These are the memoirs of the Beato Giuliano, brother of the Order of St
Francis of Assisi, known in his worldly life as Filippo Brandolini; of
which family I, Giulo Brandolini, am the last descendant. On the death
of Fra Giuliano the manuscript was given to his nephew Leonello, on whom
the estates devolved; and has since been handed down from father to son,
as the relic of a member of the family whose piety and good works still
shed lustre on the name of Brandolini.
It is perhaps necessary to explain how the resolution to give these
memoirs to the world has eventually been arrived at. For my part, I
should have allowed them to remain among the other papers of the family;
but my wife wished otherwise. When she deserted her home in the New
World to become the Countess Brandolini, she was very naturally
interested at finding among my ancestors a man who had distinguished
himself in good works, so as to be granted by the Pope the title of
Beatus, which was acquired for him by the influence of his great-nephew
not very long after his death; and, indeed, had our house retained the
prosperity which it enjoyed during the fifteenth and sixteenth
centuries, he would undoubtedly have been canonised, for it was a well
certified fact that the necessary miracles had been performed by his
remains and that prayers had been regularly offered at his tomb, but our
estates had dwindled, so that we could not afford the necessary
expenditure; and now, when my wife has restored its ancient magnificence
to our house, times, alas! have changed. The good old customs of our
fathers have fallen into disuse, and it is impossible to create a saint
for ready money. However, my wife desired to publish an account of her
pious ancestor. But a difficulty arose in the fact that there were no
materials whatever for any relation of the life which Fra Giuliano led
when he had entered the Franciscan monastery of Campomassa, and it was
obvious that, even if there had been good works, prayer and fasting
could not have afforded a very interesting story; and so we have been
constrained to leave untold his pieties and recount instead his sins,
for which there was every facility in the memoirs he had himself left
behind him.
Not content with writing the story of his own life, Fra Giuliano begins
with a mythical Consul of the Roman Republic, who is supposed to have
founded the family by a somewhat discreditable union with somebody
else's wife. He then carries the story through countless ages till he
arrives at his own conception, and the prodigies attending his birth,
which he describes with great minuteness. He gives very amply the
history of his childhood and boyhood, the period he spent as page at
the Court of the Bentivogli of Bologna, and his adventures in the
Neapolitan armies under the Duke of Calabria; but the whole story is
narrated at such length, with so many digressions and details, and is
sometimes so vague, incoherent and disjointed that, with whatever
editing, it was considered impossible to make a clear and continuous
narrative.
Fra Giuliano himself divided his life into two parts: the one he named
the Time of Honey, being the period of expectation; the other the Time
of Gall, being that of realisation. The second half commences with his
arrival at the town of Forli, in the year 1488, and it is this part
which we have decided to publish; for, notwithstanding its brevity, this
was the most eventful period of his life, and the account of it seems to
hang together in a sufficiently lucid fashion, centring round the
conspiracy which resulted in the assassination of Girolamo Riario, and
finishing with the author's admission to the Order of St Francis. This,
then, I have given exactly as he wrote it, neither adding nor
suppressing a word. I do not deny that it would have pleased me a little
to falsify the history, for the Anglo-Saxons are a race of idealists, as
is shown in all their dealing, international and commercial; and truth
they have always found a little ugly. I have a friend who lately wrote a
story of the London poor, and his critics were properly disgusted
because his characters dropped their aitches and often used bad
language, and did not behave as elegantly as might be expected from the
example they were continually receiving from their betters; while some
of his readers were shocked to find that people existed in this world
who did not possess the delicacy and refinement which they felt
palpitating in their own bosoms. The author forgot that Truth is a naked
lady, and that nudity is always shameful, unless it points a moral. If
Truth has taken up her abode at the bottom of a well, it is clearly
because she is conscious that she is no fit companion for decent people.
I am painfully aware that the persons of this drama were not actuated by
the moral sentiments, which they might have acquired by education at a
really good English public school, but one may find excuse for them in
the recollection that their deeds took place four hundred years ago, and
that they were not wretched paupers, but persons of the very highest
rank. If they sinned, they sinned elegantly, and much may be forgiven to
people whose pedigree is above suspicion. And the writer, as if
unwilling to wound the susceptibilities of his readers, has taken care
to hurl contempt at the only character whose family was distinctly not
respectable.
Before making my bow, and leaving the reader with Filippo Brandolini, I
will describe his appearance, shown in a portrait painted in the same
year, 1488, and till the beginning of this century in the possession of
my family, when it was sold, with many other works of art, to travellers
in Italy. My wife has succeeded in buying back the portraits of several
of my ancestors, but this particular one is in the collection of an
English nobleman, who has refused to part with it, though kindly
allowing a copy to be made, which now hangs in the place formerly
occupied by the original.
It represents a middle-sized man, slim and graceful, with a small black
beard and moustache; an oval face, olive coloured, and from his fine
dark eyes he is looking straight out into the world with an expression
of complete happiness. It was painted soon after his marriage. He is
dressed in the costume of the period, and holds a roll of parchment in
his hand. At the top right hand corner are the date and the arms of the
family; or a griffin rampant. Gules. Crest: a demiswan issuing from a
coronet. The motto: _Felicitas_.
I
'Allow me to present to you my friend Filippo Brandolini, a gentleman of
Citta di Castello.'