +lovers (p. 123):-- + + Ah, when will dawn that glorious day + When you will softly mount my stair? + My kin shall bring you on the way; + I shall be first to greet you there. + Ah, when will dawn that day of bliss + When we before the priest say Yes? + + Ah, when will dawn that blissful day + When I shall softly mount your stair, + Your brothers meet me on the way, + And one by one I greet them there? + When comes the day, my staff, my strength, + To call your mother mine at length? + When will the day come, love of mine, + I shall be yours and you be mine? + +Hitherto the songs have told only of happy love, or of love returned. +Some of the best, however, are unhappy. Here is one, for instance, +steeped in gloom (p. 142):-- + + They have this custom in fair Naples town; + They never mourn a man when he is dead: + The mother weeps when she has reared a son + To be a serf and slave by love misled; + The mother weeps when she a son hath born + To be the serf and slave of galley scorn; + The mother weeps when she a son gives suck + To be the serf and slave of city luck. + +The following contains a fine wild image, wrought out with strange +passion in detail (p. 300):-- + + I'll spread a table brave for revelry, + And to the feast will bid sad lovers all. + For meat I'll give them my heart's misery; + For drink I'll give these briny tears that fall. + Sorrows and sighs shall be the varletry, + To serve the lovers at this festival: + The table shall be death, black death profound; + Weep, stones, and utter sighs, ye walls around! + The table shall be death, yea, sacred death; + Weep, stones, and sigh as one that sorroweth! + +Nor is the next a whit less in the vein of mad Jeronimo (p. 304):-- + + High up, high up, a house I'll rear, + High up, high up, on yonder height; + At every window set a snare, + With treason, to betray the night; + With treason, to betray the stars, + Since I'm betrayed by my false feres; + With treason, to betray the day, + Since Love betrayed me, well away! + +The vengeance of an Italian reveals itself in the energetic song which +I quote next (p. 303):-- + + I have a sword; 'twould cut a brazen bell, + Tough steel 'twould cut, if there were any need: + I've had it tempered in the streams of hell + By masters mighty in the mystic rede: + I've had it tempered by the light of stars; + Then let him come whose skin is stout as Mars; + I've had it tempered to a trenchant blade; + Then let him come who stole from me my maid. + +More mild, but brimful of the bitterness of a soul to whom the whole +world has become but ashes in the death of love, is the following +lament (p. 143):-- + + Call me the lovely Golden Locks no more, + But call me Sad Maid of the golden hair. + If there be wretched women, sure I think + I too may rank among the most forlorn. + I fling a palm into the sea; 'twill sink: + Others throw lead, and it is lightly borne. + What have I done, dear Lord, the world to cross? + Gold in my hand forthwith is turned to dross. + How have I made, dear Lord, dame Fortune wroth? + Gold in my hand forthwith is turned to froth. + What have I done, dear Lord, to fret the folk? + Gold in my hand forthwith is turned to smoke. + +Here is pathos (p. 172):-- + + The wood-dove who hath lost her mate, + She lives a dolorous life, I ween; + She seeks a stream and bathes in it, + And drinks that water foul and green: + With other birds she will not mate, + Nor haunt, I wis, the flowery treen; + She bathes her wings and strikes her breast; + Her mate is lost: oh, sore unrest! + +And here is fanciful despair (p. 168):-- + + I'll build a house of sobs and sighs, + With tears the lime I'll slack; + And there I'll dwell with weeping eyes + Until my love come back: + And there I'll stay with eyes that burn + Until I see my love return. + +The house of love has been deserted, and the lover comes to moan +beneath its silent eaves (p. 171):-- + + Dark house and window desolate! + Where is the sun which shone so fair? + 'Twas here we danced and laughed at fate: + Now the stones weep; I see them there. + They weep, and feel a grievous chill: + Dark house and widowed window-sill! + +And what can be more piteous than this prayer? (p. 809):-- + + Love, if you love me, delve a tomb, + And lay me there the earth beneath; + After a year, come see my bones, + And make them dice to play therewith. + But when you're tired of that game, + Then throw those dice into the flame; + But when you're tired of gaming free, + Then throw those dice into the sea. + +The simpler expression of sorrow to the death is, as usual, more +impressive. A girl speaks thus within sight of the grave (p. 808):-- + + Yes, I shall die: what wilt thou gain? + The cross before my bier will go; + And thou wilt hear the bells complain, + The _Misereres_ loud and low. + Midmost the church thou'lt see me lie + With folded hands and frozen eye; + Then say at last, I do repent!-- + Nought else remains when fires are spent. + +Here is a rustic Oenone (p. 307):-- + + Fell death, that fliest fraught with woe! + Thy gloomy snares the world ensphere: + Where no man calls, thou lov'st to go; + But when we call, thou wilt not hear. + Fell death, false death of treachery, + Thou makest all content but me. + +Another is less reproachful, but scarcely less sad (p. 308):-- + + Strew me with blossoms when I die, + Nor lay me 'neath the earth below; + Beyond those walls, there let me lie, + Where oftentimes we used to go. + There lay me to the wind and rain; + Dying for you, I feel no pain: + There lay me to the sun above; + Dying for you, I die of love. + +Yet another of these pitiful love-wailings displays much poetry of +expression (p. 271):-- + + I dug the sea, and delved the barren sand: + I wrote with dust and gave it to the wind: + Of melting snow, false Love, was made thy band, + Which suddenly the day's bright beams unbind. + Now am I ware, and know my own mistake-- + How false are all the promises you make; + Now am I ware, and know the fact, ah me! + That who confides in you, deceived will be. + +It would scarcely be well to pause upon these very doleful ditties. +Take, then, the following little serenade, in which the lover on his +way to visit his mistress has unconsciously fallen on the same thought +as Bion (p. 85):-- + + Yestreen I went my love to greet, + By yonder village path below: + Night in a coppice found my feet; + I called the moon her light to show-- + O moon, who needs no flame to fire thy face, + Look forth and lend me light a little space! + +Enough has been quoted to illustrate the character of the Tuscan +popular poetry. These village rispetti bear the same relation to the +canzoniere of Petrarch as the 'savage drupe' to the 'suave plum.' They +are, as it were, the wild stock of that highly artificial flower of +art. Herein lies, perhaps, their chief importance. As in our ballad +literature we may discern the stuff of the Elizabethan drama +undeveloped, so in the Tuscan people's songs we can trace the crude +form of that poetic instinct which produced the sonnets to Laura. It +is also very probable that some such rustic minstrelsy preceded the +Idylls of Theocritus and the Bucolics of Virgil; for coincidences of +thought and imagery, which can scarcely be referred to any conscious +study of the ancients, are not a few. Popular poetry has this great +value for the student of literature: it enables him to trace those +forms of fancy and of feeling which are native to the people, and +which must ultimately determine the character of national art, however +much that may be modified by culture. + + * * * * * + + + + +_POPULAR ITALIAN POETRY OF THE RENAISSANCE_ + + +The semi-popular poetry of the Italians in the fifteenth century +formed an important branch of their national literature, and +flourished independently of the courtly and scholastic studies which +gave a special character to the golden age of the revival. While the +latter tended to separate the people from the cultivated classes, the +former established a new link of connection between them, different +indeed from that which existed when smiths and carters repeated the +Canzoni of Dante by heart in the fourteenth century, but still +sufficiently real to exercise a weighty influence over the national +development. Scholars like Angelo Poliziano, princes like Lorenzo de' +Medici, men of letters like Feo Belcari and Benivieni, borrowed from +the people forms of poetry, which they handled with refined taste, and +appropriated to the uses of polite literature. The most important of +these forms, native to the people but assimilated by the learned +classes, were the Miracle Play or 'Sacra Rappresentazione;' the +'Ballata' or lyric to be sung while dancing; the 'Canto +Carnascialesco' or Carnival Chorus; the 'Rispetto' or short +love-ditty; the 'Lauda' or hymn; the 'Maggio' or May-song; and the +'Madrigale' or little part-song. + +At Florence, where even under the despotism of the Medici a show of +republican life still lingered, all classes joined in the amusements +of carnival and spring time; and this poetry of the dance, the +pageant, and the villa flourished side by side with the more serious +efforts of the humanistic muse. It is not my purpose in this place to +inquire into the origins of each lyrical type, to discuss the +alterations they may have undergone at the hands of educated +versifiers, or to define their several characteristics; but only to +offer translations of such as seem to me best suited to represent the +genius of the people and the age. + +In the composition of the poetry in question, Angelo Poliziano was +indubitably the most successful. This giant of learning, who filled +the lecture-rooms of Florence with students of all nations, and whose +critical and rhetorical labours marked an epoch in the history of +scholarship, was by temperament a poet, and a poet of the people. +Nothing was easier for him than to throw aside his professor's mantle, +and to improvise 'Ballate' for the girls to sing as they danced their +'Carola' upon the Piazza di Santa Trinita in summer evenings. The +peculiarity of this lyric is that it starts with a couplet, which also +serves as refrain, supplying the rhyme to each successive stanza. The +stanza itself is identical with our rime royal, if we count the +couplet in the place of the seventh line. The form is in itself so +graceful and is so beautifully treated by Poliziano that I cannot +content myself with fewer than four of his _Ballate_.[30] The first is +written on the world-old theme of 'Gather ye rosebuds while ye may.' + + + I went a roaming, maidens, one bright day, + In a green garden in mid month of May. + + Violets and lilies grew on every side + Mid the green grass, and young flowers wonderful, + Golden and white and red and azure-eyed; + Toward which I stretched my hands, eager to pull + Plenty to make my fair curls beautiful, + To crown my rippling curls with garlands gay. + + I went a roaming, maidens, one bright day, + In a green garden in mid month of May. + + But when my lap was full of flowers I spied + Roses at last, roses of every hue; + Therefore I ran to pluck their ruddy pride, + Because their perfume was so sweet and true + That all my soul went forth with pleasure new, + With yearning and desire too soft to say. + + I went a roaming, maidens, one bright day, + In a green garden in mid month of May. + + I gazed and gazed. Hard task it were to tell + How lovely were the roses in that hour: + One was but peeping from her verdant shell, + And some were faded, some were scarce in flower: + Then Love said: Go, pluck from the blooming bower + Those that thou seest ripe upon the spray. + + I went a roaming, maidens, one bright day, + In a green garden in mid month of May. + + For when the full rose quits her tender sheath, + When she is sweetest and most fair to see, + Then is the time to place her in thy wreath, + Before her beauty and her freshness flee. + Gather ye therefore roses with great glee, + Sweet girls, or ere their perfume pass away. + + I went a roaming, maidens, one bright day, + In a green garden in mid month of May. + +The next Ballata is less simple, but is composed with the same +intention. It may here be parenthetically mentioned that the courtly +poet, when he applied himself to this species of composition, invented +a certain rusticity of incident, scarcely in keeping with the spirit +of his art. It was in fact a conventional feature of this species of +verse that the scene should be laid in the country, where the burgher, +on a visit to his villa, is supposed to meet with a rustic beauty who +captivates his eyes and heart. Guido Cavalcanti, in his celebrated +Ballata, 'In un boschetto trovai pastorella,' struck the keynote of +this music, which, it may be reasonably conjectured, was imported into +Italy through Provencal literature from the pastorals of Northern +France. The lady so quaintly imaged by a bird in the following Ballata +of Poliziano is supposed to have been Monna Ippolita Leoncina of +Prato, white-throated, golden-haired, and dressed in crimson silk. + + I found myself one day all, all alone, + For pastime in a field with blossoms strewn. + + I do not think the world a field could show + With herbs of perfume so surpassing rare; + But when I passed beyond the green hedge-row, + A thousand flowers around me flourished fair, + White, pied and crimson, in the summer air; + Among the which I heard a sweet bird's tone. + + I found myself one day all, all alone, + For pastime in a field with blossoms strewn. + + Her song it was so tender and so clear + That all the world listened with love; then I + With stealthy feet a-tiptoe drawing near, + Her golden head and golden wings could spy, + Her plumes that flashed like rubies 'neath the sky, + Her crystal beak and throat and bosom's zone. + + I found myself one day all, all alone, + For pastime in a field with blossoms strewn. + + Fain would I snare her, smit with mighty love; + But arrow-like she soared, and through the air + Fled to her nest upon the boughs above; + Wherefore to follow her is all my care, + For haply I might lure her by some snare + Forth from the woodland wild where she is flown. + + I found myself one day all, all alone, + For pastime in a field with blossoms strewn. + + Yea, I might spread some net or woven wile; + But since of singing she doth take such pleasure, + Without or other art or other guile + I seek to win her with a tuneful measure; + Therefore in singing spend I all my leisure, + To make by singing this sweet bird my own. + + I found myself one day all, all alone, + For pastime in a field with blossoms strewn. + +The same lady is more directly celebrated in the next Ballata, where +Poliziano calls her by her name, Ippolita. I have taken the liberty of +substituting Myrrha for this somewhat unmanageable word. + + He who knows not what thing is Paradise, + Let him look fixedly on Myrrha's eyes. + + From Myrrha's eyes there flieth, girt with fire, + An angel of our lord, a laughing boy, + Who lights in frozen hearts a flaming pyre, + And with such sweetness doth the soul destroy, + That while it dies, it murmurs forth its joy; + Oh blessed am I to dwell in Paradise! + + He who knows not what thing is Paradise, + Let him look fixedly on Myrrha's eyes. + + From Myrrha's eyes a virtue still doth move, + So swift and with so fierce and strong a flight, + That it is like the lightning of high Jove, + Riving of iron and adamant the might; + Nathless the wound doth carry such delight + That he who suffers dwells in Paradise. + + He who knows not what thing is Paradise, + Let him look fixedly on Myrrha's eyes. + + From Myrrha's eyes a lovely messenger + Of joy so grave, so virtuous, doth flee, + That all proud souls are bound to bend to her; + So sweet her countenance, it turns the key + Of hard hearts locked in cold security: + Forth flies the prisoned soul to Paradise. + + He who knows not what thing is Paradise, + Let him look fixedly on Myrrha's eyes. + + In Myrrha's eyes beauty doth make her throne, + And sweetly smile and sweetly speak her mind: + Such grace in her fair eyes a man hath known + As in the whole wide world he scarce may find: + Yet if she slay him with a glance too kind, + He lives again beneath her gazing eyes. + + He who knows not what thing is Paradise, + Let him look fixedly on Myrrha's eyes. + +The fourth Ballata sets forth the fifteenth-century Italian code of +love, the code of the Novelle, very different in its avowed laxity +from the high ideal of the trecentisti poets. + + I ask no pardon if I follow Love; + Since every gentle heart is thrall thereof. + + From those who feel the fire I feel, what use + Is there in asking pardon? These are so + Gentle, kind-hearted, tender, piteous, + That they will have compassion, well I know. + From such as never felt that honeyed woe, + I seek no pardon: nought they know of Love. + + I ask no pardon if I follow Love; + Since every gentle heart is thrall thereof. + + Honour, pure love, and perfect gentleness, + Weighed in the scales of equity refined, + Are but one thing: beauty is nought or less, + Placed in a dame of proud and scornful mind. + Who can rebuke me then if I am kind + So far as honesty comports and Love? + + I ask no pardon if I follow Love; + Since every gentle heart is thrall thereof. + + Let him rebuke me whose hard heart of stone + Ne'er felt of Love the summer in his vein! + I pray to Love that who hath never known + Love's power, may ne'er be blessed with Love's great gain; + But he who serves our lord with might and main, + May dwell for ever in the fire of Love! + + I ask no pardon if I follow Love; + Since every gentle heart is thrall thereof. + + Let him rebuke me without cause who will; + For if he be not gentle, I fear nought: + My heart obedient to the same love still + Hath little heed of light words envy-fraught: + So long as life remains, it is my thought + To keep the laws of this so gentle Love. + + I ask no pardon if I follow Love; + Since every gentle heart is thrall thereof. + +This Ballata is put into a woman's mouth. Another, ascribed to Lorenzo +de' Medici, expresses the sadness of a man who has lost the favour of +his lady. It illustrates the well-known use of the word _Signore_ for +mistress in Florentine poetry. + + How can I sing light-souled and fancy-free, + When my loved lord no longer smiles on me? + + Dances and songs and merry wakes I leave + To lovers fair, more fortunate and gay; + Since to my heart so many sorrows cleave + That only doleful tears are mine for aye: + Who hath heart's ease, may carol, dance, and play + While I am fain to weep continually. + + How can I sing light-souled and fancy-free, + When my loved lord no longer smiles on me? + + I too had heart's ease once, for so Love willed, + When my lord loved me with love strong and great: + But envious fortune my life's music stilled, + And turned to sadness all my gleeful state. + Ah me! Death surely were less desolate + Than thus to live and love-neglected be! + + How can I sing light-souled and fancy-free, + When my loved lord no longer smiles on me? + + One only comfort soothes my heart's despair, + And mid this sorrow lends my soul some cheer; + Unto my lord I ever yielded fair + Service of faith untainted pure and clear; + If then I die thus guiltless, on my bier + It may be she will shed one tear for me. + + How can I sing light-souled and fancy-free, + When my loved lord no longer smiles on me? + +The Florentine _Rispetto_ was written for the most part in octave +stanzas, detached or continuous. The octave stanza in Italian +literature was an emphatically popular form; and it is still largely +used in many parts of the peninsula for the lyrical expression of +emotion.[31] Poliziano did no more than treat it with his own +facility, sacrificing the unstudied raciness of his popular models to +literary elegance. + +Here are a few of these detached stanzas or _Rispetti Spicciolati_:-- + + Upon that day when first I saw thy face, + I vowed with loyal love to worship thee. + Move, and I move; stay, and I keep my place: + Whate'er thou dost, will I do equally. + + In joy of thine I find most perfect grace, + And in thy sadness dwells my misery: + Laugh, and I laugh; weep, and I too will weep. + Thus Love commands, whose laws I loving keep. + + Nay, be not over-proud of thy great grace, + Lady! for brief time is thy thief and mine. + White will he turn those golden curls, that lace + Thy forehead and thy neck so marble-fine. + Lo! while the flower still flourisheth apace, + Pluck it: for beauty but awhile doth shine. + Fair is the rose at dawn; but long ere night + Her freshness fades, her pride hath vanished quite. + + Fire, fire! Ho, water! for my heart's afire! + Ho, neighbours! help me, or by God I die! + See, with his standard, that great lord, Desire! + He sets my heart aflame: in vain I cry. + Too late, alas! The flames mount high and higher. + Alack, good friends! I faint, I fail, I die. + Ho! water, neighbours mine! no more delay I + My heart's a cinder if you do but stay. + + Lo, may I prove to Christ a renegade, + And, dog-like, die in pagan Barbary; + Nor may God's mercy on my soul be laid, + If ere for aught I shall abandon thee: + Before all-seeing God this prayer be made-- + When I desert thee, may death feed on me: + Now if thy hard heart scorn these vows, be sure + That without faith none may abide secure. + + I ask not, Love, for any other pain + To make thy cruel foe and mine repent, + Only that thou shouldst yield her to the strain + Of these my arms, alone, for chastisement; + Then would I clasp her so with might and main, + That she should learn to pity and relent, + And, in revenge for scorn and proud despite, + A thousand times I'd kiss her forehead white. + + Not always do fierce tempests vex the sea, + Nor always clinging clouds offend the sky; + Cold snows before the sunbeams haste to flee, + Disclosing flowers that 'neath their whiteness lie; + The saints each one doth wait his day to see, + And time makes all things change; so, therefore, I + Ween that 'tis wise to wait my turn, and say, + That who subdues himself, deserves to sway. + +It will be observed that the tone of these poems is not passionate nor +elevated. Love, as understood in Florence of the fifteenth century, +was neither; nor was Poliziano the man to have revived Platonic +mysteries or chivalrous enthusiasms. When the octave stanzas, written +with this amorous intention, were strung together into a continuous +poem, this form of verse took the title of _Rispetto Gontinuato_. In +the collection of Poliziano's poems there are several examples of the +long Rispetto, carelessly enough composed, as may be gathered from the +recurrence of the same stanzas in several poems. All repeat the old +arguments, the old enticements to a less than lawful love. The one +which I have chosen for translation, styled _Serenata ovvero Lettera +in Istrambotti_, might be selected as an epitome of Florentine +convention in the matter of love-making. + + O thou of fairest fairs the first and queen, + Most courteous, kind, and honourable dame, + Thine ear unto thy servant's singing lean, + Who loves thee more than health, or wealth, or fame; + For thou his shining planet still hast been, + And day and night he calls on thy fair name: + First wishing thee all good the world can give, + Next praying in thy gentle thoughts to live. + + He humbly prayeth that thou shouldst be kind + To think upon his pure and perfect faith, + And that such mercy in thy heart and mind + Should reign, as so much beauty argueth: + A thousand, thousand hints, or he were blind, + Of thy great courtesy he reckoneth: + Wherefore thy loyal subject now doth sue + Such guerdon only as shall prove them true. + + He knows himself unmeet for love from thee, + Unmeet for merely gazing on thine eyes; + Seeing thy comely squires so plenteous be, + That there is none but 'neath thy beauty sighs: + Yet since thou seekest fame and bravery, + Nor carest aught for gauds that others prize, + And since he strives to honour thee alway, + He still hath hope to gain thy heart one day. + + Virtue that dwells untold, unknown, unseen, + Still findeth none to love or value it; + Wherefore his faith, that hath so perfect been, + Not being known, can profit him no whit: + He would find pity in thine eyes, I ween, + If thou shouldst deign to make some proof of it; + The rest may flatter, gape, and stand agaze; + Him only faith above the crowd doth raise. + + Suppose that he might meet thee once alone, + Face unto face, without or jealousy, + Or doubt or fear from false misgiving grown, + And tell his tale of grievous pain to thee, + Sure from thy breast he'd draw full many a moan. + And make thy fair eyes weep right plenteously: + Yea, if he had but skill his heart to show, + He scarce could fail to win thee by its woe. + + Now art thou in thy beauty's blooming hour; + Thy youth is yet in pure perfection's prime: + Make it thy pride to yield thy fragile flower, + Or look to find it paled by envious time: + For none to stay the flight of years hath power, + And who culls roses caught by frosty rime? + Give therefore to thy lover, give, for they + Too late repent who act not while they may. + + Time flies: and lo! thou let'st it idly fly: + There is not in the world a thing more dear; + And if thou wait to see sweet May pass by, + Where find'st thou roses in the later year? + He never can, who lets occasion die: + Now that thou canst, stay not for doubt or fear; + But by the forelock take the flying hour, + Ere change begins, and clouds above thee lower. + + Too long 'twixt yea and nay he hath been wrung; + Whether he sleep or wake he little knows, + Or free or in the bands of bondage strung: + Nay, lady, strike, and let thy lover loose! + What joy hast thou to keep a captive hung? + Kill him at once, or cut the cruel noose: + No more, I prithee, stay; but take thy part: + Either relax the bow, or speed the dart. + + Thou feedest him on words and windiness, + On smiles, and signs, and bladders light as air; + Saying, thou fain wouldst comfort his distress, + But dar'st not, canst not: nay, dear lady fair, + All things are possible beneath the stress + Of will, that flames above the soul's despair! + Dally no longer: up, set to thy hand; + Or see his love unclothed and naked stand. + + For he hath sworn, and by this oath will bide, + E'en though his life be lost in the endeavour, + To leave no way, nor art, nor wile untried, + Until he pluck the fruit he sighs for ever: + And, though he still would spare thy honest pride, + The knot that binds him he must loose or sever; + Thou too, O lady, shouldst make sharp thy knife, + If thou art fain to end this amorous strife. + + Lo! if thou lingerest still in dubious dread, + Lest thou shouldst lose fair fame of honesty, + Here hast thou need of wile and warihead, + To test thy lover's strength in screening thee; + Indulge him, if thou find him well bestead, + Knowing that smothered love flames outwardly: + Therefore, seek means, search out some privy way; + Keep not the steed too long at idle play. + + Or if thou heedest what those friars teach, + I cannot fail, lady, to call thee fool: + Well may they blame our private sins and preach; + But ill their acts match with their spoken rule; + The same pitch clings to all men, one and each. + There, I have spoken: set the world to school + With this true proverb, too, be well acquainted + The devil's ne'er so black as he is painted. + + Nor did our good Lord give such grace to thee + That thou shouldst keep it buried in thy breast, + But to reward thy servant's constancy, + Whose love and loyal faith thou hast repressed: + Think it no sin to be some trifle free, + Because thou livest at a lord's behest; + For if he take enough to feed his fill, + To cast the rest away were surely ill. + + They find most favour in the sight of heaven + Who to the poor and hungry are most kind; + A hundred-fold shall thus to thee be given + By God, who loves the free and generous mind; + Thrice strike thy breast, with pure contrition riven, + Crying: I sinned; my sin hath made me blind!-- + He wants not much: enough if he be able + To pick up crumbs that fall beneath thy table. + + Wherefore, O lady, break the ice at length; + Make thou, too, trial of love's fruits and flowers: + When in thine arms thou feel'st thy lover's strength, + Thou wilt repent of all these wasted hours; + Husbands, they know not love, its breadth and length, + Seeing their hearts are not on fire like ours: + Things longed for give most pleasure; this I tell thee: + If still thou doubtest let the proof compel thee. + + What I have spoken is pure gospel sooth; + I have told all my mind, withholding nought: + And well, I ween, thou canst unhusk the truth, + And through the riddle read the hidden thought: + Perchance if heaven still smile upon my youth, + Some good effect for me may yet be wrought: + Then fare thee well; too many words offend: + She who is wise is quick to comprehend. + +The levity of these love-declarations and the fluency of their vows +show them to be 'false as dicers' oaths,' mere verses of the moment, +made to please a facile mistress. One long poem, which cannot be +styled a Rispetto, but is rather a Canzone of the legitimate type, +stands out with distinctness from the rest of Poliziano's love-verses. +It was written by him for Giuliano de' Medici, in praise of the fair +Simonetta. The following version attempts to repeat its metrical +effects in some measure:-- + + My task it is, since thus Love wills, who strains + And forces all the world beneath his sway, + In lowly verse to say + The great delight that in my bosom reigns. + For if perchance I took but little pains + To tell some part of all the joy I find, + I might be deem'd unkind + By one who knew my heart's deep happiness. + He feels but little bliss who hides his bliss; + Small joy hath he whose joy is never sung; + And he who curbs his tongue + Through cowardice, knows but of love the name. + Wherefore to succour and augment the fame + Of that pure, virtuous, wise, and lovely may, + Who like the star of day + Shines mid the stars, or like the rising sun, + Forth from my burning heart the words shall run. + Far, far be envy, far be jealous fear, + With discord dark and drear, + And all the choir that is of love the foe.-- + The season had returned when soft winds blow, + The season friendly to young lovers coy, + Which bids them clothe their joy + In divers garbs and many a masked disguise. + Then I to track the game 'neath April skies + Went forth in raiment strange apparelled, + And by kind fate was led + Unto the spot where stayed my soul's desire. + The beauteous nymph who feeds my soul with fire, + I found in gentle, pure, and prudent mood, + In graceful attitude, + Loving and courteous, holy, wise, benign. + So sweet, so tender was her face divine, + So gladsome, that in those celestial eyes + Shone perfect paradise, + Yea, all the good that we poor mortals crave. + Around her was a band so nobly brave + Of beauteous dames, that as I gazed at these + Methought heaven's goddesses + That day for once had deigned to visit earth. + But she who gives my soul sorrow and mirth, + Seemed Pallas in her gait, and in her face + Venus; for every grace + And beauty of the world in her combined. + Merely to think, far more to tell my mind + Of that most wondrous sight, confoundeth me, + For mid the maidens she + Who most resembled her was found most rare. + Call ye another first among the fair; + Not first, but sole before my lady set: + Lily and violet + And all the flowers below the rose must bow. + Down from her royal head and lustrous brow + The golden curls fell sportively unpent, + While through the choir she went + With feet well lessoned to the rhythmic sound. + Her eyes, though scarcely raised above the ground, + Sent me by stealth a ray divinely fair; + But still her jealous hair + Broke the bright beam, and veiled her from my gaze. + She, born and nursed in heaven for angels' praise, + No sooner saw this wrong, than back she drew, + With hand of purest hue, + Her truant curls with kind and gentle mien. + Then from her eyes a soul so fiery keen, + So sweet a soul of love she cast on mine, + That scarce can I divine + How then I 'scaped from burning utterly. + These are the first fair signs of love to be, + That bound my heart with adamant, and these + The matchless courtesies + Which, dreamlike, still before mine eyes must hover. + This is the honeyed food she gave her lover, + To make him, so it pleased her, half-divine; + Nectar is not so fine, + Nor ambrosy, the fabled feast of Jove. + Then, yielding proofs more clear and strong of love, + As though to show the faith within her heart, + She moved, with subtle art, + Her feet accordant to the amorous air. + But while I gaze and pray to God that ne'er + Might cease that happy dance angelical, + O harsh, unkind recall! + Back to the banquet was she beckoned. + She, with her face at first with pallor spread, + Then tinted with a blush of coral dye, + 'The ball is best!' did cry, + Gentle in tone and smiling as she spake. + But from her eyes celestial forth did break + Favour at parting; and I well could see + Young love confusedly + Enclosed within the furtive fervent gaze, + Heating his arrows at their beauteous rays, + For war with Pallas and with Dian cold. + Fairer than mortal mould, + She moved majestic with celestial gait; + And with her hand her robe in royal state + Raised, as she went with pride ineffable. + Of me I cannot tell, + Whether alive or dead I there was left. + Nay, dead, methinks! since I of thee was reft, + Light of my life! and yet, perchance, alive-- + Such virtue to revive + My lingering soul possessed thy beauteous face, + But if that powerful charm of thy great grace + Could then thy loyal lover so sustain, + Why comes there not again + More often or more soon the sweet delight? + Twice hath the wandering moon with borrowed light + Stored from her brother's rays her crescent horn, + Nor yet hath fortune borne + Me on the way to so much bliss again. + Earth smiles anew; fair spring renews her reign: + The grass and every shrub once more is green; + The amorous birds begin, + From winter loosed, to fill the field with song. + See how in loving pairs the cattle throng; + The bull, the ram, their amorous jousts enjoy: + Thou maiden, I a boy, + Shall we prove traitors to love's law for aye? + Shall we these years that are so fair let fly? + Wilt thou not put thy flower of youth to use? + Or with thy beauty choose + To make him blest who loves thee best of all? + Haply I am some hind who guards the stall, + Or of vile lineage, or with years outworn, + Poor, or a cripple born, + Or faint of spirit that you spurn me so? + Nay, but my race is noble and doth grow + With honour to our land, with pomp and power; + My youth is yet in flower, + And it may chance some maiden sighs for me. + My lot it is to deal right royally + With all the goods that fortune spreads around, + For still they more abound, + Shaken from her full lap, the more I waste. + My strength is such as whoso tries shall taste; + Circled with friends, with favours crowned am I: + Yet though I rank so high + Among the blest, as men may reckon bliss, + Still without thee, my hope, my happiness, + It seems a sad, and bitter thing to live! + Then stint me not, but give + That joy which holds all joys enclosed in one. + Let me pluck fruits at last, not flowers alone! + +With much that is frigid, artificial, and tedious in this +old-fashioned love-song, there is a curious monotony of sweetness +which commends it to our ears; and he who reads it may remember the +profile portrait of Simonetta from the hand of Piero della Francesca +in the Pitti Palace at Florence. + +It is worth comparing Poliziano's treatment of popular or semi-popular +verse-forms with his imitations of Petrarch's manner. For this purpose +I have chosen a _Canzone_, clearly written in competition with the +celebrated 'Chiare, fresche e dolci acque,' of Laura's lover. While +closely modelled upon Petrarch's form and similar in motive, this +Canzone preserves Poliziano's special qualities of fluency and +emptiness of content. + + Hills, valleys, caves and fells, + With flowers and leaves and herbage spread; + Green meadows; shadowy groves where light is low; + Lawns watered with the rills + That cruel Love hath made me shed, + Cast from these cloudy eyes so dark with woe; + Thou stream that still dost know + What fell pangs pierce my heart, + So dost thou murmur back my moan; + Lone bird that chauntest tone for tone, + While in our descant drear Love sings his part: + Nymphs, woodland wanderers, wind and air; + List to the sound out-poured from my despair! + Seven times and once more seven + The roseate dawn her beauteous brow + Enwreathed with orient jewels hath displayed; + Cynthia once more in heaven + Hath orbed her horns with silver now; + While in sea waves her brother's light was laid; + Since this high mountain glade + Felt the white footsteps fall + Of that proud lady, who to spring + Converts whatever woodland thing + She may o'ershadow, touch, or heed at all. + Here bloom the flowers, the grasses spring + From her bright eyes, and drink what mine must bring. + Yea, nourished with my tears + Is every little leaf I see, + And the stream rolls therewith a prouder wave. + Ah me! through what long years + Will she withhold her face from me, + Which stills the stormy skies howe'er they rave? + Speak! or in grove or cave + If one hath seen her stray, + Plucking amid those grasses green + Wreaths for her royal brows serene, + Flowers white and blue and red and golden gay! + Nay, prithee, speak, if pity dwell + Among these woods, within this leafy dell! + O Love! 'twas here we saw, + Beneath the new-fledged leaves that spring + From this old beech, her fair form lowly laid:-- + The thought renews my awe! + How sweetly did her tresses fling + Waves of wreathed gold unto the winds that strayed + Fire, frost within me played, + While I beheld the bloom + Of laughing flowers--O day of bliss!-- + Around those tresses meet and kiss, + And roses in her lap of Love the home! + Her grace, her port divinely fair, + Describe it, Love! myself I do not dare. + In mute intent surprise + I gazed, as when a hind is seen + To dote upon its image in a rill; + Drinking those love-lit eyes, + Those hands, that face, those words serene, + That song which with delight the heaven did fill, + That smile which thralls me still, + Which melteth stones unkind, + Which in this woodland wilderness + Tames every beast and stills the stress + Of hurrying waters. Would that I could find + Her footprints upon field or grove! + I should not then be envious of Jove. + Thou cool stream rippling by, + Where oft it pleased her to dip + Her naked foot, how blest art thou! + Ye branching trees on high, + That spread your gnarled roots on the lip + Of yonder hanging rock to drink heaven's dew! + She often leaned on you, + She who is my life's bliss! + Thou ancient beech with moss o'ergrown, + How do I envy thee thy throne, + Found worthy to receive such happiness! + Ye winds, how blissful must ye be, + Since ye have borne to heaven her harmony! + The winds that music bore, + And wafted it to God on high, + That Paradise might have the joy thereof. + Flowers here she plucked, and wore + Wild roses from the thorn hard by: + This air she lightened with her look of love: + This running stream above, + She bent her face!--Ah me! + Where am I? What sweet makes me swoon? + What calm is in the kiss of noon? + Who brought me here? Who speaks? What melody? + Whence came pure peace into my soul? + What joy hath rapt me from my own control? + +Poliziano's refrain is always: 'Gather ye rosebuds while ye may. It is +spring-time now and youth. Winter and old age are coming!' A _Maggio_, +or May-day song, describing the games, dances, and jousting matches of +the Florentine lads upon the morning of the first of May, expresses +this facile philosophy of life with a quaintness that recalls Herrick. +It will be noticed that the Maggio is built, so far as rhymes go, on +the same system as Poliziano's Ballata. It has considerable historical +interest, for the opening couplet is said to be Guido Cavalcanti's, +while the whole poem is claimed by Roscoe for Lorenzo de' Medici, and +by Carducci with better reason for Poliziano. + + Welcome in the May + And the woodland garland gay! + + Welcome in the jocund spring + Which bids all men lovers be! + Maidens, up with carolling, + With your sweethearts stout and free, + With roses and with blossoms ye + Who deck yourselves this first of May! + + Up, and forth into the pure + Meadows, mid the trees and flowers! + Every beauty is secure + With so many bachelors: + Beasts and birds amid the bowers + Burn with love this first of May. + + Maidens, who are young and fair, + Be not harsh, I counsel you; + For your youth cannot repair + Her prime of spring, as meadows do: + None be proud, but all be true + To men who love, this first of May. + + Dance and carol every one + Of our band so bright and gay! + See your sweethearts how they run + Through the jousts for you to-day! + She who saith her lover nay, + Will deflower the sweets of May, + + Lads in love take sword and shield + To make pretty girls their prize: + Yield ye, merry maidens, yield + To your lovers' vows and sighs: + Give his heart back ere it dies: + Wage not war this first of May. + + He who steals another's heart, + Let him give his own heart too: + Who's the robber? 'Tis the smart + Little cherub Cupid, who + Homage comes to pay with you, + Damsels, to the first of May. + + Love comes smiling; round his head + Lilies white and roses meet: + 'Tis for you his flight is sped. + Fair one, haste our king to greet: + Who will fling him blossoms sweet + Soonest on this first of May? + + Welcome, stranger! welcome, king! + Love, what hast thou to command? + That each girl with wreaths should ring + Her lover's hair with loving hand, + That girls small and great should band + In Love's ranks this first of May. + +The _Canto Carnascialesco_, for the final development if not for the +invention of which all credit must be given to Lorenzo de' Medici, +does not greatly differ from the Maggio in structure. It admitted, +however, of great varieties, and was generally more complex in its +interweaving of rhymes. Yet the essential principle of an exordium +which should also serve for a refrain, was rarely, if ever, departed +from. Two specimens of the Carnival Song will serve to bring into +close contrast two very different aspects of Florentine history. The +earlier was composed by Lorenzo de' Medici at the height of his power +and in the summer of Italian independence. It was sung by masquers +attired in classical costume, to represent Bacchus and his crew. + + Fair is youth and void of sorrow; + But it hourly flies away.-- + Youths and maids, enjoy to-day; + Nought ye know about to-morrow. + + This is Bacchus and the bright + Ariadne, lovers true! + They, in flying time's despite, + Each with each find pleasure new; + These their Nymphs, and all their crew + Keep perpetual holiday.-- + Youths and maids, enjoy to-day; + Nought ye know about to-morrow. + + These blithe Satyrs, wanton-eyed, + Of the Nymphs are paramours: + Through the caves and forests wide + They have snared them mid the flowers; + Warmed with Bacchus, in his bowers, + Now they dance and leap alway.-- + Youths and maids, enjoy to-day; + Nought ye know about to-morrow. + + These fair Nymphs, they are not loth + To entice their lovers' wiles. + None but thankless folk and rough + Can resist when Love beguiles. + Now enlaced, with wreathed smiles, + All together dance and play.-- + Youths and maids, enjoy to-day; + Nought ye know about to-morrow. + + See this load behind them plodding + On the ass! Silenus he, + Old and drunken, merry, nodding, + Full of years and jollity; + Though he goes so swayingly, + Yet he laughs and quaffs alway.-- + Youths and maids, enjoy to-day; + Nought ye know about to-morrow. + + Midas treads a wearier measure: + All he touches turns to gold: + If there be no taste of pleasure, + What's the use of wealth untold? + What's the joy his fingers hold, + When he's forced to thirst for aye?-- + Youths and maids, enjoy to-day; + Nought ye know about to-morrow. + + Listen well to what we're saying; + Of to-morrow have no care! + Young and old together playing, + Boys and girls, be blithe as air! + Every sorry thought forswear! + Keep perpetual holiday.--- + Youths and maids, enjoy to-day; + Nought ye know about to-morrow. + + Ladies and gay lovers young! + Long live Bacchus, live Desire! + Dance and play; let songs be sung; + Let sweet love your bosoms fire; + In the future come what may!--- + Youths and maids, enjoy to-day! + Nought ye know about to-morrow. + + Fair is youth and void of sorrow; + But it hourly flies away. + +The next, composed by Antonio Alamanni, after Lorenzo's death and the +ominous passage of Charles VIII., was sung by masquers habited as +skeletons. The car they rode on, was a Car of Death designed by Piero +di Cosimo, and their music was purposely gloomy. If in the jovial days +of the Medici the streets of Florence had rung to the thoughtless +refrain, 'Nought ye know about to-morrow,' they now re-echoed with a +cry of 'Penitence;' for times had strangely altered, and the heedless +past had brought forth a doleful present. The last stanza of +Alamanni's chorus is a somewhat clumsy attempt to adapt the too real +moral of his subject to the customary mood of the Carnival. + + + Sorrow, tears, and penitence + Are our doom of pain for aye; + This dead concourse riding by + Hath no cry but penitence! + + E'en as you are, once were we: + You shall be as now we are: + We are dead men, as you see: + We shall see you dead men, where + Nought avails to take great care, + After sins, of penitence. + + We too in the Carnival + Sang our love-songs through the town; + Thus from sin to sin we all + Headlong, heedless, tumbled down:-- + Now we cry, the world around, + Penitence! oh, Penitence! + + Senseless, blind, and stubborn fools! + Time steals all things as he rides: + Honours, glories, states, and schools, + Pass away, and nought abides; + Till the tomb our carcase hides, + And compels this penitence. + + This sharp scythe you see us bear, + Brings the world at length to woe: + But from life to life we fare; + And that life is joy or woe: + All heaven's bliss on him doth flow + Who on earth does penitence. + + Living here, we all must die; + Dying, every soul shall live: + For the King of kings on high + This fixed ordinance doth give: + Lo, you all are fugitive! + Penitence! Cry Penitence! + + Torment great and grievous dole + Hath the thankless heart mid you; + But the man of piteous soul + Finds much honour in our crew: + Love for loving is the due + That prevents this penitence. + + Sorrow, tears, and penitence + Are our doom of pain for aye: + This dead concourse riding by + Hath no cry but Penitence! + +One song for dancing, composed less upon the type of the Ballata than +on that of the Carnival Song, may here be introduced, not only in +illustration of the varied forms assumed by this style of poetry, but +also because it is highly characteristic of Tuscan town-life. This +poem in the vulgar style has been ascribed to Lorenzo de' Medici, but +probably without due reason. It describes the manners and customs of +female street gossips. + + Since you beg with such a grace, + How can I refuse a song, + Wholesome, honest, void of wrong, + On the follies of the place? + + Courteously on you I call; + Listen well to what I sing: + For my roundelay to all + May perchance instruction bring, + And of life good lessoning.-- + When in company you meet, + Or sit spinning, all the street + Clamours like a market-place. + + Thirty of you there may be; + Twenty-nine are sure to buzz, + And the single silent she + Racks her brains about her coz:-- + Mrs. Buzz and Mrs. Huzz, + Mind your work, my ditty saith; + Do not gossip till your breath + Fails and leaves you black of face! + + Governments go out and in:-- + You the truth must needs discover. + Is a girl about to win + A brave husband in her lover?-- + Straight you set to talk him over: + 'Is he wealthy?' 'Does his coat + Fit?' 'And has he got a vote?' + 'Who's his father?' 'What's his race?' + + Out of window one head pokes; + Twenty others do the same:-- + Chatter, clatter!--creaks and croaks + All the year the same old game!-- + 'See my spinning!' cries one dame, + 'Five long ells of cloth, I trow!' + Cries another, 'Mine must go, + Drat it, to the bleaching base!' + + 'Devil take the fowl!' says one: + 'Mine are all bewitched, I guess; + Cocks and hens with vermin run, + Mangy, filthy, featherless.' + Says another: 'I confess + Every hair I drop, I keep-- + Plague upon it, in a heap + Falling off to my disgrace!' + + If you see a fellow walk + Up or down the street and back, + How you nod and wink and talk, + Hurry-skurry, cluck and clack!-- + 'What, I wonder, does he lack + Here about?'--'There's something wrong!' + Till the poor man's made a song + For the female populace. + + It were well you gave no thought + To such idle company; + Shun these gossips, care for nought + But the business that you ply. + You who chatter, you who cry, + Heed my words; be wise, I pray: + Fewer, shorter stories say: + Bide at home, and mind your place. + + Since you beg with such a grace, + How can I refuse a song, + Wholesome, honest, void of wrong, + On the follies of the place? + +The _Madrigale_, intended to be sung in parts, was another species of +popular poetry cultivated by the greatest of Italian writers. Without +seeking examples from such men as Petrarch, Michelangelo, or Tasso, +who used it as a purely literary form, I will content myself with a +few Madrigals by anonymous composers, more truly popular in style, and +more immediately intended for music.[32] The similarity both of manner +and matter, between these little poems and the Ballate, is obvious. +There is the same affectation of rusticity in both. + + _Cogliendo per un prato._ + + Plucking white lilies in a field I saw + Fair women, laden with young Love's delight: + Some sang, some danced; but all were fresh and bright. + Then by the margin of a fount they leaned, + And of those flowers made garlands for their hair-- + Wreaths for their golden tresses quaint and rare. + Forth from the field I passed, and gazed upon + Their loveliness, and lost my heart to one. + + _Togliendo l' una all' altra._ + + One from the other borrowing leaves and flowers, + I saw fair maidens 'neath the summer trees, + Weaving bright garlands with low love-ditties. + Mid that sweet sisterhood the loveliest + Turned her soft eyes to me, and whispered, 'Take!' + Love-lost I stood, and not a word I spake. + My heart she read, and her fair garland gave: + Therefore I am her servant to the grave. + + _Appress' un fiume chiaro_. + + Hard by a crystal stream + Girls and maids were dancing round + A lilac with fair blossoms crowned. + Mid these I spied out one + So tender-sweet, so love-laden, + She stole my heart with singing then: + Love in her face so lovely-kind + And eyes and hands my soul did bind. + + _Di riva in riva_. + + From lawn to lea Love led me down the valley, + Seeking my hawk, where 'neath a pleasant hill + I spied fair maidens bathing in a rill. + Lina was there all loveliness excelling; + The pleasure of her beauty made me sad, + And yet at sight of her my soul was glad. + Downward I cast mine eyes with modest seeming, + And all a tremble from the fountain fled: + For each was naked as her maidenhead. + Thence singing fared I through a flowery plain, + Where bye and bye I found my hawk again! + + _Nel chiaro fiume_. + + Down a fair streamlet crystal-clear and pleasant + I went a fishing all alone one day, + And spied three maidens bathing there at play. + Of love they told each other honeyed stories, + While with white hands they smote the stream, to wet + Their sunbright hair in the pure rivulet. + Gazing I crouched among thick flowering leafage, + Till one who spied a rustling branch on high, + Turned to her comrades with a sudden cry, + And 'Go! Nay, prithee go!' she called to me: + 'To stay were surely but scant courtesy.' + + _Quel sole che nutrica._ + + The sun which makes a lily bloom, + Leans down at times on her to gaze-- + Fairer, he deems, than his fair rays: + Then, having looked a little while, + He turns and tells the saints in bliss + How marvellous her beauty is. + Thus up in heaven with flute and string + Thy loveliness the angels sing. + + _Di novo e giunt'._ + + Lo: here hath come an errant knight + On a barbed charger clothed in mail: + His archers scatter iron hail. + At brow and breast his mace he aims; + Who therefore hath not arms of proof, + Let him live locked by door and roof; + Until Dame Summer on a day + That grisly knight return to slay. + +Poliziano's treatment of the octave stanza for Rispetti was +comparatively popular. But in his poem of 'La Giostra,' written to +commemorate the victory of Giuliano de' Medici in a tournament and to +celebrate his mistress, he gave a new and richer form to the metre +which Boccaccio had already used for epic verse. The slight and +uninteresting framework of this poem, which opened a new sphere for +Italian literature, and prepared the way for Ariosto's golden cantos, +might be compared to one of those wire baskets which children steep in +alum water, and incrust with crystals, sparkling, artificial, +beautiful with colours not their own. The mind of Poliziano held, as +it were, in solution all the images and thoughts of antiquity, all the +riches of his native literature. In that vast reservoir of poems and +mythologies and phrases, so patiently accumulated, so tenaciously +preserved, so thoroughly assimilated, he plunged the trivial subject +he had chosen, and triumphantly presented to the world the _spolia +opima_ of scholarship and taste. What mattered it that the theme was +slight? The art was perfect, the result splendid. One canto of 125 +stanzas describes the youth of Giuliano, who sought to pass his life +among the woods, a hunter dead to love, but who was doomed to be +ensnared by Cupid. The chase, the beauty of Simonetta, the palace of +Venus, these are the three subjects of a book as long as the first +Iliad. The second canto begins with dreams and prophecies of glory to +be won by Giuliano in the tournament. But it stops abruptly. The +tragic catastrophe of the Pazzi Conjuration cut short Poliziano's +panegyric by the murder of his hero. Meanwhile the poet had achieved +his purpose. His torso presented to Italy a model of style, a piece of +written art adequate to the great painting of the Renaissance period, +a double star of poetry which blent the splendours of the ancient and +the modern world. To render into worthy English the harmonies of +Poliziano is a difficult task. Yet this must be attempted if an +English reader is to gain any notion of the scope and substance of the +Italian poet's art. In the first part of the poem we are placed, as it +were, at the mid point between the 'Hippolytus' of Euripides and +Shakspere's 'Venus and Adonis.' The cold hunter Giuliano is to see +Simonetta, and seeing, is to love her. This is how he first discovers +the triumphant beauty:[33] + + White is the maid, and white the robe around her, + With buds and roses and thin grasses pied; + Enwreathed folds of golden tresses crowned her, + Shadowing her forehead fair with modest pride: + + The wild wood smiled; the thicket where he found her, + To ease his anguish, bloomed on every side: + Serene she sits, with gesture queenly mild, + And with her brow tempers the tempests wild. + +After three stanzas of this sort, in which the poet's style is more +apparent than the object he describes, occurs this charming picture:-- + + Reclined he found her on the swarded grass + In jocund mood; and garlands she had made + Of every flower that in the meadow was, + Or on her robe of many hues displayed; + But when she saw the youth before her pass, + Raising her timid head awhile she stayed; + Then with her white hand gathered up her dress, + And stood, lap-full of flowers, in loveliness. + + Then through the dewy field with footstep slow + The lingering maid began to take her way, + Leaving her lover in great fear and woe, + For now he longs for nought but her alway: + The wretch, who cannot bear that she should go, + Strives with a whispered prayer her feet to stay; + And thus at last, all trembling, all afire, + In humble wise he breathes his soul's desire: + + 'Whoe'er thou art, maid among maidens queen, + Goddess, or nymph--nay, goddess seems most clear-- + If goddess, sure my Dian I have seen; + If mortal, let thy proper self appear! + Beyond terrestrial beauty is thy mien; + I have no merit that I should be here! + What grace of heaven, what lucky star benign + Yields me the sight of beauty so divine?' + +A conversation ensues, after which Giuliano departs utterly lovesick, +and Cupid takes wing exultingly for Cyprus, where his mother's palace +stands. In the following picture of the house of Venus, who shall say +how much of Ariosto's Alcina and Tasso's Armida is contained? Cupid +arrives, and the family of Love is filled with joy at Giuliano's +conquest. From the plan of the poem it is clear that its beauties are +chiefly those of detail. They are, however, very great. How perfect, +for example, is the richness combined with delicacy of the following +description of a country life:-- + +BOOK I. STANZAS 17-21. + + How far more safe it is, how far more fair, + To chase the flying deer along the lea; + Through ancient woods to track their hidden lair, + Far from the town, with long-drawn subtlety: + To scan the vales, the hills, the limpid air, + The grass and flowers, clear ice, and streams so free; + To hear the birds wake from their winter trance, + The wind-stirred leaves and murmuring waters dance. + + How sweet it were to watch the young goats hung + From toppling crags, cropping the tender shoot, + While in thick pleached shade the shepherd sung + His uncouth rural lay and woke his flute; + To mark, mid dewy grass, red apples flung, + And every bough thick set with ripening fruit, + The butting rams, kine lowing o'er the lea, + And cornfields waving like the windy sea. + + Lo! how the rugged master of the herd + Before his flock unbars the wattled cote; + Then with his rod and many a rustic word + He rules their going: or 'tis sweet to note + The delver, when his toothed rake hath stirred + The stubborn clod, his hoe the glebe hath smote; + Barefoot the country girl, with loosened zone, + Spins, while she keeps her geese 'neath yonder stone. + + After such happy wise, in ancient years, + Dwelt the old nations in the age of gold; + Nor had the fount been stirred of mothers' tears + For sons in war's fell labour stark and cold; + Nor trusted they to ships the wild wind steers, + Nor yet had oxen groaning ploughed the wold; + Their houses were huge oaks, whose trunks had store + Of honey, and whose boughs thick acorns bore. + + Nor yet, in that glad time, the accursed thirst + Of cruel gold had fallen on this fair earth: + Joyous in liberty they lived at first; + Unploughed the fields sent forth their teeming birth; + Till fortune, envious of such concord, burst + The bond of law, and pity banned and worth; + Within their breasts sprang luxury and that rage + Which men call love in our degenerate age. + +We need not be reminded that these stanzas are almost a cento from +Virgil, Hesiod, and Ovid. The merits of the translator, adapter, and +combiner, who knew so well how to cull their beauties and adorn them +with a perfect dress of modern diction, are so eminent that we cannot +deny him the title of a great poet. It is always in picture-painting +more than in dramatic presentation that Poliziano excels. Here is a +basrelief of Venus rising from the Ocean foam:-- + + +STANZAS 99-107. + + In Thetis' lap, upon the vexed Egean, + The seed deific from Olympus sown, + Beneath dim stars and cycling empyrean + Drifts like white foam across the salt waves blown; + Thence, born at last by movements hymenean, + Rises a maid more fair than man hath known; + Upon her shell the wanton breezes waft her; + She nears the shore, while heaven looks down with laughter + + Seeing the carved work you would cry that real + Were shell and sea, and real the winds that blow; + The lightning of the goddess' eyes you feel, + The smiling heavens, the elemental glow: + White-vested Hours across the smooth sands steal, + With loosened curls that to the breezes flow; + Like, yet unlike, are all their beauteous faces, + E'en as befits a choir of sister Graces. + + Well might you swear that on those waves were riding + The goddess with her right hand on her hair, + And with the other the sweet apple hiding; + And that beneath her feet, divinely fair, + Fresh flowers sprang forth, the barren sands dividing; + Then that, with glad smiles and enticements rare, + The three nymphs round their queen, embosoming her, + Threw the starred mantle soft as gossamer. + + The one, with hands above her head upraised, + Upon her dewy tresses fits a wreath, + With ruddy gold and orient gems emblazed; + The second hangs pure pearls her ears beneath; + The third round shoulders white and breast hath placed + Such wealth of gleaming carcanets as sheathe + Their own fair bosoms, when the Graces sing + Among the gods with dance and carolling. + + Thence might you see them rising toward the spheres, + Seated upon a cloud of silvery white; + The trembling of the cloven air appears + Wrought in the stone, and heaven serenely bright; + The gods drink in with open eyes and ears + Her beauty, and desire her bed's delight; + Each seems to marvel with a mute amaze-- + Their brows and foreheads wrinkle as they gaze. + +The next quotation shows Venus in the lap of Mars, and Visited by +Cupid:-- + + STANZAS 122--124. + + Stretched on a couch, outside the coverlid, + Love found her, scarce unloosed from Mars' embrace; + He, lying back within her bosom, fed + His eager eyes on nought but her fair face; + + Roses above them like a cloud were shed, + To reinforce them in the amorous chace; + While Venus, quick with longings unsuppressed, + A thousand times his eyes and forehead kissed. + + Above, around, young Loves on every side + Played naked, darting birdlike to and fro; + And one, whose plumes a thousand colours dyed, + Fanned the shed roses as they lay arow; + One filled his quiver with fresh flowers, and hied + To pour them on the couch that lay below; + Another, poised upon his pinions, through + The falling shower soared shaking rosy dew: + + For, as he quivered with his tremulous wing, + The wandering roses in their drift were stayed;-- + Thus none was weary of glad gambolling; + Till Cupid came, with dazzling plumes displayed, + Breathless; and round his mother's neck did fling + His languid arms, and with his winnowing made + Her heart burn:--very glad and bright of face, + But, with his flight, too tired to speak apace. + +These pictures have in them the very glow of Italian painting. +Sometimes we seem to see a quaint design of Piero di Cosimo, with +bright tints and multitudinous small figures in a spacious landscape. +Sometimes it is the languid grace of Botticelli, whose soul became +possessed of classic inspiration as it were in dreams, and who has +painted the birth of Venus almost exactly as Poliziano imagined it. +Again, we seize the broader beauties of the Venetian masters, or the +vehemence of Giulio Romano's pencil. To the last class belong the two +next extracts:-- + + STANZAS 104--107. + + + In the last square the great artificer + Had wrought himself crowned with Love's perfect palm; + Black from his forge and rough, he runs to her, + Leaving all labour for her bosom's calm: + Lips joined to lips with deep love-longing stir, + Fire in his heart, and in his spirit balm; + Far fiercer flames through breast and marrow fly + Than those which heat his forge in Sicily. + + Jove, on the other side, becomes a bull, + Goodly and white, at Love's behest, and rears + His neck beneath his rich freight beautiful: + She turns toward the shore that disappears, + With frightened gesture; and the wonderful + Gold curls about her bosom and her ears + Float in the wind; her veil waves, backward borne; + This hand still clasps his back, and that his horn. + + With naked feet close-tucked beneath her dress, + She seems to fear the sea that dares not rise: + So, imaged in a shape of drear distress, + In vain unto her comrades sweet she cries; + They left amid the meadow-flowers, no less + For lost Europa wail with weeping eyes: + Europa, sounds the shore, bring back our bliss + But the bull swims and turns her feet to kiss. + + Here Jove is made a swan, a golden shower, + Or seems a serpent, or a shepherd-swain, + To work his amorous will in secret hour; + Here, like an eagle, soars he o'er the plain, + Love-led, and bears his Ganymede, the flower + Of beauty, mid celestial peers to reign; + The boy with cypress hath his fair locks crowned, + Naked, with ivy wreathed his waist around. + + + STANZAS 110--112. + + + Lo! here again fair Ariadne lies, + And to the deaf winds of false Theseus plains. + And of the air and slumber's treacheries; + Trembling with fear even as a reed that strain. + And quivers by the mere 'neath breezy skies: + Her very speechless attitude complains-- + No beast there is so cruel as thou art, + No beast less loyal to my broken heart. + + Throned on a car, with ivy crowned and vine, + Rides Bacchus, by two champing tigers driven: + Around him on the sand deep-soaked with brine + Satyrs and Bacchantes rush; the skies are riven + With shouts and laughter; Fauns quaff bubbling wine + From horns and cymbals; Nymphs, to madness driven, + Trip, skip, and stumble; mixed in wild enlacements, + Laughing they roll or meet for glad embracements. + + Upon his ass Silenus, never sated, + With thick, black veins, wherethrough the must is soaking, + Nods his dull forehead with deep sleep belated; + His eyes are wine-inflamed, and red, and smoking: + Bold Maenads goad the ass so sorely weighted, + With stinging thyrsi; he sways feebly poking + The mane with bloated fingers; Fauns behind him, + E'en as he falls, upon the crupper bind him. + +We almost seem to be looking at the frescoes in some Trasteverine +palace, or at the canvas of one of the sensual Genoese painters. The +description of the garden of Venus has the charm of somewhat +artificial elegance, the exotic grace of style, which attracts us in +the earlier Renaissance work:-- + + The leafy tresses of that timeless garden + Nor fragile brine nor fresh snow dares to whiten; + Frore winter never comes the rills to harden, + Nor winds the tender shrubs and herbs to frighten; + Glad Spring is always here, a laughing warden; + Nor do the seasons wane, but ever brighten; + Here to the breeze young May, her curls unbinding, + With thousand flowers her wreath is ever winding. + +Indeed it may be said with truth that Poliziano's most eminent faculty +as a descriptive poet corresponded exactly to the genius of the +painters of his day. To produce pictures radiant with Renaissance +colouring, and vigorous with Renaissance passion, was the function of +his art, not to express profound thought or dramatic situations. This +remark might be extended with justice to Ariosto, and Tasso, and +Boiardo. The great narrative poets of the Renaissance in Italy were +not dramatists; nor were their poems epics: their forte lay in the +inexhaustible variety and beauty of their pictures. + +Of Poliziano's plagiarism--if this be the right word to apply to the +process of assimilation and selection, by means of which the +poet-scholar of Florence taught the Italians how to use the riches of +the ancient languages and their own literature--here are some +specimens. In stanza 42 of the 'Giostra' he says of Simonetta:-- + + E 'n lei discerne un non so che divino. + + +Dante has the line:-- + + Vostri risplende un non so che divino. + +In the 44th he speaks about the birds:-- + + E canta ogni augelletto in suo latino. + +This comes from Cavalcanti's:-- + + E cantinne gli augelli. + Ciascuno in suo latino. + +Stanza 45 is taken bodily from Claudian, Dante, and Cavalcanti. It +would seem as though Poliziano wished to show that the classic and +medieval literature of Italy was all one, and that a poet of the +Renaissance could carry on the continuous tradition in his own style. +A, line in stanza 54 seems perfectly original:-- + + E gia dall'alte ville il fumo esala. + +It comes straight from Virgil:-- + + Et jam summa pocul villarum culmina fumant. + +In the next stanza the line-- + + Tal che 'l ciel tutto rassereno d'intorno, + +is Petrarch's. So in the 56th, is the phrase 'il dolce andar +celeste.' In stanza 57-- + + Par che 'l cor del petto se gli schianti, + +belongs to Boccaccio. In stanza 60 the first line:-- + + La notte che le cose ci nasconde, + +together with its rhyme, 'sotto le amate fronde,' is borrowed from the +23rd canto of the 'Paradiso.' In the second line, 'Stellato ammanto' +is Claudian's 'stellantes sinus' applied to the heaven. When we reach +the garden of Venus we find whole passages translated from Claudian's +'Marriage of Honorius,' and from the 'Metamorphoses' of Ovid. + +Poliziano's second poem of importance, which indeed may historically +be said to take precedence of 'La Giostra,' was the so-called tragedy +of 'Orfeo.' The English version of this lyrical drama must be reserved +for a separate study: yet it belongs to the subject of this, inasmuch +as the 'Orfeo' is a classical legend treated in a form already +familiar to the Italian people. Nearly all the popular kinds of poetry +of which specimens have been translated in this chapter, will be found +combined in its six short scenes. + + * * * * * + + + + +_ORFEO_ + + +The 'Orfeo' of Messer Angelo Poliziano ranks amongst the most +important poems of the fifteenth century. It was composed at Mantua in +the short space of two days, on the occasion of Cardinal Francesco +Gonzaga's visit to his native town in 1472. But, though so hastily put +together, the 'Orfeo' marks an epoch in the evolution of Italian +poetry. It is the earliest example of a secular drama, containing +within the compass of its brief scenes the germ of the opera, the +tragedy, and the pastoral play. In form it does not greatly differ +from the 'Sacre Rappresentazioni' of the fifteenth century, as those +miracle plays were handled by popular poets of the earlier +Renaissance. But while the traditional octave stanza is used for the +main movement of the piece, Poliziano has introduced episodes of +_terza rima_, madrigals, a carnival song, a _ballata_, and, above all, +choral passages which have in them the future melodrama of the musical +Italian stage. The lyrical treatment of the fable, its capacity for +brilliant and varied scenic effects, its combination of singing with +action, and the whole artistic keeping of the piece, which never +passes into genuine tragedy, but stays within the limits of romantic +pathos, distinguish the 'Orfeo' as a typical production of Italian +genius. Thus, though little better than an improvisation, it combines +the many forms of verse developed by the Tuscans at the close of the +Middle Ages, and fixes the limits beyond which their dramatic poets, +with a few exceptions, were not destined to advance. Nor was the +choice of the fable without significance. Quitting the Bible stories +and the Legends of Saints, which supplied the mediaeval playwright +with material, Poliziano selects a classic story: and this story might +pass for an allegory of Italy, whose intellectual development the +scholar-poet ruled. Orpheus is the power of poetry and art, softening +stubborn nature, civilising men, and prevailing over Hades for a +season. He is the right hero of humanism, the genius of the +Renaissance, the tutelary god of Italy, who thought she could resist +the laws of fate by verse and elegant accomplishments. To press this +kind of allegory is unwise; for at a certain moment it breaks in our +hands. And yet in Eurydice the fancy might discover Freedom, the true +spouse of poetry and art; Orfeo's last resolve too vividly depicts the +vice of the Renaissance; and the Maenads are those barbarous armies +destined to lay waste the plains of Italy, inebriate with wine and +blood, obeying a new lord of life on whom the poet's harp exerts no +charm. But a truce to this spinning of pedantic cobwebs. Let Mercury +appear, and let the play begin. + + +_THE FABLE OF ORPHEUS_ + + MERCURY _announces the show_. + + Ho, silence! Listen! There was once a hind, + Son of Apollo, Aristaeus hight, + Who loved with so untamed and fierce a mind + Eurydice, the wife of Orpheus wight, + That chasing her one day with will unkind + He wrought her cruel death in love's despite; + For, as she fled toward the mere hard by, + A serpent stung her, and she had to die. + + Now Orpheus, singing, brought her back from hell, + But could not keep the law the fates ordain: + Poor wretch, he backward turned and broke the spell; + So that once more from him his love was ta'en. + Therefore he would no more with women dwell, + And in the end by women he was slain. + + _Enter_ A SHEPHERD, _who says_-- + + Nay, listen, friends! Fair auspices are given, + Since Mercury to earth hath come from heaven. + + + + SCENE I + + MOPSUS, _an old shepherd_. + + + Say, hast thou seen a calf of mine, all white + Save for a spot of black upon her front, + Two feet, one flank, and one knee ruddy-bright? + + ARISTAEUS, _a young shepherd_. + + Friend Mopsus, to the margin of this fount + No herds have come to drink since break of day; + Yet may'st thou hear them low on yonder mount. + Go, Thyrsis, search the upland lawn, I pray! + Thou Mopsus shalt with me the while abide; + For I would have thee listen to my lay. + + _[Exit_ THYRSIS. + + 'Twas yester morn where trees yon cavern hide, + I saw a nymph more fair than Dian, who + Had a young lusty lover at her side: + But when that more than woman met my view, + The heart within my bosom leapt outright, + And straight the madness of wild Love I knew. + Since then, dear Mopsus, I have no delight; + But weep and weep: of food and drink I tire, + And without slumber pass the weary night. + + MOPSUS. + + Friend Aristaeus, if this amorous fire + Thou dost not seek to quench as best may be, + Thy peace of soul will vanish in desire. + Thou know'st that love is no new thing to me: + I've proved how love grown old brings bitter pain: + Cure it at once, or hope no remedy; + For if thou find thee in Love's cruel chain, + Thy bees, thy blossoms will be out of mind, + Thy fields, thy vines, thy flocks, thy cotes, thy grain + + ARISTAEUS. + + Mopsus, thou speakest to the deaf and blind: + Waste not on me these winged words, I pray, + Lest they be scattered to the inconstant wind, + I love, and cannot wish to say love nay; + Nor seek to cure so charming a disease: + They praise Love best who most against him say. + Yet if thou fain wouldst give my heart some ease, + Forth from thy wallet take thy pipe, and we + Will sing awhile beneath the leafy trees; + For well my nymph is pleased with melody. + + THE SONG. + + Listen, ye wild woods, to my roundelay; + Since the fair nymph will hear not, though I pray. + + The lovely nymph is deaf to my lament, + Nor heeds the music of this rustic reed; + Wherefore my flocks and herds are ill content, + Nor bathe their hoof where grows the water weed, + Nor touch the tender herbage on the mead; + So sad, because their shepherd grieves, are they. + + Listen, ye wild woods, to my roundelay; + Since the fair nymph will hear not, though I pray. + + The herds are sorry for their master's moan; + The nymph heeds not her lover though he die, + The lovely nymph, whose heart is made of stone-- + Nay steel, nay adamant! She still doth fly + Far, far before me, when she sees me nigh, + Even as a lamb flies fern the wolf away. + + Listen, ye wild woods, to my roundelay; + Since the fair nymph will hear not, though I pray. + + Nay, tell her, pipe of mine, how swift doth flee + Beauty together with our years amain; + Tell her how time destroys all rarity, + Nor youth once lost can be renewed again; + Tell her to use the gifts that yet remain: + Roses and violets blossom not alway. + + Listen, ye wild woods, to my roundelay; + Since the fair nymph will hear not, though I pray. + + Carry, ye winds, these sweet words to her ears, + Unto the ears of my loved nymph, and tell + How many tears I shed, what bitter tears! + Beg her to pity one who loves so well: + Say that my life is frail and mutable, + And melts like rime before the rising day. + + Listen, ye wild woods, to my roundelay; + Since the fair nymph will hear not, though I pray. + + MOPSUS. + + Less sweet, methinks the voice of waters falling + From cliffs that echo back their murmurous song; + Less sweet the summer sound of breezes calling + Through pine-tree tops sonorous all day long; + Than are thy rhymes, the soul of grief enthralling, + Thy rhymes o'er field and forest borne along: + If she but hear them, at thy feet she'll fawn.-- + Lo, Thyrsis, hurrying homeward from the lawn! + + [_Re-enters_ THYRSIS. + + ARISTAEUS. + + What of the calf? Say, hast thou seen her now? + + THYRSIS, _the cowherd_. + + I have, and I'd as lief her throat were cut! + She almost ripped my bowels up, I vow, + Running amuck with horns well set to butt: + Nathless I've locked her in the stall below: + She's blown with grass, I tell you, saucy slut! + + ARISTAEUS. + + Now, prithee, let me hear what made you stay + So long upon the upland lawns away? + + THYRSIS. + + Walking, I spied a gentle maiden there, + Who plucked wild flowers upon the mountain side: + I scarcely think that Venus is more fair, + Of sweeter grace, most modest in her pride: + She speaks, she sings, with voice so soft and rare, + That listening streams would backward roll their tide: + Her face is snow and roses; gold her head; + All, all alone she goes, white-raimented, + + ARISTAEUS. + + Stay, Mopsus! I must follow: for 'tis she + Of whom I lately spoke. So, friend, farewell! + + MOPSUS. + + Hold, Aristaeus, lest for her or thee + Thy boldness be the cause of mischief fell! + + ARISTAEUS. + + Nay, death this day must be my destiny, + Unless I try my fate and break the spell. + Stay therefore, Mopsus, by the fountain stay! + I'll follow her, meanwhile, yon mountain way. + + [_Exit_ ARISTAEUS. + + MOPSUS. + + Thyrsis, what thinkest thou of thy loved lord? + See'st thou that all his senses are distraught? + Couldst thou not speak some seasonable word, + Tell him what shame this idle love hath wrought? + + THYRSIS. + + Free speech and servitude but ill accord, + Friend Mopsus, and the hind is folly-fraught + Who rates his lord! He's wiser far than I. + To tend these kine is all my mastery. + + + + SCENE II + + ARISTAEUS, _in pursuit of_ EURYDICE. + + Flee not from me, maiden! + Lo, I am thy friend! + Dearer far than life I hold thee. + List, thou beauty-laden, + To these prayers attend: + Flee not, let my arms enfold thee! + Neither wolf nor bear will grasp thee: + That I am thy friend I've told thee: + Stay thy course then; let me clasp thee!-- + Since thou'rt deaf and wilt not heed me, + Since thou'rt still before me flying, + While I follow panting, dying, + Lend me wings, Love, wings to speed me! + + [_Exit_ ARISTAEUS, _pursuing_ EURYDICE. + + + + SCENE III + + A DRYAD. + + Sad news of lamentation and of pain, + Dear sisters, hath my voice to bear to you: + I scarcely dare to raise the dolorous strain. + Eurydice by yonder stream lies low; + The flowers are fading round her stricken head, + And the complaining waters weep their woe. + The stranger soul from that fair house hath fled; + And she, like privet pale, or white May-bloom + Untimely plucked, lies on the meadow, dead. + Hear then the cause of her disastrous doom! + A snake stole forth and stung her suddenly. + I am so burdened with this weight of gloom + That, lo, I bid you all come weep with me! + + CHORUS OF DRYADS. + + Let the wide air with our complaint resound! + For all heaven's light is spent. + Let rivers break their bound, + Swollen with tears outpoured from our lament! + + Fell death hath ta'en their splendour from the skies: + The stars are sunk in gloom. + Stern death hath plucked the bloom + Of nymphs:--Eurydice down-trodden lies. + Weep, Love! The woodland cries. + Weep, groves and founts; + Ye craggy mounts; you leafy dell, + Beneath whose boughs she fell, + Bend every branch in time with this sad sound. + + Let the wide air with our complaint resound! + + Ah, fortune pitiless! Ah, cruel snake! + Ah, luckless doom of woes! + Like a cropped summer rose, + Or lily cut, she withers on the brake. + Her face, which once did make + Our age so bright + With beauty's light, is faint and pale; + And the clear lamp doth fail, + Which shed pure splendour all the world around + + Let the wide air with our complaint resound! + + Who e'er will sing so sweetly, now she's gone? + Her gentle voice to hear, + The wild winds dared not stir; + And now they breathe but sorrow, moan for moan: + So many joys are flown, + Such jocund days + Doth Death erase with her sweet eyes! + Bid earth's lament arise, + And make our dirge through heaven and sea rebound! + + Let the wide air with our complaint resound! + + A DRYAD. + + 'Tis surely Orpheus, who hath reached the hill, + With harp in hand, glad-eyed and light of heart! + He thinks that his dear love is living still. + My news will stab him with a sudden smart: + An unforeseen and unexpected blow + Wounds worst and stings the bosom's tenderest part. + Death hath disjoined the truest love, I know, + That nature yet to this low world revealed, + And quenched the flame in its most charming glow. + Go, sisters, hasten ye to yonder field, + Where on the sward lies slain Eurydice; + Strew her with flowers and grasses! I must yield + This man the measure of his misery. + + [_Exeunt_ DRYADS. _Enter_ ORPHEUS, _singing_. + + ORPHEUS. + + _Musa, triumphales titulos et gesta canamus + Herculis, et forti monstra subacta manu; + Ut timidae malri pressos ostenderit angues, + Intrepidusque fero riserit ore puer._ + + A DRYAD. + + Orpheus, I bring thee bitter news. Alas! + Thy nymph who was so beautiful, is slain! + flying from Aristaeus o'er the grass, + What time she reached yon stream that threads the plain, + + A snake which lurked mid flowers where she did pass, + Pierced her fair foot with his envenomed bane: + So fierce, so potent was the sting, that she + Died in mid course. Ah, woe that this should be! + + [ORPHEUS _turns to go in silence._ + + MNESILLUS, _the satyr_. + + Mark ye how sunk in woe + The poor wretch forth doth pass, + And may not answer, for his grief, one word? + On some lone shore, unheard, + Far, far away, he'll go, + And pour his heart forth to the winds, alas! + I'll follow and observe if he + Moves with his moan the hills to sympathy. + + [_Follows_ ORPHEUS. + + ORPHEUS. + + Let us lament, O lyre disconsolate! + Our wonted music is in tune no more. + Lament we while the heavens revolve, and let + The nightingale be conquered on Love's shore! + O heaven, O earth, O sea, O cruel fate! + How shall I bear a pang so passing sore? + Eurydice, my love! O life of mine! + On earth I will no more without thee pine! + I will go down unto the doors of Hell, + And see if mercy may be found below: + Perchance we shall reverse fate's spoken spell + With tearful songs and words of honeyed woe: + Perchance will Death be pitiful; for well + With singing have we turned the streams that flow; + Moved stones, together hind and tiger drawn, + And made trees dance upon the forest lawn. + + [_Passes from sight on his way to Hades._ + + MNESILLUS. + + The staff of Fate is strong + And will not lightly bend, + Nor yet the stubborn gates of steely Hell. + Nay, I can see full well + His life will not be long: + Those downward feet no more will earthward wend. + What marvel if they lose the light, + Who make blind Love their guide by day and night! + + + + SCENE IV + + ORPHEUS, _at the gate of Hell._ + + Pity, nay pity for a lover's moan! + Ye Powers of Hell, let pity reign in you! + To your dark regions led me Love alone: + Downward upon his wings of light I flew. + Hush, Cerberus! Howl not by Pluto's throne! + For when you hear my tale of misery, you, + Nor you alone, but all who here abide + In this blind world, will weep by Lethe's tide. + There is no need, ye Furies, thus to rage; + To dart those snakes that in your tresses twine: + Knew ye the cause of this my pilgrimage, + Ye would lie down and join your moans with mine. + Let this poor wretch but pass, who war doth wage + With heaven, the elements, the powers divine! + I beg for pity or for death. No more! + But open, ope Hell's adamantine door! + + [ORPHEUS _enters Hell._ + + PLUTO. + + What man is he who with his golden lyre + Hath moved the gates that never move, + While the dead folk repeat his dirge of love? + The rolling stone no more doth tire + Swart Sisyphus on yonder hill; + And Tantalus with water slakes his fire; + The groans of mangled Tityos are still; + Ixion's wheel forgets to fly; + The Danaids their urns can fill: + I hear no more the tortured spirits cry; + But all find rest in that sweet harmony. + + PROSERPINE. + + Dear consort, since, compelled by love of thee, + I left the light of heaven serene, + And came to reign in hell, a sombre queen; + The charm of tenderest sympathy + Hath never yet had power to turn + My stubborn heart, or draw forth tears from me. + Now with desire for yon sweet voice I yearn; + Nor is there aught so dear + As that delight. Nay, be not stern + To this one prayer! Relax thy brows severe, + And rest awhile with me that song to hear! + + [ORPHEUS _stands before the throne._ + + ORPHEUS. + + Ye rulers of the people lost in gloom, + Who see no more the jocund light of day! + Ye who inherit all things that the womb + Of Nature and the elements display! + Hear ye the grief that draws me to the tomb! + Love, cruel Love, hath led me on this way: + Not to chain Cerberus I hither come, + But to bring back my mistress to her home. + A serpent hidden among flowers and leaves + Stole my fair mistress--nay, my heart--from me: + Wherefore my wounded life for ever grieves, + Nor can I stand against this agony. + Still, if some fragrance lingers yet and cleaves + Of your famed love unto your memory, + If of that ancient rape you think at all, + Give back Eurydice!--On you I call. + All things ere long unto this bourne descend: + All mortal lives to you return at last: + Whate'er the moon hath circled, in the end + Must fade and perish in your empire vast: + Some sooner and some later hither wend; + Yet all upon this pathway shall have passed: + This of our footsteps is the final goal; + And then we dwell for aye in your control. + Therefore the nymph I love is left for you + When nature leads her deathward in due time: + But now you've cropped the tendrils as they grew, + The grapes unripe, while yet the sap did climb: + Who reaps the young blades wet with April dew, + Nor waits till summer hath o'erpassed her prime? + Give back, give back my hope one little day!-- + Not for a gift, but for a loan I pray. + I pray not to you by the waves forlorn + Of marshy Styx or dismal Acheron, + By Chaos where the mighty world was born, + Or by the sounding flames of Phlegethon; + But by the fruit which charmed thee on that morn + When thou didst leave our world for this dread throne! + O queen! if thou reject this pleading breath, + I will no more return, but ask for death! + + PROSERPINE. + + Husband, I never guessed + That in our realm oppressed + Pity could find a home to dwell: + But now I know that mercy teems in Hell. + I see Death weep; her breast + Is shaken by those tears that faultless fell. + Let then thy laws severe for him be swayed + By love, by song, by the just prayers he prayed! + + PLUTO. + + She's thine, but at this price: + Bend not on her thine eyes, + Till mid the souls that live she stay. + See that thou turn not back upon the way! + Check all fond thoughts that rise! + Else will thy love be torn from thee away. + I am well pleased that song so rare as thine + The might of my dread sceptre should incline. + + + + SCENE V + + ORPHEUS, _sings._ + + _Ite tritumphales circum mea tempora lauri. + Vicimus Eurydicen: reddita vita mihi est, + Haec mea praecipue victoria digna corona. + Oredimus? an lateri juncta puella meo?_ + + EURYDICE. + + All me! Thy love too great + Hath lost not thee alone! + I am torn from thee by strong Fate. + No more I am thine own. + In vain I stretch these arms. Back, back to Hell + I'm drawn, I'm drawn. My Orpheus, fare thee well! + + [EURYDICE _disappears._ + + ORPHEUS. + + Who hath laid laws on Love? + Will pity not be given + For one short look so full thereof? + Since I am robbed of heaven, + Since all my joy so great is turned to pain, + I will go back and plead with Death again! + + [TISIPHONE _blocks his way._ + + TISIPHONE. + + Nay, seek not back to turn! + Vain is thy weeping, all thy words are vain. + Eurydice may not complain + Of aught but thee--albeit her grief is great. + Vain are thy verses 'gainst the voice of Fate! + How vain thy song! For Death is stern! + Try not the backward path: thy feet refrain! + The laws of the abyss are fixed and firm remain. + + + + SCENE VI + + ORPHEUS. + + What sorrow-laden song shall e'er be found + To match the burden of my matchless woe? + How shall I make the fount of tears abound, + To weep apace with grief's unmeasured flow? + Salt tears I'll waste upon the barren ground, + So long as life delays me here below; + And since my fate hath wrought me wrong so sore, + I swear I'll never love a woman more! + Henceforth I'll pluck the buds of opening spring, + The bloom of youth when life is loveliest, + Ere years have spoiled the beauty which they bring: + This love, I swear, is sweetest, softest, best! + Of female charms let no one speak or sing; + Since she is slain who ruled within my breast. + He who would seek my converse, let him see + That ne'er he talk of woman's love to me! + How pitiful is he who changes mind + For woman! for her love laments or grieves! + Who suffers her in chains his will to bind, + Or trusts her words lighter than withered leaves, + Her loving looks more treacherous than the wind! + A thousand times she veers; to nothing cleaves: + Follows who flies; from him who follows, flees; + And comes and goes like waves on stormy seas! + High Jove confirms the truth of what I said, + Who, caught and bound in love's delightful snare, + Enjoys in heaven his own bright Ganymed: + Phoebus on earth had Hyacinth the fair: + Hercules, conqueror of the world, was led + Captive to Hylas by this love so rare.-- + Advice for husbands! Seek divorce, and fly + Far, far away from female company! + + [_Enter a_ MAENAD _leading a train of_ BACCHANTES. + + A MAENAD. + + Ho! Sisters! Up! Alive! + See him who doth our sex deride! + Hunt him to death, the slave! + Thou snatch the thyrsus! Thou this oak-tree rive! + Cast down this doeskin and that hide! + We'll wreak our fury on the knave! + Yea, he shall feel our wrath, the knave! + He shall yield up his hide + Riven as woodmen fir-trees rive! + No power his life can save; + Since women he hath dared deride! + Ho! To him, sisters! Ho! Alive! + + [ORPHEUS _is chased off the scene and slain: the_ MAENADS + _then return._ + + A MAENAD. + + Ho! Bacchus! Ho! I yield thee thanks for this! + Through all the woodland we the wretch have borne: + So that each root is slaked with blood of his: + Yea, limb from limb his body have we torn + Through the wild forest with a fearful bliss: + His gore hath bathed the earth by ash and thorn!-- + Go then! thy blame on lawful wedlock fling! + Ho! Bacchus! take the victim that we bring! + + CHORUS OF MAENADS. + + Bacchus! we all must follow thee! + Bacchus! Bacchus! Ohe! Ohe! + + With ivy coronals, bunch and berry, + Crown we our heads to worship thee! + Thou hast bidden us to make merry + Day and night with jollity! + Drink then! Bacchus is here! Drink free, + And hand ye the drinking-cup to me! + Bacchus! we all must follow thee! + Bacchus! Bacchus! Ohe! Ohe! + + See, I have emptied my horn already: + Stretch hither your beaker to me, I pray: + Are the hills and the lawns where we roam unsteady? + Or is it my brain that reels away? + Let every one run to and fro through the hay, + As ye see me run! Ho! after me! + Bacchus! we all must follow thee! + Bacchus! Bacchus! Ohe! Ohe! + + Methinks I am dropping in swoon or slumber: + Am I drunken or sober, yes or no? + What are these weights my feet encumber? + You too are tipsy, well I know! + Let every one do as ye see me do, + Let every one drink and quaff like me! + Bacchus! we all must follow thee! + Bacchus! Bacchus! Ohe! Ohe! + + Cry Bacchus! Cry Bacchus! Be blithe and merry, + Tossing wine down your throats away! + Let sleep then come and our gladness bury: + Drink you, and you, and you, while ye may! + Dancing is over for me to-day. + Let every one cry aloud Evohe! + Bacchus! we all must follow thee! + Bacchus! Bacchus! Ohe! Ohe! + +Though an English translation can do little toward rendering the +facile graces of Poliziano's style, that 'roseate fluency' for which +it has been praised by his Italian admirers, the main qualities of the +'Orfeo' as a composition may be traced in this rough copy. Of dramatic +power, of that mastery over the deeper springs of human nature which +distinguished the first effort of the English muse in Marlowe's +plays, there is but little. A certain adaptation of the language to +the characters, as in the rudeness of Thyrsis when contrasted with the +rustic elegance of Aristaeus, a touch of simple feeling in Eurydice's +lyrical outcry of farewell, a discrimination between the tender +sympathy of Proserpine and Pluto's stern relenting, a spirited +presentation of the Bacchanalian _furore_ in the Maenads, an attempt to +model the Satyr Mnesillus as apart from human nature and yet +sympathetic to its anguish, these points constitute the chief dramatic +features of the melodrama. Orpheus himself is a purely lyrical +personage. Of character, he can scarcely be said to have anything +marked; and his part rises to its height precisely in that passage +where the lyrist has to be displayed. Before the gates of Hades and +the throne of Proserpine he sings, and his singing is the right +outpouring of a poet's soul; each octave resumes the theme of the last +stanza with a swell of utterance, a crescendo of intonation that +recalls the passionate and unpremeditated descant of a bird upon the +boughs alone. To this true quality of music is added the +persuasiveness of pleading. That the violin melody of his incomparable +song is lost, must be reckoned a great misfortune. We have good reason +to believe that the part of Orpheus was taken by Messer Baccio +Ugolini, singing to the viol. Here too it may be mentioned that a +_tondo_ in monochrome, painted by Signorelli among the arabesques at +Orvieto, shows Orpheus at the throne of Plato, habited as a poet with +the laurel crown and playing on a violin of antique form. It would be +interesting to know whether a rumour of the Mantuan pageant had +reached the ears of the Cortonese painter. + +If the whole of the 'Orfeo' had been conceived and executed with the +same artistic feeling as the chief act, it would have been a really +fine poem independently of its historical interest. But we have only +to turn the page and read the lament uttered for the loss of Eurydice, +in order to perceive Poliziano's incapacity for dealing with his hero +in a situation of greater difficulty. The pathos which might have made +us sympathise with Orpheus in his misery, the passion, approaching to +madness, which might have justified his misogyny, are absent. It is +difficult not to feel that in this climax of his anguish he was a poor +creature, and that the Maenads served him right. Nothing illustrates +the defect of real dramatic imagination better than this failure to +dignify the catastrophe. Gifted with a fine lyrical inspiration, +Poliziano seems to have already felt the Bacchic chorus which forms so +brilliant a termination to his play, and to have forgotten his duty +to the unfortunate Orpheus, whose sorrow for Eurydice is stultified +and made unmeaning by the prosaic expression of a base resolve. It may +indeed be said in general that the 'Orfeo' is a good poem only where +the situation is not so much dramatic as lyrical, and that its finest +passage--the scene in Hades--was fortunately for its author one in +which the dramatic motive had to be lyrically expressed. In this +respect, as in many others, the 'Orfeo' combines the faults and merits +of the Italian attempts at melo-tragedy. To break a butterfly upon the +wheel is, however, no fit function of criticism: and probably no one +would have smiled more than the author of this improvisation, at the +thought of its being gravely dissected just four hundred years after +the occasion it was meant to serve had long been given over to +oblivion. + +_NOTE_ + +Poliziano's 'Orfeo' was dedicated to Messer Carlo Canale, the husband +of that famous Vannozza who bore Lucrezia and Cesare Borgia to +Alexander VI. As first published in 1494, and as republished from time +to time up to the year 1776, it carried the title of 'La Favola di +Orfeo,' and was not divided into acts. Frequent stage-directions +sufficed, as in the case of Florentine 'Sacre Rappresentazioni,' for +the indication of the scenes. In this earliest redaction of the +'Orfeo' the chorus of the Dryads, the part of Mnesillus, the lyrical +speeches of Proserpine and Pluto, and the first lyric of the Maenads +are either omitted or represented by passages in _ottava rima_. In the +year 1776 the Padre Ireneo Affo printed at Venice a new version of +'Orfeo, Tragedia di Messer Angelo Poliziano,' collated by him from two +MSS. This play is divided into five acts, severally entitled +'Pastoricus,' 'Nymphas Habet,' 'Heroicus,' 'Necromanticus,' and +'Bacchanalis.' The stage-directions are given partly in Latin, partly +in Italian; and instead of the 'Announcement of the Feast' by Mercury, +a prologue consisting of two octave stanzas is appended. A Latin +Sapphic ode in praise of the Cardinal Gonzaga, which was interpolated +in the first version, is omitted, and certain changes are made in the +last soliloquy of Orpheus. There is little doubt, I think, that the +second version, first given to the press by the Padre Affo, was +Poliziano's own recension of his earlier composition. I have therefore +followed it in the main, except that I have not thought it necessary +to observe the somewhat pedantic division into acts, and have +preferred to use the original 'Announcement of the Feast,' which +proves the integral connection between this ancient secular play and +the Florentine Mystery or 'Sacra Rappresentazione.' The last soliloquy +of Orpheus, again, has been freely translated by me from both versions +for reasons which will be obvious to students of the original. I have +yet to make a remark upon one detail of my translation. In line 390 +(part of the first lyric of the Maenads) the Italian gives us:-- + + Spezzata come il fabbro il cribro spezza. + +This means literally: 'Riven as a blacksmith rives a sieve or +boulter.' Now sieves are made in Tuscany of a plate of iron, pierced +with holes; and the image would therefore be familiar to an Italian. I +have, however, preferred to translate thus:-- + + Riven as woodmen fir-trees rive, + +instead of giving:-- + + Riven as blacksmiths boulters rive, + +because I thought that the second and faithful version would be +unintelligible as well as unpoetical for English readers. + + * * * * * + + + + +_EIGHT SONNETS OF PETRARCH_ + + +ON THE PAPAL COURT AT AVIGNON + + Fountain of woe! Harbour of endless ire! + Thou school of errors, haunt of heresies! + Once Rome, now Babylon, the world's disease, + That maddenest men with fears and fell desire! + O forge of fraud! O prison dark and dire, + Where dies the good, where evil breeds increase! + Thou living Hell! Wonders will never cease + If Christ rise not to purge thy sins with fire. + Founded in chaste and humble poverty, + Against thy founders thou dost raise thy horn, + Thou shameless harlot! And whence flows this pride? + Even from foul and loathed adultery, + The wage of lewdness. Constantine, return! + Not so: the felon world its fate must bide. + + * * * * * + + +TO STEFANO COLONNA + +WRITTEN FROM VAUCLUSE + + Glorius Colonna, thou on whose high head + Rest all our hopes and the great Latin name, + Whom from the narrow path of truth and fame + The wrath of Jove turned not with stormful dread: + Here are no palace-courts, no stage to tread; + But pines and oaks the shadowy valleys fill + Between the green fields and the neighbouring hill, + Where musing oft I climb by fancy led. + These lift from earth to heaven our soaring soul, + While the sweet nightingale, that in thick bowers + Through darkness pours her wail of tuneful woe, + Doth bend our charmed breast to love's control; + But thou alone hast marred this bliss of ours, + Since from our side, dear lord, thou needs must go. + + + +IN VITA DI MADONNA LAURA. XI + +ON LEAVING AVIGNON + + + Backward at every weary step and slow + These limbs I turn which with great pain I bear; + Then take I comfort from the fragrant air + That breathes from thee, and sighing onward go. + But when I think how joy is turned to woe, + Remembering my short life and whence I fare, + I stay my feet for anguish and despair, + And cast my tearful eyes on earth below. + At times amid the storm of misery + This doubt assails me: how frail limbs and poor + Can severed from their spirit hope to live. + Then answers Love: Hast thou no memory + How I to lovers this great guerdon give, + Free from all human bondage to endure? + + * * * * * + + +IN VITA DI MADONNA LAURA. XII + +THOUGHTS IN ABSENCE + + The wrinkled sire with hair like winter snow + Leaves the beloved spot where he hath passed his years, + Leaves wife and children, dumb with bitter tears, + To see their father's tottering steps and slow. + Dragging his aged limbs with weary woe, + In these last days of life he nothing fears, + But with stout heart his fainting spirit cheers, + And spent and wayworn forward still doth go; + Then comes to Rome, following his heart's desire, + To gaze upon the portraiture of Him + Whom yet he hopes in heaven above to see: + Thus I, alas! my seeking spirit tire, + Lady, to find in other features dim + The longed for, loved, true lineaments of thee. + + +IN VITA DI MADONNA LAURA. LII + +OH THAT I HAD WINGS LIKE A DOVE! + + I am so tired beneath the ancient load + Of my misdeeds and custom's tyranny, + That much I fear to fail upon the road + And yield my soul unto mine enemy. + 'Tis true a friend from whom all splendour flowed, + To save me came with matchless courtesy: + Then flew far up from sight to heaven's abode, + So that I strive in vain his face to see. + Yet still his voice reverberates here below: + Oh ye who labour, lo! the path is here; + Come unto me if none your going stay! + What grace, what love, what fate surpassing fear + Shall give me wings like dove's wings soft as snow, + That I may rest and raise me from the clay? + + * * * * * + +IN MORTE DI MADONNA LAURA. XXIV + + + The eyes whereof I sang my fervid song, + The arms, the hands, the feet, the face benign, + Which severed me from what was rightly mine, + And made me sole and strange amid the throng, + The crisped curls of pure gold beautiful, + And those angelic smiles which once did shine + Imparadising earth with joy divine, + Are now a little dust--dumb, deaf, and dull. + And yet I live! wherefore I weep and wail, + Left alone without the light I loved so long, + Storm-tossed upon a bark that hath no sail. + Then let me here give o'er my amorous song; + The fountains of old inspiration fail, + And nought but woe my dolorous chords prolong. + + +IN MORTE DI MADONNA LAURA. XXXIV + + + In thought I raised me to the place where she + Whom still on earth I seek and find not, shines; + There 'mid the souls whom the third sphere confines, + More fair I found her and less proud to me. + She took my hand and said: Here shalt thou be + With me ensphered, unless desires mislead; + Lo! I am she who made thy bosom bleed, + Whose day ere eve was ended utterly: + My bliss no mortal heart can understand; + Thee only do I lack, and that which thou + So loved, now left on earth, my beauteous veil. + Ah! wherefore did she cease and loose my hand? + For at the sound of that celestial tale + I all but stayed in paradise till now. + + * * * * * + + +IN MORTE DI MADONNA LAURA. LXXIV + + + The flower of angels and the spirits blest, + Burghers of heaven, on that first day when she + Who is my lady died, around her pressed + Fulfilled with wonder and with piety. + What light is this? What beauty manifest? + Marvelling they cried: for such supremacy + Of splendour in this age to our high rest + Hath never soared from earth's obscurity. + She, glad to have exchanged her spirit's place, + Consorts with those whose virtues most exceed; + At times the while she backward turns her face + To see me follow--seems to wait and plead: + Therefore toward heaven my will and soul I raise, + Because I hear her praying me to speed. + + * * * * * + + FOOTNOTES: + + + [Footnote 1: We may compare with Venice what is known about + the ancient Hellenic city of Sybaris. Sybaris and Ravenna + were the Greek and Roman Venice of antiquity.] + + [Footnote 2: His first wife was a daughter of the great + general of the Venetians against Francesco Sforza. Whether + Sigismondo murdered her, as Sansovino seems to imply in his + _Famiglie Illustri_, or whether he only repudiated her after + her father's execution on the Piazza di San Marco, admits of + doubt. About the question of Sigismondo's marriage with + Isotta there is also some uncertainty. At any rate she had + been some time his mistress before she became his wife.] + + [Footnote 3: For the place occupied in the evolution of + Italian scholarship by this Greek sage, see my 'Revival of + Learning,' _Renaissance in Italy_, part 2.] + + [Footnote 4: The account of this church given by AEneas + Sylvius Piccolomini (Pii Secondi, Comment., ii. 92) + deserves quotation: 'AEdificavit tamen nobile templum + Arimini in honorem divi Francisci, verum ita gentilibus + operibus implevit, ut non tam Christianorum quam infidelium + daemones adorantium templum esse videatur.'] + + [Footnote 5: Almost all the facts of Alberti's life are to + be found in the Latin biography included in Muratori. It has + been conjectured, and not without plausibility, by the last + editor of Alberti's complete works, Bonucci, that this Latin + life was penned by Alberti himself.] + + [Footnote 6: There is in reality no doubt or problem about + this Saint Clair. She was born in 1275, and joined the + Augustinian Sisterhood, dying young, in 1308, as Abbess of + her convent. Continual and impassioned meditation on the + Passion of our Lord impressed her heart with the signs of + His suffering which have been described above. I owe this + note to the kindness of an anonymous correspondent, whom I + here thank.] + + [Footnote 7: The balance of probability leans against + Isabella in this affair. At the licentious court of the + Medici she lived with unpardonable freedom. Troilo Orsini + was himself assassinated in Paris by Bracciano's orders a + few years afterwards.] + + [Footnote 8: I have amplified and corrected this chronicle + by the light of Professor Gnoli's monograph, _Vittoria + Accoramboni_, published by Le Monnier at Florence in 1870.] + + [Footnote 9: In dealing with Webster's tragedy, I have + adhered to his use and spelling of names.] + + [Footnote 10: The fresco of the Coronation of the Virgin + upon the semi-dome of S. Giovanni is the work of a copyist, + Cesare Aretusi. But part of the original fresco, which was + removed in 1684, exists in a good state of preservation at + the end of the long gallery of the library.] + + [Footnote 11: See the chapter on Euripides in my _Studies of + Greek Poets_, First Series, for a further development of + this view of artistic evolution.] + + [Footnote 12: I find that this story is common in the + country round Canossa. It is mentioned by Professor A. + Ferretti in his monograph entitled _Canossa, Studi e + Ricerche_, Reggio, 1876, a work to which I am indebted, and + which will repay careful study.] + + [Footnote 13: Charles claimed under the will of Rene of + Anjou, who in turn claimed under the will of Joan II.] + + [Footnote 14: For an estimate of Cosimo's services to art + and literature, his collection of libraries, his great + buildings, his generosity to scholars, and his promotion of + Greek studies, I may refer to my _Renaissance in Italy_: + 'The Revival of Learning,' chap. iv.] + + [Footnote 15: Giottino had painted the Duke of Athens, in + like manner, on the same walls.] + + [Footnote 16: See _Archivio Storico_.] + + [Footnote 17: The order of rhymes runs thus: _a, b, b, a, a, + b, b, a, c, d, c, d, c, d_; or in the terzets, _c, d, e, c, + d, e_, or _c, d, e, d, c, e_, and so forth.] + + [Footnote 18: It has extraordinary interest for the student + of our literary development, inasmuch as it is full of + experiments in metres, which have never thriven on English + soil. Not to mention the attempt to write in asclepiads and + other classical rhythms, we might point to Sidney's _terza + rima_, poems with _sdrucciolo_ or treble rhymes. This + peculiar and painful form he borrowed from Ariosto and + Sanazzaro; but even in Italian it cannot be handled without + sacrifice of variety, without impeding the metrical movement + and marring the sense.] + + [Footnote 19: The stately structure of the _Prothalamion_ + and _Epithalamion_ is a rebuilding of the Italian Canzone. + His Eclogues, with their allegories, repeat the manner of + Petrarch's minor Latin poems.] + + [Footnote 20: Marlowe makes Gaveston talk of 'Italian + masques.' At the same time, in the prologue to + _Tamburlaine_, he shows that he was conscious of the new and + nobler direction followed by the drama in England.] + + [Footnote 21: This sentence requires some qualification. In + his _Poesia Popolare Italiana_, 1878, Professor d'Ancona + prints a Pisan, a Venetian, and two Lombard versions of our + Border ballad 'Where hae ye been, Lord Randal, my son,' so + close in general type and minor details to the English, + German, Swedish, and Finnish versions of this Volkslied as + to suggest a very ancient community of origin. It remains as + yet, however, an isolated fact in the history of Italian + popular poetry.] + + [Footnote 22: _Canti Popolari Toscani_, raccolti e annotati + da Giuseppe Tigri. Volume unico. Firenze: G. Barbera, 1869.] + + [Footnote 23: This is a description of the Tuscan rispetto. + In Sicily the stanza generally consists of eight lines + rhyming alternately throughout, while in the North of Italy + it is normally a simple quatrain. The same poetical material + assumes in Northern, Central, and Southern Italy these + diverge but associated forms.] + + [Footnote 24: This song, called Ciure (Sicilian for _fiore_) + in Sicily, is said by Signor Pitre to be in disrepute there. + He once asked an old dame of Palermo to repeat him some of + these ditties. Her answer was, 'You must get them from light + women; I do not know any. They sing them in bad houses and + prisons, where, God be praised, I have never been.' In + Tuscany there does not appear to be so marked a distinction + between the flower song and the rispetto.] + + [Footnote 25: Much light has lately been thrown on the + popular poetry of Italy; and it appears that contemporary + improvisatori trust more to their richly stocked memories + and to their power of recombination than to original or + novel inspiration. It is in Sicily that the vein of truly + creative lyric utterance is said to flow most freely and + most copiously at the present time.] + + [Footnote 26: 'Remember me, fair one, to the scrivener. I do + not know him or who he is, but he seems to me a sovereign + poet, so cunning is he in his use of verse.'] + + [Footnote 27: It must be remarked that Tigri draws a strong + contrast in this respect between the songs of the mountain + districts which he has printed and those of the towns, and + that Pitre, in his edition of Sicilian _Volkslieder_, + expressly alludes to the coarseness of a whole class which + he had omitted. The MSS. of Sicilian and Tuscan songs, + dating from the fifteenth century and earlier, yield a fair + proportion of decidedly obscene compositions. Yet the fact + stated above is integrally correct. When acclimatised in the + large towns, the rustic Muse not unfrequently assumes a garb + of grossness. At home, among the fields and on the + mountains, she remains chaste and romantic.] + + [Footnote 28: In a rispetto, of which I subjoin a + translation, sung by a poor lad to a mistress of higher + rank, love itself is pleaded as the sign of a gentle soul:-- + + My state is poor: I am not meet + To court so nobly born a love; + For poverty hath tied my feet, + Trying to climb too far above. + Yet am I gentle, loving thee; + Nor need thou shun my poverty. + + [Footnote 29: When the Cherubina, of whom mention has been + made above, was asked by Signor Tigri to dictate some of her + rispetti, she answered, 'O signore! ne dico tanti quando li + canto! . . . ma ora . . . bisognerebbe averli tutti in + visione; se no, proprio non vengono.'] + + [Footnote 30: I need hardly guard myself against being + supposed to mean that the form of _Ballata_ in question was + the only one of its kind in Italy.] + + [Footnote 31: See my _Sketches in Italy and Greece_, p. + 114.] + + [Footnote 32: The originals will be found in Carducci's + _Studi Letterari_, p. 273 _et seq._ I have preserved their + rhyming structure.] + + [Footnote 33: Stanza XLIII. All references are made to + Carducci's excellent edition, _Le Stanze, l'Orfeo e le Rime + di Messer Angelo Ambrogini Poliziano._ Firenze: G. Barbera. + 1863.] + + + + + +End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of Sketches and Studies in Italy and +Greece, Second Series, by John Addington Symonds + +*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK ITALY AND GREECE *** + +***** This file should be named 14634.txt or 14634.zip ***** +This and all associated files of various formats will be found in: + https://www.gutenberg.org/1/4/6/3/14634/ + +Produced by Ted Garvin, Jayam and the PG Online Distributed +Proofreading Team + + +Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions +will be renamed. + +Creating the works from public domain print editions means that no +one owns a United States copyright in these works, so the Foundation +(and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United States without +permission and without paying copyright royalties. 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