In Italy, in the sixteenth century, women were kept in as strict
seclusion as to-day in France; and with the same results,—conjugal
infidelity and a great lack of Personal Beauty, as noted by Montaigne,
who remarks at the same time that it was regarded as something quite
extraordinary if a young lady was seen in public.
Byron wrote in 1817 that “Jealousy is not the order of the day in
Venice”; and that the Italians “marry for their parents, and love for
themselves.”
In Crowe and Cavalcaselle’s _Life and Times of Titian_ we read that
“Though chroniclers have left us to guess what the state of society may
have been in Venice at the close of the fifteenth century, they give us
reason to believe that it was deeply influenced by Oriental habit. The
separation of men from women in churches, the long seclusion of
unmarried females in convents or in the privacy of palaces, were but the
precursors to marriages in which husbands were first allowed to see
their wives as they came in state to dance round the wedding
supper-table.”
But even at this early period when women were still treated as babies
unable to take care of themselves, we find at least one trace of the
Gallantry which is so essential an element in modern love. It was
customary for the men, on festive occasions, to stand behind their
wives’ chairs at table and serve them.
Extremely ungallant, on the other hand, are some of the Italian proverbs
about women of this and other periods. “A woman is like a
horse-chestnut—beautiful outside, worthless inside.” “Two women and a
goose make a market.” “Married man—bird in cage.” “In buying a horse and
taking a wife shut your eyes and commend your soul to heaven.”
Her exuberant health makes an Italian woman naturally prone to Love; but
though she falls in love most readily, the passion is apt to be fugitive
and superficial. She rarely loves with the passionate ardour of a
Spanish woman. “What we notice especially in Italian women,” says
Schweiger-Lerchenfeld, “is the absence of that alternation between those
extremes of temperament which are so conspicuous in other Southern
women. Energy is almost as unknown to her as the moral power of
resignation and sacrifice. Hence it can hardly surprise us that Italian
history records so few heroic women or pious female martyrs. Italy has
produced neither a Jeanne d’Arc nor an Elizabeth of Thuringia; the
crowns were too oppressive to be borne by these beauties, and life too
enchanting for them to invite to tragic self-sacrifice.”
Probably the most realistic, and certainly the most fascinating, account
of Italian love-making ever given is to be found in Mr. Howells’s
_Venetian Life_. As it is too long to quote, I will attempt to condense
it, though at some sacrifice of that literary “bouquet,” as an epicure
would say, which constitutes the unique charm of Mr. Howells’s style:—
"The Venetians have had a practical and strictly businesslike way of
arranging marriages from the earliest times. The shrewdest provision has
always been made for the dower and for the good of the state; private
and public interest being consulted, the small matters of affection have
been left to the chances of association.
"Herodotus relates that the Assyrian Veneti sold their daughters at
auction to the highest bidder; and the fair being thus comfortably
placed in life, the hard-favoured were given to whomsoever would take
them, with such dower as might be considered a reasonable compensation.
The auction was discontinued in Christian times, but marriage contracts
still partook of the form of a public and half-mercantile transaction.
“These passionate, headlong Italians look well to the main chance before
they leap into matrimony, and you may be sure Todaro knows, in black and
white, what the Biondina has to her fortune before he weds her.”
“With the nobility and with the richest commoners marriage is still
greatly a matter of contract, and is arranged without much reference to
the principals, though it is now scarcely probable in any case that they
have not seen each other. But with all other classes, except the
poorest, who cannot or will not seclude the youth of either sex from
each other, and with whom, consequently, romantic contrivance and
subterfuge would be superfluous, love is made to-day in Venice as in the
_Capa y espada_ comedies of the Spaniards, and the business is carried
on with all the cumbrous machinery of confidants, _billets-doux_, and
stolen interviews.”
The “operatic method of courtship” thence resulting commonly assumes
this form:—
“They follow that beautiful blonde, who, marching demurely in front of
the gray-moustached papa and the fat mamma, after the fashion in Venice,
is electrically conscious of pursuit. They follow during the whole
evening, and, at a distance, softly follow her home, where the burning
Todaro photographs the number of the house upon the sensitised tablets
of his soul. This is the first step in love: he has seen his adored one,
and she knows that he loves her with an inextinguishable ardour.”
The next step consists in his frequenting the _caffé_, where she goes
with her parents, and feasting his eyes on her beauty. After some time
he may possibly get a chance to speak a few words to her under her
balcony; or, what is more likely, he will bribe her servant-maid to
bring her a love-letter. Or else he goes to church to admire her at a
convenient distance.
“It must be confessed that if the Biondina is not pleased with his
looks, his devotion must assume the character of an intolerable bore to
her; and that to see him everywhere at her heels—to behold him leaning
against the pillar near which she kneels at church, the head of his
stick in his mouth, and his attitude carefully taken with a view to
captivation—to be always in deadly fear lest she shall meet him in
promenade, or turning round at the _caffé_ encounter his pleading
gaze—that all this must drive the Biondina to a state bordering upon
blasphemy and finger-nails. _Ma, come si fa? Ci vuol pazienza?_ This is
the sole course open to ingenuous youth in Venice, where confessed and
unashamed acquaintance between young people is extremely difficult; and
so this blind pursuit must go on till the Biondina’s inclinations are at
last laboriously ascertained.” Then follow the inquiries as to her
dowry, after which nothing remains but “to demand her in marriage of her
father, _and after that to make her acquaintance_.”
Topsy-turvy as this last arrangement may seem to Anglo-American notions,
here at least Love has some chance to bring about real Sexual Selection,
for a Southerner’s passions are momentarily inflamed, and the Italian
Cupid needs but a moment to fix his choice. And what distinguishes Italy
still more favourably from France is that, whereas the French consider
Love ridiculous, and have made the most ingenious contrivances for
annihilating it, the Italians worship it, revel in it, and are inclined
rather to make too many concessions to it than to ignore it.
The result is patent to all eyes. For every attractive Frenchwoman there
are to-day a hundred beautiful Italians. And were Anglo-American methods
of courtship introduced in Italy, beauty would again be doubled in
amount. It must not be forgotten, however, that Love, as a beautifier of
mankind, has in Italy very strong allies in the balmy air and sunshine,
tempting to constant outdoor life, which mellows the complexion,
brightens the eyes, and fills out the figure to those full yet elegant
proportions which instantaneously arouse the romantic passion.