I
The school of Romantic poets and novelists was practically dispersed
by the Austrian police after the Carbonari disturbances in 1821-22,
and the literary spirit of the nation took refuge under the mild and
careless despotism of the grand dukes at Florence.
In 1821 Austria was mistress of pretty near all Italy. She held in
her own grasp the vast provinces of Lombardy and Venetia; she had
garrisons in Naples, Piedmont, and the Romagna; and Rome was ruled
according to her will. But there is always something fatally defective
in the vigilance of a policeman; and in the very place which perhaps
Austria thought it quite needless to guard, the restless and
indomitable spirit of free thought entered. It was in Tuscany, a
fief of the Holy Roman Empire, reigned over by a family set on the
grand-ducal throne by Austria herself, and united to her Hapsburgs by
many ties of blood and affection--in Tuscany, right under both noses
of the double-headed eagle, as it were, that a new literary and
political life began for Italy. The Leopoldine code was famously mild
toward criminals, and the Lorrainese princes did not show themselves
crueler than they could help toward poets, essayists, historians,
philologists, and that class of malefactors. Indeed it was the
philosophy of their family to let matters alone; and the grand duke
restored after the fall of Napoleon was, as has been said, an absolute
monarch, but he was also an honest man. This _galantuomo_ had even a
minister who successfully combated the Austrian influences, and so,
though there were, of course, spies and a censorship in Florence,
there was also indulgence; and if it was not altogether a pleasant
place for literary men to live, it was at least tolerable, and there
they gathered from their exile and their silence throughout Italy.
Their point of union, and their means of affecting the popular mind,
was for twelve years the critical journal entitled the _Antologia_,
founded by that Vieusseux who also opened those delightful and
beneficent reading-rooms whither we all rush, as soon as we reach
Florence, to look at the newspapers and magazines of our native land.
The Antologia had at last the misfortune to offend the Emperor of
Russia, and to do that prince a pleasure the Tuscan government
suppressed it: such being the international amenities when sovereigns
really reigned in Europe. After the Antologia there came another
review, published at Leghorn, but it was not so successful, and in
fact the conditions of literature gradually grew more irksome in
Tuscany, until the violent liberation came in '48, and a little later
the violent reënslavement.
Giambattista Niccolini, like nearly all the poets of his time and
country, was of noble birth, his father being a _cavaliere_, and
holding a small government office at San Giuliano, near Pistoja. Here,
in 1782, Niccolini was born to very decided penury. His father had
only that little office, and his income died with him; the mother had
nothing--possibly because she was descended from a poet, the famous
Filicaja. From his mother, doubtless, Niccolini inherited his power,
and perhaps his patriotism. But little or nothing is known of his
early life. It is certain, merely, that after leaving school, he
continued his studies in the University of Pisa, and that he very
soon showed himself a poet. His first published effort was a sort of
lamentation over an epidemic that desolated Tuscany in 1804, and this
was followed by five or six pretty thoroughly forgotten tragedies in
the classic or Alfierian manner. Of these, only the _Medea_ is still
played, but they all made a stir in their time; and for another he was
crowned by the Accademia della Crusca, which I suppose does not mean a
great deal. The fact that Niccolini early caught the attention and won
the praises of Ugo Foscolo is more important. There grew up, indeed,
between the two poets such esteem that the elder at this time
dedicated one of his books to the younger, and their friendship
continued through life.
When Elisa Bonaparte was made queen of Etruria by Napoleon, Niccolini
became secretary of the Academy of Fine Arts, and professor of history
and mythology. It is said that in the latter capacity he instilled
into his hearers his own notions of liberty and civic virtue. He was,
in truth, a democrat, and he suffered with the other Jacobins, as they
were called in Italy, when the Napoleonic governments were overthrown.
The benefits which the French Revolution conferred upon the people of
their conquered provinces when not very doubtful were still such as
they were not prepared to receive; and after the withdrawal of the
French support, all the Italians through whom they had ruled fell a
prey to the popular hate and contumely. In those days when dynasties,
restored to their thrones after the lapse of a score of years, ignored
the intervening period and treated all its events as if they had no
bearing upon the future, it was thought the part of the true friends
of order to resume the old fashions which went out with the old
_régime_. The queue, or pigtail, had always been worn, when it was
safe to wear it, by the supporters of religion and good government
(from this fashion came the famous political nickname _codino_,
pigtail-wearer, or conservative, which used to occur so often in
Italian talk and literature), and now whoever appeared on the street
without this emblem of loyalty and piety was in danger of public
outrage. A great many Jacobins bowed their heads to the popular will,
and had pigtails sewed on them--a device which the idle boys and other
unemployed friends of legitimacy busied themselves in detecting. They
laid rude hands on this ornament singing,
If the queue remains in your hand,
A true republican is he;
Hurrah! hurrah! hurrah!
Give him a kick for liberty.
It is related that the superficial and occasional character of
Niccolini's conversion was discovered by this test, and that he
underwent the apposite penalty. He rebelled against the treatment he
received, and was arrested and imprisoned for his contumacy. When
Ferdinando III had returned and established his government on the
let-alone principle to which I have alluded, the dramatist was made
librarian of the Palatine Library at the Pitti Palace, but he could
not endure the necessary attendance at court, where his politics were
remembered against him by the courtiers, and he gave up the place.
The grand duke was sorry, and said so, adding that he was perfectly
contented. “Your Highness,” answered the poet, “in this case it takes
two to be contented.”