[1814-1817.]
The year 1814, so memorable in general history, was also an important one
in the humble fortunes of the Abate Mezzofanti.
The success of the papal cause in Italy naturally opened a new career to
the men against whom fidelity to the papal interest had long closed the
ordinary avenues to distinction.
In the close of 1813, the reverses, which, from the disastrous Russian
expedition, had succeeded each other with startling rapidity, at length
forced upon Napoleon the conviction that he had overcalculated the
endurance of the people of France. He now learned, when too late, that
the reckless expenditure of human blood with which his splendid successes
were purchased, had brought sorrow and suffering to every fireside in
every hamlet through his wide empire, and that the enormous levies which
he still continued to demand, and which were called out only to perish
in the fruitless contest with his destiny, consummated the popular
discontent. No longer, therefore, in a position to brave the public
reprobation with which his treatment of Pius VII. had been visited,
he found it necessary to restore the semblance of those more friendly
relations which he had maintained with him in the less openly ambitious
stage of his career. Accordingly, although among the provisions of the
extorted Concordat of Fontainebleau, there was none to which Napoleon,
in his secret heart, clung more tenaciously than the renunciation which
it implied on the part of the Pontiff of the sovereignty of Rome, he
found it necessary, notwithstanding, to yield so far to public sympathy
as to issue an order for the Pope’s immediate return to Italy, dated the
22nd of January, 1814. This measure, nevertheless, had evidently been
extorted from his fears; and, as he desired nothing from it beyond the
effect which he expected it to produce on the public mind, he contrived
that upon various pretences the Pope’s progress should be interrupted
and delayed. For a short time, too, the varying success with which the
memorable campaign of 1814 commenced; the opening of the Congress of
Chatillon; the conclusion of the armistice of Lusigny;—all served to
re-animate his sinking hopes. Thus the Pope was detained day after day,
week after week, in the south of France, until the close of the Emperor’s
death struggle, by the capitulation of Paris; when Pius VII. was at
length set free to return to his capital, by an order of the provisional
government, dated the 2nd of April, 1814.
Within a few days after the communication of this order, Pius VII.
reached Bologna. Among the ecclesiastics who there hastened to offer
homage to their restored sovereign, there were few who could approach
his throne with a fuller consciousness of unsullied loyalty, or who could
present more unequivocal evidences of the truth and sincerity of the
allegiance which they tendered, than the ex-Professor Mezzofanti, driven
from his chair because he refused to compromise his loyalty even by an
indirect recognition of the Anti-Papal government, and only restored,
when, after the concordat of 1801, the occupation of the Legations had
been acquiesced in by the Pontificial government itself, he had a second
time suffered the penalty of loyalty in a similar deprivation. It will
easily be believed, therefore, that, in the more than gracious reception
accorded to him by the Pontiff, a feeling of grateful recognition of
his fidelity and of sympathy with the sacrifices which he had made, was
mingled with undisguised admiration of his talents and acquirements.
Hence the first impulse of this munificent pope was to attach to his
own immediate service a scholar who was at once eminent for learning,
distinguished by piety, by priestly zeal, and by loyalty in the hour of
trial, unstained even by the slightest compromise. The re-construction of
the various Roman tribunals and congregations which, during the captivity
of the Pope and Cardinals, had been, for the most part, suspended,
suggested an opportunity of employing, with marked advantage for the
public service, the peculiar talents which seemed almost idly wasted in
the obscurity of a provincial capital. The halls and public offices of
Rome had been the school or the arena of all the celebrated linguists of
the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries; and the very constitution of
the congregation and college, “De Propaganda Fide,” appeared specially to
invite the services of one so eminent in that department. Accordingly,
Pius VII. surprised the modest Abate by an invitation to accompany him
to Rome, and proposed for his acceptance the important office of the
secretaryship of the Propaganda[358]—one of those so called _poste
cardinalizie_, which constitute the first step in the career towards the
cardinalate.
Mezzofanti was deeply affected by this mark of the favour and confidence
of his sovereign. Independently, too, of these flattering considerations,
and of the advantages of rank and fortune which it involved, the mere
residence in Rome, and especially in the Propaganda—the great polyglot
centre of the ancient and modern world—had many attractions for a
student of language so enthusiastic and indefatigable. It was a proud
thought, moreover, to follow in the track of Ubicini, and Giorgi, and
Piromalli, and the Assemani’s. But his modesty was proof against all
these temptations. He shrank from the responsibility which this great
office involved;—and, with the every expression of gratitude for so
distinguished an honour, he declined to exchange the quiet and seclusion
of his life at Bologna, for the more brilliant, but far more anxious
position held out for his acceptance at Rome.
Not content, however, with personal solicitations, the Pope employed
Cardinal Consalvi to use his influence with Mezzofanti. But it was to no
purpose. The humble Abate could not be induced to leave his native city.
The only mark of favour, therefore, which remained at the disposal of
the pontiff, was one which Mezzofanti prized infinitely beyond the more
solid, as well as more brilliant, offer which awaited him at Rome,—his
re-establishment in the Professorship of Oriental Languages. He was
formally restored on the 28th of April, 1814,[359] a few days after the
departure of the Pope from Bologna.
There is no doubt that on this occasion, as on that of his declining
the invitation to Paris several years earlier, he was much influenced
by those considerations, arising from his relations to the children of
his sister, to which I already alluded, his presence in Bologna being
now more than ever necessary for the completion of their education.
Indeed this was now the chief family duty which bound him to Bologna; for
his father, who had survived his mother by several years, died, at the
advanced age of eighty-one, in April, 1814, during the visit of Pius VII.
to that city.
* * * * *
The few notices of the Abate Mezzofanti which we have met up to
this period, are derived almost exclusively from Bolognese, or at
least Italian sources. During the long continental war, the ordinary
intercourse with Italy was, in great part, suspended, and few tourists,
especially of the literary class, visited the north of Italy. But the
cessation of hostilities in the spring of 1814, re-opened the long
interrupted communication, and the annual stream of visitors to Rome
and Naples again began to flow, with its wonted regularity, through the
cities of the north. Few of the tourists who published an account of
their travels at this date failed to devote some of their pages to one
who had now become one of the chief “sights” of his native city. It is
hardly necessary to say, that, in some instances, these accounts are but
the echoes of popular fame, and exhibit the usual amount of ignorance,
credulity, and superficial information, which characterise “travellers’
tales.” But very many, also, will be found to contain the judgment of
acute, learned, and impartial observers; many of them are the result
of a careful and jealous scrutiny of Mezzofanti’s attainments, made by
critics of indisputable capacity; most of them will be admitted to be of
unquestionable value, as to one point at least—Mezzofanti’s familiarity
with the native language of each particular traveller; and all, even the
least solid among them, are interesting, as presenting to us, with the
freshness of contemporary narrative, the actual impressions received by
the writer from his opportunities of personal intercourse with the great
linguist.
I have collected from many sources, published[360] and unpublished,
a variety of these travellers’ notices, which I shall use freely in
illustrating the narrative of the remaining years of the life of
Mezzofanti. I shall be careful, however, in all that regards the critical
portion of the biography, and especially in estimating the actual
extent of Mezzofanti’s linguistic attainments, only to rely, for each
language, on the authority of one who, either as a native, or at least an
unquestioned proficient in that particular language, will be admitted to
be a perfectly competent judge in its regard.
The autumn of the year 1814 supplies one such notice, which is
remarkable, as the first direct testimony to Mezzofanti’s proficiency
in speaking German. He had learned this language in boyhood; and it is
clear from his letters to De Rossi, and from the books to which he freely
refers in that correspondence, that he was intimately acquainted with it
as a language of books. But in this year we are able for the first time
to test his power of speaking German by the judgment of a native.
The writer in question is a German tourist, named Kephalides, professor
in the University of Breslau,[361] who (as may be inferred from his
alluding to the Congress of Vienna, as just opened) visited Bologna
in the October or November of 1814. “The Professor Abate Mezzofanti,”
writes this traveller, who met him in the Library, “speaks German with
extraordinary fluency, although he has never been out of Bologna. He is a
warm admirer, too, of the literature of Germany, especially its poetry;
and he has stirred up the same enthusiasm among the educated classes in
Bologna, both gentlemen and ladies.”[362] We learn incidentally, too,
from this writer’s narrative, that German was among the languages which
Mezzofanti taught to his private pupils. In a rather interesting account
of an interview which he had with old Father Emmanuel Aponte, (one of
Mezzofanti’s first instructors,) and with the celebrated lady-professor
of Greek, so often referred to, Clotilda Tambroni, Kephalides mentions
that the youth whom Mezzofanti sent to conduct him to Aponte was one of
his own pupils, who had just begun to “lisp German.” Strangely enough,
nevertheless, Kephalides does not allude to any other of Mezzofanti’s
languages, nor even to his general reputation as a linguist of more than
ordinary attainments.
In the commencement of the year 1815, the chief Librarianship of the
University became vacant by the death of Father Pompilio Pozzetti.
Pozzetti was one of the congregation of the _Scuole Pie_, and in earlier
life had been Librarian of that Ducal Library at Modena, which Tiraboschi
has made familiar to every student of Italian literature. From the time
of his appointment as Prefect of the Bologna Library, a close intimacy
had subsisted between him and Mezzofanti; and on the latter’s being
named his assistant, this intimacy ripened into a warm friendship.
Mezzofanti was at once appointed as his successor, on the 25th of April,
1815.[363] In the letter in which (May 15th,) he communicated his
appointment to his friend, Pezzana, who held the kindred office at Parma,
he speaks in terms of the highest praise of his predecessor and of the
services which he had rendered during his tenure of office, and deplores
his death as a serious loss to the institution.
The revenue of this office, which he held conjointly with his
professorship, (although both salaries united amounted to a very
moderate sum)[364] placed the Abate Mezzofanti in comparatively easy
circumstances, and for the first time above the actual struggle for
daily bread. That he still continued, nevertheless, to instruct pupils
in private, need hardly be matter of surprise, when it is remembered
that, as we have seen, the support of no less than ten individuals was
dependent upon his exertions.[365]
Indeed, once released from the sordid cares and excessive drudgery of
tuition to which his earlier years had been condemned,—
The starving meal, and all the thousand aches
Which patient merit of the unworthy takes—
the exercise of teaching was to him rather an enjoyment than a labour.
After his removal to the Vatican Library, and even after his elevation to
the Cardinalate, we shall find it his chief, if not his only, relaxation.
Few men have possessed in a higher degree the power of winning at
once the confidence and the love of a pupil. The perfect simplicity
of his character—his exceeding gentleness—the cheerful playfulness of
his manner—the total absence of any seeming consciousness of superior
attainments—his evident enjoyment of the society of the young, and
above all the unaffected goodness and kindness of his disposition,
attracted the love of his youthful friends, as much as his marvellous
accomplishments challenged their admiration. It is only just to add that
he repaid the affection which he thus invariably won from them by the
liveliest interest in all that regarded their progress, and a sincere
concern for their happiness which followed them in every stage of their
after life.
By degrees, too, he was beginning, in the natural advance of years, to
enjoy the best fruit of the labour of instruction, in the success, and
even distinction, attained by his quondam pupils. One of these to whom he
was especially attached, the young Marchese Angelelli, had passed through
the University with much honour; and, in the beginning of 1815, published
anonymously a metrical translation of the Electra of Sophocles, which met
with very marked favour. Mezzofanti who was much gratified by the success
of this first essay, communicated to his friend Pezzana the secret of
the authorship. “I send you,” he writes, May 8, 1815, “a first essay in
translation from the Greek, published by an able pupil of mine, whose
modesty has not permitted him to put his name to his work. From you,
however, I make no secret of it. The author is one of our young nobles,
the Marchese Maximilian Francis Angelelli, an indefatigable cultivator
of every liberal study. I may add, as there is no danger of its reaching
the ears of the modest translator, that this first effort is only the
beginning of greater things. You will accept a copy for yourself, and
place the other in your library, which I am happy to know grows daily,
both in extent and reputation, through the care of its librarian, no less
than by his distinguished name.”
This first essay of the young poet was followed in the next year by
a further publication, containing the Electra, the Antigone, and the
Trachiniæ; and, a few years later, his master had the gratification of
witnessing the successful completion of his favourite pupil’s task,
by the publication of the entire seven tragedies of Sophocles, in
1823-4.[366]
One effect of Mezzofanti’s appointment as librarian was to separate him
somewhat from his sister and her family. He occupied thenceforward the
apartments of the librarian in the Palace of the University. But he still
continued towards them the same affectionate protection and support.
Hitherto he had himself in part superintended or directed the education
of his nephews, and especially of his namesake Joseph, a youth of much
promise, whose diligence and success fully requited his uncle’s care.
Joseph had made choice of the ecclesiastical profession; and, although
falling far short of his uncle’s extraordinary gift, he became an
excellent linguist, and was especially distinguished as a Greek and Latin
scholar; so that his uncle had the satisfaction, when his own increasing
occupations compelled him to diminish the number of his pupils, of
finding the young Minarelli fully competent to undertake a portion of the
charge.
His first public appearance at the Academy after he entered upon his new
office, was for the purpose of reading, (July 11th, 1815,) a paper “On
the Wallachian Language and its Analogies with Latin;”—a subject which
has engaged the attention of philologers and historians from the days
of Chalcocondylas, and which involves many interesting ethnological, as
well as philological considerations.[367] As we shall find him, a few
years later, astonishing a German visitor by his familiarity with this
out-of-the-way language, it is worth while to note this essay, as an
evidence that here, too, his knowledge was the result of careful study,
and not of casual opportunity, or of sudden inspiration.
For a considerable time after he took charge of the Library, he seems
to have been much occupied by his duties in connexion with it. The only
letter which I have been able to obtain about this period, one addressed
to Pezzana, March 5th, 1816, is entirely occupied with details regarding
the library; and M. Manavit mentions that he not only obtained from the
authorities a considerable addition to the funds appropriated to the
purchase of books, but, moreover, devoted no trifling share of his own
humble resources to the same purpose.[368] In the course of a few months,
too, he was quite at ease in his new pursuit; and the familiarity with
the contents of the library, and even of the position of particular books
upon its shelves which he soon possessed, would, in a person of less
prodigious memory, have been a subject of wonder. His nephew, Cavaliere
Minarelli of Bologna, was present on one occasion when Professor Ranzani,
while passing an evening in the librarian’s apartments, happened to
require some rare volume from the library; and, though it was dark at the
time, Mezzofanti left the room without a light, proceeded to the library,
and in a few moments returned with the volume required.
In July, 1816, Mezzofanti read at the Academy an essay “on the Language
of the Sette Communi at Vicenza,” which has been spoken of with much
praise. This singular community—descended from those stragglers of the
invading army of Cimbri and Teutones which crossed the Alps in the
year of Rome, 640, who escaped amid the almost complete extermination
of their companions under Marius, and took refuge in the neighbouring
mountains—presents, (like the similar Roman colony on the Transylvanian
border,) the strange phenomenon of a foreign race and language preserved
unmixed in the midst of another people and another tongue for a space of
nearly two thousand years. They occupy seven parishes in the vicinity
of Vicenza,[369] whence their name is derived; and they still retain
not only the tradition of their origin, but the substance, and even the
leading forms of the Teutonic language; insomuch that Frederic IV.,
of Denmark, who visited them in the beginning of the last century,
(1708,) discoursed with them in Danish, and found their idiom perfectly
intelligible.[370]
This was a theme peculiarly suited to Mezzofanti’s powers. His essay
excited considerable interest at the time, but unfortunately was never
printed.