Part 5 (1/2)

As to her personal appearance, Veronica was not beautiful in face, as her features were irregular; but it was said of her in her early womanhood that if her face had equalled her form she would have been one of the most beautiful women of her time. She was high-strung, enthusiastic, and pa.s.sionate, but she possessed a character and an intelligence which enabled her to hold herself in check; she was a most devoted wife and entirely domestic in her disposition. Her poetry is addressed chiefly to her husband, and she never tires of extolling his many virtues. His eyes, in particular, seem to have been especially beautiful in her sight, as she devotes no less than six sonnets and a madrigal to a description of their charms, calling them _occhi stellante_, and telling of their power in most fervid terms. We cannot, however, consider her as a woman who was wholly concerned with her own small affairs, as her letters show her to have been in communication with the most ill.u.s.trious literary men and women of all Italy, including Ariosto, Bembo, Sannazzaro, and Vittoria Colonna. Though her literary baggage was not extensive, the few sonnets she has left have a strength, simplicity, and sincerity which were rare among the poets of her time.

Her best poem was one addressed to the rival sovereigns, the Emperor Charles V., and the brilliant Francis I. of France; in it she pleads with them to give peace to Italy and join their forces, so as to drive back from the sh.o.r.es of Europe the host of the infidels. Her death occurred in the year 1550, and then, Mrs. Jameson tells us in somewhat ambiguous phrase, ”she was buried by her husband.” A little reflection will clear away the doubt, however, and make clear the fact that she was laid to rest beside the husband for whom she had buried herself in black for so many years.

No woman more completely devoted herself to her husband's memory, by means of her enduring verse, or deserves a higher place in the annals of conjugal poetry, than Vittoria Colonna; such laurel wreaths did she put upon the brow of her spouse, the Marquis of Pescara, that Ariosto was tempted to say, in substance, that if Alexander had envied Achilles the fame he had acquired in the songs of Homer, how much more would he have envied Pescara those strains wherein his gifted wife had exalted his fame above that of all contemporary heroes! Vittoria came from most ill.u.s.trious families, as her father was the Grand Constable Fabrizio Colonna and her mother was Anna di Montefeltro, daughter of Federigo, the first great Duke of Urbino. At the early age of four, fate joined Vittoria in an infant marriage to the young Count d'Avalo, who was of her own age, and who later, as the Marquis of Pescara, really became her husband. When Vittoria was but a young girl, her beauty and her wonderful talents, added to her high station, made her conspicuous among her countrywomen, and her hand was often sought in marriage even by reigning princes. Both the Duke of Savoy and the Duke of Braganza desired to marry her, and the pope was even persuaded to plead their cause; but all to no avail, as she had long considered her future settled and had no desire to change it. At the age of seventeen they celebrated their wedding, and their life together, which began with that moment, was never marred by a single discordant note.

The first four years of their married life were spent on the island of Ischia, where Pescara had a villa and a small estate, and there they lived in an idyllic happiness which has almost become proverbial. The young husband was not so studiously inclined as was his gifted wife, but he was a manly fellow, much given to athletic pursuits, and with a decided taste for a military career, and Vittoria was loved by him in a most tender and n.o.ble fas.h.i.+on. They were denied the happiness of children, and the young wife expresses her sorrow over this fact in her twenty-second sonnet; but she consoles herself by adding: ”since it is not given to me to be the mother of sons who shall inherit their father's glory, at least may I be able, by uniting my name with his in verse, to become the mother of his great deeds and lofty fame.” After their long honeymoon had come to an end, Pescara was moved to return to the world, or rather to enter it for the first time as a man, and he entered the imperial army. At the age of twenty-one, as a general of cavalry, he took part in the battle of Ravenna, where he was made a prisoner of war. After a year's detention, however, he was allowed to return to his post, and then followed campaigning in various parts of the peninsula. Vittoria, during all these days of absence, had remained quietly in their island home at Ischia, where she devoted her time to the composition of those sonnets in honor of her husband's glorious deeds which have since brought her such lasting reputation. In token of her fidelity and her general att.i.tude toward the world and society at this time, Vittoria had adopted as her device a small Cupid within the circlet of a twisted snake, and under it was the significant motto: _Quem peperit virtus prudentia servet amorem_ [Discretion shall guard the love which virtue inspired]. The soldier-husband came for a hasty visit to Ischia whenever distances and the varying fortunes of war made it possible; but his stays were brief, and he always wore in his wife's eyes that romantic halo which it was but natural that a poetic woman should throw about the head of a young and brilliant general whose handsome features and n.o.ble carriage made him none the less attractive, and who happened at the same time to be her husband.

After a somewhat short but notable career as a soldier, Pescara was given entire command of the imperial armies, and he it was who directed the fortunes of the day during that memorable battle of Pavia when King Francis I. of France was captured, and when the ill.u.s.trious French knight ”without fear and without reproach,” the Chevalier Bayard, made that remark which has long since become historic, _Tout est perdu fors l'honneur_. That battle won, and with such credit to himself, Pescara was loaded with praise and rewards, and, as is often the case under such circ.u.mstances, he was subjected to some temptations. His power had become so great, and his military skill was considered so remarkable, that efforts were made to entice him from the imperial service; he was actually offered the crown of the kingdom of Naples in case he would be willing to renounce his allegiance to Charles V. The offer tempted him, and he hesitated for a moment, writing to his wife to ascertain her opinion on the subject. It is clear that he wavered in his duty, but his excuse to Vittoria was that he longed to see her on a throne which she could grace indeed. She, however, without a moment's hesitation, wrote to him to remain faithful to his sovereign, saying, in a letter cited by Giambattista Rota: ”I do not desire to be the wife of a king, but rather of that great captain who, by means of his valor in war and his n.o.bility of soul in time of peace, has been able to conquer the greatest monarchs.” Pescara, obedient to his wife's desire, immediately began to free himself from the temptations which had been besetting his path, but he had gone so far upon this dangerous road that he was able to turn aside from it only after his. .h.i.therto untarnished honor had been sullied. The criticism which he received at this time made him melancholy, and, weakened by wounds received at the battle of Pavia, which now broke out again, he soon came to his end at Milan, at the age of thirty-five. Though she was for a long time stunned by her grief, Vittoria finally accepted her sorrow with some degree of calmness.

Back she then went to Ischia, where they had pa.s.sed those earlier days together, and there, for seven years almost without interruption, she spent her time thinking of the dead lord of Pescara, and extolling him in her verse. Still young and beautiful, it was but natural that her grief might be controlled in time and that she might again find happiness in married life. Distinguished princes pleaded with her in vain, and even her brothers urged her to this course, which, under the circ.u.mstances, they considered entirely within the bounds of propriety; but to them all she gave the calm a.s.surance that her n.o.ble husband, though dead to others, was still alive for her and constantly in her thoughts. After the first period of her grief had pa.s.sed, she found herself much drawn toward spiritual and religious thoughts, and then it was that her poetry became devotional in tone and sacred subjects were now her only inspiration. Roscoe mentions the fact that she was at this time suspected of sympathizing in secret with the reformed doctrines in religion which were then making such headway in the North and playing such havoc with the papal interests, but there seems little ground for this suspicion beyond the fact that her devotion to the things of the spirit and her somewhat austere ideas in regard to manners and morals were in that day so unusual as to call forth comment. This sacred verse was published in a volume ent.i.tled _Rime spirituali_, and Guingene is authority for the statement that no other author before Vittoria Colonna had ever published a volume of poetry devoted exclusively to religious themes.

Her most faithful friend and admirer in all her long widowhood of twenty-two years was the great artist, sculptor, and painter, Michael Angelo, who never failed to treat her with the tenderest courtesy and respect. No other woman had ever touched his heart, and she gave him suggestion and inspiration for much of his work. After those first seven years of loneliness at Ischia, Vittoria spent much time in the convents of Orvieto and Viterbo, and later she lived in the greatest seclusion at Rome; there it was that death overtook her. Wherever she went, Michael Angelo's thoughtfulness followed her out, and in those last moments at Rome he was with her, faithful to the end. He was the kindly, rugged master-genius of his time, an intellectual giant, and she was a woman of rare devotion and purity of soul; and the real Platonic affection which seems to have possessed them, in that age of license and scepticism, is touching and impressive. What this friends.h.i.+p meant to him, the poet has expressed in the following sonnet addressed to Vittoria, which is here given in Wordsworth's matchless translation:

”Yes! hope may with my strong desire keep pace, And I be undeluded, unbetrayed; For if of our affections none find grace in sight of Heaven, then, wherefore had G.o.d made The world which we inhabit? Better plea Love cannot have than that in loving thee Glory to that eternal peace is paid, Who such divinity to thee imparts As hallows and makes pure all gentle hearts.

His hope is treacherous only whose love dies With beauty, which is varying every hour: But in chaste hearts, uninfluenced by the power Of outward change, there blooms a deathless flower, That breathes on earth the air of Paradise.”

The ducal court at Ferrara became, in the latter half of the sixteenth century, the centre of much intellectual life and brilliancy; generous patronage was extended to the arts and to literature, and here gathered together a company which rivalled in splendor the court of Urbino in the days of the Countess Elizabetta. The duke, Alfonso II., son of that unfortunate Renee, daughter of Louis XII. of France, who had been kept in an Italian prison for twelve long years because of her suspected sympathy with the reformed doctrines, came of a long line of princes who had in the past given liberally to the cause of learning. During his reign, which covers the period from 1559 to 1597, the social side of court life in his dukedom came into special prominence. The two sisters of Alfonso--Lucrezia and Leonora--presided over this court, and to it came, from time to time, many of the most beautiful women of Italy.

Tarquinia Moeza was there, a woman of beauty and of rare poetic gifts; Lucrezia Bendidio, beautiful and accomplished, and having constantly about her a most admiring throng of poets and literati; and later came the two acknowledged beauties of the day, Leonora di Sanvitali, Countess of Scandiano, and her no less charming mother-in-law, Barbara, Countess of Sala. Among the men of this company, suffice it to mention the name of the poet Guarini, whose fame has become enduring on account of his charming and idyllic drama, _Il pastor fido_, for he it is who seems to embody that sprightliness of wit which gave to Ferrara at that time its gladsome reputation.

To this court there came, for the first time, in the year 1565, young Torquato Ta.s.so, poet and courtier, scholar and gentleman, and already the author of a published narrative poem, the _Rinaldo_, which caused him to be hailed as the most promising poet of his generation when he was but in his eighteenth year. Bernardo Ta.s.so, the poet's father, was likewise a poet and a professional courtier of some distinction, and varying fortunes had taken him to Urbino, where the son Torquato grew up, surrounded by all the evidences of refinement and culture. He had been favored by nature with a tall and commanding figure, and his good looks had already caused more than one gentle heart to flutter, when, at the age of twenty-one, with his father's consent and approval, he entered the service of the Cardinal Luigi d'Este, and became at once a conspicuous figure in court circles. Almost instantly the youth, filled as he was with most romantic ideas and readily susceptible to the power of woman's beauty, fell a captive to the charms of the Princess Leonora d'Este, who, though some ten years his senior, seemed to embody all the graces and to completely satisfy the ideal which up to this time he had been able to see only with his mind's eye. Leonora had already been sought in marriage by many t.i.tled suitors, but she had invariably turned a deaf ear to such proposals, never finding one who could please her fancy or who promised comfort in her loneliness. For she was lonely in that court, as she seems to have dwelt in a sort of spiritual isolation most of the time; there was always a melancholy air about her, which had no doubt been induced in large measure by her mother's sad fate. For Ta.s.so to love her was most natural; but they both knew that such a love could be but hopeless, and it cannot be said that she encouraged him in any covert manner or that he made open profession of his pa.s.sion. It is true that he makes her the subject of many of his poems, wherein he lauds her to the skies, but this is no more than was expected of a court poet; he did the same for other ladies, but in all that was dedicated to her charms there seems to s.h.i.+ne forth a truer light of real affection than is found in all the others. What words of affection, if any, pa.s.sed between them can never be known; but it seems that there must have been some sort of tacit consent to his silent adoration, and Ta.s.so tells in a madrigal, perhaps in proof of this, that once, when he had asked her pardon for having put his arm upon her own in the eagerness of conversation, she replied, with gentleness: ”You offended, not by putting your arm there, but by taking it away!”

For twelve years Ta.s.so remained at Ferrara, constantly writing sonnets and short poems of all descriptions, which were most often addressed to Leonora, but at the same time he was busily working upon that longer poem in epic form, descriptive of the First Crusade, the _Gerusalemme liberata_, wherein he puts a new feeling into Italian poetry, which had been expressed before by Ariosto in his amatory verse, but which cannot be found to any great extent in his more pretentious work, the _Orlando Furioso_. This new feeling was real sentiment, and not sentimentality, and it denotes the growing conception of the worth and dignity of womanhood which we have already discovered in the poetry of Michael Angelo. Allowing for the infinite contradictions possible in human nature, it may be that these men of the same time, who so coolly killed their wives and sisters for acts of infidelity, were touched in some dim way with the same feeling, to which, alas! they gave but sorry expression, if the surmise be true.

The constant excitement of the court and his unending literary labors commenced to tell upon the poet in 1575, when his health began to fail and he grew irritable and restless, became subject to delusions, fancied that he had been denounced by the Inquisition, and was in daily terror of being poisoned. Then it was said that the poet was mad, and there are some who have whispered that it was his unrequited love for the Princess Leonora which brought about this calamity. However that may be, the climax was reached in the year 1577, when Ta.s.so, in the presence of Lucrezia d'Este,--who was then d.u.c.h.ess of Urbino,--drew a knife upon one of his servants. For this he was arrested, but soon after was given his liberty on condition that he should go to a Franciscan monastery and give himself that rest and attention which his failing health demanded.

Here, however, he was beset with the idea that the duke sought to take his life, and he fled in disguise to his sister, who was then living at Sorrento. Various explanations have been given for this sudden flight, and some biographers have insinuated that the duke had discovered some hidden intrigue between his sister Leonora and Ta.s.so which had caused the latter to fear for his safety. This supposition cannot be accepted as true, however, for if the duke had known or had even strongly suspected such a thing he would have promptly put the poet to death without compunction, and such a course of action would have been entirely justified by the public sentiment of the time. And if this supposition were true, is it probable that Ta.s.so would have been allowed to return to Ferrara in a short time, as he did? Now, begins a confused life, and the poet comes and goes, moved by a strange restlessness, never happy away from Ferrara, yet never caring to stay there long.

Finally, on one occasion he thought himself so neglected at his return that he made a most violent scene, and became so bitter and incoherent in his complaints that he was p.r.o.nounced insane and imprisoned by order of the duke. There he remained for seven years, and the most of that time he was in a well-lighted and well-furnished room, where he was allowed to receive visitors and devote himself to literary work whenever he so desired. At the end of this time, in which Ta.s.so himself speaks of his mental disorder, he went to Mantua, where he had been invited by the Prince Vincenzo Gonzaga; there he spent a few pleasant months; but he soon grew discontented, the roaming fit came upon him again, and after a number of years of pitiful endeavor he finally died, in 1595, at the convent of Saint Onofrio.

It does not seem just to blame the Princess Leonora d'Este for the sad fate which befell Ta.s.so, as so many have done, for there is no proof of any unkindness on her part. That he loved her there can be but little doubt, but hardly to the verge of madness, as he wrote love sonnets to other ladies at the same time; the truth seems to be that he became mentally unbalanced as the result of the precocious development of his powers, which made a man of him while yet a boy and developed in him an intensity of feeling which made his candle of life burn fiercely, but for a short time only. His end was but the natural consequence of the beginning, and whether Leonora helped or hindered in the final result, it matters not, for she was blameless. She died in the second year of Ta.s.so's imprisonment, sad at heart as she had ever been, never deeply touched by the poet's constant praises, and to the end a victim to that melancholy mood which had come upon her in childhood.

CHAPTER X

THE SEVENTEENTH AND EIGHTEENTH CENTURIES

The transition from the sixteenth to the seventeenth century in Italy was marked by no sudden changes of any kind. The whole country was thoroughly prostrate and under the control of the empire; a national spirit did not exist, and the people seemed content to slumber on without opposing in any way the tyranny of their foreign masters. The glory of the Italian Renaissance had been sung in all the countries of Europe; in every nook and corner of the continent, Italian painters and sculptors, princes and poets, artists and artisans of all kinds, had stimulated this new birth of the world; but this mission accomplished, Italy seemed to find little more to do, and for lack of an ideal her sons and daughters wasted their time in the pursuit of idle things. It was the natural reaction after an age of unusual force and brilliancy.

In the shadow of the great achievements of the sixteenth century in all lines of human activity, the seventeenth, lost in admiration, could imagine no surer way to equal attainment than to imitate what had gone before. Literature became stilted and full of mannerisms and underwent a process of refinement which left it without strength or vigor, and society in general seemed more concerned with form and ceremony than with the deeper things of the spirit.

Countless examples are on record to show the petty jealousies which were agitating the public mind at this time, and the number of quarrels and arguments which had their origin in most trivial causes pa.s.ses belief.

Rank and position were of the utmost consequence, and questions of precedence in public functions were far more eagerly discussed than were questions of national policy. Naples, under the control of Spanish princes, was particularly noted for such exhibitions of undignified behavior. On one occasion, during a solemn church ceremony, the military governor of the city left the cathedral in a great rage because he had noticed that a small footstool had been placed for the archbishop, while nothing of the kind had been provided for his own comfort. At the death of a certain princess, the royal commissioners delayed the funeral because it was claimed that she had used arms and insignia of n.o.bility above her true rank, and was not ent.i.tled, therefore, to the brilliant obsequies which were being planned by the members of her family. The body was finally put in a vault and left unburied until the matter had been pa.s.sed upon by the heraldry experts in Madrid! During the funeral services which were being held in honor of the Queen of Spain, the archbishop desired footstools placed for all the bishops present, but the vicegerent opposed this innovation, and the ceremony was finally suspended because they could come to no agreement. The cities of Cremona and Pavia were in litigation for eighty-two years over the question as to which should have precedence over the other in public functions where representatives of the two places happened to be together; finally, the Milanese Senate, to which the question was submitted, ”after careful examination and mature deliberation, decided that it had nothing to decide.” Another example of this small-mindedness is shown in the case of the General Giovanni Serbelloni, who, while fighting in the Valteline in 1625, was unwilling to open a despatch which had been sent to him, because he had not been addressed by all his t.i.tles. It is a pleasure to add that as a result of this action he was left in ignorance as to the approach of the enemy and the next day suffered a severe defeat.

Rome was the seat of much splendor and display--an inevitable state of affairs when the fact is taken into consideration that the city was filled with legates and emba.s.sies, all anxious to wait upon his holiness the pope and gain some special privilege or concession. At this time the cardinals, too, were not mere ecclesiastics, but rather men of great wealth and power; often they became prime ministers in their several countries,--as Richelieu, for example,--and the great and influential houses of Savoy, Este, Gonzaga, Farnese, Barberini, and many others, always possessed one or more of them who vied in magnificence with the pope himself. And all this helped to make the Eternal City the scene of much brilliancy. The papal court was the natural centre of all this animation, and many a stately procession wended its way to the Vatican.

On one occasion, the Duke of Parma, wis.h.i.+ng to compliment a newly elected pope, sent as his representative the Count of San Secondo, who went to his solemn interview followed by a long procession of one hundred and fifty carriages, and appeared before the pontiff with eighteen distinguished prelates in his train. This mad pa.s.sion for display led to so many evils of all kinds that Urban VIII. prohibited ”indecent garments” for both men and women. In the interests of public morality, it was further decreed that women were not to take music lessons from men, and nuns were allowed no other professors than their own companions. Public singing, distinct from religious ceremonies, was a novelty at this time, and women with the gift of song were paid most liberally for their services. Venice was the city most noted for its festivals and carnivals, and here these women were given most generous treatment.

In Florence, as in all the rest of Italy, Spain was taken as ”the gla.s.s of fas.h.i.+on, the mould of form” for the first part of the century, but the splendor of the court of Louis Quatorze soon caused French fas.h.i.+ons to reign supreme. Then, as now, brides were accustomed to dress in white, while married women were given a wide lat.i.tude in their choice of colors. At first, widows wore a dress distinctive not only in color but in cut, yet eventually they were to be distinguished by only a small head-dress of black c.r.a.pe. Young women were much given to curling their hair, and at the same time it was the fas.h.i.+on to wear upon the forehead a cl.u.s.ter of blond curls, a _pet.i.te perruque_, which, in the words of an old chronicler, Rinuccini, ”is very unbecoming to those whose hair happens to be of another color.” From the same authority is derived the following information concerning the women belonging to the under crust of society: ”Prost.i.tutes, formerly, all wore an apparent sign which revealed their infamous profession; it was a yellow ribbon fastened to the strings of the hats, which were then in fas.h.i.+on; when hats went out of style, the yellow ribbon was worn in the hair, and if the women were ever found without it they were severely punished. Finally, on payment of a certain tax, they were allowed to go without the ribbon, and then they were to be distinguished by their impudence only.” In Florence, women of this cla.s.s were especially noted for their beauty, and there it was customary to compel them all to live within a certain district.

In the average Florentine household it had been the custom to have three women servants,--a cook, a second girl, and a _matrona_. This third servant was better educated than the others, and it was her duty, outside of the house, to keep her mistress company, whether she rode in her carriage or went about on foot. At home, she did the sewing and the mending, and generally dressed her mistress and combed her hair. For this work the _matrona_ received a salary of six or seven dollars a month, and it seems to have been usual for her employers to arrange a good marriage for her after several years of service, giving her at that time from one hundred to one hundred and fifty crowns as a dowry. Later in the century, the _matrona_ does not seem to have been so common, and many women went alone in their carriages, while on foot they were accompanied by a manservant in livery. The wealthier ladies of the n.o.bility, however, were accompanied in their conveyances by a _donzella_, and on the street and in all public places by an elderly and dignified manservant, dressed in black, who was known as the _cavaliere_. The fas.h.i.+on with regard to this male protector became so widespread that the women of the middle cla.s.s were in the habit of hiring the services of some such individual for their occasional use on fete days and whenever they went to ma.s.s. The further development of this custom and its effect upon public morals in the following century will be discussed on another page.

Busy with all-absorbing questions of dress, etiquette, and domestic management, it does not appear that the women of the seventeenth century in Italy took any great share in public events, although one Italian woman at least, leaving the country of her birth, was placed by fate upon a royal throne. Henry IV. of France, about the year 1600, was hard pressed for the payment of certain debts by Ferdinand I., Grand Duke of Tuscany, as the Medici were still the bankers of Europe, and the French king was owing more than a million louis d'or; but the whole matter was settled in a satisfactory way when Henry gave definite promises to pay within a dozen years. To maintain his credit in the meantime, and to facilitate the payment of the money, the one-time King of Navarre demanded in marriage Marie de' Medici, the niece of the grand duke; it is needless to say that the request was speedily granted, for the pride and ambition of this rich Tuscan family were unlimited, and the memory of that other daughter of the house of Medici, Catherine, who had been Queen of France and mother of three French kings, was still fresh in the minds of all. The wedding ceremony was performed in great splendor, at Florence, Henry sending a proxy to represent him at that time; and then the young bride set out for France, followed by a glittering retinue, and bearing, as her dowry, six hundred thousand crowns of gold. Arriving at Leghorn, they took s.h.i.+p for Ma.r.s.eilles, and then began a triumphal march across the country, cities vying with each other in doing her honor. Cantu tells us that at Avignon, which was still a city under the temporal sway of the pope, Marie was placed in a chariot drawn by two elephants, and given an escort of two thousand cavaliers. There were seven triumphal arches and seven theatres; for it was the proud boast of the residents of Avignon that everything went by sevens in their city, as there were seven palaces, seven parishes, seven old convents, seven monasteries, seven hospitals, seven colleges, and seven gates in the city wall! Several addresses of welcome were delivered in the presence of the young queen, though in this instance the number was hardly seven, poems were read, and she received a number of gold medals bearing her profile upon one side and the city's coat of arms upon the other. Henry had left Paris to come to meet his bride, and it was at Lyons that the royal pair saw each other for the first time. It cannot be said that this first interview was warmly enthusiastic, for the king found her far less beautiful than the portrait which had been sent to him, and he soon came to the sad conclusion that she was too fat, had staring eyes and bad manners, and was very stubborn.