1.
I stood in Venice, on the "Bridge of Sighs;"
A Palace and a prison on each hand.
Stanza i. lines 1 and 2.
The communication between the ducal palace and the prisons of Venice is
by a gloomy bridge, or covered gallery, high above the water, and
divided by a stone wall into a passage and a cell. The state dungeons
called _pozzi_, or wells, were sunk in the thick walls of the palace:
and the prisoner, when taken out to die, was conducted across the
gallery to the other side, and being then led back into the other
compartment, or cell, upon the bridge, was there strangled. The low
portal through which the criminal was taken into this cell is now walled
up; but the passage is still open, and is still known by the name of the
"Bridge of Sighs." The _pozzi_ are under the flooring of the chamber at
the foot of the bridge. They were formerly twelve; but on the first
arrival of the French, the Venetians hastily blocked or broke up the
deeper of these dungeons. You may still, however descend by a trap-door,
and crawl down through holes, half choked by rubbish, to the depth of
two stories below the first range. If you are in want of consolation for
the extinction of patrician power, perhaps you may find it there;
scarcely a ray of light glimmers into the narrow gallery which leads to
the cells, and the places of confinement themselves are totally dark. A
small hole in the wall admitted the damp air of the passages, and
served for the introduction of the prisoner's food. A wooden pallet,
raised a foot from the ground, was the only furniture. The conductors
tell you that a light was not allowed. The cells are about five paces in
length, two and a half in width, and seven feet in height. They are
directly beneath one another, and respiration is somewhat difficult in
the lower holes. Only one prisoner was found when the republicans
descended into these hideous recesses, and he is said to have been
confined sixteen years. But the inmates of the dungeons beneath had left
traces of their repentance, or of their despair, which are still
visible, and may, perhaps, owe something to recent ingenuity. Some of
the detained appear to have offended against, and others to have
belonged to, the sacred body, not only from their signatures, but from
the churches and belfries which they have scratched upon the walls. The
reader may not object to see a specimen of the records prompted by so
terrific a solitude. As nearly as they could be copied by more than one
pencil, three of them are as follows:--
1. NON TI FIDAR AD ALCUNO PENSA e TACI
SE FUGIR VUOI DE SPIONI INSIDIE e LACCI
IL PENTIRTI PENTIRTI NULLA GIOVA
MA BEN DI VALOR TUO LA VERA PROVA
1607. ADI 2. GENARO. FUI RETENTO
P' LA BESTIEMMA P' AVER DATO
DA MANZAR A UN MORTO
IACOMO. GRITTI. SCRISSE.
2. UN PARLAR POCHO et
NEGARE PRONTO et
UN PENSAR AL FINE PUO DARE LA VITA
A NOI ALTRI MESCHINI
1605.
EGO IOHN BAPTISTA AD
ECCLESIAM CORTELLARIUS.
3. DE CHI MI FIDO GUARDAMI DIO
DE CHI NON MI FIDO MI GUARDARO IO
A TA H A NA
V. LA S. C. K. R.
The copyist has followed, not corrected, the solecisms; some of which
are, however, not quite so decided since the letters were evidently
scratched in the dark. It only need be observed, that _bestemmia_ and
_mangiar_ may be read in the first inscription, which was probably
written by a prisoner confined for some act of impiety committed at a
funeral; that _Cortellarius_ is the name of a parish on terra firma,
near the sea; and that the last initials evidently are put for _Viva la
santa Chiesa Kattolica Romana_.
2.
In Venice Tasso's echoes are no more.
Stanza iii. line 1.
["I cannot forbear mentioning a custom in Venice, which they tell me is
particular to the common people of this country, of singing stanzas out
of Tasso. They are set to a pretty solemn tune, and when one begins in
any part of the poet, it is odds but he will be answered by somebody
else that overhears him; so that sometimes you have ten or a dozen in
the neighbourhood of one another, taking verse after verse, and running
on with the poem as far as their memories will carry them."--Addison,
A.D. 1700.]
The well-known song of the gondoliers, of alternate stanzas from Tasso's
_Jerusalem_, has died with the independence of Venice. Editions of the
poem, with the original in one column, and the Venetian variations on
the other, as sung by the boatmen, were once common, and are still to be
found. The following extract will serve to show the difference between
the Tuscan epic and the _Canta alia Barcariola:_--
ORIGINAL.
Canto l'arme pietose, e 'l capitano
Che 'l gran Sepolcro libero di Cristo
Molto egli opro col senno, e con la mano
Molto soffri nel glorioso acquisto;
E in van l' Inferno a lui s' oppose, e in vano
S' armo d' Asia, e di Libia il popol misto,
Che il Ciel gli die favore, e sotto a i Santi
Segni ridusse i suoi compagni erranti.
VENETIAN.
L' arme pietose de cantar gho vogia,
E de Goffredo la immortal braura
Che al fin l' ha libera co strassia, e dogia
Del nostro buon Gesu la Sepoltura
De mezo mondo unite, e de quel Bogia
Missier Pluton non l' ha bu mai paura:
Dio l' ha agiuta, e i compagni sparpagni
Tutti 'l gh' i ha messi insieme i di del Dai.
Some of the elder gondoliers will, however, take up and continue a
stanza of their once familiar bard.
On the 7th of last January, the author of _Childe Harold_, and another
Englishman, the writer of this notice, rowed to the Lido with two
singers, one of whom was a carpenter, and the other a gondolier. The
former placed himself at the prow, the latter at the stern of the boat.
A little after leaving the quay of the Piazzetta, they began to sing,
and continued their exercise until we arrived at the island. They gave
us, amongst other essays, the death of Clorinda, and the palace of
Armida; and did not sing the Venetian but the Tuscan verses. The
carpenter, however, who was the cleverer of the two, and was frequently
obliged to prompt his companion, told us that he could _translate_ the
original. He added, that he could sing almost three hundred stanzas, but
had not spirits (_morbin_ was the word he used) to learn any more, or to
sing what he already knew: a man must have idle time on his hands to
acquire, or to repeat, and, said the poor fellow, "look at my clothes
and at me; I am starving." This speech was more affecting than his
performance, which habit alone can make attractive. The recitative was
shrill, screaming, and monotonous; and the gondolier behind assisted his
voice by holding his hand to one side of his mouth. The carpenter used a
quiet action, which he evidently endeavoured to restrain; but was too
much interested in his subject altogether to repress. From these men we
learnt that singing is not confined to the gondoliers, and that,
although the chant is seldom, if ever, voluntary, there are still
several amongst the lower classes who are acquainted with a few stanzas.
It does not appear that it is usual for the performers to row and sing
at the same time. Although the verses of the _Jerusalem_ are no longer
casually heard, there is yet much music upon the Venetian canals; and
upon holydays, those strangers who are not near or informed enough to
distinguish the words, may fancy that many of the gondolas still resound
with the strains of Tasso. The writer of some remarks which appeared in
the _Curiosities of Literature_ must excuse his being twice quoted; for,
with the exception of some phrases a little too ambitious and
extravagant, he has furnished a very exact, as well as agreeable
description:--
"In Venice the gondoliers know by heart long passages from Ariosto and
Tasso, and often chant them with a peculiar melody. But this talent
seems at present on the decline:--at least, after taking some pains, I
could find no more than two persons who delivered to me in this way a
passage from Tasso. I must add, that the late Mr. Berry once chanted to
me a passage in Tasso in the manner, as he assured me, of the
gondoliers.
"There are always two concerned, who alternately sing the strophes. We
know the melody eventually by Rousseau, to whose songs it is printed; it
has properly no melodious movement, and is a sort of medium between the
canto fermo and the canto figurato; it approaches to the former by
recitativical declamation, and to the latter by passages and course, by
which one syllable is detained and embellished.
"I entered a gondola by moonlight; one singer placed himself forwards
and the other aft, and thus proceeded to St. Georgio. One began the
song: when he had ended his strophe, the other took up the lay, and so
continued the song alternately. Throughout the whole of it, the same
notes invariably returned; but, according to the subject-matter of the
strophe, they laid a greater or a smaller stress, sometimes on one, and
sometimes on another note, and indeed changed the enunciation of the
whole strophe as the object of the poem altered.
"On the whole, however, the sounds were hoarse and screaming: they
seemed, in the manner of all rude uncivilised men, to make the
excellency of their singing in the force of their voice. One seemed
desirous of conquering the other by the strength of his lungs; and so
far from receiving delight from this scene (shut up as I was in the box
of the gondola), I found myself in a very unpleasant situation.
"My companion, to whom I communicated this circumstance, being very
desirous to keep up the credit of his countrymen, assured me that the
singing was very delightful when heard at a distance. Accordingly we got
out upon the shore, leaving one of the singers in the gondola, while the
other went to the distance of some hundred paces. They now began to sing
against one another, and I kept walking up and down between them both,
so as always to leave him who was to begin his part. I frequently stood
still and hearkened to the one and to the other.
"Here the scene was properly introduced. The strong declamatory, and, as
it were, shrieking sound, met the ear from far, and called forth the
attention; the quickly succeeding transitions, which necessarily
required to be sung in a lower tone, seemed like plaintive strains
succeeding the vociferations of emotion or of pain. The other, who
listened attentively, immediately began where the former left off,
answering him in milder or more vehement notes, according as the purport
of the strophe required. The sleepy canals, the lofty buildings, the
splendour of the moon, the deep shadows of the few gondolas that moved
like spirits hither and thither, increased the striking peculiarity of
the scene; and, amidst all these circumstances, it was easy to confess
the character of this wonderful harmony.
"It suits perfectly well with an idle, solitary mariner, lying at length
in his vessel at rest on one of these canals, waiting for his company,
or for a fare, the tiresomeness of which situation is somewhat
alleviated by the songs and poetical stories he has in memory. He often
raises his voice as loud as he can, which extends itself to a vast
distance over the tranquil mirror; and as all is still around, he is, as
it were, in a solitude in the midst of a large and populous town. Here
is no rattling of carriages, no noise of foot passengers; a silent
gondola glides now and then by him, of which the splashings of the oars
are scarcely to be heard.
"At a distance he hears another, perhaps utterly unknown to him. Melody
and verse immediately attach the two strangers; he becomes the
responsive echo to the former, and exerts himself to be heard as he had
heard the other. By a tacit convention they alternate verse for verse;
though the song should last the whole night through, they entertain
themselves without fatigue: the hearers who are passing between the two
take part in the amusement.
"This vocal performance sounds best at a great distance, and is then
inexpressibly charming, as it only fulfills its design in the sentiment
of remoteness. It is plaintive, but not dismal in its sound, and at
times it is scarcely possible to refrain from tears. My companion, who
otherwise was not a very delicately organised person, said quite
unexpectedly: E singolare come quel canto intenerisce, e molto piu
quando lo cantano meglio.
"I was told that the women of Libo, the long row of islands that divides
the Adriatic from the Lagoons,[555] particularly the women of the
extreme districts of Malamocca and Palestrina, sing in like manner the
works of Tasso to these and similar tunes.
"They have the custom, when their husbands are fishing out at sea, to
sit along the shore in the evenings and vociferate these songs, and
continue to do so with great violence, till each of them can distinguish
the responses of her own husband at a distance."[556]
The love of music and of poetry distinguishes all classes of Venetians,
even amongst the tuneful sons of Italy. The city itself can occasionally
furnish respectable audiences for two and even three opera-houses at a
time; and there are few events in private life that do not call forth a
printed and circulated sonnet. Does a physician or a lawyer take his
degree, or a clergyman preach his maiden sermon, has a surgeon performed
an operation, would a harlequin announce his departure or his benefit,
are you to be congratulated on a marriage, or a birth, or a lawsuit, the
Muses are invoked to furnish the same number of syllables, and the
individual triumphs blaze abroad in virgin white or party-coloured
placards on half the corners of the capital. The last curtsy of a
favourite "prima donna" brings down a shower of these poetical tributes
from those upper regions, from which, in our theatres, nothing but
cupids and snowstorms are accustomed to descend. There is a poetry in
the very life of a Venetian, which, in its common course, is varied with
those surprises and changes so recommendable in fiction, but so
different from the sober monotony of northern existence; amusements are
raised into duties, duties are softened into amusements, and every
object being considered as equally making a part of the business of
life, is announced and performed with the same earnest indifference and
gay assiduity. The Venetian gazette constantly closes its columns with
the following triple advertisement:--
_Charade._
Exposition of the most Holy Sacrament in the church of St.----
_Theatres_.
St. Moses, opera.
St. Benedict, a comedy of characters.
St. Luke, repose.
When it is recollected what the Catholics believe their consecrated
wafer to be, we may perhaps think it worthy of a more respectable niche
than between poetry and the playhouse.
3.
St. Mark yet sees his Lion where he stood
Stand.
Stanza xi. line 5.
The Lion has lost nothing by his journey to the Invalides, but the
gospel which supported the paw that is now on a level with the other
foot. The horses also are returned [A.D. 1815] to the ill-chosen spot
whence they set out, and are, as before, half hidden under the porch
window of St. Mark's Church. Their history, after a desperate struggle,
has been satisfactorily explored. The decisions and doubts of Erizzo and
Zanetti, and lastly, of the Count Leopold Cicognara, would have given
them a Roman extraction, and a pedigree not more ancient than the reign
of Nero. But M. de Schlegel stepped in to teach the Venetians the value
of their own treasures; and a Greek vindicated, at last and for ever,
the pretension of his countrymen to this noble production[557]. M.
Mustoxidi has not been left without a reply; but, as yet, he has
received no answer. It should seem that the horses are irrevocably
Chian, and were transferred to Constantinople by Theodosius. Lapidary
writing is a favourite play of the Italians, and has conferred
reputation on more than one of their literary characters. One of the
best specimens of Bodoni's typography is a respectable volume of
inscriptions, all written by his friend Pacciaudi. Several were prepared
for the recovered horses. It is to be hoped the best was not selected,
when the following words were ranged in gold letters above the cathedral
porch:--
QUATUOR. EQUORUM. SIGNA. A. VENETIS. BYZANTIO.
CAPTA. AD. TEMP. D. MAR. A. R. S. MCCIV. POSITA.
QUAE. HOSTILIS. CUPIDITAS. A. MDCCIIIC. ABSTULERAT.
FRANC. I. IMP. PACIS. ORBI. DATAE. TROPHAEUM. A.
MDCCCXV. VICTOR. REDUXIT.
Nothing shall be said of the Latin, but it may be permitted to observe,
that the injustice of the Venetians in transporting the horses from
Constantinople [A.D. 1204] was at least equal to that of the French in
carrying them to Paris [A.D. 1797], and that it would have been more
prudent to have avoided all allusions to either robbery. An apostolic
prince should, perhaps, have objected to affixing over the principal
entrance of a metropolitan church an inscription having a reference to
any other triumphs than those of religion. Nothing less than the
pacification of the world can excuse such a solecism.
4.
The Suabian sued, and now the Austrian reigns--
An Emperor tramples where an Emperor knelt.
Stanza xii. lines 1 and 2.
After many vain efforts on the part of the Italians entirely to throw
off the yoke of Frederic Barbarossa, and as fruitless attempts of the
Emperor to make himself absolute master throughout the whole of his
Cisalpine dominions, the bloody struggles of four-and-twenty years were
happily brought to a close in the city of Venice. The articles of a
treaty had been previously agreed upon between Pope Alexander III. and
Barbarossa; and the former having received a safe-conduct, had already
arrived at Venice from Ferrara, in company with the ambassadors of the
King of Sicily and the consuls of the Lombard League. There still
remained, however, many points to adjust, and for several days the peace
was believed to be impracticable. At this juncture, it was suddenly
reported that the Emperor had arrived at Chioza, a town fifteen miles
from the capital. The Venetians rose tumultuously, and insisted upon
immediately conducting him to the city. The Lombards took the alarm, and
departed towards Treviso. The Pope himself was apprehensive of some
disaster if Frederic should suddenly advance upon him, but was reassured
by the prudence and address of Sebastian Ziani, the Doge. Several
embassies passed between Chioza and the capital, until, at last, the
Emperor, relaxing somewhat of his pretensions, "laid aside his leonine
ferocity, and put on the mildness of the lamb."[558]
On Saturday, the 23rd of July, in the year 1177, six Venetian galleys
transferred Frederic, in great pomp, from Chioza to the island of Lido,
a mile from Venice. Early the next morning, the Pope, accompanied by the
Sicilian ambassadors, and by the envoys of Lombardy, whom he had
recalled from the main land, together with a great concourse of people,
repaired from the patriarchal palace to St. Mark's Church, and solemnly
absolved the Emperor and his partisans from the excommunication
pronounced against him. The Chancellor of the Empire, on the part of his
master, renounced the anti-popes and their schismatic adherents.
Immediately the Doge, with a great suite both of the clergy and laity,
got on board the galleys, and waiting on Frederic, rowed him in mighty
state from the Lido to the capital. The Emperor descended from the
galley at the quay of the Piazzetta. The Doge, the patriarch, his
bishops and clergy, and the people of Venice with their crosses and
their standards, marched in solemn procession before him to the church
of St. Mark. Alexander was seated before the vestibule of the basilica,
attended by his bishops and cardinals, by the patriarch of Aquileja, by
the archbishops and bishops of Lombardy, all of them in state, and
clothed in their church robes. Frederic approached--"moved by the Holy
Spirit, venerating the Almighty in the person of Alexander, laying aside
his imperial dignity, and throwing off his mantle, he prostrated himself
at full length at the feet of the Pope. Alexander, with tears in his
eyes, raised him benignantly from the ground, kissed him, blessed him;
and immediately the Germans of the train sang with a loud voice, 'We
praise thee, O Lord.' The Emperor then taking the Pope by the right
hand, led him to the church, and having received his benediction,
returned to the ducal palace."[559] The ceremony of humiliation was
repeated the next day. The Pope himself, at the request of Frederic,
said mass at St. Mark's. The Emperor again laid aside his imperial
mantle, and taking a wand in his hand, officiated as _verger_, driving
the laity from the choir, and preceding the pontiff to the altar.
Alexander, after reciting the gospel, preached to the people. The
Emperor put himself close to the pulpit in the attitude of listening;
and the pontiff, touched by this mark of his attention (for he knew that
Frederic did not understand a word he said), commanded the patriarch of
Aquileja to translate the Latin discourse into the German tongue. The
creed was then chanted. Frederic made his oblation, and kissed the
Pope's feet, and, mass being over, led him by the hand to his white
horse. He held the stirrup, and would have led the horse's rein to the
water side, had not the Pope accepted of the inclination for the
performance, and affectionately dismissed him with his benediction. Such
is the substance of the account left by the archbishop of Salerno, who
was present at the ceremony, and whose story is confirmed by every
subsequent narration. It would be not worth so minute a record, were it
not the triumph of liberty as well as of superstition. The states of
Lombardy owed to it the confirmation of their privileges; and Alexander
had reason to thank the Almighty, who had enabled an infirm, unarmed
old man to subdue a terrible and potent sovereign.[560]
5.
Oh for one hour of blind old Dandolo!
Th' octogenarian chief, Byzantium's conquering foe.
Stanza xii. lines 8 and 9.
The reader will recollect the exclamation of the Highlander, "_Oh, for
one hour of Dundee_!" Henry Dandolo, when elected Doge, in 1192, was
eighty-five years of age. When he commanded the Venetians at the taking
of Constantinople, he was consequently ninety-seven years old. At this
age he annexed the fourth and a half of the whole empire of
Romania,[561] for so the Roman empire was then called, to the title and
to the territories of the Venetian Doge. The three-eighths of this
empire were preserved in the diplomas until the Dukedom of Giovanni
Dolfino, who made use of the above designation in the year 1357.[562]
Dandolo led the attack on Constantinople in person. Two ships, the
Paradise and the Pilgrim, were tied together, and a drawbridge or ladder
let down from their higher yards to the walls. The Doge was one of the
first to rush into the city. Then was completed, said the Venetians, the
prophecy of the Erythraean sibyl:--"A gathering together of the powerful
shall be made amidst the waves of the Adriatic, under a blind leader;
they shall beset the goat--they shall profane Byzantium--they shall
blacken her buildings--her spoils shall be dispersed; a new goat shall
bleat until they have measured out and run over fifty-four feet nine
inches and a half."[563] Dandolo died on the first day of June, 1205,
having reigned thirteen years six months and five days, and was buried
in the church of St. Sophia, at Constantinople. Strangely enough it must
sound, that the name of the rebel apothecary who received the Doge's
sword, and annihilated the ancient government, in 1796-7, was Dandolo.
6.
But is not Doria's menace come to pass?
Are they not _bridled?_
Stanza xiii. lines 3 and 4.
After the loss of the battle of Pola, and the taking of Chioza on the
16th of August, 1379, by the united armament of the Genoese and
Francesco da Carrara, Signor of Padua, the Venetians were reduced to the
utmost despair. An embassy was sent to the conquerors with a blank sheet
of paper, praying them to prescribe what terms they pleased, and leave
to Venice only her independence. The Prince of Padua was inclined to
listen to these proposals; but the Genoese, who, after the victory at
Pola, had shouted, "To Venice! to Venice! and long live St. George!"
determined to annihilate their rival; and Peter Doria, their
commander-in-chief, returned this answer to the suppliants: "On God's
faith, gentlemen of Venice, ye shall have no peace from the Signer of
Padua, nor from our commune of Genoa, until we have first put a rein
upon those unbridled horses of yours, that are upon the porch of your
evangelist St. Mark. When we have bridled them we shall keep you quiet.
And this is the pleasure of us and of our commune. As for these, my
brothers of Genoa, that you have brought with you to give up to us, I
will not have them: take them back; for in a few days hence, I shall
come and let them out of prison myself, both these and all the others"
[p. 727, E. _vide infra_]. In fact, the Genoese did advance as far as
Malamocco, within five miles of the capital; but their own danger, and
the pride of their enemies, gave courage to the Venetians, who made
prodigious efforts, and many individual sacrifices, all of them
carefully recorded by their historians. Vettor Pisani was put at the
head of thirty-four galleys. The Genoese broke up from Malamocco, and
retired to Chioza in October; but they again threatened Venice, which
was reduced to extremities. At this time, the 1st of January, 1380,
arrived Carlo Zeno, who had been cruising on the Genoese coast with
fourteen galleys. The Venetians were now strong enough to besiege the
Genoese. Doria was killed on the 22nd of January, by a stone bullet, one
hundred and ninety-five pounds' weight, discharged from a bombard called
the Trevisan. Chioza was then closely invested; five thousand
auxiliaries, among whom were some English condottieri, commanded by one
Captain Ceccho, joined the Venetians. The Genoese, in their turn, prayed
for conditions, but none were granted, until, at last, they surrendered
at discretion; and, on the 24th of June, 1380, the Doge Contarini made
his triumphal entry into Chioza. Four thousand prisoners, nineteen
galleys, many smaller vessels and barks, with all the ammunition and
arms, and outfit of the expedition, fell into the hands of the
conquerors, who, had it not been for the inexorable answer of Doria,
would have gladly reduced their dominion to the city of Venice. An
account of these transactions is found in a work called _The War of
Chioza_,[564] written by Daniel Chinazzo, who was in Venice at the time.
7.
Thin streets, and foreign aspects, such as must
Too oft remind her who and what enthrals.
Stanza xv. lines 7 and 8.
The population of Venice, at the end of the seventeenth century,
amounted to nearly two hundred thousand souls. At the last census, taken
two years ago [1816], it was no more than about one hundred and three
thousand; and it diminishes daily. The commerce and the official
employments, which were to be the unexhausted source of Venetian
grandeur, have both expired.[565] Most of the patrician mansions are
deserted, and would gradually disappear, had not the Government, alarmed
by the demolition of seventy-two during the last two years, expressly
forbidden this sad resource of poverty. Many remnants of the Venetian
nobility are now scattered, and confounded with the wealthier Jews upon
the banks of the Brenta, whose Palladian palaces have sunk, or are
sinking, in the general decay. Of the "gentiluomo Veneto," the name is
still known, and that is all. He is but the shadow of his former self,
but he is polite and kind. It surely may be pardoned to him if he is
querulous. Whatever may have been the vices of the republic, and
although the natural term of its existence may be thought by foreigners
to have arrived in the due course of mortality, only one sentiment can
be expected from the Venetians themselves. At no time were the subjects
of the republic so unanimous in their resolution to rally round the
standard of St. Mark, as when it was for the last time unfurled; and the
cowardice and the treachery of the few patricians who recommended the
fatal neutrality, were confined to the persons of the traitors
themselves. The present race cannot be thought to regret the loss of
their aristocratical forms, and too despotic government; they think only
on their vanished independence. They pine away at the remembrance, and
on this subject suspend for a moment their gay good humour. Venice may
be said, in the words of the Scripture, "to die daily;" and so general
and so apparent is the decline, as to become painful to a stranger, not
reconciled to the sight of a whole nation expiring, as it were, before
his eyes. So artificial a creation, having lost that principle which
called it into life and supported its existence, must fall to pieces at
once, and sink more rapidly than it rose. The abhorrence of slavery,
which drove the Venetians to the sea, has, since their disaster, forced
them to the land, where they may be at least overlooked amongst the
crowd of dependents, and not present the humiliating spectacle of a
whole nation loaded with recent chains. Their liveliness, their
affability, and that happy indifference which constitution alone can
give (for philosophy aspires to it in vain), have not sunk under
circumstances; but many peculiarities of costume and manner have by
degrees been lost; and the nobles, with a pride common to all Italians
who have been masters, have not been persuaded to parade their
insignificance. That splendour which was a proof and a portion of their
power, they would not degrade into the trappings of their subjection.
They retired from the space which they had occupied in the eyes of their
fellow citizens; their continuance in which would have been a symptom of
acquiescence, and an insult to those who suffered by the common
misfortune. Those who remained in the degraded capital, might be said
rather to haunt the scenes of their departed power, than to live in
them. The reflection, "who and what enthrals," will hardly bear a
comment from one who is, nationally, the friend and the ally of the
conqueror. It may, however, be allowed to say thus much, that to those
who wish to recover their independence, any masters must be an object of
detestation; and it may be safely foretold that this unprofitable
aversion will not have been corrected before Venice shall have sunk into
the slime of her choked canals.
8.
Watering the tree which bears his Lady's name
With his melodious tears, he gave himself to Fame.
Stanza xxx. lines 8 and 9.
Thanks to the critical acumen of a Scotchman, we now know as little of
Laura as ever.[566] The discoveries of the Abbe de Sade, his triumphs,
his sneers, can no longer instruct or amuse. We must not, however, think
that these memoirs[567] are as much a romance as Belisarius or the
Incas, although we are told so by Dr. Beattie, a great name, but a
little authority.[568] His "labour" has not been in vain,
notwithstanding his "love" has, like most other passions, made him
ridiculous.[569] The hypothesis which overpowered the struggling
Italians, and carried along less interested critics in its current, is
run out. We have another proof that we can never be sure that the
paradox, the most singular, and therefore having the most agreeable and
authentic air, will not give place to the re-established ancient
prejudice.
It seems, then, first, that Laura was born, lived, died, and was buried,
not in Avignon, but in the country. The fountains of the Sorga, the
thickets of Cabrieres, may resume their pretensions, and the exploded
_de la Bastie_ again be heard with complacency. The hypothesis of the
Abbe had no stronger props than the parchment sonnet and medal found on
the skeleton of the wife of Hugo de Sade, and the manuscript note to the
_Virgil_ of Petrarch, now in the Ambrosian library. If these proofs were
both incontestable, the poetry was written, the medal composed, cast,
and deposited within the space of twelve hours: and these deliberate
duties were performed round the carcass of one who died of the plague,
and was hurried to the grave on the day of her death. These documents,
therefore, are too decisive: they prove not the fact, but the forgery.
Either the sonnet or the Virgilian note must be a falsification. The
Abbe cites both as incontestably true; the consequent deduction is
inevitable--they are both evidently false.[570]
Secondly, Laura was never married, and was a haughty virgin rather than
that _tender and prudent_ wife who honoured Avignon, by making that town
the theatre of an honest French passion, and played off for one and
twenty years her _little machinery_ of alternate favours and
refusals[571] upon the first poet of the age. It was, indeed, rather too
unfair that a female should be made responsible for eleven children upon
the faith of a misinterpreted abbreviation, and the decision of a
librarian.[572] It is, however, satisfactory to think that the love of
Petrarch was not platonic. The happiness which he prayed to possess but
once and for a moment was surely not of the mind,[573] and something so
very real as a marriage project, with one who has been idly called a
shadowy nymph, may be, perhaps, detected in at least six places of his
own sonnets. The love of Petrarch was neither platonic nor poetical; and
if in one passage of his works he calls it "amore veementeissimo ma
unico ed onesto," he confesses, in a letter to a friend, that it was
guilty and perverse, that it absorbed him quite, and mastered his heart.
In this case, however, he was perhaps alarmed for the culpability of his
wishes; for the Abbe de Sade himself, who certainly would not have been
scrupulously delicate if he could have proved his descent from Petrarch
as well as Laura, is forced into a stout defence of his virtuous
grandmother. As far as relates to the poet, we have no security for the
innocence, except perhaps in the constancy of his pursuit. He assures us
in his epistle to posterity, that, when arrived at his fortieth year, he
not only had in horror, but had lost all recollection and image of any
"irregularity." But the birth of his natural daughter cannot be assigned
earlier than his thirty-ninth year; and either the memory or the
morality of the poet must have failed him, when he forgot or was guilty
of this _slip_.[574] The weakest argument for the purity of this love
has been drawn from the permanence of its effects, which survived the
object of his passion. The reflection of M. de la Bastie, that virtue
alone is capable of making impressions which death cannot efface, is
one of those which everybody applauds, and everybody finds not to be
true, the moment he examines his own breast or the records of human
feeling.[575] Such apophthegms can do nothing for Petrarch or for the
cause of morality, except with the very weak and the very young. He that
has made even a little progress beyond ignorance and pupilage cannot be
edified with anything but truth. What is called vindicating the honour
of an individual or a nation, is the most futile, tedious, and
uninstructive of all writing; although it will always meet with more
applause than that sober criticism, which is attributed to the malicious
desire of reducing a great man to the common standard of humanity. It
is, after all, not unlikely that our historian was right in retaining
his favourite hypothetic salvo, which secures the author, although it
scarcely saves the honour of the still unknown mistress of
Petrarch.[576]
9.
They keep his dust in Arqua, where he died.
Stanza xxxi. line 1.
Petrarch retired to Arqua immediately on his return from the
unsuccessful attempt to visit Urban V. at Rome, in the year 1370, and
with the exception of his celebrated visit to Venice in company with
Francesco Novello da Carrara, he appears to have passed the four last
years of his life between that charming solitude and Padua. For four
months previous to his death he was in a state of continual languor, and
in the morning of July the 19th, in the year 1374, was found dead in his
library chair with his head resting upon a book. The chair is still
shown amongst the precious relics of Arqua, which, from the
uninterrupted veneration that has been attached to everything relative
to this great man from the moment of his death to the present hour,
have, it may be hoped, a better chance of authenticity than the
Shaksperian memorials of Stratford-upon-Avon.
Arqua (for the last syllable is accented in pronunciation, although the
analogy of the English language has been observed in the verse) is
twelve miles from Padua, and about three miles on the right of the high
road to Rovigo, in the bosom of the Euganean hills. After a walk of
twenty minutes across a flat well-wooded meadow, you come to a little
blue lake, clear but fathomless, and to the foot of a succession of
acclivities and hills, clothed with vineyards and orchards, rich with
fir and pomegranate trees, and every sunny fruit shrub. From the banks
of the lake the road winds into the hills, and the church of Arqua is
soon seen between a cleft where two ridges slope towards each other, and
nearly enclose the village. The houses are scattered at intervals on the
steep sides of these summits; and that of the poet is on the edge of a
little knoll overlooking two descents, and commanding a view, not only
of the glowing gardens in the dales immediately beneath, but of the wide
plains, above whose low woods of mulberry and willow, thickened into a
dark mass by festoons of vines, tall, single cypresses, and the spires
of towns, are seen in the distance, which stretches to the mouths of the
Po and the shores of the Adriatic. The climate of these volcanic hills
is warmer, and the vintage begins a week sooner than in the plains of
Padua. Petrarch is laid, for he cannot be said to be buried, in a
sarcophagus of red marble, raised on four pilasters on an elevated base,
and preserved from an association with meaner tombs. It stands
conspicuously alone, but will be soon overshadowed by four lately
planted laurels. Petrarch's Fountain, for here everything is Petrarch's,
springs and expands itself beneath an artificial arch, a little below
the church, and abounds plentifully, in the driest season, with that
soft water which was the ancient wealth of the Euganean hills. It would
be more attractive, were it not, in some seasons, beset with hornets and
wasps. No other coincidence could assimilate the tombs of Petrarch and
Archilochus. The revolutions of centuries have spared these sequestered
valleys, and the only violence which has been offered to the ashes of
Petrarch was prompted, not by hate, but veneration. An attempt was made
to rob the sarcophagus of its treasure, and one of the arms was stolen
by a Florentine through a rent which is still visible. The injury is not
forgotten, but has served to identify the poet with the country where he
was born, but where he would not live. A peasant boy of Arqua being
asked who Petrarch was, replied, "that the people of the parsonage knew
all about him, but that he only knew that he was a Florentine."
Mr. Forsyth[577] was not quite correct in saying that Petrarch never
returned to Tuscany after he had once quitted it when a boy. It appears
he did pass through Florence on his way from Parma to Rome, and on his
return in the year 1350, and remained there long enough to form some
acquaintance with its most distinguished inhabitants. A Florentine
gentleman, ashamed of the aversion of the poet for his native country,
was eager to point out this trivial error in our accomplished traveller,
whom he knew and respected for an extraordinary capacity, extensive
erudition, and refined taste, joined to that engaging simplicity of
manners which has been so frequently recognised as the surest, though it
is certainly not an indispensable, trait of superior genius.
Every footstep of Laura's lover has been anxiously traced and recorded.
The house in which he lodged is shown in Venice. The inhabitants of
Arezzo, in order to decide the ancient controversy between their city
and the neighbouring Ancisa, where Petrarch was carried when seven
months old, and remained until his seventh year, have designated by a
long inscription the spot where their great fellow citizen was born. A
tablet has been raised to him at Parma, in the chapel of St. Agatha, at
the cathedral, because he was arch-deacon of that society, and was only
snatched from his intended sepulture in their church by a _foreign_
death. Another tablet, with a bust, has been erected to him at Pavia, on
account of his having passed the autumn of 1368 in that city, with his
son-in-law Brossano. The political condition which has for ages
precluded the Italians from the criticism of the living, has
concentrated their attention to the illustration of the dead.
10.
In face of all his foes, the Cruscan quire,
And Boileau, whose rash envy, etc.
Stanza xxxviii. lines 6 and 7.
Perhaps the couplet in which Boileau depreciates Tasso may serve as well
as any other specimen to justify the opinion given of the harmony of
French verse--
"A Malherbe, a Racan, prefere Theophile,
Et le clinquant du Tasse a tout l'or de Virgile."
_Sat_. ix. v. 176.
The biographer Serassi,[578] out of tenderness to the reputation either
of the Italian or the French poet, is eager to observe that the satirist
recanted or explained away this censure, and subsequently allowed the
author of the _Jerusalem_ to be "a genius sublime, vast, and happily
born for the higher flights of poetry." To this we will add, that the
recantation is far from satisfactory, when we examine the whole anecdote
as reported by Olivet.[579] The sentence pronounced against him by
Bouhours[580] is recorded only to the confusion of the critic, whose
_palinodia_ the Italian makes no effort to discover, and would not,
perhaps, accept. As to the opposition which the _Jerusalem_ encountered
from the Cruscan academy, who degraded Tasso from all competition with
Ariosto, below Bojardo and Pulci, the disgrace of such opposition must
also in some measure be laid to the charge of Alfonso, and the court of
Ferrara. For Leonard Salviati, the principal and nearly the sole origin
of this attack, was, there can be no doubt,[581] influenced by a hope to
acquire the favour of the House of Este: an object which he thought
attainable by exalting the reputation of a native poet at the expense of
a rival, then a _prisoner of state_. The hopes and efforts of Salviati
must serve to show the contemporary opinion as to the nature of the
poet's imprisonment; and will fill up the measure of our indignation at
the tyrant jailer.[582] In fact, the antagonist of Tasso was not
disappointed in the reception given to his criticism; he was called to
the court of Ferrara, where, having endeavoured to heighten his claims
to favour, by panegyrics on the family of his sovereign,[583] he was in
turn abandoned, and expired in neglected poverty. The opposition of the
Cruscans was brought to a close in six years after the commencement of
the controversy; and if the Academy owed its first renown to having
almost opened with such a paradox,[584] it is probable that, on the
other hand, the care of his reputation alleviated rather than aggravated
the imprisonment of the injured poet. The defence of his father and of
himself, for both were involved in the censure of Salviati, found
employment for many of his solitary hours, and the captive could have
been but little embarrassed to reply to accusations, where, among other
delinquencies, he was charged with invidiously omitting, in his
comparison between France and Italy, to make any mention of the cupola
of St. Maria del Fiore at Florence.[585] The late biographer of Ariosto
seems as if willing to renew the controversy by doubting the
interpretation of Tasso's self-estimation[586] related in Serassi's life
of the poet. But Tiraboschi had before laid that rivalry at rest,[587]
by showing that between Ariosto and Tasso it is not a question of
comparison, but of preference.
11.
The lightning rent from Ariosto's bust
The iron crown of laurel's mimicked leaves.
Stanza xli. lines 1 and 2.
Before the remains of Ariosto were removed from the Benedictine church
to the library of Ferrara, his bust, which surmounted the tomb, was
struck by lightning, and a crown of iron laurels melted away. The event
has been recorded by a writer of the last century.[588] The transfer of
these sacred ashes, on the 6th of June, 1801, was one of the most
brilliant spectacles of the short-lived Italian Republic; and to
consecrate the memory of the ceremony, the once famous fallen
_Intrepidi_ were revived and reformed into the Ariostean academy. The
large public place through which the procession paraded was then for the
first time called Ariosto Square. The author of the _Orlando_ is
jealously claimed as the Homer, not of Italy but Ferrara.[589] The
mother of Ariosto was of Reggio, and the house in which he was born is
carefully distinguished by a tablet with these words: "Qui nacque
Ludovico Ariosto il giorno 8. di Settembre dell' anno 1474." But the
Ferrarese make light of the accident by which their poet was born
abroad, and claim him exclusively for their own. They possess his bones,
they show his arm-chair, and his inkstand, and his autographs.
"......Hic illius anna,
Hic currus fuit......"
The house where he lived, the room where he died, are designated by his
own replaced memorial,[590] and by a recent inscription. The Ferrarese
are more jealous of their claims since the animosity of Denina, arising
from a cause which their apologists mysteriously hint is not unknown to
them, ventured to degrade their soil and climate to a Boeotian in
capacity for all spiritual productions. A quarto volume has been called
forth by the detraction, and this supplement to Barotti's Memoirs of the
illustrious Ferarrese, has been considered a triumphant reply to the
"Quadro Storico Statistico dell' Alta Italia."
12.
For the true laurel-wreath which Glory weaves
Is of the tree no bolt of thunder cleaves.
Stanza xli. lines 4 and 5.
The eagle, the sea calf, the laurel, and the white vine,[591] were
amongst the most approved preservatives against lightning: Jupiter chose
the first, Augustus Caesar the second, and Tiberius never failed to wear
a wreath of the third when the sky threatened a thunder-storm.[592]
These superstitions may be received without a sneer in a country where
the magical properties of the hazel twig have not lost all their credit;
and perhaps the reader may not be much surprised that a commentator on
Suetonius has taken upon himself gravely to disprove the imputed virtues
of the crown of Tiberius, by mentioning that a few years before he wrote
a laurel was actually struck by lightning at Rome.[593]
13.
Know, that the lightning sanctifies below.
Stanza xli. line 8.
The Curtian lake and the Ruminal fig-tree in the Forum, having been
touched by lightning, were held sacred, and the memory of the accident
was preserved by a _pateal_, or altar resembling the mouth of a well,
with a little chapel covering the cavity supposed to be made by the
thunder-bolt. Bodies scathed and persons struck dead were thought to be
incorruptible;[594] and a stroke not fatal conferred perpetual dignity
upon the man so distinguished by heaven.[595]
Those killed by lightning were wrapped in a white garment, and buried
where they fell. The superstition was not confined to the worshippers of
Jupiter: the Lombards believed in the omens furnished by lightning; and
a Christian priest confesses that, by a diabolical skill in interpreting
thunder, a seer foretold to Agilulf, duke of Turin, an event which came
to pass, and gave him a queen and a crown.[596] There was, however,
something equivocal in this sign, which the ancient inhabitants of Rome
did not always consider propitious; and as the fears are likely to last
longer than the consolations of superstition, it is not strange that the
Romans of the age of Leo X. should have been so much terrified at some
misinterpreted storms as to require the exhortations of a scholar, who
arrayed all the learning on thunder and lightning to prove the omen
favourable; beginning with the flash which struck the walls of Velitrae;,
and including that which played upon a gate at Florence, and foretold
the pontificate of one of its citizens.[597]
14.
There, too, the Goddess loves in stone.
Stanza xlix. line 1.
The view of the Venus of Medicis instantly suggests the lines in the
_Seasons_; and the comparison of the object with the description proves,
not only the correctness of the portrait, but the peculiar turn of
thought, and, if the term may be used, the sexual imagination of the
descriptive poet. The same conclusion may be deduced from another hint
in the same episode of Musidora; for Thomson's notion of the privileges
of favoured love must have been either very primitive, or rather
deficient in delicacy, when he made his grateful nymph inform her
discreet Damon that in some happier moment he might perhaps be the
companion of her bath:--
"The time may come you need not fly."
The reader will recollect the anecdote told in the _Life of Dr.
Johnson_. We will not leave the Florentine gallery without a word on the
_Whetter_. It seems strange that the character of that disputed statue
should not be entirely decided, at least in the mind of any one who has
seen a sarcophagus in the vestibule of the Basilica of St. Paul without
the walls, at Rome, where the whole group of the fable of Marsyas is
seen in tolerable preservation; and the Scythian slave whetting the
knife, is represented exactly in the same position as this celebrated
masterpiece. The slave is not naked; but it is easier to get rid of this
difficulty than to suppose the knife in the hand of the Florentine
statue an instrument for shaving, which it must be, if, as Lanzi
supposes, the man is no other than the barber of Julius Caesar.
Winckelmann, illustrating a bas-relief of the same subject, follows the
opinion of Leonard Agostini, and his authority might have been thought
conclusive, even if the resemblance did not strike the most careless
observer.[598] Amongst the bronzes of the same princely collection, is
still to be seen the inscribed tablet copied and commented upon by Mr.
Gibbon.[599] Our historian found some difficulties, but did not desist
from his illustration. He might be vexed to hear that his criticism has
been thrown away on an inscription now generally recognised to be a
forgery.
15.
In Santa Croce's holy precincts lie.
Stanza liv. line 1.
This name will recall the memory, not only of those whose tombs have
raised the Santa Croce into the centre of pilgrimage--the Mecca of
Italy--but of her whose eloquence was poured over the illustrious ashes,
and whose voice is now as mute as those she sung. Corinna is no more;
and with her should expire the fear, the flattery, and the envy, which
threw too dazzling or too dark a cloud round the march of genius, and
forbad the steady gaze of disinterested criticism. We have her picture
embellished or distorted, as friendship or detraction has held the
pencil: the impartial portrait was hardly to be expected from a
contemporary. The immediate voice of her survivors will, it is probable,
be far from affording a just estimate of her singular capacity. The
gallantry, the love of wonder, and the hope of associated fame, which
blunted the edge of censure, must cease to exist.--The dead have no sex;
they can surprise by no new miracles; they can confer no privilege:
Corinna has ceased to be a woman--she is only an author; and it may be
foreseen that many will repay themselves for former complaisance, by a
severity to which the extravagance of previous praises may perhaps give
the colour of truth. The latest posterity--for to the latest posterity
they will assuredly descend--will have to pronounce upon her various
productions; and the longer the vista through which they are seen, the
more accurately minute will be the object, the more certain the justice,
of the decision. She will enter into that existence in which the great
writers of all ages and nations are, as it were, associated in a world
of their own, and, from that superior sphere, shed their eternal
influence for the control and consolation of mankind. But the individual
will gradually disappear as the author is more distinctly seen; some
one, therefore, of all those whom the charms of involuntary wit, and of
easy hospitality, attracted within the friendly circles of Coppet,
should rescue from oblivion those virtues which, although they are said
to love the shade, are, in fact, more frequently chilled than excited by
the domestic cares of private life. Some one should be found to portray
the unaffected graces with which she adorned those dearer relationships,
the performance of whose duties is rather discovered amongst the
interior secrets, than seen in the outward management, of family
intercourse; and which, indeed, it requires the delicacy of genuine
affection to qualify for the eye of an indifferent spectator. Some one
should be found, not to celebrate, but to describe, the amiable mistress
of an open mansion, the centre of a society, ever varied, and always
pleased, the creator of which, divested of the ambition and the arts of
public rivalry, shone forth only to give fresh animation to those around
her. The mother tenderly affectionate and tenderly beloved, the friend
unboundedly generous, but still esteemed, the charitable patroness of
all distress, cannot be forgotten by those whom she cherished, and
protected, and fed. Her loss will be mourned the most where she was
known the best; and, to the sorrows of very many friends, and more
dependants, may be offered the disinterested regret of a stranger, who,
amidst the sublimer scenes of the Leman lake, received his chief
satisfaction from contemplating the engaging qualities of the
incomparable Corinna.
16.
Here repose
Angelo's--Alfieri's bones.
Stanza liv. lines 6 and 7.
Alfieri is the great name of this age. The Italians, without waiting for
the hundred years, consider him as "a poet good in law."--His memory is
the more dear to them because he is the bard of freedom; and because, as
such, his tragedies can receive no countenance from any of their
sovereigns. They are but very seldom, and but very few of them, allowed
to be acted. It was observed by Cicero, that nowhere were the true
opinions and feelings of the Romans so clearly shown as at the
theatre.[600] In the autumn of 1816, a celebrated improvisatore
exhibited his talents at the Opera-house of Milan. The reading of the
theses handed in for the subjects of his poetry was received by a very
numerous audience, for the most part in silence, or with laughter; but
when the assistant, unfolding one of the papers, exclaimed _The
apotheosis of Victor Alfieri_, the whole theatre burst into a shout, and
the applause was continued for some moments. The lot did not fall on
Alfieri; and the Signor Sgricci had to pour forth his extemporary
common-places on the bombardment of Algiers. The choice, indeed, is not
left to accident quite so much as might be thought from a first view of
the ceremony; and the police not only takes care to look at the papers
beforehand, but, in case of any prudential afterthought, steps in to
correct the blindness of chance. The proposal for deifying Alfieri was
received with immediate enthusiasm, the rather because it was
conjectured there would be no opportunity of carrying it into effect.
17.
Here Machiavelli's earth returned to whence it rose.
Stanza liv. line 9.
The affectation of simplicity in sepulchral inscriptions, which so often
leaves us uncertain whether the structure before us is an actual
depository, or a cenotaph, or a simple memorial not of death but life,
has given to the tomb of Machiavelli no information as to the place or
time of the birth or death, the age or parentage, of the historian.
TANTO NOMINI NVLLVM PAR ELOGIVM
NICCOLAVS MACHIAVELLI.
There seems at least no reason why the name should not have been put
above the sentence which alludes to it.
It will readily be imagined that the prejudices which have passed the
name of Machiavelli into an epithet proverbial of iniquity exist no
longer at Florence. His memory was persecuted, as his life had been, for
an attachment to liberty incompatible with the new system of despotism,
which succeeded the fall of the free governments of Italy. He was put to
the torture for being a "libertine," that is, for wishing to restore the
republic of Florence; and such are the undying efforts of those who are
interested in the perversion, not only of the nature of actions, but the
meaning of words, that what was once _patriotism_, has by degrees come
to signify _debauch_. We have ourselves outlived the old meaning of
"liberality," which is now another word for treason in one country and
for infatuation in all. It seems to have been a strange mistake to
accuse the author of _The Prince_, as being a pander to tyranny; and to
think that the Inquisition would condemn his work for such a
delinquency. The fact is, that Machiavelli, as is usual with those
against whom no crime can be proved, was suspected of and charged with
atheism; and the first and last most violent opposers of _The Prince_
were both Jesuits, one of whom persuaded the Inquisition "benche fosse
tardo," to prohibit the treatise, and the other qualified the secretary
of the Florentine republic as no better than a fool. The father Possevin
was proved never to have read the book, and the father Lucchesini not to
have understood it. It is clear, however, that such critics must have
objected not to the slavery of the doctrines, but to the supposed
tendency of a lesson which shows how distinct are the interests of a
monarch from the happiness of mankind. The Jesuits are re-established in
Italy, and the last chapter of _The Prince_ may again call forth a
particular refutation from those who are employed once more in moulding
the minds of the rising generation, so as to receive the impressions of
despotism. The chapter [xxvi.] bears for title, "Esortazione a liberare
l'Italia da' Barbari," and concludes with a _libertine_ excitement to
the future redemption of Italy. "Non si deve adunque lasciar passare
questa occasione, acciocche la Italia vegga dopo tanto tempo apparire un
suo redentore. Ne posso esprimere con quale amore ei fusse ricevuto in
tutte quelle provincie, che hanno patito per queste illuvioni esterne,
con qual sete di vendetta, con che ostinata fede, con que pieta, con che
lacrime. Quali porte se gli serrerebbero? Quali popoli gli negherebbero
l'ubbidienza? Quale Italiano gli negherebbe l'ossequio? AD OGNUNO PUZZA
QUESTO BARBARO DOMINIO."[601]
18.
Ungrateful Florence! Dante sleeps afar.
Stanza lvii. line 1.
Dante was born in Florence, in the year 1261. He fought in two battles,
was fourteen times ambassador, and once prior of the republic. When the
party of Charles of Anjou triumphed over the Bianchi, he was absent on
an embassy to Pope Boniface VIII., and was condemned to two years'
banishment, and to a fine of 8000 lire; on the non-payment of which he
was further punished by the sequestration of all his property. The
republic, however, was not content with this satisfaction, for in 1772
was discovered in the archives at Florence a sentence in which Dante is
the eleventh of a list of fifteen condemned in 1302 to be burnt alive;
_Talis perveniens igne comburatur sic quod moriatur_. The pretext for
this judgment was a proof of unfair barter, extortions, and illicit
gains. _Baracteriarum iniquarum extorsionum et illicitorum
lucrorum_,[602] and with such an accusation it is not strange that Dante
should have always protested his innocence, and the injustice of his
fellow-citizens. His appeal to Florence was accompanied by another to
the Emperor Henry; and the death of that Sovereign in 1313 was the
signal for a sentence of irrevocable banishment. He had before lingered
near Tuscany with hopes of recall; then travelled into the north of
Italy, where Verona had to boast of his longest residence; and he
finally settled at Ravenna, which was his ordinary but not constant
abode until his death. The refusal of the Venetians to grant him a
public audience, on the part of Guido Novello da Polenta, his protector,
is said to have been the principal cause of this event, which happened
in 1321. He was buried ("in sacra minorum aede") at Ravenna, in a
handsome tomb, which was erected by Guido, restored by Bernardo Bembo in
1483, praetor for that republic which had refused to hear him, again
restored by Cardinal Corsi, in 1692, and replaced by a more magnificent
sepulchre, constructed in 1780 at the expense of the Cardinal Luigi
Valenti Gonzaga. The offence or misfortune of Dante was an attachment to
a defeated party, and, as his least favourable biographers allege
against him, too great a freedom of speech and haughtiness of manner.
But the next age paid honours almost divine to the exile. The
Florentines, having in vain and frequently attempted to recover his
body, crowned his image in a church,[603] and his picture is still one
of the idols of their cathedral. They struck medals, they raised statues
to him. The cities of Italy, not being able to dispute about his own
birth, contended for that of his great poem, and the Florentines thought
it for their honour to prove that he had finished the seventh Canto
before they drove him from his native city. Fifty-one years after his
death, they endowed a professorial chair for the expounding of his
verses, and Boccaccio was appointed to this patriotic employment. The
example was imitated by Bologna and Pisa, and the commentators, if they
performed but little service to literature, augmented the veneration
which beheld a sacred or moral allegory in all the images of his mystic
muse. His birth and his infancy were discovered to have been
distinguished above those of ordinary men: the author of the
_Decameron_, his earliest biographer, relates that his mother was warned
in a dream of the importance of her pregnancy: and it was found, by
others, that at ten years of age he had manifested his precocious
passion for that wisdom or theology, which, under the name of Beatrice,
had been mistaken for a substantial mistress. When the _Divine Comedy_
had been recognised as a mere mortal production, and at the distance of
two centuries, when criticism and competition had sobered the judgment
of the Italians, Dante was seriously declared superior to Homer;[604]
and though the preference appeared to some casuists "an heretical
blasphemy worthy of the flames," the contest was vigorously maintained
for nearly fifty years. In later times it was made a question which of
the Lords of Verona could boast of having patronised him,[605] and the
jealous scepticism of one writer would not allow Ravenna the undoubted
possession of his bones. Even the critical Tiraboschi was inclined to
believe that the poet had foreseen and foretold one of the discoveries
of Galileo.--Like the great originals of other nations, his popularity
has not always maintained the same level. The last age seemed inclined
to undervalue him as a model and a study: and Bettinelli one day rebuked
his pupil Monti, for poring over the harsh and obsolete extravagances of
the _Commedia_. The present generation having recovered from the Gallic
idolatries of Cesarotti, has returned to the ancient worship, and the
_Danteggiare_ of the northern Italians is thought even indiscreet by the
more moderate Tuscans.
There is still much curious information relative to the life and
writings of this great poet, which has not as yet been collected even by
the Italians; but the celebrated Ugo Foscolo meditates to supply this
defect, and it is not to be regretted that this national work has been
reserved for one so devoted to his country and the cause of truth.
19.
Like Scipio, buried by the upbraiding shore:
Thy factions, in their worse than civil war,
Proscribed, etc.
Stanza lvii. lines 2, 3, and 4.
The elder Scipio Africanus had a tomb if he was not buried at Liternum,
whither he had retired to voluntary banishment. This tomb was near the
sea-shore, and the story of an inscription upon it, _Ingrata Patria_,
having given a name to a modern tower, is, if not true, an agreeable
fiction. If he was not buried, he certainly lived there.[606]
"In cosi angusta & solitaria uilla
Era grand' huom che d' Aphrica s' appella,
Perche prima col ferro al uiuo aprilla."[607]
Ingratitude is generally supposed the vice peculiar to republics; and
it seems to be forgotten that for one instance of popular inconstancy,
we have a hundred examples of the fall of courtly favourites. Besides, a
people have often repented--a monarch seldom or never. Leaving apart
many familiar proofs of this fact, a short story may show the difference
between even an aristocracy and the multitude.
Vettor Pisani, having been defeated in 1354 at Portolongo, and many
years afterwards in the more decisive action of Pola, by the Genoese,
was recalled by the Venetian government, and thrown into chains. The
Avvogadori proposed to behead him, but the supreme tribunal was content
with the sentence of imprisonment. Whilst Pisani was suffering this
unmerited disgrace, Chioza, in the vicinity of the capital,[608] was, by
the assistance of the _Signor of Padua_, delivered into the hands of
Pietro Doria. At the intelligence of that disaster, the great bell of
St. Mark's tower tolled to arms, and the people and the soldiery of the
galleys were summoned to the repulse of the approaching enemy; but they
protested they would not move a step, unless Pisani were liberated and
placed at their head. The great council was instantly assembled: the
prisoner was called before them, and the Doge, Andrea Contarini,
informed him of the demands of the people, and the necessities of the
state, whose only hope of safety was reposed in his efforts, and who
implored him to forget the indignities he had endured in her service. "I
have submitted," replied the magnanimous republican, "I have submitted
to your deliberations without complaint; I have supported patiently the
pains of imprisonment, for they were inflicted at your command: this is
no time to inquire whether I deserved them--the good of the republic may
have seemed to require it, and that which the republic resolves is
always resolved wisely. Behold me ready to lay down my life for the
preservation of my country." Pisani was appointed generalissimo, and, by
his exertions, in conjunction with those of Carlo Zeno, the Venetians
soon recovered the ascendancy over their maritime rivals.
The Italian communities were no less unjust to their citizens than the
Greek republics. Liberty, both with the one and the other, seems to have
been a national, not an individual object: and, notwithstanding the
boasted _equality before the laws_, which an ancient Greek writer[609]
considered the great distinctive mark between his countrymen and the
barbarians, the mutual rights of fellow citizens seem never to have been
the principal scope of the old democracies. The world may have not yet
seen an essay by the author of _The Italian Republics_, in which the
distinction between the liberty of former states, and the signification
attached to that word by the happier constitution of England, is
ingeniously developed. The Italians, however, when they had ceased to be
free, still looked back with a sigh upon those times of turbulence, when
every citizen might rise to a share of sovereign power, and have never
been taught fully to appreciate the repose of a monarchy. Sperone
Speroni, when Francis Maria II. Duke of Rovere proposed the question,
"which was preferable, the republic or the principality--the perfect and
not durable, or the less perfect and not so liable to change," replied,
"that our happiness is to be measured by its quality, not by its
duration; and that he preferred to live for one day like a man, than for
a hundred years like a brute, a stock, or a stone." This was thought,
and called a _magnificent_ answer down to the last days of Italian
servitude.[610]
20.
And the crown
Which Petrarch's laureate brow supremely wore,
Upon a far and foreign soil had grown.
Stanza lvii. lines 6, 7, and 8.
The Florentines did not take the opportunity of Petrarch's short visit
to their city in 1350 to revoke the decree which confiscated the
property of his father, who had been banished shortly after the exile of
Dante. His crown did not dazzle them; but when in the next year they
were in want of his assistance in the formation of their university,
they repented of their injustice, and Boccaccio was sent to Padua to
entreat the laureate to conclude his wanderings in the bosom of his
native country, where he might finish his _immortal Africa_, and enjoy,
with his recovered possessions, the esteem of all classes of his fellow
citizens. They gave him the option of the book and the science he might
condescend to expound: they called him the glory of his country, who was
dear, and who would be dearer to them; and they added, that if there was
anything unpleasing in their letter, he ought to return amongst them,
were it only to correct their style.[611] Petrarch seemed at first to
listen to the flattery and to the entreaties of his friend, but he did
not return to Florence, and preferred a pilgrimage to the tomb of Laura
and the shades of Vaucluse.
21.
Boccaccio to his parent earth bequeathed
His dust.
Stanza lviii. lines 1 and 2.
Boccaccio was buried in the church of St. Michael and St. James, at
Certaldo, a small town in the Valdelsa, which was by some supposed the
place of his birth. There he passed the latter part of his life in a
course of laborious study, which shortened his existence; and there
might his ashes have been secure, if not of honour, at least of repose.
But the "hyena bigots" of Certaldo tore up the tombstone of Boccaccio
and ejected it from the holy precincts of St. Michael and St. James. The
occasion, and, it may be hoped, the excuse, of this ejectment was the
making of a new floor for the church; but the fact is, that the
tombstone was taken up and thrown aside at the bottom of the building.
Ignorance may share the sin with bigotry. It would be painful to relate
such an exception to the devotion of the Italians for their great names,
could it not be accompanied by a trait more honourably conformable to
the general character of the nation. The principal person of the
district, the last branch of the house of Medicis, afforded that
protection to the memory of the insulted dead which her best ancestors
had dispensed upon all contemporary merit. The Marchioness Lenzoni
rescued the tombstone of Boccaccio from the neglect in which it had some
time lain, and found for it an honourable elevation in her own mansion.
She has done more: the house in which the poet lived has been as little
respected as his tomb, and is falling to ruin over the head of one
indifferent to the name of its former tenant. It consists of two or
three little chambers, and a low tower, on which Cosmo II. affixed an
inscription. This house she has taken measures to purchase, and
proposes to devote to it that care and consideration which are attached
to the cradle and to the roof of genius.
This is not the place to undertake the defence of Boccaccio; but the man
who exhausted his little patrimony in the acquirement of learning, who
was amongst the first, if not the first, to allure the science and the
poetry of Greece to the bosom of Italy;--who not only invented a new
style, but founded, or certainly fixed, a new language; who, besides the
esteem of every polite court of Europe, was thought worthy of employment
by the predominant republic of his own country, and, what is more, of
the friendship of Petrarch, who lived the life of a philosopher and a
freeman, and who died in the pursuit of knowledge,--such a man might
have found more consideration than he has met with from the priest of
Certaldo, and from a late English traveller, who strikes off his
portrait as an odious, contemptible, licentious writer, whose impure
remains should be suffered to rot without a record.[612] That English
traveller, unfortunately for those who have to deplore the loss of a
very amiable person, is beyond all criticism; but the mortality which
did not protect Boccaccio from Mr. Eustace, must not defend Mr. Eustace
from the impartial judgment of his successors. Death may canonise his
virtues, not his errors; and it may be modestly pronounced that he
transgressed, not only as an author, but as a man, when he evoked the
shade of Boccaccio in company with that of Aretine, amidst the
sepulchres of Santa Croce, merely to dismiss it with indignity. As far
as respects
"Il flagello de' Principi,
Il divin Pietro Aretino,"