Part 9 (1/2)
[10] Roscoe's Lorenzo de' Medici. Some of his pieces may be found in Crescembini, Della volgare Poesia, ii. 11.
One morning, when it was discovered that many valuable statues in Rome had been broken and defaced during the night, the Pope was so incensed at it that he gave orders that whoever had committed the outrage, unless it should prove to be Cardinal Ippolito, should be hanged. This looks as if he were not quite sure that Ippolito might not be the culprit.
However, the offender proved to be Lorenzino de' Medici; and it required all Ippolito's influence with the Pope to get him off.
A Cardinal who could even be suspected by a Pope of playing such a prank must have been a sorry sort of a churchman; and though we read of ”his frank, chivalrous nature,” it would be vain indeed to look for anything like spirituality in a Medici. When Giulia asked him for something to supply the vague longings of her heart for a higher happiness than this world could give, he was quite at sea, and could direct her to nothing but ascetic observances and the sacrifice of all her possessions to the church, whose coffers he so recklessly emptied. Yet he had a nature capable of better things; but it could not shake itself free from the trammels of earth. When he looked at Giulia's picture he thought, ”There, is a woman who might have made me happy.” Perhaps he even thought, ”There is a woman who might have made me good;” but when a man thinks this and makes no effort to become one whit better than he is, he might just as well spare himself the reflection.
Of course there were many versions of the story of Barbarossa's attempt to capture the d.u.c.h.ess. Affo, the family annalist, summons all his sesquipedalian vocabulary to dignify the occurrence with such eloquence as this--”Quali fosseri gli affetti del suo delicatissimo animo in cotal fuga, degno argomento di poema! e di storia, giovera per interrompimento di ques...o...b...s.so mio stile, di alzarsi a tanto incapace,” &c., &c. And Muzio Giustinapolitano indited an eclogue on the subject, beginning--
”Muse! quali antri o qual riposte selve Vi teneano in quel punto? e tu, Minerva!
Qual sacri studj? E qual nuova vaghezza Il dolce Amor?” &c., &c.
”What were you all about, ye muses, G.o.ddesses, and you, you little G.o.d of love,” &c., that you did not fly to the rescue of this adorable lady?
and so forth.
It was not only declared that Barbarossa had been despatched by the Sultan, who desired to enumerate her among the beauties of his harem, but that she had flung herself out of window, in her chemise, and fled barefooted to the mountains, where she fell into the hands of some condottieri, who, recognising her, respectfully conducted her back to her castle. Giulia was very angry when these stories reached her, which she was the last, however, to hear of; and when it was learnt that she was contradicting them with warmth, another and worse story was circulated, that she had had a Moorish slave a.s.sa.s.sinated for having told the truth; in proof of which, his dead body had been cast ash.o.r.e with his tongue cut out. When Giulia begged her kinsmen to refute these calumnies, they only pooh-poohed them, which greatly enraged her; and she was heard to exclaim, ”What a world this is!” which, after all, was not a very original observation.
Extremely weary of herself and of things in general, she one morning languidly opened a letter from her cousin, the Marchioness of Pescara, with very little expectation of its affording her much interest or amus.e.m.e.nt.
”Vittoria is always a flight above me,” she mentally said. ”I never was, and never shall be, one of your grand intellectual ladies.”
This was said with that species of contempt with which too many of us imply, ”Your grand intellectual ladies are great stupids, after all”--but are they so? Have they not often the best of it, even in this world? Appreciation and applause that we real stupids would be very glad of, fall to the share of the working bees that make the honey, and have not some of them, at any rate, as fair a hope as any of us, of a good place in the world to come?
Thus wrote ”the divine Vittoria,” as she was frequently called--not in the sense of her being a doctor of divinity, but addicted to divine things:--
”There is now among us a man who is producing an extraordinary sensation--Fra Bernardino Ochino, a Capuchin, who comes in the spirit and with the power of Savonarola. Another valuable addition to our Christian circle is Signor Juan de Valdes, the new Governor of San Giacomo, and twin-brother of the Emperor's Latin secretary.
How I wish you were among us! We have a very pleasant little society here, quite apart from those worldlings whose company you and I have forsworn, our chief delight being to interchange thoughts and feelings, cultivate our minds, and elevate our souls.
When the hot weather comes, I shall return to Ischia. Farewell.”
”Thy Vittoria.”
”Truly,” exclaimed the d.u.c.h.ess, ”to be at Naples would be ten thousand times better than to remain here, where the malaria certainly affects me; and I am sure my dear Duke would have said so, were it only for fear of Barbarossa.”
So she gave the word of command, to the immense joy of her ladies, and, after a prodigious bustle of preparation, she started with quite a little army of retainers--six ladies of honour in sky-blue damask, six grooms in chocolate and blue, her maggior-domo in starched ruff and black velvet, and a competent number of men armed to the teeth. She performed the journey, no very long one, in a horse-litter, curtained with blue and silver, and piled with blue satin mattresses; and when she wished to change her position she mounted her white palfrey.
CHAPTER IX.
DAWN OF A PURE LIGHT.
Even in the darkest period of the middle ages, G.o.d had not left Himself without witnesses of the Truth among the Alps. It was in the year 1370 that these pure-minded people, finding themselves straitened for room, sent emissaries into Italy in quest of a convenient settlement. These deputies travelled as far south as Calabria, where they treated with the proprietors of the soil for a waste, uncultivated district. Thither emigrated a chosen body of the Vaudois, under whose industrious hands the desert soon blossomed as the rose, the thorn and the thistle gave place to cl.u.s.tering vines and waving corn; and the blessing of G.o.d evidently rested on a praying people, who fed on His unadulterated word, and addressed Him without superst.i.tion.
This little light in a dark place could not s.h.i.+ne un.o.bserved. The prosperity of the new settlers excited the envy of the neighbouring villagers, who, seeing that they neither came to their churches nor observed their ceremonies, got up the cry of heresy against them. The land-proprietors, however, protected their valuable tenants; and the priests, finding the increasing amount of their regularly paid t.i.thes, winked at their non-conformity. Thus, the little band continued to flourish and increase till the dawn of the short-lived Italian reformation.
From a Calabrian monk of this district, Petrarch acquired a knowledge of the then totally neglected Greek language; and Boccaccio learnt it of this monk's disciple. These two distinguished Italians, of whom it is poor praise to say that they would still have been great men, though the one had never written sonnets, nor the other novels, gave an impulse to the benighted minds of their countrymen which eventually led to the glorious restoration of learning. The light went on s.h.i.+ning more and more unto the perfect day, till Greek became the one thing needful; and Greek was the casket which enshrined the New Testament.
It is sorrowful to know, however, that a love of letters does not imply a love of religion, and too often accompanies a total disrelish of it.