SOME GREAT WOMEN
Probably what must be considered the most interesting chapter in the
history of Columbus' Century for our generation is that which tells
the story of the women of the time who accomplished purposes that make
their names forever memorable. Great as were the men, the women were
in every way worthy of them, and these women of the Renaissance have
attracted attention ever since, though never more so than now, when we
are beginning to take seriously once more the problem of giving to
women the amplest opportunities for intellectual development and
achievement that they may desire. The Italian ladies of the
Renaissance have been the subject of particular attention, sometimes
indeed to the almost total eclipse of their equally as interesting
sisters of the other nationalities, for in every country in Europe the
Renaissance brought a magnificent development of feminine intellectual
incentive and accomplishment and brought out a fine demonstration of
women's powers.
[Illustration: CRIVELLI, MADONNA ENTHRONED]
It would be quite impossible to give any adequate idea of the large
numbers of women who at this period manifested intellectual ability of
a high order. All that can be done is to select from the various
countries of Europe those women who at this time did work of such high
order that their names will never willingly be let die and whose
careers will have an enduring interest for mankind so long as our
present form of civilization continues. They not only merit a place
beside the men of the time, but some of them indeed must be classed as
surpassing all but the very highest geniuses of the period. The
variety of their achievement is quite as interesting as its quality.
Above all, the women of Columbus' Century demonstrated their ability
to administer government, to organize particularly charitable
purposes, to secure the building of fine {291} hospitals and proper
care for the ailing poor, and to direct the decoration of their homes
and the beauty of home surroundings, so that Renaissance interior
decoration and gardens have been the special subject of imitation
whenever in the after-time the beautifying of the home has come to
occupy the position that it should.
The first woman to be considered in Columbus' Century should naturally
be Isabella of Castile, to whom so much of the possibility of
Columbus' achievement is due. Fortunately in recent years her life and
career have come to be much better known and we have reached a more
fitting appreciation of her wonderful administrative ability and
profound influence on her time. There is probably no woman in history
who so deeply influenced her own nation and generation as Isabella. In
a time of very great women she was the greatest. Withal, she was
charmingly feminine and did much to lift the position of her sex in
Spain up to the height of Renaissance achievements.
There is scarcely any mode of activity on which Isabella has not left
traces of her genius. Her power of inspiring men was very great. She
led her armies in person, and undoubtedly to her more than anyone else
is due the success of the Spaniards against the Moors at this time.
Her genius for peace as well as for war is evidenced by the formation
of a constabulary force in Spain, the _Santa Hermandad_, intended for
the protection of persons and property against injustice of any kind,
though particularly against the violence of the nobles. She found
Spain anarchic, without any power over disorders and with so many
elements of disaffection that it seemed hopeless to think of making it
a unified powerful country. She left it peaceful and prosperous, and
when she died she was the ruler of a greater domain than the Roman
Empire ever possessed. Some of this was undoubtedly her good fortune,
but the happy accidents of history occur, as a rule, only to those who
are able to take advantage of them. She encouraged education and,
above all, obtained a fine education for herself. Her Castilian has
been ranked as the standard of the language by the Spanish Royal
Academy. When a mother, she took up the study of Latin so as to share
her {292} children's education, and learned to know it well. She was
extremely solicitous for the education of her children and, in order
to secure the best possible mental training for them, she established
a palace school, where some of the most scholarly men of the time were
invited to teach.
As a rule, all that most of us know about Isabella is that she
recalled Columbus to her presence with the words: "I will assume the
undertaking for my own crown of Castile and am ready to pawn my jewels
to defray the expenses of it if the funds in the treasury should be
found inadequate." It was a woman's intuition surpassing in its
insight all the knowledge of those around her. There is perhaps one
other fact that a great many people know, and that is, that during the
siege of Granada she declared that she would not change her shift
until the town had been taken. Told of her in praise at the beginning,
the story has come in more refined times to seem a little ridiculous.
But for anyone who knows the strenuous life, most of which was passed
in the saddle, encouraging, cajoling, threatening, urging, leading,
inspiring the men of her time until what was the most disturbed and
unhappy country in Europe became a firmly consolidated nation, where
prosperity and happiness went hand in hand, the spirit of the woman
will be better revealed in that expression than in anything else.
There is perhaps no greater woman ruler in all the history of the
world. What she was capable of physically in her long rides on
horseback would seem almost incredible, and yet with all that she was
eminently womanly, a fond mother to her children, noted for her care
of her household and, strangest of all perhaps, a great needlewoman.
Many a church in Spain was proud to display an altar cloth that was
worked by her hands, and the historical traditions that traced them to
her actual hand labor are well authenticated.
Her daughters as well as her sons received the benefit of the best
education, though, with their mother's example and encouragement, they
devoted themselves to needlework and even to the arts of spinning and
weaving. It is said that Ferdinand the Catholic, her husband, could
declare, as Charlemagne had done, that he used no article of clothing
that {293} had not been made for him by his wife or his daughters.
When she was married to Ferdinand they were so poor that they had to
borrow the money to make the presents to the servants that were
customary on such occasions. It is said that she mended one doublet
for her husband, the King, as often as seven times. Her deep piety,
her firm character, her habits of industry and thrift, and yet her
ability to recognize what was likely to be good for her kingdom and
her people and to spend money freely on it, made an admirable example
for the time. Above all, she discouraged the idle extravagance of the
nobility and succeeded in greatly lessening the immorality at court.
She made a magnificent collection of books, fostered learning at the
universities, encouraged it among the women of the time, and it is no
wonder that historians have spoken so much in praise of her. With all
this she was extremely unhappy in her children--she saw her son die in
the promise of youth, her daughter went mad, other daughters,
including Queen Catherine of England, were destined, in spite of
felicitous auguries in early life, to the most poignant
unhappiness--and mother had to be the source of consolation for them
all.
[Illustration: HOLBEIN, QUEEN CATHERINE OF ARAGON]
The spirit of Isabella in the matter of the rights of her subjects
will perhaps be best appreciated from the famous expression which she
used on hearing that Columbus had offered some of the Indians whom he
brought home with him to some of the Spanish nobility as gifts. The
Queen indignantly demanded when she heard of it, "Who gave permission
to Columbus to parcel out my vassals to anyone?" Having learned that
some of the Indians were being held as slaves in Spain she issued a
decree that they should be returned to their native country at the
expense of the person in whose possession they were found.
Prescott has drawn a striking contrast between the character of
Isabella and of Elizabeth. The two names are in origin the same and
there are many details of their careers that tempt to the making of a
comparison. Because Elizabeth is really a product of Columbus'
Century, seventeen years of age before the century closed, Prescott's
comparison is a document of special value for us here, for it tells
the {294} story of two great women of the time, though the work of one
of them was accomplished after the close of our period. He says (p.
188, Vol. III):
"Both succeeded in establishing themselves on the throne after the
most precarious vicissitudes. Each conducted her kingdom, through a
long and triumphant reign, to a height of glory to which it had
never before reached. Both lived to see the vanity of all earthly
grandeur, and to fall the victims of an inconsolable melancholy; and
both left behind an illustrious name, unrivalled in the subsequent
annals of their country.
"But with these few circumstances of their history, the resemblance
ceases. Their characters afford scarcely a point of contact.
Elizabeth, inheriting a large share of the bold and bluff King
Harry's temperament, was haughty, arrogant, coarse and irascible;
while with these fiercer qualities she mingled deep dissimulation
and strange irresolution. Isabella, on the other hand, tempered the
dignity of royal station with the most bland and courteous manners.
Once resolved, she was constant in her purposes, and her conduct in
public and private life was characterized by candour and integrity.
Both may be said to have shown that magnanimity which is implied by
the accomplishment of great objects in the face of great obstacles.
But Elizabeth was desperately selfish; she was incapable of
forgiving, not merely a real injury, but the slightest affront to
her vanity; and she was merciless in exacting retribution. Isabella,
on the other hand, lived only for others,--was ready at all times to
sacrifice self to considerations of public duty; and, far from
personal resentments, showed the greatest condescension and kindness
to those who had most sensibly injured her; while her benevolent
heart sought every means to mitigate the authorized severities of
the law, even towards the guilty. . . .
"To estimate this (contrast) aright, we must contemplate the results
of their respective reigns. Elizabeth found all the materials of
prosperity at hand, and availed herself of them most ably to build
up a solid fabric of national grandeur. Isabella created these
materials. She saw the faculties of her people locked up in a
death-like lethargy, and she breathed {295} into them the breath of
life for those great and heroic enterprises which terminated in such
glorious consequences to the monarchy. It is when viewed from the
depressed position of her early days, that the achievements of her
reign seem scarcely less than miraculous."
Prescott has declared that her heart was filled with benevolence to
all mankind. In the most fiery heat of war she was engaged in devising
means for mitigating its horror. She is said to have been the first to
introduce the benevolent institution of camp hospitals and her lively
solicitude to spare the effusion of blood even of her enemies is often
told. Her establishment of the Inquisition and the exile of the Jews
are often set over against this, but Prescott did not hesitate to say,
"It will be difficult to condemn her indeed without condemning her
age; for these acts are not only excused, but extolled by her
contemporaries as constituting her constant claims to renown and to
the gratitude of her country." Spaniards of much more modern time have
not scrupled to pronounce the Inquisition "the great evidence of her
prudence and piety; whose uncommon utility not only Spain but all
Christendom freely acknowledged." Undoubtedly it saved Spain from some
of the troubles which devastated Germany during the Hundred Years' War
after the Reformation, when religious divisions so embittered the
struggle and made it impossible for national affairs to prosper or for
men to be brought to any common understanding with regard to anything
for the good of the commonwealth. The difference between the position
of Spain and of Germany in this regard is highly instructive.
There are so many distinguished women of this period in Italy that a
choice indeed is embarrassing. Probably, however, the general
consensus of opinion would be that the typical great intellectual
woman of this time is Vittoria Colonna, the daughter of the great
Roman family of that name, who became the wife of the Marquis of
Pescara. The Colonnas were at this time in exile at Naples, where her
father was the Grand Constable. Her mother was Agnesina de Montefeltro
of the Ducal house of Urbino and she was brought up after the age of
ten by her prospective sister-in-law, the Duchess {296} Costanza, in
the Island of Ischia. She was intimately related, then, to many of the
important noble families of Italy and her career may be taken as a
type of the possibilities of education and intellectual influence in
her class at this time. Her husband became distinguished as a military
leader and finally at scarcely more than thirty years of age was made
the General of the Imperial forces when the Pope and the Emperor
Charles V made an alliance and drove the French from Milan in 1528. He
had been the commander of the Imperial Army at the battle of Pavia in
1525, after which Francis I, badly beaten and taken prisoner, sent his
mother the famous despatch from his captive cell in the Certosa near
Pavia, "All is lost save honor."
Francis was too important a prisoner to be left to the fortunes of war
in Italy, so Charles V had him transferred by ship to Madrid.
Emissaries of the French, who tried to win the Marquis of Pescara from
his allegiance to the Emperor, represented this action to him as
something of an insult or at least a lack of trust. They offered him
the throne of Naples if he should abandon the Emperor and come over to
the French. The Marquis had been wounded and was just recovering when
these offers were made. He wrote to his wife, Vittoria, with whom he
was on terms of the most charming affection, telling her of the offer
and asking her advice. With a crown dangling before her and the added
temptation, the subtlest there could be for a woman, of going back as
Queen where she had been only a lady-in-waiting at Court, Vittoria
wrote the famous letter which has deservedly so often been quoted:
"Consider well what you are doing, mindful of the fame and
estimation which you have always enjoyed; and in truth, for my part,
I care not to be the wife of a king, but rather to be joined to a
faithful and loyal man; for it is not riches, titles, and kingdoms
which can give true glory, infinite praise, and perpetual renown to
noble spirits desirous of eternal fame; but faith, sincerity, and
other virtues of the soul; and with these man may rise higher than
the highest kings, not only in war, but in peace."
[Illustration: TITIAN, PRESENTATION OF VIRGIN]
{297}
Not long afterwards her husband died as a consequence of his wounds
and Vittoria was broken-hearted. The letters which they had written to
each other show how much of a love match this was and all the sixteen
years of married life there seems to have been nothing to disturb it.
Vittoria's only consolation now was in religion, and she thought of
entering a convent, but it was felt that she could accomplish much
more good in the world and a special Papal brief was issued permitting
her to spend as much time as she wished in convents, but forbidding
superiors to allow her to take the veil until the poignancy of her
grief subsided and she might be able to make up her mind without being
too much overborne by her sense of loss. Most of the rest of her life
was spent in convents or in almost conventual seclusion. She wrote a
series of poems, many of which are religious. A long series
constitutes a sort of _In Memoriam_ for her dead husband. They are
written in very charming Italian verse and a well-known critic and
writer on Italian literature has described these poems "as penetrated
with genuine feeling. They have that dignity and sweetness which
belong to the spontaneous utterances of a noble heart." During the
last fifteen years of her life she lived very retired in Rome and
exercised her profound influence over many of the great men of the
Renaissance and particularly over Michelangelo.
Some idea of the place that she held in the cultured society of Italy
at this time may be gathered from the fact that in 1528 Castiglione
submitted his _"Il Cortigiano"_ to her in manuscript for her approval
and criticism. She kept it for a considerable time, read portions of
it to her friends, submitted others to them and then returned it with
the highest praise. She declared that she was quite jealous of the
persons that are quoted in the book, even though they were dead. A
writer who knew this period very thoroughly and who had studied
particularly the lives of the women of the Renaissance declared:
"Vittoria Colonna was indeed a woman to be proud of: untouched by
scandal, unspoiled by praise, incapable of any ungenerous action,
unconvicted of one uncharitable word. Long in the midst of such
religious and political dissensions {298} as divided and uprooted
families, she yet preserved in all the relations of life that jewel
of perfect loyalty which does not ask to be justified."
Only too often it seems to be the impression that Vittoria Colonna
stands almost alone in her supreme nobility of character, but that is
only due to the fact that she has been deservedly much talked of.
There are, however, many rivals in all that is best among the women of
Italy at this time. The charm of certain of these women of the
Renaissance can be best understood from the expressions of praise with
regard to them that we have from the distinguished literary men of the
time. One of them, Elizabeth Gonzaga, had some of the most beautiful
things said with regard to her by men whose judgment and critical
faculty commend them to the after world as great scholarly writers. In
the prefatory epistle to his _"Cortigiano"_ Castiglione says in
allusion to the death of this peerless lady, "but that which cannot be
spoken without tears is that the Duchess, also, is dead. And if my
mind be troubled also with the loss of so many friends that have left
me in this life as it were in a wilderness full of sorrow, yet with
how much more grief do I bear the affliction of my dear lady's death
than of all the rest; since she was more worthy than all and I more
bounden to her." Indeed Catiglione's great work was partly written as
a memorial to her. Pietro Bembo, recalling the happy days he had spent
at her court, says, "I have seen many excellent and noble women and
have heard of some who are as illustrious for certain qualities, but
in her alone among women all virtues were united and brought together.
I have never seen nor heard of anyone who was her equal and know very
few who have even come near her."
Every city in Italy possessed some of these noble women at this time.
Prominent among those who are not known as well as they deserve is
Donna Catarina Fiesco or Adorno of Genoa, one of the saintly women of
the time, who, in forgetfulness of self knew how to be so helpful to
others in a wise and womanly way that she has been given the title of
St. Catharine of Genoa. She was the daughter of one of the noble
Genoese ruling families, the Fieschi, the daughter {299} of Conte
Giacomo Fiesco, who was Viceroy of Naples and Papal Chamberlain during
the first half of the fifteenth century. Catarina was born July 10,
1447, the third of seven daughters whose mother also came from an
ancient house of Genoa enrolled in the first Libro d'Oro. Very early
she chose to be a religious, but Giuliano Adorno, a son of Doge
Antoniotto Adorno, fell in love with her and though his reputation was
that of a young blade and sport, he was good-looking and handsome of
figure, and Donna Catarina, having seen him several times at mass,
fell in love with him. Political considerations helped on the match
and indeed seemed to have been most powerful, for after Catarina had
been told of Giuliano's wild ways she refused to marry him and finally
was married in black, positively declining to don the customary red
velvet robe and lavish ornaments of gold and jewels of Genoese brides.
Their marriage, as Catarina evidently had dreaded, was not happy and
after five years Catarina betook herself to a convent. After her
departure her husband went from bad to worse, and finally, cast off by
his indulgent father, was reduced to abject poverty and despair. His
wife sought him out, lifted him up and together they took a house near
the Spedale Maggiore where they received and cared for poor
incurables. Five years later her husband died, "his death having paid
all debts," and Catarina was elected prioress of the women's
department of the hospital. She organized the nursing, reorganized the
hospital service, especially as regards the poor, and took her
official duties as prioress very seriously. She found time, however,
to compose a number of little books for persons in distress of mind
and of body, and some of them have been translated into French and
Spanish. Her "Treatise on Purgatory," setting forth the strength of
Christian piety in the face of death, was published in 1502 and had a
wide popularity in the Latin countries of Europe. She wrote a series
of dialogues that became very popular and were widely used by the
parish clergy in dramatic form in the churches. The two characters in
the dialogues were Good and Evil, and from rival pulpits these
presented their various claims. The custom of having this dialogic
form of church instruction is still extant in {300} Genoa. In 1509 she
died, leaving all of her property and possessions to the hospital, and
her body, miraculously preserved, reposes in a superb crystal casket
within the chapel of the hospital. Of her, as Edgcumbe Staley says in
his "Heroines of Genoa," the well-known Italian proverb has been
quoted: _Vera felicita senza Dio non si da_--True happiness without
God there is none.
Another of these distinguished intellectual women of the Renaissance
in Italy was the venerable Battistina Vernazza, whose parents were
famous for their benevolence and had a high place in the Libro d'Oro
de' Benemeriti of Genoa. She was born in 1497. Early in life she
showed remarkable talents as a student of Latin and a writer of verses
in Latin and in the vernacular. She entered the Convento delle Grazie
but declined to take the veil until both her parents gave their
consent, and though her father was willing her mother refused to
permit her to be separated from her. After her mother's early death
she entered the convent and there became noted for her piety and
learning. Her writings are mainly controversial and were very famous
in her time. Letters of hers to well-known leaders of the
Protestantizing party are extant. At the death of her father, her
father's considerable fortune came to her. She applied it all to works
of charity, and especially in the direction of the rescue of young
girls from evil associations. She lived to be ninety years of age and
her memory is still so green among the Genoese because of all that she
did for the good of the people that in the quarter of the city where
she was born the Municipal School for Girls bears her name of
Battistina Vernazza.
Even the smaller towns gave birth to great women, and one of the most
distinguished women of the Century whose name is very little known,
mainly because her modesty would have it so, is Angela of Merici, the
distinguished founder of a religious order for the education of girls
of all classes, whose work has endured down to our time and whose
religious daughters are literally all over the world at the present
day. It is probable that the work of no woman of the Renaissance has
had so far-reaching an effect as that of this humble village maiden
whose one asset in life was her thought for {301} others and for duty.
An all too brief abstract of her story will be found in the chapter on
Feminine Education.
An important phase of the careers of the women of the Renaissance is
the manliness and independence of spirit which became manifest. It was
at this time that the word virago was first used but employed not as
now as a mark of disrespect, but on the contrary as a high compliment.
Catherine of Sforza, whose manly defence of her castle is well known
and whose life exhibited a series of thoroughly courageous incidents,
was known as the Virago of Forli, though at the same time she was
hailed as "the best gentlewoman of Italy." Isabella Gonzaga manifests
something of this same heroic vein and Clarice de Medici, the wife of
Filippo Strozzi, is in the same group. These women stand out as
remarkable, and yet many of the women of the Renaissance exhibited an
independence of character which is usually thought to be of much later
development.
There are many educated people who are quite convinced that while the
Renaissance possessed distinguished women deservedly famous for their
unselfish character and their fine moral influence, it possessed an
even greater proportion of women whose vices made them a scandal for
all time and whose influence was far-reaching for evil. Indeed for
many the name of Lucretia Borgia, which has become a byword for
everything worst in human life, is supposed to be a better symbol of
the Renaissance than that of Vittoria Colonna. Probably the best
way--apart from the actual facts in the lives of women already
cited--to show the absolute untruth of this very prevalent impression
is to take the life of Lucretia Borgia herself, for it makes clear not
only how absolutely lacking in historical confirmation are the
ordinary traditions with regard to her, but on the contrary how well
she deserves to be classed among the great good women of the
Renaissance, all the scurrilous abuse of her that has accumulated to
the contrary notwithstanding. There is probably nothing that shows how
little of trust can be placed in contemporary documents unless these
are critically considered, than the complete change of view with
regard to the Borgia family, particularly Lucretia, which has taken
place in the last few years, as a consequence {302} of the more
careful scientific scholarly historical research of recent years.
The facts in Lucretia's life are comparatively few and rather easy to
understand. Its first part is shrouded in the calumnies so common with
regard to the Borgias. They were Spaniards making their way in Italy
and nothing was too bad to say of them. Her later life was all in the
limelight of publicity and should be the basis of any judgment of her.
When she was about twenty-four after two sad matrimonial experiences
she was married by political arrangement to Alfonso, the son of
Ercole, Duke of Ferrara. Before that marriage careful investigation as
to her character was made and a special envoy sent for that purpose
wrote that "there was nothing at all out of the way with Lucretia
herself. She was sensible, discreet, of good and loving nature and her
manners full of modesty and decorum; a good Christian filled with the
fear of God. ... In truth such are her good qualities that I rest
assured there is nothing to fear from her or rather everything to hope
from her." After her marriage Lucretia lived for nearly twenty years
at Ferrara. When she died in early middle life her funeral was
followed to the tomb by all the people of the city, who revered her as
a saint and looked up to her as one who had done everything that she
could to make life happier for her people. She was buried in the
Convent of the Sisters of the Corpus Christi, in the same tomb as the
Mother of Alfonso, the Duchess Leonora, of whose goodness we have
spoken, and her praises were on every tongue.
Whatever there is defamatory that is said about Lucretia concerns the
years before this marriage while she was living at Rome up to the age
of twenty-three. A knowledge of that fact alone is quite sufficient to
make the stories with regard to her unexampled viciousness very
dubious. Gregorovius has recently re-examined all the documents and
has completely vindicated her. She was merely the victim of the
violent political hatreds of the time. To take the one item of
poisoning with regard to which her name has been so infamous and her
reputation so notorious, Garnett, in the "Cambridge Modern History,"
declares that there is only one case in which the Borgias are supposed
to have used poison for which there is {303} any evidence, and that is
very dubious. With that one Lucretia had nothing to do. In discussing
her divorce from Sforza, he says: "The transaction also served to
discredit in some measure the charges against the Borgias of secret
poisoning, which would have been more easily and conveniently employed
than the disagreeable and scandalous method of a legal process."
Some of the tributes to Lucretia Borgia from her contemporaries are
highly laudatory. Among her friends were some of the best people of
the time. Aldus Manutius praises her to the skies, lauds her
benevolence to the poor, her care for the afflicted and her ability as
a ruler. There is no doubt at all that she was one of these wonderful
women of the Renaissance whose administrative ability must be admired
more than any other quality. During the absence of her husband she
ruled the State with wonderful prudence, and yet with a justice
tempered always with mercy. It was through her that a law was passed,
protecting the Jews of Ferrara, that became a model for other similar
legislation in the cities of Italy.
It is interesting to trace the change of attitude of mind toward her
on the part of those who either did not care for her or were actually
bitterly opposed to her. Her sister-in-law, Isabella D'Este, became a
real friend, as her letters attest, though at first she did not like
at all the idea of the union of the house of D'Este with that of the
Borgias, and it required all her father's force of will and all his
political astuteness besides to secure her presence at the marriage.
The letters of ten years later reveal a most intimate friendship
between these two women. Within a year after her marriage she had
completely won her husband, who was altogether indifferent at the
beginning and who married her because of his father's insistence and
entirely for political reasons. When her first baby died at birth her
husband was most solicitous for her, anxious about her health and made
a vow that he would go on a pilgrimage to Loretto for her recovery, a
vow which he fulfilled just as soon as her convalescence was assured.
The biographer of Bayard, the famous French Chevalier of the time,
_sans peur et sans reproche_, declared apropos of the visit of Bayard
to Madonna Lucretia at Ferrara: "I venture {304} to say that neither
in her time nor for many years before has there been such a glorious
princess. For she is beautiful and good, gentle and amiable to
everyone." Gregorovius declares in his "Lucretia Borgia, According to
Original Documents and Correspondence of Her Day": [Footnote 26]
"Lucretia had won universal esteem and affection; she had become the
mother of her people. She lent a ready ear to the suffering and helped
all who were in need. She put aside, as Jovius, a contemporary, said,
'the pomps and vanities of the world to which she had been accustomed
from childhood and gave herself up to pious works and founded and
endowed convents and hospitals.'" She died at the early age of forty,
so that the nearly twenty years of service for others represent not
the aftermath of a long stormy life, when human passions had burnt
themselves out, but the ripe years of maturity and highest vitality.
[Footnote 26: Translated by Garner, Appleton, 1913, New York.]
Caviceo even ventured when he wished to praise the famous Isabella
Gonzaga to say that she approached the perfection of Lucretia. He
adds, and Gregorovius has emphasized this opinion, "she redeemed the
name of Borgia, which now was always mentioned with respect." Indeed
there are few women who ever lived of whom such marvellous encomiums
have been given by men who knew her well personally and who were
themselves often among those in a period of great men and women whose
memory the world will not willingly let die. Whatever of evil is said
of her is said by writers of scandal and littleness in her own time,
Italian enemies of the Spanish house of Borgia, which had come into
Italy and had a great success. These vile traditions, the kitchen
stories of the Renaissance, were gathered together and preserved
because so many people are interested in what is evil rather than
good. At a time when the greatness of the period in which she lived
was ill appreciated and when religious motives tempted to credulity
they came to be generally reported until Victor Hugo gathered them all
together for his characterization of her and with Donizetti's opera
popularized the idea that Lucretia was probably the worst woman who
had ever lived. It has taken much writing of real history to modify
this popular notion, which is not yet corrected, and nothing
illustrates {305} better the fallibility of popular historical
information than this Lucretia story.
[Illustration: PALMA VECCHIO, ST. BARBARA]
When she came to die her husband said of her, writing to his nephew in
whose regard there was not the slightest question of hypocrisy or
pretence: "I cannot write this without tears, knowing myself to be
deprived of such a dear and sweet companion. For such her exemplary
conduct and the tender love which existed between us made her to me."
The greatest woman of the French Renaissance and probably the most
influential of the women of the time, with the possible exception of
Vittoria Colonna, was Marguerite of Angouleme. In English-speaking
countries she is better known as Marguerite of Navarre, though in
France she is sometimes spoken of also as Marguerite of Valois or of
France. She was the sister of Francis I, King of France, and devoted
in her affection towards him. Undoubtedly it was she more than any
other who inspired her brother with the idea of founding the College
of France, and it was she who was the patron and guardian of the
French Renaissance. After Francis had been captured at the battle of
Pavia and shipped as a prisoner to Spain she made the long, perilous,
difficult journey that it was in those days from Paris to Madrid with
sisterly devotion, and in spite of trying hardships stayed near her
brother during his confinement.
The world generally knows her as the author of the "Heptameron" and
has condemned her rather severely because of its too great freedom of
manners and morals. Our own generation, however, which from its
youngest years reads in our daily newspapers much worse stories than
Margaret ever wrote, should not be ready to condemn her. It is
difficult to understand her writing of these stories unless one knows
the conditions of the time. The license that had come in among the
novelists led to the telling of many stories that even our age,
accustomed to the greatest license in this matter, finds too frank.
Margaret, whom her generation has agreed in calling a saint, hoped to
undo the evil of such stories by telling them frankly and adding
morals to them. The stories have been read and the morals neglected.
Her idea was very much the same as the excuse made for the publication
of many {306} criminal stories of all kinds in our time, that
publicity makes for deterrence. The erroneous psychology of this
attempt at justification for a serious breach of ethics is only too
patent. Margaret's good intentions in the matter are undoubted. Good
intentions, however, do not guarantee that acts will be without evil
effects. Margaret was trying to correct the corruption of her time in
very much the same way as many women have been aroused into activity
in ours, only she made the sad mistake of using the wrong means by
thinking that publicity or information would prove a safeguard against
evil instead of an incentive to the very forms of vice that she was
trying to correct--above all for the young. Her significance in
literature is discussed in the chapter on French literature.
Margaret's personal character is one of the most beautiful in history
and it fully justifies the praise of her contemporaries and even
Vittoria Colonna's words, which would seem fulsome. The most
interesting phase of Marguerite's character is her devotion to the
sick poor. Down at Alencon the large hospital owed its origin to her
and her name was in benediction among the people because of all that
she did. Hers was no mere distant service such as a queen might render
because of the power she had to employ others, but she devoted herself
to personal work for them that made them feel her saintly
unselfishness. The king, her brother, gave her a grant for a foundling
school in Paris. This was known as _La Maison des Enfants Rouges_, The
House of the Red Children, because of the scarlet dresses which were
the uniforms. Francis in his grant says that his sister had told him
how these little children that had been picked up on the streets of
Paris die when they are taken to the Hotel Dieu and that they need the
more special care of an institution for themselves and he is very glad
to come to her assistance.
When her own boy died at the age of a few months Marguerite, whose
tender family affection can be very well appreciated from her
relations with her brother, was stricken with grief. We have the naive
description, however, of the strength of soul with which she bore it:
"She went into her room, refusing the aid of any of the women attached
to the Court, she thanked the Lord very humbly for all the good it had
pleased {307} Him to do her." She went even farther than that,
however, she forbade that there should be any public grief, had the Te
Deum sung for joy in the church because the death meant the welcoming
into Heaven of an angel and she had placards made to be posted
throughout the city bearing the inscription, "The Lord hath given and
the Lord hath taken away; blessed be the name of the Lord." And yet
she herself wore black after this and never changed it and after a
time this became the formal color of ladies' dress at her court.
One of the important women of the century whose administrative ability
surpassed that of the men of the time is Mary of Burgundy, whose
beautiful tomb is to be seen in Bruges. The monument is one of the
gems of the old town, but is not more than befitting the character of
the lady it was meant to commemorate. Her dealings with the proud
burghers of the Netherlands were those of a sympathetic sovereign
trying to assure prosperity to these thrifty towns whose trade made it
possible for so many of their people to become wealthy and happy
citizens. Had her mode of treating them descended to some of her
successors we would have been spared that ugly record of nearly a
hundred years of bloodshed and war and famine in the Low Countries,
which makes one of the saddest blots on modern history. Her granting
of privileges and conferring of rights with recognition of old customs
in formal documents is now commemorated in many places in the modern
art of the Low Countries, and these constitute her finest tribute and
memorial.
The last of the women of this century who deserves to be mentioned and
without whom indeed any account of the century would be quite
incomplete is probably the greatest of all the women of the period and
perhaps the greatest intellectual woman who ever lived. The end of the
chapter brings us back to Spain to Teresa de Cepeda y Ahumada, whom
the world knows as St. Teresa. It is true that most of her work was
accomplished after the close of the century, but as she was born in
1515 and was therefore thirty-five years of age before Columbus'
Century closed, receiving all of her training and formation of mind in
the great Renaissance period, her place is naturally in this epoch.
She is the most important {308} of the women of the Renaissance,
though this is seldom realized, and her reputation instead of
decreasing with the years has rather increased. Even within the last
twenty years a number of lives of her was written in every language in
Europe and no less than a dozen of them have appeared in English. The
feminists of the modern time have turned to her as one of the great
representative women of all time.
It is worth while recording some of the great tributes to her. Her own
Spanish compatriots call her lovingly their Doctor of the Church. At
Rome at the entrance of the Vatican Basilica where appear in marble
the Fathers and the Doctors of the Church you will see one single
statue raised to a woman and bearing this inscription, _"Mater
Spiritualium"_--Mother of Things Spiritual. It is the statue of Teresa
who has been gloriously proclaimed the Mother of Spirituality, the
Mistress of Mystical Theology and practically a Doctor of the Church,
in the principles of the spiritual life.
The French and the Spanish are almost at opposite poles in their
critical appreciations, yet Teresa has been honored almost as much in
France as in her native country. Men so different as Bossuet and
Fenelon have united in proclaiming her their teacher in the science of
the saints and have declared her books, "The Way of Perfection," "The
Castle of the Soul," "The Book of Foundations" and "Spiritual Advice,"
the most wonderful contributions to human knowledge that have ever
been made.
Nor was her appeal only to the Latin races in Europe. The German
mystics have always found a special attraction in St. Teresa's work
and this was true not only among the Catholic students in Germany, but
also at nearly all times among the Protestants. In the modern time
Teresa has been the subject of many monographs by German writers.
In English, though national feeling and religious prejudice might be
expected to make Teresa little known or even deliberately neglected,
her works came to be very well known. In the middle of the seventeenth
century Crashaw became enamored (no other word will express his lofty
sentiments) of her writings and literally thought that no one had ever
had so high a vision of things other-worldly. George Eliot paid {309}
her tribute in the preface to "Middlemarch," and while her own
dissatisfaction with life makes that tribute somewhat grudging and
half-hearted, there is no doubt that our greatest woman novelist of
the nineteenth century had been very deeply influenced by the writings
of the calm light of the sixteenth.
Scarcely any writer has had as wide a European influence as this
cloistered saint, who wrote only because her confessor commanded her
to and who had no thought of style or of anything other than getting
the thoughts that would come to her as simply as possible before her
Spanish religious brethren. Her Spanish prose is a marvel of simple
dignity and correctness representing the best Spanish prose, even down
to our time. When Echegaray, the well-known Spanish novelist of our
time, received the Nobel Prize for literature a few years ago, he was
asked what he did for the perfection of his Spanish style. He declared
that almost the only book that he read for the sake of its style was
"The Letters of St. Teresa." We have nothing quite like these letters
in English, though Cowper's letters approach nearest to them. They are
full of simplicity, are deeply interesting in their detail of ordinary
life and above all are full of humor. This is the quality that most
people would be quite sure was lacking in the great Spanish nun. Those
who would explain her visions and her mortification on the ground of
hysteria or psycho-neurotic conditions would be undeceived at once in
their estimation of her character did they but read her letters. The
hysterical are above all lacking in a sense of humor and take
themselves very seriously.
Dante is probably the only writer in European literature with whom St.
Teresa can properly be compared. She has the same power to convey all
the deep significance of other-worldliness, the same universality of
interest, the same marvellous quality that draws to her particularly
those who are themselves of deeply poetic or profoundly spiritual
nature. Men who have spent long years in the study and the experience
of the things with which her writings are concerned, find them most
wondrously full of meaning and are most willing to devote time to
them. The editions of her various works would fill a very large
library, and there is no doubt at all that the {310} writings of no
woman who ever lived occupy so large a place in libraries all over the
world at the present time as those of St. Teresa.
Beside St. Thomas and Dante as a worthy member of a glorious trinity
of writers, with regard to the subjects that have been most elusive
though most alluring for men, St. Teresa deserves a place. Anyone who
would think, however, that she was merely a mystic would be sadly
mistaken in the estimate of her career. She was above all a thoroughly
practical woman. Her many foundations of the reform Carmelites under
the most discouraging circumstances show the indomitable will of the
woman and her power to live to accomplish. It was she who said when
her poverty was urged as a reason for not making further foundations,
"Teresa and five ducats can do nothing, but Teresa with God and five
ducats can do everything." There is no doubt now that she more than
any other in Spain turned back the tide of the Reformation. Her advice
was eagerly sought on all sides. While carefully maintaining her
cloistered life, she made many friends and influenced all of them for
what was best in them. Her reform of the Carmelites brought many
enemies, above all because other religious orders recognized that they
too would have to share in the reform, yet all was carried out to a
marvellously successful issue with gentleness and sweetness, but with
a firmness and courage that nothing could daunt and a power of
accomplishment that nothing could balk.
Those who think that Teresa's books are mere essays in pietism or
pleasant reading for moments of spiritual exaltation will be sadly
mistaken. For depth of meaning and profundity of aspiration after the
unknowable, yet approaching it nearer than any other has ever done,
St. Teresa's books are unmatched. For analysis of the soul and for the
manner of its unfolding in its strivings after higher things, Teresa
has no equal. Her pictures of celestial things are a constant reminder
of Dante. Most people think of the "Inferno" as Dante's masterpiece.
Those who know him best think rather of the "Purgatorio," but a few
lofty, poetic souls, steeped in the spiritual, have found his
"Paradiso" the sublimest of human documents. While there are constant
reminders of the {311} "Purgatorio" in many of Teresa's writings, it
is the "Paradise," however, that most frequently recurs in comparison.
What Cardinal Manning said of the "Paradiso" may well be repeated of
Teresa's mystical works. It has been said, "After the _'Summa'_ of St.
Thomas nothing remains but the vision of God." To this Cardinal
Manning added, "after the 'Paradiso' of Dante there remains nothing
but the beatific vision." Those whose life and studies have best
fitted them as judges have felt thus about the Spanish Doctress of the
Church.
Teresa was eminently human in every regard, and though what might be
considered harsh with herself, she was always kind to those who were
around her, and especially any who were in real suffering. She came by
these qualities very naturally, for her father is noted as an
extremely good man and exceptionally good to his servants and
charitable toward the poor of Avila. Indeed Teresa's biographers
insist so much on these qualities as to make it very clear that the
spirit of the time is represented by this member of the old Spanish
nobility, who took his duties towards others so seriously. Teresa was
not one of the exceptional souls who find convent life easy and even
consoling from the beginning, but on the contrary she has told herself
that she found the first eight days of her convent life terrible. It
seemed to her a prison. She had a physical fear of austerities and
pious books bored her. Perhaps the one very human thought that tempted
her more than any other to enter the convent was her feeling of
independence. The idea of marriage was quite distasteful. As she
expressed it, it was one thing to obey God, but quite another thing to
bind oneself to obey a man for a lifetime.
As if in compensation for all that the neurologists and psychiatrists
had to say of her, she herself had something to say of nervous
patients. For her, nervousness so-called was largely selfishness.
While sympathetic for feelings of depression, she had no sympathy for
those who would not throw them off by occupation of mind, but yielded
to them. She said, "What is called melancholy is at bottom only a
desire to have one's own way." She believed firmly that one could not
be made good by many rules, but goodness had to come from within and
from the spirit. She was quite impatient with the {312} religious
visitors, that is, special superiors sent to make inspections of
houses of religious who gave a number of new rules for the
communities. She said: "I am so tired with having to read all these
rules that I do not know what would become of me if I were obliged to
keep them."
It is easy to understand then why Cardinal Manning should have said
that St. Teresa furnishes an example that "spirituality perfects
common sense." She herself was one of the most sensible, joyous and
charming persons. Miss Field in the _Atlantic_ for March, 1903, says:
"Her charm, her sweetness, the loveliness of her conversation were
irresistible." It was Cardinal Manning, I believe, who declared that
"she was one of those sovereign souls that are born from time to time
as if to show what her race was created for at first and to what it is
still destined."
Teresa once said: "God preserve me from those great nobles who can do
something, yet who are such strange cranks." She reminded her nuns on
more than one occasion when she found in them a tendency to go to too
great lengths in austerity that we have a body as well as a soul, and
that this body when disregarded revenges itself upon the soul. There
are few subjects of importance in life on which St. Teresa has not
expressed herself wisely, and to know her writings is to be able to
quote many marvellous summations of worldly experience that the
cloister might seem to have precluded in her. On the subject of the
relation of low wages and virtue, Miss Repplier in the article on "Our
Loss of Nerve" _(Atlantic Monthly_, September, 1913) quoted St.
Teresa's profound comment which sums up so well our whole social
situation "where virtue is well rooted provocations matter little."
[Illustration: MOSTAERT, VIRGO DEIPARA (ANTWERP)]
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