CHAPTER X.

A new home in Heidelberg;—and a last home beneath it.—What is Olympia

Morata to us?

The distance to be traversed by the little family in their journey from

Erbach to Heidelberg, is about ten leagues, through a country of wooded

hills, then crossed by no roads except the bridle–paths that led from

village to village. They were accompanied by guides provided by their

noble hosts at Erbach, and made the little journey by easy stages.

Their more pressing necessities had been relieved by the generosity

of the same kind friends. Olympia especially records having received

as a present from the Countess a dress worth a thousand crowns.[124]

Moreover, it was in summer—the summer of 1554—fresh hopes were before

them; and the journey was probably not a sad one.

[Sidenote: AN EVENING IN AN INN.]

A letter from Grünthler's friend Andreas Campanus,[125] schoolmaster

at Mossbach, written to Curione at Bâle, after Olympia's death,

records a pleasing little incident of this journey: The travellers had

reached the little town of Hirschhorn, in the valley of the Neckar,

where they were to pass the night. And there, in the common room of

the inn, were the schoolmaster of the place, one Dominus Georgius

Treuthuger, and his scholars, practising part–singing in German

fashion. The "ludimagister" and his boys made, as it would seem, but

a lame business of it. Whereupon Olympia, coming forward, helped them

out of the difficulty, singing the notes with them, and encouraging

them. Ludimagister Treuthuger was delighted, as he might well be, at

so charming a "Deus ex machinâ;" and, entering into conversation with

the strangers—in Latin, of course—passed most of the evening in learned

discourse before discovering who the travellers were. On learning

their names, he rushed off to his house, and returned with several

pieces of Andreas Grünthler's music, which had, he said, long been

favourites of his; "which infinitely delighted and surprised the Doctor

and Olympia;"[126] the surprise, it must be supposed, being occasioned

by the fact that Grünthler's music should have found its way to the

obscure little town in the Neckar valley. "I have often heard him,"

says Campanus, "telling his scholars never to forget the lady who sang

with them so beautifully, and that at sight, too."

On the following day they reached Heidelberg safely, and Grünthler at

once entered on the duties of his office.

Hubert Thomas, who was secretary to the Elector Palatine, and a

friend, as we have seen, of Grünthler and his wife, has written[127]

that a professor's chair of the Greek language was offered to Olympia

by the Elector, at the same time that he appointed her husband to

one of medicine. He speaks of "Doctor Andreas Grünthler, whose wife

Olympia, to describe her justly, should be called Sappho of Lesbos;"

and goes on to say, that "Both of them were invited by our prince to

be the ornaments of his University; he to be professor of medicine,

she to teach the Greek language, which she hath hitherto deferred

doing, on account of ill health." M. Bonnet thinks, that this offer

of a Greek professorship must be deemed a mistake and rejected as

incredible, because Olympia does not speak of it in her letters to

the brothers Sinapi and Curione. These letters contain, he argues,

even the smallest details of her life, and would not therefore have

omitted a circumstance of such importance. But these letters, though

containing many a little incident which happened to be in the mind

of the writer at the moment, do not in any wise purport to give a

journal, or even a general view of the history of her life. And even

if they were of this nature, it appears to me far more easy to imagine

reasons why Olympia may never have mentioned this offer, than to

suppose that the Elector's secretary, writing annals at the time the

events were passing,—(for the word "hactenus" in the passage quoted,

"quod hactenus distulit (Olympia) morbo comprehensa," joined to the

date of her death, show that the passage must have been written within

a year, at least, of the circumstances recorded) could either have

been mistaken, or have written wilfully what was false. Olympia knew

but too well that she would never be able to avail herself of such a

proposal. Her health and strength had been too much shattered. Probably

enough, her reminiscences of public lecturing, and the applause of

large auditories, may have made the idea of again presenting herself to

such an ordeal altogether distasteful to her present tone of mind and

feeling, even had her health permitted her to hope that she might ever

again be physically able to do so. And she may have felt, that to give

the physical reason for refusing to her kind friends, was to sadden

them needlessly by dwelling on a subject which, in all her letters,

she touches as lightly as possible; while to assign such a moral

reason as has been suggested, would probably give rise to troublesome

remonstrances and persuasions. Besides, we have no apparent means of

knowing that she did not mention this circumstance to some one, or to

all of these friends. Curione's title–page to her works expressly tells

us that we have in that volume the writings of Olympia, "quæ hactenus

inveniri potuerunt." Many of her letters may have been, and in all

probability were, lost. To set aside, therefore, the direct assertion

of a perfectly competent and perfectly trustworthy authority, on no

other ground than the silence, on the subject, of these letters, seems

altogether unreasonable and contrary to every principle of historical

investigation.

[Sidenote: THE GREEK PROFESSORSHIP.]

There is, then, I think, no reason to discredit the assertion of

Hubert Thomas, that a chair in Greek, which she was so eminently well

qualified to occupy, was offered to Olympia by the Elector, who,

finding that this celebrated and highly gifted Italian woman was to be

his subject, and a resident in his capital, probably thought that he

could in no manner contribute more to the renown and attractions of

his University, than by imitating a step for which Italy, the great

authority on matters of learning and literature, had already furnished

more than one precedent.

In a letter from Olympia to her sister, written immediately after

their arrival at Heidelberg, on the silence of which as to the Greek

professorship M. Bonnet, who erroneously supposes it to be written to

Curione, specially rests his disbelief of any such proposal having been

made, she thus announces to her correspondent their new prospects.

"My husband," she writes, "has been called to Heidelberg, where we

now are, by the most illustrious Prince Palatine, Elector of the

Empire, to teach medicine in the public schools; although in this time

of calamitous and turbulent tempest, arms are more in request than

science."

Yet, had it not been for the consequences of the sufferings endured

that fatal night of the flight from Schweinfurth, the aspects of the

life now before them might have seemed brighter than any that had

hitherto been their lot. Heidelberg was at that time, perhaps the

most flourishing and important centre of intellectual movement and

learning in Germany. Its University held the highest rank, and its

professors numbered among them several of the most distinguished names

of Transalpine Europe. A professional chair among such colleagues was

no mean promotion.

Next to health, the most irreparable loss in the Schweinfurth

catastrophe was that of the library. And we find their friends exerting

themselves to repair, as far as possible, this disaster. By a singular

chance, one volume, the Lives of Plutarch, belonging to their former

library, was recovered to form the nucleus of a new collection. It had

been found among the ruins at Schweinfurth, with the name of Olympia

written on the last page; and John Sinapi had the pleasure of sending

it to her with a letter of consolations and exhortations to fortitude

under the calamities to which they had been exposed.

[Sidenote: LETTER FROM CURIONE.]

"Leave groaning," he says, "to those who have no hope save in this

world. Your treasure is in heaven, where thieves cannot steal it, nor

flames destroy it. Do you not, like the sage of old, carry all your

goods with you,—your learning, your piety, your honour, your virtue,

and your attainments? What are material misfortunes and ruin to such an

one? 'Si fractus illabatur orbis, Impavidum ferient ruinæ.'"

Curione, from Bâle, writes; "I send you, my dear Olympia, the Homer you

ask for, together with some publications of my own. The book of the

_Lamentations_ of Jeremiah you will receive from Frankfurt; and you

will all the more profitably study it, in the time of your mourning for

your husband's native city. It is for you now to return to the studies

which have been interrupted, to produce something worthy of Sophocles,

and to obtain the laurel which has so long been your due."

All such brave talk must have been received by Olympia with a sad

smile. For she felt surely enough, that her laurel–seeking days were

over, and knew well that the night, "when no man can work" was coming

very quickly. And, indeed, one can hardly help smiling now at honest

Curione's expectation that "something worthy of Sophocles" should be

generated by meditations on the Lamentations of Jeremiah!

But the misfortunes which had fallen on the learned physician and his

celebrated wife at Schweinfurth, had attracted, it would seem, such

attention, that others besides their own private friends were anxious

to contribute towards replacing what had been lost. For we find Olympia

charging Curione with her thanks to the eminent publishers, Oporinus,

Hervagius, and Frobenius, for the valuable presents of books they had

sent her. The incident is a pleasing trait of the feeling existing

among the members of the guild of learning in those old German days,

despite the volleys of sesquipedalian billingsgate, more or less

ciceronian, with which they assailed each other on most occasions. And

it is a proof of the high estimation in which Olympia was held, and of

the extended reputation her name had attained.

Yet it was an uphill task, this recomposing a home in a strange city;

and Olympia, weak and suffering as she was, had to busy herself with

far other cares and labours than such as had rivalling Sophocles for

their object.

One of her earliest letters from Heidelberg was to her old master

John Sinapi. "My husband," she writes, "is preparing for his public

lectures. I have been excessively busy all day in buying household

gear, that we may be able to get into our new house." Emilio too was

fully occupied "in domesticis negotiis," assisting his sister in her

preparations for recommencing housekeeping, or he would write to his

friend Theodora.

Then, from this and other letters of the same time, we find her much

troubled on the subject of serving–maids. Ladies suffering from the

same vexations in the nineteenth century, may extend their sympathy

across the chasm of three hundred years, from poor dear Mrs. Blank

in the next street, to poor dear Mrs. Grünthler in her home at

Heidelberg. They may, perhaps, find materials for consolation in their

torments, from the discovery, that "the pitch to which things have

come now–a–days," had been arrived at three centuries ago, by this

monotonously trundling world.

[Sidenote: TROUBLES ABOUT SERVANTS.]

"The weakness of my health," she writes to John Sinapi, "has within

the last few days compelled me to engage the only woman I have been

able to meet with. She asks a golden florin a month, reserving too the

right to employ a portion of her time for her own profit. Under the

pressure of necessity I have been obliged to submit. But all the wealth

of Persia should not induce me to keep her any longer. I throw myself,

therefore, on your charity for assistance. Do try, if you can send me a

servant of some sort, young or old. I can give her five florins a year."

She had written to our friend Cremer at Schweinfurth to send her a

cook, thinking, that many women might be found anxious to obtain some

shelter among those unfortunates who had been made destitute and

homeless by the destruction of that city;—"ex miseris illis pauperculis

et vagis Suinfordiensibus." But another friend, only designated by

the initial N.,[128] writes from that misery–stricken place, to say,

that he finds it wholly impossible to send her either an old woman, or

a girl,—"anum aut ancillam." All at Schweinfurth are either dead or

dying. "The mother of your former maid Kungunga would come, but is laid

up with fever. Possibly she may come, should she recover."

We find our old acquaintance Barbara come to the surface again, after

the cataclysm which had submerged so much that was more valuable.

Barbara was willing to return to her old mistress; but then those

intolerable "mores" do not seem to have been mended by all that had

come and gone since the quiet Schweinfurth days. And this proposal,

even in Olympia's pressing need, seems to have been rejected. Though,

as she writes to Andreas Campanus, the schoolmaster at Mossbach, she

would rather be her own maid, than put up with any such as were to be

found at Heidelberg.

Are there no ladies recently come from their virtuous shires to

establish a home in the great Babylon, who can sympathise with her?

Heidelberg was the seat of a brilliant court, and a large university.

And, doubtless, the abigails partook of the vices and corruptions

incidental to both these phases of social life. The good "ludimagister"

of Mossbach would have sent Olympia his own maid under escort of the

postman, "cum tabellario," but that she too was down with sickness, as

indeed were also all the family of poor Andreas.

So difficult a matter was it to come by an eligible maid–of–all–work

in the year 1554! These domestic perplexities will, no doubt, be

to readers of her own sex, the one touch of nature that makes all

the world akin. But it may seem strange to them that Mrs. Grünthler

("Domina Grünthlera," as friend N. at Schweinfurth, writing on these

household matters, alone of all her other correspondents, addresses

her) did not communicate with other mistresses of families on such

matters, instead of always with the gentlemen. It must be remembered,

however, that Olympia understood no German, and the ladies around her

no Latin. Unlike her friend Francisca, John Sinapi's Italian wife,

she had never thought it worth her while to acquire the language

of her adopted country; betraying, one might fancy, thereby, some

little pedantic affectation of classicality, the lees of the old

Grecian–virgin nature. The result was, that when she wanted to speak

of the price of a gown, she had to talk unintelligible stuff about

"sestercium nummorum;" and when she wanted a maid, could only seek

assistance from bearded doctors as classical as herself.

[Sidenote: HER CHARITY.]

Still, let any reader of an un–hero–worshipping turn of mind take

notice, that our Olympia is no subject for quizzing of his, on the

score of any such little eccentricity of the spectacled Minerva kind.

A passage in the letter of N. of Schweinfurth proves,[129] that the

difficulties of her ciceronian idiom did not prevent her from visiting,

and with her small means comforting the misery in the poor–house at

Schweinfurth, during those fearful days, when every man's thought was

for himself; though she _did_ call the place a "Zenodochia." And when

the "res angusta domi" was pressing her so hard, that Grünthler had

to borrow money to meet the expenses of their first establishment at

Heidelberg, she still found means to think of the poor she had left in

miserable Schweinfurth. "If there is anyone in your neighbourhood,"

writes poor Grünthler to his friend the schoolmaster at Mossbach, "who

could lend me twenty golden florins, I would send him a gold chain as a

security, and would name a day for the repayment of the loan." Yet it

is about the same time that "N." writes to say, that the poor she used

to care for, had been all dispersed at the time of the sack and burning

of the city, and it was impossible to know what had become of them.

But he promises that the money sent shall be distributed in charity

according to her wish.

Yet despite small means, past losses, and domestic troubles, a happy

career of usefulness and honour might still have been before Grünthler

and his highly gifted wife, if only the latter had retained sufficient

vital force to have rallied from the Schweinfurth miseries. But the

physician had the infinite pain of seeing her fade and perish daily,

amid the manifold manifestations of the high place she occupied in the

esteem and regard of her contemporaries.

The Elector, failing in his wish that she should reflect a lustre on

his University by occupying one of its chairs, had wished to attach

her to his court, as lady of honour to the Electress. But Olympia had

had enough of courts! In a letter written in the year 1554 to her

old friend and playmate Anne of Este, then Duchess of Guise, after

regretting their total and inevitable separation, and wishing that she

could be near her, she adds; "Not that I would again pass my life in a

court; for I might have done so here had I wished it."

The same feeling is expressed in a letter to John Sinapi, written

during the first days of her residence at Heidelberg. He had proposed

again confiding his daughter Theodora to her care. Her presence will

be in every respect agreeable, Olympia replies. Send her at once, but

not with any idea of her frequenting the court; "for I purpose spending

my days far from courts." But she will do all she can for her; will

take her sometimes to the Countess of Erbach, where she may become

acquainted with the three charming daughters of that excellent woman.

She must bring her bed with her, "for we are unable at present to buy

more beds, and they are extremely dear here." ... "Salute from me all

your family, and the licentiate Faius, _if he has ceased to be a monk_."

In another letter to Chilian Sinapi, written about the same time,

she regrets her inability to give assistance to some persons whom he

had recommended to her. She had already charged herself with the

keep of some utterly destitute poor; would fain do so for all the

ruined unfortunates of Schweinfurth, were it possible. Poor Andreas

Rosarius, the schoolmaster, had written to her too to say, that he was

in great distress, and asked her whether there would be any chance of

his finding any lessons in Heidelberg. But Olympia could give him no

encouragement. There was no opening for a teacher in Heidelberg. It

would seem that "professions were too full" in the world before the

nineteenth century, as well as servants troublesome.

[Sidenote: HER RELIGIOUS LETTERS.]

These letters, from which a stray fragment of biographical interest has

been gathered here and there, are mainly filled with fervent religious

exhortations, conceived in a spirit that can leave no doubt of the

heartfelt sincerity of the writer. They are for the most part free from

any advocacy of the more revolting doctrines of Calvinism, and insist

chiefly on the vanity of earthly interests, hopes, and pleasures, and

the necessity of God's free grace, to enable us to choose the better

path. Those especially to her sister, to Lavinia della Rovere, and to

Anna d'Este, are long, urgent, and affectionate exhortations to hold

all things nought for Christ's sake. They may be found at length,

translated into French, in M. Bonnet's work. But it has seemed to me

unnecessary to occupy the present pages with any specimen of these

writings, inasmuch as any page of them, divested of the names of

persons and places, which mark their authorship, would be absolutely

undistinguishable from many millions of pages which have been, and

are still being, written and printed on the same subjects. It may be

remarked, however, that the manner is more that of the evangelical

writers of the nineteenth than of the seventeenth century. It is wholly

undisfigured by the undue familiarity, low imagery, and grotesque

phraseology, which often marked the efforts of writers determined at

any cost to rouse, at least, the attention of their readers, if they

could not carry with them their intelligence.

As her health declined rapidly, she felt, and frequently expressed,

that desire to quit this world and its toils, and to be at rest with

God, which is deemed by religionists of the kind called evangelical, to

be the most sure and satisfactory indication of a healthy and desirable

condition of soul. Thinkers of a different class see only a proof of

failing bodily powers in those manifestations, which, to the former,

are assurances of increasing spiritual vigour. They find it quite in

accordance with all the recognisable operations of the Creator, that

in well–regulated minds the desire to live should become weakened,

together with the physical incapacity for life; but wholly out of all

analogy with His government of the world, that man's highest spiritual

excellence should coincide with, or even be compatible with, a diseased

condition of the machine, by means of which the spirit has to act and

develop itself; and still more, if possible, inconsistent with the ways

of God to man, that man's highest state of efficiency for duty should

be specially marked by his desire to leave the scene of it.

Olympia's willingness to die, normally and mercifully (a tautological

expression!) accompanied the increasing certainty that she could not

live. It is true, that the world around her, in all that most nearly

touched her affections, hopes, and fears, was becoming from day to day

more cheerless and distasteful to her. The prospects of the Reformers

were every where becoming more and more gloomy. Already internal schism

was vexing Rome's schismatics!

[Sidenote: PERSECUTION INCREASES.]

"I am not ignorant,"[130] writes Olympia to Vergerius, "that a great

controversy about the sacrament has arisen among the reformed. But this

would easily have been put an end to before this, if men would think

less of their own glory, and more of that of Christ, and the safety of

his Church." Pope Paul IV. would have re–echoed the sentiment with most

entire approbation!

Then, again, tidings of increasing persecution were coming in from all

parts. In England, Mary had succeeded to the throne. And Olympia hears

that Bernardino Ochino, of Siena, has been obliged to fly thence, and

take refuge at Geneva. From France the news was even worse and worse.

From Italy it was to Olympia the worst of all.

"My last letters from Italy," she writes to Chilian Sinapi,[131] "bring

me the sad news that the Christians at Ferrara—(this is not the only

passage of Olympia's writings in which she, by implication, denies

that the Romanists are Christians)—are suffering from the most cruel

persecution. The great and the little are equally exposed to suffering

for conscience' sake. Some are loaded with chains. Some are condemned

to exile. A remnant find their safety in flight. My mother has

continued firm amid the storm. All honour be to God therefor. I entreat

her to come out from that Babylon with my sisters, and to join me in

this country."

To complete the gloom of the material horizon around her, pestilence

broke out in Heidelberg in the early summer of 1555. And once again

it became the physician's duty to be found in the van of the battle

against it. Yet it was hard to be called on to leave the bedside of his

now evidently dying wife, at every daily and nightly call. But he was

strengthened in the path of his duty by the exhortations of Olympia.

Bad news also came from Curione. Both he and his daughter were struck

down by illness. He recovered shortly, however; and it would be

strange, if the inconsistency were not generic rather than peculiar

to Olympia, to observe, that she, who welcomed death as a spiritual

blessing to herself, and deemed her so welcoming it to be a mark of

spiritual grace, "wept with joy at hearing that her friend had been

snatched from the tomb."

In the same letter[132] she writes: "As for me, my dear Celio, I must

tell you that it is hardly probable that I should survive much longer.

Medical treatment can do nothing for me. Each day and hour my friends

see me perishing from before them. This letter is in all likelihood the

last you will ever receive from me. My body and my strength are worn

out. I have no appetite; and I am constantly, night and day, threatened

with suffocation by my cough. A burning fever consumes me; and pain in

every part of my body takes away the possibility of sleep. There is

nothing further for me but to breathe my last sigh. But up to that last

sigh I shall not forget those whom I have loved. Do not let the news of

my death afflict you. I know that the reward of the just is reserved

for me; and I long to quit this life to be with Jesus Christ."

[Sidenote: HER LAST HOURS.]

A letter from Grünthler[133] to Curione, gives a detailed account of

her last hours.

"A short time before her end," he writes, "she waked from a short

sleep, and smiled, as if moved by some pleasing thought. Hanging

over her, I asked the cause of this sweet expression. 'I saw in my

dream,' she said, 'a place illumined with the most brilliant and pure

light.'—(She had lucidity and clear honesty enough to distinguish

between 'dream' and 'vision.')—Her extreme weakness did not permit

her to say more. I said 'Courage, my best beloved! Very soon you will

be living amid that pure light.' She smiled again, and made a slight

sign of assent. A little afterwards, she said, 'I am happy, perfectly

happy;' and ceased speaking, just as her sight began to fail. 'I can

scarcely see you, my loved ones,' she said; 'but all round me there

seem to be beautiful flowers.' Those were her last words. An instant

afterwards she seemed to fall asleep, and breathed her last."

She died, the same letter tells us, at four in the afternoon of the

26th of October, 1555; having not completed her twenty–ninth year.

Grünthler felt his loss to be the loss of all that made life desirable

to him. But he had not to endure it long. The pestilence continued to

decimate Heidelberg. The University was deserted; and the town was half

emptied by death and by the flight of all who could escape. But the

bereaved physician had no motive to shun the pestilence, even if his

duty had not been to remain in the midst of it. He continued some two

months at his post after the death of his wife, was then struck down

by the sickness, and so followed her.

The boy Emilio, now in his thirteenth year, thus left alone in the

plague–stricken city, must in all probability have taken the infection

from his brother–in–law; for he also died within a few days.

All three were buried in a chapel of the Church of St. Peter at

Heidelberg, at the expense of a French professor in the University, one

Guillaume Rascalon; where the following inscription, recently restored,

M. Bonnet says, may yet be read:—

"Deo Inmortali Sacrum et virtuti ac memoriæ Olympiæ Moratæ, Fulvii

Morati Mantuani viri doctissimi, filiæ, Andreæ Grünthleri medici

conjugis; lectissimæ feminæ, cujus ingenium ac singularis utriusque

linguæ cognitio, in moribus autem probitas, summumque pietatis studium,

supra communem modum semper existimata sunt. Quod de ejus vita hominum

judicium, beata mors sanctissime ac pacatissime ab ea obita, divino

quoque confirmavit testimonio. Obiit, mutato solo, a salute DLV supra

mille, suæ ætatis XXIX. Hic cum marito et Emilio fratre sepulta."

The citizens of Schweinfurth resolved that the house Olympia had

inhabited among them should be rebuilt at the public cost, and

marked out to the respect of future generations by an inscription

commemorative of her having dwelt on that spot. The inscription

is indicative of the high esteem of the worthy burghers for their

celebrated fellow–citizen, rather than of any æsthetic appreciation

of her productions. For the hexameters and pentameters into which

Schweinfurth has painfully packed its sentiments, are of a kind to make

the classical ghost of Olympia shudder, if that erudite and gentle

spirit may be supposed to have cognisance of them.

[Sidenote: HER HIGH REPUTE.]

Olympia Morata had in the course of this short life acquired a high

European reputation. The loving care of Celio Curione, the editor

of her works, has collected and appended to them, after the fashion

of that day, an abundant selection of the "favourable notices" of

her learned contemporaries. And M. Bonnet has gathered some further

testimonies to the same effect. Many pages might be filled with the

laudatory sayings of these high authorities. But it will probably

be thought sufficient to state that the "eruditorum testimonia"

do certainly prove that Olympia was very highly esteemed by the

contemporary literary world of Europe. The most compendious and

undeniable evidence of this may be found moreover in the fact, that

four editions of her works were printed within twenty–five years after

her death.[134]

To the present writer's thinking, the greatness of this reputation

must appear to us of the nineteenth century a noticeable indication

of a past and gone phase of literary history, rather than as a result

that we should have anticipated from an examination of the works in

question. In Curione's dedication of the volume to Queen Elizabeth,

he says; "This book will prove the marvellous knowledge of Olympia,

her zeal for religion, her patience under severe trials, and her

unshakeable constancy in adversity." Understanding "marvellous

knowledge" to mean very remarkable accuracy of classical scholarship,

it is true, that the book _does_ prove all this. And there is every

reason to think that nothing more would be proved if we were in

possession of those other writings whose loss Curione and M. Bonnet

deplore. "She had composed," her old friend goes on to say in his

dedication, "many other writings which should have perpetuated the fame

of her faith and her talents, but which perished in the destruction of

her adopted country. That which remains will suffice to give you an

idea of that which has been lost." In another passage of the dedication

he tells us what these were.

"She had written observations on Homer; she had composed with great

elegance many verses, especially on divine themes; and certain

dialogues, both Latin and Greek had been elaborated by her with such a

perfection of imitation of Plato and Cicero, that not Zoilus himself

could have found any fault in them."

There is no reason to doubt that, as Curione says, the remaining

writings give a very sufficient idea of those which have perished; and

as little to question the very remarkable skill in classical imitation

which marked them.

Nevertheless, the world will hardly be persuaded that it has sustained

any loss by the destruction of these once so much prized manuscripts.

The loss of the letters, which form the bulk of the volume that good

Curione's care has given us, would have been more regrettable. These

have still an historical interest, as contributing many graphic touches

to the picture we are able to form for ourselves, of that complex,

seething, labouring time. It may be added, that they offer also an

ethical delineation which the world has still a use for. These letters

_do_, as Curione says, show a lively picture of the writer's "zeal

for religion, patience under trial, and unshakeable constancy in

adversity;" one of these pictures which the world cannot wisely allow

to be effaced.

[Sidene: HER CLASSICAL SKILL.]

But it was not the manifestation of these fine qualities which obtained

for Olympia that great reputation among her contemporaries which is

itself an historical phenomenon of no slight importance. It was not her

patience under trial, and constancy in adversity, that caused Europe

so to ring with her name that the echo of it has reached these days.

Fine and noble things as these are, the world has at no time been so

poor in them, as not to have possessed many noteworthy examples of

them, which fame has had no time to note. Olympia's reputation was due

to her learning, exclusive, be it observed, of any of the affectionate

sympathy with which she was regarded by her co–religionists on account

of her steady adherence to her religious convictions. For Tiraboschi,

Quadrio, and other Romanist writers, while lamenting her heresy, speak

as warmly as any of her literary merits. Her fame was the reward of

such skilful "perfection in the imitation of Cicero and Plato, that

not even Zoilus could pick out a fault in her compositions." Many a

scholar of mature age enjoyed the respect of his contemporaries in

that century, in virtue of a life spent in obtaining that proficiency

of which Olympia was mistress in her teens. And though such an amount

of admiration for scholarship must seem strange and excessive to an

age which considers similar proficiency in young gentlemen in their

teens quite sufficiently rewarded by the presentation of a handsomely

bound volume with some school–founder's arms stamped in gold on the

side; still it must be borne in mind, that the difficulties overcome

by the sixteenth century young lady were of a very far more formidable

kind, than those, which lie in the way of the nineteenth century young

gentleman. Corrupt texts, and scarcity of them, inexperienced and but

partially competent teachers, unsettled and very little understood

principles of exegesis and criticism, the absence of all that luxury

of philological apparatus, which waits on the modern scholar, made

the path of the medieval explorers into the jungle of the ancient

literature, a very different thing from that of the traveller along its

roads, cleared and embellished by the assiduous labour of three hundred

years.

Much indefatigable industry, many long and weary hours passed in

bending over books, while others were spending youthful hours in

youthful enjoyments, and very considerable aptitude for appreciating

the beauties, analogies, and delicacies of language, must have gone to

the acquirement of that amount of scholarship which Olympia possessed

at sixteen. But the same amount of industry and talent expended on any

other subject would not have produced any such meed of enthusiastic

admiration. And the position she occupied in her own day, must be

considered as a curious indication of the avidity with which the

cultivated minds of Europe seized on the new field opened to them,

and seemed to think that it might be made to yield all that the human

intelligence was then thirsting for.

But Olympia's classical successes, her Greek psalms, her Platonic

dialogues, and her Ciceronian Latin, would not have made her more

to the nineteenth century than one of the remarkable figures in the

great picture of her time, worth preserving the outline of for the

sake of the completeness of the general representation. And in truth

she is something more than this;—something more interesting to us,

as a "representative woman," than a miracle of scholarly learning, an

example of adversity nobly endured, or even a sufferer for conscience'

sake.

[Sidenote: NOT SPOILED BY LEARNING.]

The especial interest of Olympia Morata's story lies, for us, in the

very remarkable contradiction it gives to the theories of those who

object to learnedly—or as the habits of our time unfortunately make it

correct to say—masculinely educated women. If ever there was a case in

which adventitious circumstances contributed to bring about a result

which would have furnished a moral on the other side of the question,

it was that of Olympia. The advocates of the knitting needle and

Lindley Murray may well have thought that the case was going all their

own way, when that Greek verse exultation over abandoned feminalities

was declaimed to an applauding court circle. Learning surely never had

better vantage ground for effecting the mischief dreaded from it.

Yet how closely within call the while was all that is most valuable

and womanly in woman! How promptly it was all forthcoming at the first

touch of softening sorrow, or the first awakening thrill of maidenly

love—those master agents in completing and perfecting woman's moral

nature! Did Olympia's learning make her a less loving, or even a less

housewifely wife? Did her competency to correspond with the scholars

of Europe render her less capable of gaining the affection of friends

of her own sex? Her Homeric studies did not keep her from visiting the

poor in the plague–stricken poor–house of Schweinfurth; or detain her

from her solitary watch by her sick husband's bedside. No Ciceronian

paradoxes were running in her head when all her energies had to be

devoted to the reconstructing her own and her husband's home in a

strange city; nor did love of study make her forget that "a household

was sure to go wrong when the mistress's back was turned."

Vittoria Colonna was learned, and a good womanly woman to boot, though

she was far less learned, and of far shallower moral nature than

Olympia. But then Vittoria was a princess, and therefore much less to

the purpose as a sample of the compatibility of high education and

intellectual pursuits, with the exemplary discharge of all a woman's

ordinary duties. Olympia was the wife of a poor man, and one struggling

with difficulties of no ordinary kind. Yet it would be difficult to

imagine for him a fitter, more helpful, or more wifely helpmate than

Andreas Grünthler found in his reclaimed "Grecian virgin."

ISABELLA ANDREINI.

(1562.–1604.)

Italian love for the theatre.—Italian dramatic

literature.—Tragedy.—Comedy.—Tiraboschi's notion of it.—Macchiavelli's

Mandragola.—Isabella's high standing among her contemporaries.—Her

husband.—Her high character.—Death and epitaph.—Her writings.—Nature

and value of histrionic art.

Isabella Andreini, say her Italian biographers,[135] was one of the

greatest actresses who ever lived. She was also a writer of dramatic

and other works, much esteemed by her contemporaries.

She was born in 1562, two years before the birth of Shakspeare; and was

therefore delighting the courts of Italy and France at the same time

that he was catering for the amusement of a more mixed audience at the

Globe. It is true that Shakspeare is ... Shakspeare, by virtue of his

creative genius, and not of his histrionic talent; while Isabella owed

the larger portion of her fame to the latter source. Besides, it would

be of course unjust to the Italian actress, as well as preposterous,

to dream of instituting any comparison between her and nature's unique

master–piece; though her reputation among her contemporaries was

probably greater and more noisy than any which testified that the

England of Elizabeth's time had a suspicion that a poet for all time

had been born among them.

No such comparison is meant even to be hinted. But the

contemporaneousness of the English and Italian dramatic artist suggests

an inquiry into the materials with which the latter had to work.

We know what quality of dramatic literature was provided for the actors

who plied their calling at the Globe and the Bankside. And it is

certain that no one of them has left that histrionic reputation among

us which Isabella Andreini has left in Italy.

With this in one's mind, then, one is surprised to find at the first

glance that Italian literature in its Augustan age was especially

weak in the department of the drama. Quite the reverse might have

been anticipated from the national characteristics. No people are at

the present day more passionately fond of theatrical representation.

The theatre is with them almost a necessary of life to all classes of

citizens, and takes rank among the articles of an Italian's budget,

if not absolutely side by side with sufficient food, yet in very

many cases, immediately after it, and always has precedence of very

many matters that with us would be considered necessaries. And the

impressionable nature of the people makes this very intelligible.

Every Italian is an actor more or less,—has a natural talent for

"externating" the feelings that are in him, to use a very expressive

Italian phrase,—a talent that Englishmen are perhaps more deficient in

than any other people under the sun. To us how often is it distasteful,

how often impossible to "externare,"—to make outwardly manifest—that

which is inside us. How frequently is the act of another doing so

revolting to us; especially in matters which touch the deeper and

more powerful sentiments of the heart! To an Italian it is never

either difficult or distasteful in real life; and he is ever ready to

sympathise with and be pleased by a very moderate amount of histrionic

skill on the stage.

[Sidenote: ITALIAN DRAMATIC LITERATURE.]

It might naturally be expected that the dramatic literature of a people

so constituted would be a prominent feature in the intellectual produce

of the national mind at its period of greatest vigour; and would have

exercised a notable influence in the moulding and fashioning its habits

of thought and turns of expression. Such is, however, far from being

the case. The poets, the novelists, the historians, the moralists

of Italy in the sixteenth century time of its high tide, have all

left their marks deeply and visibly enough stamped on the national

character, while that of the dramatists of the same period is barely,

if at all, perceptible.

It needs but a cursory examination of the Italian drama of the

sixteenth century, to remove all wonder that its authors should have

exercised no such influence. The wonder is, that when literature in its

other branches was so vigorous and full of sap, drama should have been

so sapless and of such little worth. From the earliest years of the

sixteenth century there was no lack of either tragedies or comedies in

Italy. But the mention of them and their authors would be little more

for the most part than a roll–call of names forgotten, at least on our

side of the Alps, and destined never more to be remembered.

Tragedy was paralysed by the influence of the Greek models, which

the sixteenth century writers made it their chief aim to copy. The

servility of imitation, which was pernicious in every department of

literature, was fatal to that, which above all others needs to be

the expression of life, when it strove to force it into the forms of

a social existence long since dead. A very cursory examination of

the "Sophonisba" of Trissino, of the "Rosmonda" and the "Orestes"

of Rucellai, or of the more celebrated "Canacci" of Speroni—works

which attained a higher celebrity in their time than most of their

contemporaries or followers—will be sufficient to show why such

productions could never be to the Italians what the Elizabethan

dramatic literature has been to us.

As to comedy, Tiraboschi[136] complains that the comic writers and

actors of that period "strove to obtain that applause which they had no

hope of so easily gaining in any other way, by a brazen–faced impudence

of words, gestures, and action; so that in those free and dissolute

times, it was too much the case that a comedy was the more applauded

the more filthy it was." And Giglio Gregorio Giraldi (Olympia Morata's

gouty old friend) exclaims in one of his dialogues:[137] "O tempora! O

mores! Every abomination is again reproduced upon the stage. Everywhere

stories are represented, which the general feeling of the Christian

world had rejected, banished, and abolished. And these are now recalled

and placed upon the stage by prelates and bishops, not to speak of

princes!" But a more cogent reason why these indecent productions, as

well as those not deserving of condemnation on this ground, could never

have taken any real hold on the national mind, may be found in worthy

Tiraboschi's notion of what was necessary to make such works all that

could be wished.

[Sidenote: ITALIAN NOTION OF COMEDY.]

"Comedy," says he,[138] "the personages of which are for the most part

plebeian, or at least of private station, and the action of which is

generally familiar and domestic in its character, is of its own nature

low and trivial. And if it is not sustained by a certain elegance

of style—which is all the more difficult to attain, in that it must

be natural—and by an ingenious, and at the same time probable plot,

abounding in movement and surprising turns, it altogether falls to

earth; and it is almost impossible to endure either the representation

or the perusal of it."

The learned historian of Italian literature does not seem to have the

remotest suspicion, that a large and deep knowledge of human nature,

that the wide and penetrating observation of its similitudes and

dissimilitudes, its contrasts, inconsistencies, and analogies, which

supply wit with its material, and the genial power of sympathising with

its thousand moods, which generates humour, may be either necessary or

desirable to a comic writer. If Tiraboschi may be accepted as spokesman

for his countrymen in this matter, we have an abundantly sufficient

explanation of the small share, which the Muses of the sock and buskin

have had in forming that portion of the national mind which takes its

shape from the national literature, and to which their sisters of the

Nine have notably contributed.

But even comedy, though not in the same degree as tragedy, laboured

under the additional disqualification inflicted on it by the prevailing

mania for classical imitation. In this case the model worked from was

Latin instead of Greek, and generally rather Plautus than Terence. An

instance worthy of note may be cited in the "Sporta" or "Money–bag"

of Giambattista Gelli, the celebrated Florentine shoemaker, who became

Consul of the Academy of Florence. In the prologue to this comedy he

urges, in excuse for all shortcomings, that "it is surely a wonder

that he has accomplished so much, having all day long to ply scissors

and needle, which, womanly tools though they be, were never, as far

as his reading tells him, taken in hand by the Muses." Here we have

a man of the people, from whom some original conceptions drawn from

native popular life might have been expected. But the shoemaker was

as classical as his superiors; and his "Sporta" is little more than a

disguisement of Plautus in Florentine costume.

Macchiavelli's well known comedy, the "Mandragola," is the most notable

exception to what has been said of the plays of Isabella Andreini's

day. A genuine type of character altogether belonging to his own time,

and full of the elements of high comedy, was embodied in Frà Timoteo,

the tartuffe monk, by the daring Secretary. But it is an exception,

which but proves the rule.

What then are the sort of characters, in which we are to suppose

that Isabella produced an effect so extraordinary? The testimonies

of the extent of her power over her audiences are abundant. Padua,

her native city, enrolled her at an early age in the list of the

"Intenti" academicians. Among these "Intent" votaries of literature,

her nickname, according to the puerile practice of such bodies, was

"l'Accesa"—"the Inflamed one." The company of comedians, to which she,

and her husband Francesco Andreini, also an actor and writer, belonged,

were called the "Gelosi"—"Jealous ones." So that Isabella's full style

and titles, as they stand in the title pages of her works, run thus;

"Isabella Andreini, Comica Gelosa, Accademica Intenta, detta l'Accesa."

[Sidenote: IN FRANCE.]

Her son, Giovanni Battista Andreini, himself an actor and voluminous

play–wright, has collected an entire volume entitled "Apollo's Lament,"

composed of the pieces of poetry by his mother's contemporaries,

written in her praise. Another numerous selection of such tributes from

most of the leading literary men and women of that day written on the

occasion of her death, is prefixed to a volume of her poetry, printed

at Milan in 1605.

Having acted with the greatest applause before most of the Italian

courts, we find that she passed with her husband's company of players

into France, where the "Gelosi" enjoyed under the patronage of the

French court a very high reputation, until Isabella's death deprived

them of their principal support and attraction. A letter from Henry IV.

is recorded,[139] in which he addresses her in the most flattering and

at the same time respectful terms.

A fine medal, not unfrequently met with in the cabinets of collectors,

was struck in her honour, having on the obverse her portrait, with the

words "D. Isabella Andreini, C. G."—_Comica Gelosa_, that is to say;

and on the reverse a full length figure of Fame with the legend "Æterna

fama."

The celebrated Ericio Puteano wrote the following inscription for her

portrait.

"Hanc vides, et hanc audis;

Tu disputa, Argus esse malis ut videas

An Midas, ut audias.

Tantum enim sermonem vultus

Quantum sermo vultum commendat;

Quorum alterutro æterna esse potuisset,

Cum vultum omnibus simulacris emendatiorem

Et sermonem omni Suada venustiorem possideat."

"See her, and hear her!" as one may say; "and then doubt, whether you

would rather be Argus to see the more, or Midas to hear the more.

For face and voice contribute equally to increase the bewitchment of

either. Both should have been eternal; for the face was more perfect

than any likeness can present it, and the voice sweeter than that of

Persuasion's self."

Under another portrait was written; "You admire, reader, this portrait

of the histrionic Muse! What would be your feelings, if you could hear

her!"

The Cardinal Cinthio Aldobrandini, nephew of Pope Clement VIII., wrote

a number of poems in her praise, and dedicated his works to her.

Franciscus Pola of Verona, and Leonardo Tedesco, who wrote himself

"physician and philosopher," made Anagrams on her name, one discovering

that she was "Alia blanda sirena;" and the other questioning whether

she were "lira ne, an labris Dea." A panel was painted with Isabella on

one side and Pallas on the other; and of course the wits discovered in

verses more complimentary to Isabella than to Minerva, that

"Utraque est Pallas, atq. Isabella utraque est."

Torquato Tasso wrote a sonnet on her; Charles Emanuel of Savoy, admired

and patronised her; and she was generally spoken of as "Decoro delle

Muse;" and "Ornamento dei Teatri." Ventura of Bergamo in a dedicatory

letter declares that she "joined beauty to propriety, freedom to

modesty, excellent speech with virtuous deeds, lofty intelligence with

affable manners, and in short all that is most charming to all that is

most solid." Of Italy she was, he says, "nothing less than the absolute

queen, seeing that she was the mistress (in no ill sense, _padrona_) of

the princes who ruled it." He adds that "the olive of Pallas was on her

lips, in her face the gardens of Adonis, in her bosom the banquet of

the Gods, around her waist the girdle of Venus, in her arms chaste love

and the celestial Venus. So that one must conclude," says this moderate

gentleman, that "she was the most choice product of all that the past

had brought forth, or the present was blessed with."

[Sidenote: HER HUSBAND.]

But what is more satisfactory and remarkable is, that Isabella's

husband entertained as high an idea of her merits as the rest of

the world, and when he lost her, was inconsolable. This Francesco

Andreini must have been a remarkable man in his profession himself. He

understood the French, Spanish, Polish, Greek, and Turkish languages;

and was the author of various plays, dialogues, &c. His professional

nickname was "Il Capitano Spavento," Captain Terror; and his favourite

parts, we are told, were swaggering and braggadocio swashbucklers. But

poor Capitano Spavento had no more heart for the business after he

had lost his Isabella. His occupation was gone; and the stage became

distasteful to him. The troop of the "Gelosi," went to the dogs, and

he took to writing instead of acting. In the preface to one of his

books he says; "after the death of my dearly loved wife Isabella, I was

advised by many of my friends to write and publish something that I

might preserve my name from oblivion, and might worthily follow in the

honoured steps of my wife."

All this gifted woman's contemporaries are unanimous in testifying

to her perfect propriety of conduct. In an age when the relaxation

of morals was extreme and general, when princesses led the lives of

courtesans, when nunneries were scenes of disorder, and princes of the

church were noticeable among other princes for greater dissoluteness,

this beautiful and universally flattered and courted actress won her

way through all the difficulties, dangers, and snares that must have

beset her path, without a stain on her character. We know that much

of what she must have been obliged to touch, was pitch; and yet she

remained undefiled. Mazzuchelli writes; "what was most remarkable

in her was, that in a profession universally judged to be dangerous

to female honour, she joined to a rare beauty, the most perfect

correctness, and a most blameless life." And he adds, oddly enough,

"the value of these good gifts was increased by her skill in singing,

and music, and by her knowledge of Spanish!"

On the 10th of June, 1604, Isabella died in childbirth at Lyons, in the

forty–second year of her age, and was buried by the municipality of

that city with much pomp, and all sorts of honours. Her husband placed

the following inscription over her tomb.

D. O. M.

"Isabella Andreina, Patavina, Mulier magnâ virtute prædita, Honestatis

Ornamentum, maritalisque Pudicitiæ Decus, Ore facunda, Mente fœcunda,

religiosa, pia, Musis amica, et Artis scenicæ Caput, hic Resurrectionem

expectat. Ob Obortum obiit iv. Idus Junii, MDCIV. annum agens XLII.

Franciscus Andreinus Conjux mœstissimus posuit."

In English, freely rendered—

"Isabella Andreini, of Padua, a most highly gifted woman, the

Soul of Honour, a model of conjugal chastity, eloquent of tongue,

fertile of genius, religious, pious, beloved by the Muses, and a most

distinguished member of the histrionic profession, here awaits her

Resurrection. She died from a miscarriage on the 10th of June, 1604,

in the 42nd year of her age. Francesco Andreini, her deeply afflicted

husband, placed this monument."

[Sidenote: CHURCH BIGOTRY.]

Bayle remarks on the close juxtaposition of the statement of her

profession, and her expectation of resurrection; and observes that the

circumstance may serve to prove, that the severity of the Church on

the subject of the sepulture of comedians had been much exaggerated.

But it would be more correct to say, that it proves the action of the

Church in carrying out its views and principles to have been fitful,

irregular, and subordinated to circumstances, as it in truth ever has

been. In the long, ceaseless battle of the Church through century

after century, against all that is not–church, it has always known how

to retire temporarily from a point likely to be too hotly contested,

without by any means abandoning the hope of reconquering the ground at

a more favourable moment. Always pushing on the advanced posts of its

pretentions in accurate correspondence with the amount of resistance

it has been met by, the polemical battle–front which it has shown to

its enemies from Pekin to Peru, has never been straight drawn by the

rule of immutable principles, but ever a wavy line, with undulations

constantly in movement. And the startling fact that at Lyons, in the

year 1604, Isabella Andreini, avowing her calling, was at the same

time permitted to assert publicly, that she hoped for resurrection to

life eternal, shows only, that so audacious a solecism was overlooked,

because her standing in the public esteem, and the mood of the Lyons

world at the moment, made it unwise to select that occasion for

asserting the ecclesiastical claims.

Isabella's published works consist of a pastoral drama called

"Mirtilla," written when she was very young, and of which she herself

speaks slightingly at a later period of her life;—a volume of poems,

some of which are declared by Italian critics to have much merit;—a

collection of "Letters," (not real correspondence, unfortunately, but

essays written for the press);—and lastly, some dialogues collected, as

the title–page tells us, by "Francesco Andreini, comico geloso, detto

il Capitano Spavento."

In a dedication of the "Letters" to the Duke of Savoy, she says,

that they are the fruit of long vigils, and of hours snatched with

difficulty from the avocations of her most laborious profession, and

that her object in the composition of them was, as far as in her lay,

to preserve her name from oblivion after death. With this view she

has written some hundred and fifty little treatises on such subjects

as "The force of friendship," "Of the constancy of women," "Lovers'

prayers," "Prayers of an honourable lover," "Of jealousy," "Of

marriage," "Of love and war," "Of lovers' suspicions," and the like.

Poor Isabella! How desperately she must have struggled during those

long night hours, after the labours of the day, against weariness and

want of rest, as she toiled on in pursuit of immortal fame!

A given number of hours on the treadmill would probably be deemed by

most extant men far more endurable, than a similar number spent in

reading the pages thus industriously put together. Nevertheless, if

these sentences can help her on for a year or two more in her fight

against oblivion, she is heartily welcome to the lift.

[Sidenote: HER IMMORTALITY.]

The dialogues are on similar themes, and of exactly similar quality.

I have read one (being probably the only living man who has done

so), between Palamedes and Cleopatra, entitled, "An amorous dispute

respecting a fainting fit caused by love." It is truly wonderful to

consider, that human beings, with minds similarly constituted to

our own, did read these writings with admiration and delight! And

when one looks on the long, long road that human intellect must have

travelled over, since that was possible, one cannot but reflect on the

probability, that a yet more extended career must lie before it.

These are the means by which the beautiful Isabella Andreini sought to

"avoid death," as she phrases it in one of her prefaces, and to live

in the memory of mankind; means which have been successful, so far

as to insure the registering of her name in the folio pages of those

gatherers of literary crumbs, who have been more abundant in Italy than

in any other country.

But it is evident that in the day when she was really famous, her fame

was that of a great actress. Of all the modes by which one mind may

influence its fellows and obtain their admiration, it has been said

that that of the histrionic artist is, from its nature, necessarily the

most evanescent and perishable. The poet's song, the sculptor's statue,

the architect's building, the historian's history, the painter's

picture, remain to us, and their authors "being dead, yet speak" to

after generations. But the actor, whose immediate power over his public

is more intense, perhaps, than that of any of these! His triumphs,

however much involving the necessity of intellectual power, having

been achieved by means of a perishable machine, are condemned to be

equally mortal. The only manner in which some memory of his power, and

some conception of its working may be retained in the minds of men, is

by attaching his name to that of the characters he has represented. It

is thus that the great names of our own dramatic annals have still a

real meaning and significance.

But Isabella Andreini has left us no such memorial. Of all the very

numerous contemporaries who speak in rapture of her performances,

not one has recorded a single hint as to the characters in which

she enchanted them. The omission seems a most singular one, and can

be accounted for on no other supposition, than that the written

words which the actress was to speak were considered a comparatively

insignificant part of her performance: and the nature of the praises

lavished on her acting seem to point to the same conclusion. We hear

much of voice, action, grace, and charm of elocution, but nothing of

those higher matters of histrionic art which raise it to the level of

an intellectual profession. Nothing is said of the effect produced on

the minds of the audience, nothing of conception and interpretation of

character, nothing of empire over the sources of smiles and tears.

And these facts seem to furnish an explanation of the difficulty of

accounting for a great dramatic reputation, at a time when dramatic

literature was such as has been described.

[Sidenote: TASSO'S AMINTA.]

There was indeed one form of dramatic composition, not properly to be

classed with either tragedy or comedy, that has not been mentioned.

These were the pastoral pieces, "favole boschereccie," poems rather

than dramas, of which Tasso's "Aminta" is the great example, and to

which Isabella's own "Mirtilla" also belonged. From the circumstance

of her having herself written in that style, and more still from the

high place which the "Aminta" occupied in the public favour, it may be

deemed almost certain that the leading actress of the day must have

appeared in the part of Silvia. The superiority of this charming little

gem of Tasso's to the generality of the contemporary dramatic writings

is very marked. But its charms, its idyllic elegance, its Theophrastic

echoes, its melodious verse, are not dramatic charms. And though we may

fancy a beautiful woman, mistress of graceful elocution, and skilled in

drawing all its music from polished Italian verse, uttering Silvia's

disclaimer,

"Pianto d'amor non già, ma di pietade,"

with infinite charm of expression, still, any pleasure to be derived

from the stage presentation of such a poem as the "Aminta," and any

histrionic excellences to be manifested by the exponents of it, must

be deemed to be of a very inferior rank indeed, to aught that modern

times have learned to expect from those whom the world now considers

great actors. And on the whole, this record of a great Italian actress

contemporary with Shakspeare, must be considered to indicate that even

if the great master's works be left out of the question as exceptional,

drama stood higher, and was more appreciated in the great sixteenth

century among the "toto divisos orbe Britannos," than in Italy, the

metropolis of literary culture.

BIANCA CAPPELLO.

(1548–1587.)

CHAPTER I.

The pretty version of the story;—and the true version of the

same.—Saint Mark's Square at Florence.—Bianca's beauty.—The Medici _en

famille_.—The Casino of St. Mark.—The Proprieties.—"Cosa di Francesco."

In one of the twelve million volumes[140] of the Archives of Venice,

preserved in the two hundred and ninety–eight rooms of the suppressed

convent of St. Maria dei Frari, there is one pointed out to our notice

by the learned and accurate Emmanuele[141] Cigogna, in which certain

passages have been blotted out; and in the margin opposite to them

are written, in clerk's Latin, the words, "Obliterated by order of

the Council of Ten." The volume in question is a register of criminal

processes before the court of the "Avvogaria" for the year 1563. But

the "Avvogadori" (members of one of the numerous magistracies of

Venice, whose attributions were partly those of police magistrates, and

partly such as belong to a public prosecutor), in obeying the commands

of "The Ten," did not reckon on the lynx–eyed curiosity of modern

peerers into the secrets of the past. "As this obliteration," says

Signor Cigogna, "was not effected by the knife, but only by drawing a

pen with a different ink over the lines, the passages scratched out

have been very clearly decyphered by the skill and sharp eyes of Signor

Marco Solari, the paleographer." And the secret, which the terrible

"Ten" thought to hide for evermore, thus divulged, and stripped of its

clerk's Latin dress, is to this effect.

[Sidenote: THE SUPPRESSED PASSAGE.]

"Whereas Pietro Bonaventuri of Florence, resident in this city with

his uncle Giovanni Batista Bonaventuri, close to the church of St.

Apollinore, hath been accused before the criminal court of the Forty;

that with audacious insolence and disrespect for the nobles of Venice,

he, knowing that Bianca, the daughter of Bartolommeo Cappello, was an

heiress of no small fortune, and thinking that he could get possession

of such property if he could in any way lead the girl astray—(_si

puellam ipsam aliquâ ratione falleret_)—dared to take her from the

house of her father in the night following the 28th day of November,

in the year 1563, having deceived her by many falsehoods, while she

has barely completed her sixteenth year, and afterwards to take her

with him from Venice, thus contaminating the race and house of a noble

Venetian, in contempt of the laws, and against the public morals of

this city; and whereas the said Pietro, notwithstanding diligent

search, hath not been taken into custody, it is ordered, that if at

any time he shall be arrested, he shall be brought to Venice, where,

at the accustomed hour, on a lofty scaffold erected between the two

columns on the piazza, his head shall be stricken from his shoulders by

the public executioner, so that he die." Then follows the promise of

a reward offered by Bartolommeo Cappello, the father, in addition to

that promised by the government, to any one who will bring in the body

of the culprit, alive or dead, or give satisfactory proof of having

killed him anywhere beyond the territory of the republic. Another long

judgment follows against those suspected of having aided the couple in

their flight, and specially against a certain Maria Donati, "for that,

being a serving–maid in the house of the noble gentleman, Bartolommeo

Cappello, she perfidiously and audaciously dared, at the instance of

Pietro Bonaventuri, to give him her aid[142] in seducing and enticing

away Bianca, the daughter of the aforesaid Bartolommeo, so that she not

only had intercourse with the aforesaid Peter, but fled away from her

father's house and from Venice."

Further, a MS. chronicle of the time, cited by Cigogna,[143] states,

"that Bianca left Venice under a disgracing ban, so that, if she

returned, she would be put to death."

These judicial records are terribly unmanageable material in a

biographer's hand. To think that a lynx–eyed paleographer, by poking

out one volume among twelve million, and therein decyphering what was

meant to be concealed for ever three hundred years ago, should have

utterly spoiled for us the pretty romantic story, with which Bianca's

adventures have generally been understood to commence. Romantic and

despairing passion of the young Florentine banker's clerk, shot to

the heart by glances darted across the narrow canal from the noble

palace opposite;—(alas! the same detestable registers prove, that the

Florentine bank in which Bonaventuri was employed was not opposite, but

in a line with the Cappello palace, and out of glance–shot;)—chance

meeting at matins; imprudent but innocent interviews at early dawn,

with palace door left ajar to secure the means of timely return;

unhappy stroke of destiny in the shape of the baker going his early

rounds, and, thinking to do well, shutting fatally the half–open palace

door, and cutting off all retreat from the unfortunate maiden thus

forced by terror and despair to sudden and unpremeditated flight with

her lover:—all knocked to the ground like a child's card house, by the

interference of a lynx–eyed, dry–as–dust paleographer!

[Sidenote: THE TRUE STORY.]

So the Florentine banker's clerk was a vulgar fortune–hunter, scheming

to carry off an heiress! Bianca herself was not only "no better,"

as the classic phrase goes, but very perceptibly worse, "than she

should have been!"—(another MS.[144] chronicle declares that, being

motherless, and not very sharply looked after, she took to "freer

habits of life than were usual among noble Venetian damsels"). The

flight from Venice was a planned and got up thing, not unaccompanied,

say some[145] authorities, by a carefully–selected trousseau of the

family jewels; and the baker, unconscious, but fatal instrument in the

hands of destiny, a myth!

All this pretty story, then, which shares with so many others still

prettier, the misfortune of not being in accordance with fact, has to

be regretfully abandoned. Regretfully also must be sacrificed all the

detailed account of Bianca's journey with Bonaventuri to Florence,

with various adventures on the road,—hiding at Ferrara, and narrow

escape there from the secret emissaries of the republic, &c. &c., which

adorns the more or less fictitious accounts of the matter, that have

been written in great number upon the "romance of history" plan. All

these things may have happened; but unhappily there is no authority for

saying that they did so.

A poor fact–bound biographer, therefore, having due fear of Dryasdust

before his eyes, finds himself obliged to shape his statement in this

fashion.

One Pietro Bonaventuri, a young Florentine, employed in a Florentine

bank at Venice, found the means of becoming acquainted with Bianca, the

motherless daughter of the noble Bartolommeo Cappello, a young lady

then in her sixteenth year, but already noted for conduct none of the

strictest; and noted also as the heiress of a considerable fortune.

Giving her falsely to understand, as there is reason to believe,[146]

that he was a member of the great Salviati family, Bonaventuri induced

her to accord him secret meetings, and continued this intercourse till

Bianca found herself to be with child. The couple thereupon determined

on a secret flight to Florence, there to be married. And they did

accordingly leave Venice on the night of the 28th of November, 1563;

and did succeed, notwithstanding condemnation to death and large

rewards for their apprehension, in reaching Florence in safety.

That the journey was one of difficulty and danger, may also be asserted

without fear of error; for the roadless Apennine had to be crossed; it

was winter; and the sixteen–year–old fugitive was not in a condition

to perform such travel safely. But we get no distinct sight of the

pair, from the time of their flight on that 29th of November, till

we find them married and lodged in comparative safety in the poor

dwelling—"tugurio"—of the bridegroom's mother in the Piazza di San[147]

Marco at Florence. In comparative, but by no means in absolute safety.

For the Queen of the Adriatic had long arms, and, as treaties of

extradition had not then come into use, it was a common practice for

rulers to execute by the hand of a hired assassin in a foreign country,

the sentence, which the culprit's flight made it impossible for them to

carry out more regularly at home. Assassinations were extremely common

then in the streets of Florence; and the "brave ones," whose trade it

was to commit them, were not likely to neglect so good a job, as that

commissioned by the "most Serene" Republic.

[Sidenote: PIAZZA DI SAN MARCO.]

So Bianca and her husband had to keep themselves close prisoners in the

little house in the square of St. Mark. She had found out by this time,

that he was no Salviati, but a poor clerk, now without a clerkship. And

he had found out, that he had calculated amiss on those six thousand

crowns, which Bianca inherited from her mother, and which, according

to the Venetian law–records, had been to him the maiden's chief

attraction. For the Republic declared them to be confiscated! A state

of things not calculated, it may be feared, to conduce to that mutual

affection, which must have been so necessary to make their misfortunes,

and imprisonment in the little "tugurio," endurable.

But while they were thus courting obscurity the story of their flight

was making much noise in Italy. The abduction of a Venetian noble's

heiress was a serious thing. All Venice felt the insult; and the

reward for Bonaventuri's head was published in every city. It thus came

to pass, that Francesco, Duke Cosmo's eldest son, the heir apparent to

the throne of Tuscany, heard the story, and, at the same time, that

the fugitives were then in Florence. And as rumour was also saying

extraordinary things of Bianca's beauty, he conceived a strong desire

to see the heroine of the story.

All the contemporary writers speak much of this same beauty and

fascination; but it must be admitted, that the portraits and medals,

which remain to show us what she really was, do not by any means

confirm their praises. It is true, that these representations of her

show her to us at a later period of her life, and that the coarse

strongly marked features may well have been less repulsive at sixteen.

Montaigne, in the course of his tour in Italy, saw her at the Tuscan

court, and has written that she was "handsome, according to the taste

of the Italians, having a cheerful and plump face, considerable

stoutness of person, and a bosom such as they admire." This description

of her face tallies very well with the portraits, and specially with

a medal which must have been struck in her later years. It is a face

well calculated to express jovial, convivial cheerfulness, but coarse,

vulgar, and insolent in the extreme. And to this must be added,

hair, which only a courtier's flattery could term "auburn," and an

ungracefully stout person. This, however, as Montaigne hints, is not in

Italy thought as incompatible with beauty as on this side of the Alps;

and hair, that we should term decidedly red, is often much admired

among the Italians.

[Sidenote: A MEDICEAN TRAGEDY.]

Francesco was at the time of Bianca's arrival in Florence, in his

twenty–third year, and, as far as can be judged from the reports of

the contemporary writers, had up to that time distinguished himself

rather as a reader and student than in any less creditable way. The

Court of Cosmo, however, was by no means a favourable school for the

education of his children. Some of the scenes recorded by contemporary

writers as having been witnessed there are of a nature wholly

irreproducible here. And in the last year before that of Bianca's

arrival at Florence, the year 1562, had occurred one of those horrible

domestic tragedies, which seem to have been a peculiar specialty of the

Medicean race.

Cosmo's two sons, Giovanni and Garzia, the former nineteen and a

cardinal of two years' standing, and the latter fifteen years of age,

were hunting together near Leghorn. Some dispute arose respecting the

sport, on which the younger brother gave the elder a mortal wound

with his rapier. Giovanni died at Leghorn. Garzia presented himself

before his father to implore his pardon for the crime; and was killed

by a similar wound from his father's sword, as he knelt at his feet!

Of course other and unexceptionably legitimate causes were found

and published to account for both deaths. All which the respectable

classes pretended to believe; but jotted down their own notions of

the matter in "ricordi," destined to be safely buried in the family

muniment rooms; but destined also to infallible resurrection at the

summons of inevitable Dryasdust. While the unrespectable classes noted

to each other under their breath, that the bodies of the two princes

had not been exposed to the public view, as was the often inconvenient

custom with regard to dead highnesses; and muttered their conclusions

accordingly. The mother of the two princes, Eleonora di Toledo, died

of grief as was supposed, and as might well be, in the same year.

Shortly afterwards the more consolable father, having given in marriage

to a scion of the noble family of Panciatici his mistress, Eleonora

degli Albizzi, whom her noble father had sold to him, asked another

noble father of Florence for his daughter, the beautiful Camilla

Martelli, to be her successor. The honour was of course gratefully

accepted by the proud patrician, and Camilla Martelli became the mother

of Virginia de' Medici in 1568. But soon afterwards the lady began to

be troubled with scruples of conscience, and consulted his Holiness,

Pius V., upon the subject, who counselled _patience!_ meaning that

she should wait and see whether the sovereign might not be induced to

marry her. And accordingly as it happened, that state reasons made it

desirable for Cosmo to conciliate the pontiff, he decided on gaining

his heart entirely by marrying "La Martelli" in 1570, and by giving up

to the Church his subject Carnesecchi, to be burned as a heretic.

The other members of the family at the time of Bianca's arrival in

Florence, were Ferdinando, the second surviving son of the grand duke,

who at the age of fourteen had just been made a cardinal, and who

was generally at Rome; Pietro, a third son, aged nine; and Isabella,

Cosmo's daughter, who had been married to Paolo Giordano Orsini in

1553. She was, we are told, the life and brightest ornament of the

Tuscan court. She had refused to follow her husband to Rome; and as

Cosmo had supported her in her refusal, so far as manifesting his wish

that she should continue to reside in Florence, Orsini had left her

there, while he remained in his own city, and rarely or never troubled

his wife, who had no love for him, with his presence.

[Sidenote: CASINO OF ST. MARK.]

Such were the members of the Tuscan court in 1563–4; when Francesco

determined to gratify his curiosity by getting in some way a sight of

the beautiful stranger in Florence, who had been so much talked of.

It was not very difficult to accomplish this. Somebody was found to

suggest to Bianca and her mother–in–law, that they would do wisely to

seek an interview with the Marchesa Mondragone, the wife of Francesco's

Spanish tutor, who might very easily induce the prince to obtain from

the Republic of Venice a pardon for her husband and herself. The bait

was readily taken, and they were told that the Marchesa would receive

them in the Casino of S. Marco.

This small but remarkably elegant building, rebuilt as it now stands in

1775 by the Grand Duke Pietro Leopoldo, can hardly fail at the present

day to attract the attention of any stranger passing through the

Piazza of St. Mark. It was then a casino belonging to the Medici; and

is still the property of the Grand Duke of Tuscany. A "casino" was an

important portion of the social arrangements of those days. A "little

house" for the transaction of such matters as the "convenances"—Anglice

hypocrisies—did not allow of being conveniently carried on in the large

house, which was the noble family's residence, was found to contribute

very essentially to the maintenance of that propriety, which is so dear

to a people to whom seeming is ever more important than being. Most of

the wealthier members of the aristocracy had such conveniences, and the

proprieties of Italian life would hardly have been by any possibility

maintained without them.

Now this casino of the young Prince Francesco was, as has been seen,

very near the humble dwelling of Bianca. The "tugurio" of her husband

was on the south side of the small square facing St. Mark's church,

and the Prince's casino at right angles to it on the west side—not a

stone's throw distant. So that Bianca and her mother–in–law were able

to wait[148] on the kind Marchesa there, with very slight departure

from their rule of not quitting the shelter of their home.

The Marchesa Mondragone received them with the utmost affability;

inquired with most amiable interest into the particulars of Bianca's

story; and, when it chanced that her husband the Marchese entered the

room, she seized the opportunity of at once interesting him in the

case. The affability of the Spaniard exceeded even that of his wife.

He had not the least doubt of being able to induce his Excellency to

use his influence with the Republic;—she might consider the matter as

good as settled. Then the Marchesa suddenly bethought herself that

she wanted to know, whether some dresses of hers were made in the

right Venetian fashion. Would Bianca come with her and look at them,

while the Marchese did himself the pleasure of remaining with the

Signora Bonaventuri. So Bianca was walked off into another room with

her charming new Spanish friend, who, after showing her some of those

matters, which women, it seems, used to find amusement in looking at

some three hundred years ago, under pretence of seeking keys to open

other cupboards, or something of that sort, slipped away, leaving

her guest alone, but fully occupied in admiring the profusion of

magnificence that characterised the apartment she was in.

[Sidenote: THE INTERVIEW.]

In another minute a curtain was raised from before an opposite door,

and Bianca found herself alone with Francesco. The details of what

passed at that first interview between these two persons, who for the

remainder of their lives were to exercise so strange and so pernicious

a reciprocal influence, are recorded by more than one writer.[149] Yet

it is little likely that either of them should have afterwards repeated

the mere matters of course proper to "the situation," which are set

down as having been uttered by them. It is true, that "La Mondragone"

may be well supposed to have been watching the happy progress of her

handiwork within ear–shot. The only circumstance at all worth noting of

all that is said to have passed, whether true or fictitious, is that

Bianca is stated to have at once comprehended on seeing the Prince what

his errand was, and the whole motive with which she had been induced to

visit the Marchesa. She pleaded for "_her honour!_" He assured her that

it should be abundantly cared for, &c. &c.

Whether the relationship in which they were thereafter to stand towards

each other was finally settled there and then, or whether other such

interviews were required for the completion of their arrangements does

not appear. It was needful, it seems, even at Florence in 1564, that

some regard should be paid to appearances by a prince in Francesco's

position just at that time. A marriage was being arranged for him with

Joan of Austria, daughter of the Emperor Francis, which was eventually

celebrated in December 1565. And the German "barbari" might have taken

offence if the prince's wooing of his wife and his mistress had been

too openly simultaneous. It would have been _indecent_—would not have

looked well, which was, above all things, what was needful. Francesco

too was in that same year, 1564, entrusted with the reins of government

by his father, who, though he did not formally abdicate the throne, yet

left thenceforward all the management of State matters to his son.

So that under the circumstances the left–handed wooing had to seek

for awhile the shelter of the Casino;—furnishing thus an excellent

illustration of the utility of that convenient institution.

All then that the secrecy of that retreat has permitted us to know

with certainty as to the duration of Bianca's resistance to the Prince

is comprised in the fact, that everything was satisfactorily arranged

between them within six months of her arrival in Florence.[150] And as

after that arrival she gave birth to a daughter, named Pellegrina, it

must be concluded, that no very great length of time was consumed in

coming to an understanding.

And here it may be clearly stated that this was, as far as can be

gathered from the writings of her innumerable abusers, Bianca's last

fault _of this sort_. For the rest of her days she seems to have

been perfectly faithful as mistress and as wife to Francesco. It is,

perhaps, the only one word we shall have an opportunity of saying in

her favour;—so mercifully inclined readers may make the most of it.

[Sidenote: COSA DI FRANCESCO.]

But, by the bye, the lady's husband! He seems to have been rather

forgotten by us. But so he is also by the original tellers of the

story. None of them hints a doubt of the possibility of his making

any difficulty in the matter. We are shortly told, that the gracious

sovereign appointed him to a place of "guarda–roba," some keeper of

property of some sort. So things were made pleasant to all parties;

and the adventurous banker's clerk made no difficulty in admitting

that his wife was henceforward, as the chroniclers phrase is, "cosa di

Francesco;"—goods belonging to his Highness.

CHAPTER II.

A favorite's husband.—The natural course of things.—Italian

respectability.—The three brothers, Francesco, Ferdinand, and

Pietro.—The ladies of the Court.—Francesco's temper—his avarice—and

wealth.—Frolicsome days at Florence.—The Cardinal recommends

respectability.—The Duke ensures it.—A Court dialogue.

Whatever considerations of decency may have at first thrown some

measure of concealment around Francesco's connection with Bianca, their

operation lasted but a very short time. The unfortunate Giovanna very

soon found, not only that the place, which she should have occupied

in her husband's affection, was already given away to another, but

that most even of the external tokens of respect and homage which

belonged to her position were usurped by the same audacious rival. The

ascendancy exercised by Bianca over the weak mind of Francesco soon

began to make itself manifest. It seems to have been at an early period

of their connection, that she induced him solemnly to promise, "before

a sacred image," that should a time come, when they should both be

free, he would marry her. The promise originally made, that Francesco

should use his influence to obtain the reversal of the sentence passed

by the tribunals of the Republic against Bianca and her husband, was

also duly performed, but ineffectually. The Senate of Venice refused

either to pardon the culprits, or to restore the six thousand crowns

of Bianca's inheritance.[151]

[Sidenote: CASSANDRA RICCI.]

One, who stood in the envied and distinguished position of Bonaventuri,

however, could easily dispense with his wife's fortune. The husband of

the sovereign's mistress was in no great want of six thousand crowns.

Bonaventuri became, naturally, one of the distinguished members of the

Florentine "jeunesse dorée;" and soon showed himself fitted by nature

to shine in such society, despite his clerkly bringing up.

There was at that time among the ornaments of the society of Florence a

young and beautiful widow, Cassandra Bongianni; who was well inclined

to avail herself to any extent of the freedom from restraint such

a position secured to her. But Cassandra Bongianni had been "nata"

Cassandra Ricci, and that proud and powerful family had intimated to

the gay widow their intention not to permit any scandal to be cast

on the family name by irregularities of hers. And the warning had

been already significantly enough enforced by the assassination of

two pretenders to the widow's favour. A Cavalcanti[152] and a Del

Caccia had fallen in the dangerous pursuit, stabbed in the streets

of Florence. Here then was an enterprise worthy of the new aspirant

for fashionable distinction. Perhaps he imagined that two murders

committed unavailingly might have induced the Ricci to abandon the task

of protecting their kinswoman's fair fame at such a cost. Still more

probably he relied on the protection of court favour. In any case he

became the known lover of the dangerous widow.

But one night[153] as he was returning to his home in the Via Maggio,

accompanied by two servants, he was assailed by twelve men at the foot

of the Trinity bridge, over the Arno, which he had to pass. One of

the servants fled; the other was struck down dead at the first onset.

Bonaventuri however succeeded in fighting his way across the bridge,

killing one of his assailants, and was near his own house, when he

fell, and was dispatched by the daggers of the Ricci bravos.

Such an occurrence in the streets of Florence was very far from rare.

An hundred and eighty–six assassinations took place within the city

in the first eighteen months after the death of Cosmo.[154] So the

death of the favorite's husband excited but little notice. The murder

of Cassandra in her bed on the same night by certain masked men, who

entered the chamber and performed the execution as quietly as if it had

been a judicial sentence, was more notable. But she had had her two

previous warnings; and the "honour" of the Ricci family was thus made

safe.

Bianca demanded from the duke vengeance on her husband's murderers;

and it was promised. But the measures taken for that purpose were so

evidently such as to give the culprits every facility for escape,

that public opinion accused Francesco of having been privy to the

crime. And it is asserted that he confessed as much to a certain court

chaplain,[155] one Giambattista Confetti. But if, as seems probable,

this was really so, it is difficult to suppose, that Bianca was not

equally an accomplice before the fact in the murder. The demand for

justice was a matter of course. Not to have made it, would have

almost amounted to an avowal of at least approbation of the deed. The

complete subjection of Francesco's mind to his mistress, makes it

exceedingly improbable that he would have connived at such a design

without imparting it to her. And the only motive, that either of them

could have had for such a crime, beyond the possible wish to get rid of

one whose excesses and ill–conduct threw scandal on his connection with

the court, must be sought in that promise, which Bianca had extorted

from the Duke, to take effect in case they should both be freed from

the bonds of marriage. The removal of Bonaventuri overcame what was

likely otherwise to have proved the more insuperable obstacle to this

event.

[Sidenote: THE DUCHESS GIOVANNA.]

For the unhappy Giovanna, crushed beneath the audacious effrontery of

her rival, languishing from the neglect and open indifference of her

husband, solitary and apart amid the festivities of a court, whose

loose morals were to her Austrian correctness an abomination, and

whose recent sovereignty her Austrian pride despised; the mother of

daughters only to her husband's great regret, and increased dislike;

of unamiable, reserved manners, and of unlovely appearance,—this

unhappy Giovanna might very possibly, (even without any assistance from

such means as both Francesco and Bianca knew very well how to avail

themselves of, if need were,) not continue long to be an obstacle in

their way.

Meanwhile the young Princes Ferdinando and Pietro were becoming of

an age to exert an influence on the family history and fortunes.

Ferdinando the Cardinal, had lived chiefly at Rome. At an early age

he had already acquired the reputation of a well educated and well

informed man, a dexterous and prudent statesman, and a well–intentioned

and respectable prince.

Respectability, though many people are inclined to deem it a specially

British production, is yet now as three hundred years ago far more

specially an Italian virtue. No people in the world care so much

what is said of them by those around them. It is true that much is

respectable there, which would not be able to be respected here. But

this is only because all Italian society is more fully and unanimously

agreed on considering that seeming is more important than being. With

us, respectability must have no chinks nor crannies in its surface,

through which peering eyes can discover anything derogatory to its

character. But the Italian world declines to peer. Let only a good will

to show a fair outside be apparent, and the world will industriously

avoid looking beyond that outside. The state will overlook your

breaking the laws if you will seem to respect them. The Church does not

mind your infidelity if you will make believe to believe. Society will

take no notice of your neglect of social duties, if you will not fling

your defiance in its face. Break the commandments as much as you will.

But observe the "convenances" religiously.

Now Ferdinando was above all a respectable prince, holding an eminently

respectable position; and it was his great misfortune to have two

brothers, who were both audaciously, though in different degrees, and

according to their different natures, the reverse.

Francesco, his eider brother, assuredly did not fail in achieving

respectability from any too great openness or sincerity of character.

For a more dissembling nature has rarely perhaps existed. His hypocrisy

frequently exhibited itself in traits of so strangely profound a

kind, as to have the appearance of a hope to deceive either himself

or his Creator. For he would practise them upon his own confederates

in crime. Nor was ever any one less indifferent to the estimate his

fellows might form of him. The honour of the Medicean name, as he

understood the meaning of that phrase, was very dear to him. Yet he

made himself the common fable of the courts of Italy. He contrived to

earn the contempt of every crowned head in Europe; and was constantly

giving rise to that "scandal" which is a respectable Italian's greatest

horror. Strong passions, and an obstinate will exaggerated by the

possession of absolute power into something at times very like partial

insanity, joined to great weakness of all the higher intellectual

faculties, and a profound ignorance of the nature, beauty, and value of

real worth and nobleness, led him into all this mischief, and were a

source of never–ending sorrow and trouble to the Cardinal.

[Sidenote: PIETRO DE' MEDICI.]

Pietro, the younger brother, was almost an equal thorn in his prudent

and respectably ambitious brother's side. His was a nature as unlike

as possible to that of either the Duke or the Cardinal; and was not

without some indications, that under better circumstances, it might

have contained in it the elements of a finer character than either of

theirs. As it was, Pietro was an unmitigated and avowed scamp; the

centre and leader of all the most profligate young men in the city;

the terror of quiet citizens, the insulter of the impotent laws which

he braved, the despair of the Cardinal as a disgrace to the family,

and the dread of the Duke from his constant and insatiable demands for

money.[156]

Cosmo, the old duke, died in 1574; but before he went, he provided

his scapegrace son with a wife, after a fashion, which unfortunately

had not the effect of reclaiming him from his wild courses. There

was living in the court a certain Eleonora di Garzia, a niece of

Cosmo's first wife, Eleonora di Toledo. She was pretty, and pleased

Cosmo's eye. But being of a noble Spanish family, with interest at

the Spanish court, the "convenances" had to be assiduously attended

to. So when it appeared one day that Eleonora was likely to become a

mother, the exemplary sovereign and excellent father, suddenly struck

with the idea that marriage was just the thing to steady his runagate

son Pietro, handed over the lady to the young man, and bade him marry

her.[157] Pietro obediently did so; and the lady's "honour," and

Cosmo's "honour," and the Toledo family "honour" was all "saved" as

bright as ever; which was wholly satisfactory to all those honourable

persons. But beyond this very desirable result, the well–imagined

arrangement was not found to answer. Pietro led a worse life than ever;

and Eleonora had no inclination to be a faithful wife to a husband she

rarely saw. But Cosmo went to his grave under the dome of St. Lorenzo,

with his honour saved, and left his fatherly management to work to what

results it might.

There were thus five ladies belonging to the Medicean family party

at the time of Cosmo's death. 1. His widow Camilla Martelli. 2.

Francesco's wife, poor Joan of Austria. 3. The gay and dashing widow

bewitched, Isabella Orsini. 4. Pietro's neglected but equally gay wife,

Eleonora. And, 5. Bianca Capello.

Poor Camilla was very shortly eliminated, being sentenced by the new

Grand–duke to perform suttee, by being buried alive in a monastery;

where he with inveterate hatred kept her imprisoned during his whole

life, notwithstanding the reiterated intercessions of the Cardinal.

[Sidenote: ISABELLA ORSINI.]

The position of his own wife, Giovanna, was not much better. She led

a lonely life in her own apartments, treated with all but insult by

the courtiers, who lavished on Bianca the homage which follows the

dispenser of court favours.

Remained the three younger ladies, the ornaments of Francesco's court,

the cynosure of Florentine eyes, the promoters and centre of all

festivities, and the devisers of all sorts of diversions and frolic

schemes. The general licence of the manners of the time, the high

social position of the fair bevy, and the special dissoluteness and

neglect of their natural protectors, permitted them to push their sport

unchecked very considerably beyond the boundary line, which separates

venial levity from conduct that leaves permanent and ineffaceable

stains behind it. Isabella had long since "thrown her cap over the

roofs," to use the classic French phrase—aye, over the topmost cupola

of the _Duomo_. Paolo Giordano Orsini was pursuing his own not very

dissimilar course at Rome, and took but little heed of the almost

unknown wife, who was off his hands under the care of her own family;

and Isabella had ingratiated herself with her brother Francesco in the

manner most acceptable to him, by taking kindly to Bianca from the

first;[158] the more so as she was the only one of his family who had

ever done so. Pietro's young wife, Eleonora, showed every disposition

to follow to the full extent the example he set her. And Bianca, though

her doings do not appear to have at any time taken such a shape as to

give Francesco any cause for jealousy, was ready to go all lengths with

the others of the trio as far as lavish extravagance, festivities of

which the details were more or less unfit to meet the scrutiny of the

public eye, and general "emancipation" from "prejudice," were concerned.

So that the Grand Duke Francesco found himself at the head of a

somewhat skittish court; a Capua of the _renaissance_, which was

beginning to attract unfavourable notice from the other courts of

Italy. When the pot chances to be a shade blacker than usual, the

kettle, we know, is ever loudest in abuse of it. Besides, the disorders

of the Tuscan court seem to have had a certain Tom–and–Jerry flavour

about them, which greatly scandalised and disgusted many Highnesses,

Eminences, and Excellencies of different degrees of Illustriousness

and Serenity, who would not have minded a few decently veiled

assassinations or any amount of respectably quiet poisonings. And

Francesco, who flattered himself, very mistakenly, that by dint of a

certain dose of Louis–Onze–like devoutness, he had contrived to keep

character enough for one, was painfully conscious of the fact that he

assuredly had not any to spare for covering the deficiencies of others.

Francesco, moreover, was not a man of a festive disposition. On

the contrary, he was almost always under the shadow of a black and

unwholesome melancholy. Not that he abstained from excess in many

ways. Indeed, all the habits of his life were especially marked by the

absence of all moderation. But a savage and ungenial nature showed

itself in his pleasures as in his more serious moments. His violence

of ill–temper, and sombre suspicious moodiness, must often have

taxed to the utmost all Bianca's powers of dissimulation, and all her

forbearance. The lot, which she sacrificed fair fame, peace of mind,

and ease of conscience to attain, was one which few would have endured

without flinching, had it been awarded to them to bear it. All the

contemporary accounts represent Bianca's powers of fascination and

persuasion to have been remarkable. And she had need of them all to

soothe the ill–governed mind, and calm the half–insane violences of the

Grand Duke's savage moods.

[Sidenote: THE DUKE'S MOODINESS.]

These had of late years been growing on him. He had no child to be

his heir; and this was a constant source of brooding discontent and

melancholy. His wife, Giovanna, had given birth to several infants; but

they were all daughters. Bianca had never presented him with a child.

To Francesco it was an odious and intolerable thought that either of

his brothers should be the successor to his throne. And it was as much

a matter of repining to him that Bianca was childless, as that his wife

should not have given him an heir. A subsequent marriage legitimises a

child born out of wedlock, according to the Romish code. Failing other

means, pontifical dispensations were always at hand to help orthodox

and Church–loving princes over such difficulties. And Francesco

would have deemed a son by Bianca almost as desirable as one by his

legitimate wife. But the years went on, and he continued without either.

All this contributed, as may be easily imagined, to make Bianca's task

a hard one, and her life a continued series of anxieties, contrivances,

plottings, and machinations.

But Francesco had another passion, which led him to look with a

discontented eye on the disorders and excesses of his court,—his

avarice. He, like his father, Cosmo, was rich, far beyond what might

have been supposed, from his rank and position among the sovereigns of

Europe. No mode of extracting money from his subjects was left untried

by him. Venal pardons, excessive taxation, and wholesale confiscations,

helped to fill his coffers. But he derived still larger revenues from

the trading speculations which both he and Cosmo carried on in almost

every part of Europe. There was hardly one of the great commercial

centres of the time, where the Grand Duke of Florence had not a share

in some banking concern. He was also interested as a partner in a great

variety of speculations of various kinds. And besides all this, he

traded largely with ships of his own in grain, wool, pepper and other

spices, silk and leather.

The vast wealth thus amassed he used in purchasing by large loans the

good–will and seeming consideration of the courts of Paris and Madrid.

In both he was despised and disliked. But both were so accustomed to

look upon him as a squeezeable money–dealer, that we find the French

court absolutely making jealous complaints[159] of the amount he had

furnished to that of Spain.

All these circumstances combined to make the mood of Francesco

dangerous to those about him in the years which immediately followed

his father's death. Don Pietro's recklessly scandalous life, and

much worse still his constant demands for money, annoyed him. The

remonstrances and preachments of the Cardinal Ferdinando from Rome

irritated him. But Francesco was perfect as a dissembler. No man or

woman was his confidant. Not even to Bianca did he show any sign that

his ill–humour was rising to a point above its usual mark.

[Sidenote: THE CARDINAL'S VEXATIONS.]

So the reckless holiday–keeping court circle spun on in their usual

course around him. Isabella and Eleonora were busy with their

free–lance captains, and court pages. Bianca was hoarding money to send

to her greedy family at Venice, or was holding secret council with

some philtre–dealer or black–art professor of one sort or another.

Pietro was wilder, more lawless, and audacious in his debaucheries than

ever. And the highly respectable Ferdinand was anxiously, and almost

despairingly, watching them all from Rome, while they were continually

throwing down, by the disreputableness of their lives, the edifice of

the family greatness, which he was ever laboriously and dexterously

scheming to build up.

It must be admitted that his respectable Eminence the Cardinal had

enough to provoke and embitter him with his relatives. He and Bianca

had from the first been declared enemies. He deplored his brother's

weakness in becoming enamoured of this designing Venetian woman. He

was indignant at the publicity Francesco had permitted his connection

with her to assume. He remonstrated again and again with him on the

impropriety of allowing her to have the influence in matters of

government which it was notorious she exercised, and on the impolicy

of exposing himself to the contempt and ridicule of every court in

Europe on her account. But his exhortations had only had the effect of

producing a state of enmity between Francesco and himself, which Bianca

is accused of having used all her art to perpetuate and envenom.[160]

Such was the state of things in the Medicean domestic circle in the

summer of the year 1576; when the working together of all these

passions, and all these ill–conditioned and depraved wills culminated

in one of those catastrophes which have rendered the name of Medici

infamous throughout all time, and made it a beacon to warn off mankind

from any approach towards that condition of social system which

rendered the production of such hideous phenomena possible.

The Cardinal Ferdinand, though rarely seen in Florence, kept himself

accurately and minutely informed of all that passed in his brother's

court there. No nunnery wall was scaled by Don Pietro, no masked night

excursion planned by Donna Isabella, no assignation made by Donna

Eleonora, no secret colloquy held with some scoundrel black–art quack

and poison–dealer by Donna Bianca, no fresh outrage on his murmuring

subjects committed by the Duke, without speedy and detailed information

thereof reaching the much provoked Cardinal in his Roman palace. And

whether it so happened, that tidings of some more flagrant indecency

than usual had reached his Eminence just then, or whether it were

merely that the last drop had made the cup run over, it would seem that

Ferdinando—(who, to do him justice, never permitted[161] his resentment

against his brother to stand in the way of his efforts to support the

family interest, and to save Francesco from the consequences of his own

ill–conduct)—made, about the time mentioned, some communication to the

Duke, urging on him the absolute necessity of putting some stop to the

scandals caused by the conduct of the ladies of his family.

[Sidenote: ISABELLA ORSINI.]

Many similar exhortations had produced no visible effect. But it would

appear that the irritating message this time fell on Francesco's moody

mind at a dangerous moment. His first step was to send off a summons to

Paolo Giordano Orsini at Rome, to come forthwith, and with all secrecy,

to Florence.[162]

Now, when Orsini had left his wife in Florence, he had placed one of

his relatives, Troilo Orsini, near her, as a sort of guardian and

mentor. Troilo, however, soon became one of Isabella's numerous lovers;

and limited the duties of his mentorship to insisting that he should be

her only one. But there was a certain court page, one Lelio Torelli, of

whom he was especially jealous. And as his efforts to induce Isabella

to give up this youth were vain, he performed his duty to his kinsman

by running the page through the body. Torelli unfortunately was the son

of a man of note, who had been one of Duke Cosmo's chief ministers; and

the murder, therefore, could not be easily hushed up or overlooked.

Criminal proceedings were instituted against Troilo Orsini, and in the

course of them a number of facts were revealed criminatory[163] of

Isabella.

All this Francesco poured into the ear of Paolo Giordano Orsini on

his arrival in Florence. No record has reached us of the details of

what passed between the Duke and his brother–in–law at the secret

colloquy that took place between them on this occasion. But the last

words that Francesco uttered, as Orsini left him, were overheard, and

have curiously enough been preserved.[164] "When you have satisfied

yourself of the odious truth, remember always that you are a Christian

and a gentleman!" said the Duke, who had learned his ideas of either

character in the school of Philip II. of Spain. He moreover lent Orsini

during his stay in Florence the villa now called Poggio Imperiale,

near the Roman gate of the city. To Isabella her husband assumed the

appearance of perfect cordiality and affection. He had brought her, he

said, a present of a couple of greyhounds, and begged her to accompany

him to the villa to try them. It is said that the unhappy woman

accepted the invitation with terrible misgivings. She went, however;

and the next morning Florence heard that the Lady Isabella had died

suddenly in the night; and the court physicians, who were called to

look at the body, testified that apoplexy was the cause of her death.

The cause of the apoplexy was not stated; but the general belief was,

and has been among Florentine historians ever since, that it was

brought on by a cord around her neck drawn tightly by the hands of her

husband.[165]

The historians admit that there exists no direct proof that Francesco

and Ferdinando, both or either of them, were accomplices in this

murder. But they appear to have very little doubt upon the subject;

and, indeed, the circumstantial evidence seems almost conclusive,

especially as regards Francesco. There is the direct statement of the

Settimanni[166] chronicle, that Orsini was sent for from Rome that he

might consent to his wife's death. There is the general popular belief

at the time and ever since. And there is the fact that both Ferdinando

and Francesco continued on perfectly friendly terms with Paolo Giordano

after Isabella's death, and interested themselves, as they had not

before done, in the settlement of his numerous debts.

[Sidenote: ISABELLA ORSINI.]

The unfortunate Isabella Orsini has been very leniently judged by

her countrymen. She was beautiful; carefully and highly educated, so

far as the phrase includes exclusively intellectual culture; was a

distinguished musician; spoke and wrote correctly several languages,

including that of ancient Rome; was a poetess in a small way; and some

philological treatise by her, still to be found in print in Italian

libraries, indicates that she was not _wholly_ given up to pursuits

little compatible with intellectual exercise. Impudicity had been from

her tender years instilled into her, both by precept and example, by an

authority which nature's earliest dictates teach a child to consider

as sacred above all others. With such a father and sovereign as Cosmo,

and living in such a state of society as that which surrounded her,

where the abundant practice of "religious duties" intertwined with,

and forming a large part of every–day life, was joined to a degree of

ignorance and neglect of "moral duties" unequalled, perhaps, in any

other age and country, could Isabella Orsini have been other than lost

as she was?

But the reforming hand which was to restore the court and family of the

Medici to respectability, was not satisfied with one victim. It was on

the 16th of July that Isabella Orsini was murdered; some days having

been lost, as may be supposed, between the remonstrance of the Cardinal

and the arrival of Paolo Giordano in Florence. The other victim,

therefore, whose destined executioner was at hand, perished exactly

one week earlier. When Francesco sent for his brother–in–law from Rome,

he also summoned his brother Pietro to an interview.

Here again we have no means of knowing what passed between the

brothers, other than such as can be gathered from the facts which

followed thereupon, and from the well–known and well–marked characters

of the actors. Drawing from these sources of knowledge, Guerrazzi,

in his Racconto, entitled "Isabella Orsini," has fashioned forth the

dialogue which may be supposed to have passed between them, with a

verisimilitude as to circumstances and words, and an absolute truth as

to character, so vividly illustrative of the men and the time, that an

extract from it will convey more historical truth than many a page from

a matter–of–fact chronicle.

Francesco begins by reproaching Don Pietro with his extravagances. "Don

Francesco," answers the scapegrace, "Remember that I have come hither

on the faith of your safe–conduct. Do not kill me with a sermon."

"Do I deserve this at your hands?" returned the elder, after some

further disputing. "Have I not given, and do I not continue to give,

proof of my love for my own blood?"

"As for your own, I don't know; but you certainly love blood...."

"I have to tell you then," said Francesco, "that you are the most

abject, the most shameless, and most infamous knight that lives this

day in Christendom."

"Strong language!" sneered Pietro. "Let us come to facts."

"Your wife is an adulteress."

[Sidenote: FRANCESCO AND PIETRO.]

"I am perfectly well aware of the circumstance."

"What! you know it! and have not avenged your shame!"

"We Medici have never been lucky in our wives."

Francesco, in fury, asks what he means to insinuate against either

the Grand Duchess or Bianca. And here the writer commits an error in

chronology. For he writes as if this conversation occurred after the

death of the Grand Duchess, which was not the fact. The circumstances

of this narrative took place in 1576, and the Grand Duchess lived till

1578. As to Bianca, in reply to the Grand Duke's assertion that she

must be considered as washed from all that had preceded his connection

with her, Pietro retorts:

"Such washing will not remove all stains. Sometimes a piece of the

stuff may sooner be destroyed than the spot on it. And on your hand

there must be a certain red mark that all Arno cannot wash away. It is

the stain of Bonaventuri's blood."

"Who says that I slew Bonaventuri? If my father asserted it, I would

tell him that he lied. I neither did nor ordered anything. I can swear

it."

"Between ordering, insinuating, foreseeing, suspecting, conniving, not

seeing, and so forth, no doubt if the cause had to be tried before this

world's judges, the pettifoggers of the courts could find you so many

limitations and distinctions that you would be acquitted nem. con. But

before God one does not appear by means of one's attorney...."

"Ungrateful! How much have my enemies given you to make me die of

anger? Is this a way to speak to your liege lord, who if he would,

could break you like a reed. And that, too, when I am intent on

preserving your reputation!... I have discovered the infamous

destroyer of your honour, and have put him to death."

"Poor fellow! he deserved it, but he was a very worthy cavalier."

"Who told you that he was a cavalier?"

"What! Bernardino Antinori, whom you had strangled in prison! Who told

me? Well, that is good! Who told me, indeed? Francesco, let me say a

few words to you plainly and openly after my own manner. We can do what

we think fit; but on one condition, which is this; that we let others

talk as they think fit. The people we employ in matters of this sort

are vile and infamous from their birth upwards; and if they could find

some one to throw them a bigger sop for murdering us, than we give

them for murdering others, they would do so. Do you expect fidelity or

secrecy from such? In the taverns and in their low orgies, they vomit

forth their secrets of blood, often true, oftener exaggerated twofold,

till down there among the people, who know us but little, we find an

accumulated hoard of hatred that makes one shudder to look at it."

"Have you done?"

"One minute, and I have done. Add to all this the curse of the pen....

Who knows how many traders are at this hour writing in their ledgers

between the records of a purchase of wool, and a sale of silk: _Item_.

I record that on such a day in such a year from the Incarnation,

Francesco de' Medici caused the Cavaliere Bernardino Antinori to be

strangled for adultery with the lady Eleonora di Toledo, wife of Don

Pietro dei Medici.[167] And then, besides the merchants, there are the

moralisers, and the history–writers, and all the rest of the literary

generation, to whom I make a point of being civil, since we cannot

drive them out of the world.... But I see that I am putting you to

sleep. You were saying—what was it? Oh! that you had had the Cavaliere

Antinori strangled."

[Sidenote: FRANCESCO AND PIETRO.]

Francesco, continues Signor Guerrazzi, who was naturally and habitually

sparing of speech, and wont to come directly to his point, felt as if

his head was going round with all this flux of words. He needed to

recover himself a little; and it was sometime before he resumed his

discourse thus.

"Well then, if you know the treason of your wife, why is she still

alive?"

"Because, if I come to my _confiteor_, I fancy that I have more sins on

my shoulders than she has; and, further, because I do not see clearly

who would save me from the vengeance of her uncle the Duke of Alva, and

her brother Toledo, who, between ourselves, are not altogether saints

to have to deal with."

"And can we not protect you against a viceroy and a duke...."

"In short, you want me to make you a present of the life of Eleonora;

and I am willing to do so. A wife is not worth falling out about. But

you on your part must be a good brother ... and let me have some forty

thousand ducats, that I am sadly in want of."

"All of you eaten up with debt! All out at elbows! You, the Cardinal,

and Orsini would swallow all Peru. Where am I to get all this money?"

"A squeeze well administered to the udders of the Republic would put

all to rights. But you have no need even to do that. Rumour says,

that what with gold in coin and in ingots, and in precious stones, you

have hoarded better than ten millions of money.... Besides, the public

revenue, after all expenses are paid, gives you more than three hundred

thousand ducats."

"And who dares to call me to account as to the amount?"

"You had better hang the multiplication table. Then, again, you make a

mine of money by your commerce in leather, precious stones, grain, and

pepper."

"Losses upon all of them! I have made up my mind to give up commerce.

Perhaps,—I have not quite made up my mind,—perhaps I may continue to

trade in pepper. But no more leather!—no more grain! He who trades in

grain dies on straw."

"Do as you think best. But will you give me the forty thousand ducats?"

"Good heaven! where can you get rid of so much money?"

"Give it to me, and be sure that in so doing you lay it out well.

I employ it in making you friends. I spend it among the people in

festivities, in banquets, in pleasure. The rising generation is thus

habituated to expense and luxury. I enervate it to your hand; I degrade

it; I emasculate its intellect; I destroy its dignity of mind and its

strength of body. I prepare it to receive the seed; so that you may sow

it with what best suits your purpose."

"In truth, your humour is of a strange turn! You shall have the forty

thousand ducats. But you will sign me an obligation to repay them

little by little from your Pisan property."

[Sidenote: CAFAGGIUOLO.]

"As for obligations, I will sign you as many as you please."

"Moreover——"

"Oh dear me! now come the restrictions!"

"No! only you will undertake the removal of your infamous wife when and

where I shall command."

"This article is also agreed to. When am I to have the ducats?"

"To–morrow!"

And in accordance with the characteristic scene thus painted for us

by Signor Guerrazzi, we find on returning from verisimilitude to

recorded fact, that on the ninth of July in the year 1576, just a week

previous to the murder of Isabella Orsini, the wretched Eleonora,—she

too another victim of Cosmo's atrocious profligacy—was put to death

by Don Pietro's own hand at the Villa of Cafaggiuolo. That ill–omened

place is a castle among the Apennines, some fifteen or twenty miles

from Florence, which the traveller thence to Bologna will hardly fail

to notice. Solitary and desolate as it stands now among the mountains

by the side of the high–road, it was yet more so, when no such road

existed. The dark naked stone tower standing there on the hill–side

turf, without tree or cultivation near it of any kind, strikes the

imagination as the very spot adapted for such a crime.

Of course, as usual, there were medical declarations of the cause of

her death, and the courts were duly informed that God had pleased

to take to himself our dearly beloved sister–in–law, &c. But it is

remarkable that to his agent at the court of Philip II., Francesco

wrote a private letter, which is still extant,[168] ordering him to

communicate the whole truth of the murder to that monarch. And Philip,

while expressing regret for the cause of the crime, manifested no

disapproval of it, and promised all secrecy concerning it.

It is recorded, that Don Pietro immediately after the perpetration of

the deed, with hands yet bloody from the task, took the precaution

of imploring pardon for it, from a figure of the Virgin Mary in an

adjoining chapel, promising at the same time, that as an expiation he

would thenceforth remain single;—a vow which he did not keep.

Thus were decency and respectability restored, it was hoped, to the

court life at Florence. Bianca's sins, as has been intimated, were

of a different kind, from those of the two murdered princesses. But

Francesco's gloomy temper and fits of violence, joined to such an

example of his mode of action when irritated, could not have been

re–assuring to the survivor of the trio court beauties.

CHAPTER III.

Bianca balances her accounts.—Dangers in her path.—A bold step—and

its consequences.—Facilis descensus.—A proud father.—Bianca's

witchcraft.—The Cardinal is checkmated, for this game.

But whatever other effect the untimely deaths of these two unfortunate

women may have produced, they had not that of removing the gloom from

the brow of Francesco. Surely, indeed, if he is to be considered human,

and in any degree sane, it may be thought, that such events must have

contributed no little to increase the irritability of his temper, and

the sudden melancholy, ever and anon bursting out into savageness. It

is likely enough that Francesco's education at the Court of Spain, the

obsequious casuistry of his own theologians, and the total absence

from cradle to grave of any one wholesome moral influence, of any one

ray of light to dissipate, however fitfully, the thick darkness of

an ignorance of right and wrong far deeper, more dangerous, and more

perverse than that of a savage;—it is possible enough, that all this

may have enabled him to say to his own heart, when kneeling at the feet

of his most favourite idol, that his act had not made him guilty within

the limitations of God's statute law, and the intricate modifications

of it made by subsequent legislation, in such and such acts of such and

such a year of this or the other Pope's reign.

Still, assure himself of this as he might, and fortify the assurance

by whatsoever most satisfactory "case," drawn up by the shrewdest

sacerdotal pettifogger who ever discovered a flaw in heaven's eternal

ordinances, it may be fancied that he did not sleep better of nights

after that July, 1576, and that Bianca's position and task were not

improved by what had happened.

Some thirty years or so ago, a Florentine publisher, happening to

have become possessed of the house which once belonged to Bianca,

in the Via Maggio, conceived the idea of pretending to have found

concealed in a wall therein a MS. containing her autobiography. A

prefatory notice stated, that unfortunately the chemical means used

for restoring the faded characters to legibility had had the effect

of entirely destroying them, so that the finder of these precious

papers could not have the satisfaction he had hoped of showing them to

persons interested in such matters! The forgery was an impudent and

ridiculously ill–executed one. A very superficial knowledge of the

language sufficed to convince any reader of the first two pages of the

silly catch–penny trash, that the phraseology was of the nineteenth and

not the sixteenth century, even had the tone of the narrative been at

all assorted to the character of the supposed writer.

But what a treat would such a find be, were it genuine! What a

psychological treasure would be a peep into the real feelings of such

a mind and heart! Did Bianca consider her career to be a triumphant

one, successfully achieving the "excelsior" of her ideal by painful but

victorious struggle with opposing fortune? Or did she look on herself

as the victim of a chain of unfortunate circumstances, entangled in

the meshes of a destiny, which drew her fatally on, and irresistibly

wrapped its darkening clouds around her. Few recorded careers

illustrate so exactly, regularly, and undeviatingly the lessons of the

moralist as that of Bianca. No invented story of progress from bad to

worse can better exemplify the law that compels evil to generate ever

new evil.

[Sidenote: "MUST HE BECOME WORSE!"]

Thus far, supposing her not to have been guilty of her husband's

murder, her ill–doings have not been such as to put her beyond the pale

of human sympathies. She fled from a home made unhappy by a negligent

father and an unkind step–mother.[169] It was ill–done. Deceived by her

husband as to his position in the world, finding herself a prisoner in

a miserable cottage, where she was obliged to do the work of a servant

(because the poverty of her husband's family was such, that when she

was brought home to be fed and lodged, the drudge hitherto kept by them

could be no longer fed or lodged),[170] she listened to the seduction

of a prince, and left a husband, who was perfectly contented with the

arrangement. This was worse; yet far from unpardonable.