SKETCHES AND STUDIES IN ITALY AND GREECE

BY JOHN ADDINGTON SYMONDS

AUTHOR OF "RENAISSANCE IN ITALY" "STUDIES OF THE GREEK POETS, " ETC

SECOND SERIES

LONDON JOHN MURRAY, ALBEMARLE STREET, W. 

1914

_All rights reserved_

 FIRST EDITION (_Smith, Elder & Co. _) _October, 1898_ _Reprinted_ _May, 1900_ _Reprinted_ _June, 1902_ _Reprinted_ _November, 1905_ _Reprinted_ _December, 1907_ _Reprinted_ _February, 1914_ _Taken over by John Murray_ _January, 1917_

_Printed in Great Britain at_ THE BALLANTYNE PRESS _by_ SPOTTISWOODE, BALLANTYNE & Co. LTD. _Colchester, London & Eton_

CONTENTS

 PAGE

 RAVENNA 1 RIMINI 14 MAY IN UMBRIA 32 THE PALACE OF URBINO 50 VITTORIA ACCORAMBONI 88 AUTUMN WANDERINGS 127 PARMA 147 CANOSSA 163 FORNOVO 180 FLORENCE AND THE MEDICI 201 THE DEBT OF ENGLISH TO ITALIAN LITERATURE 258 POPULAR SONGS OF TUSCANY 276 POPULAR ITALIAN POETRY OF THE RENAISSANCE 305 THE 'ORFEO' OF POLIZIANO 345 EIGHT SONNETS OF PETRARCH 365

SKETCHES AND STUDIES IN ITALY AND GREECE

_RAVENNA_

The Emperor Augustus chose Ravenna for one of his two naval stations, and in course of time a new city arose by the sea-shore, whichreceived the name of Portus Classis. Between this harbour and themother city a third town sprang up, and was called Cæsarea. Time andneglect, the ravages of war, and the encroaching powers of Nature havedestroyed these settlements, and nothing now remains of the threecities but Ravenna. It would seem that in classical times Ravennastood, like modern Venice, in the centre of a huge lagune, the freshwaters of the Ronco and the Po mixing with the salt waves of theAdriatic round its very walls. The houses of the city were built onpiles; canals instead of streets formed the means of communication, and these were always filled with water artificially conducted fromthe southern estuary of the Po. Round Ravenna extended a vast morass, for the most part under shallow water, but rising at intervals intolow islands like the Lido or Murano or Torcello which surround Venice. These islands were celebrated for their fertility: the vines andfig-trees and pomegranates, springing from a fat and fruitful soil, watered with constant moisture, and fostered by a mild sea-wind andliberal sunshine, yielded crops that for luxuriance and qualitysurpassed the harvests of any orchards on the mainland. All theconditions of life in old Ravenna seem to have resembled those ofmodern Venice; the people went about in gondolas, and in the earlymorning barges laden with fresh fruit or meat and vegetables flockedfrom all quarters to the city of the sea. [1] Water also had to beprocured from the neighbouring shore, for, as Martial says, a well atRavenna was more valuable than a vineyard. Again, between the city andthe mainland ran a long low causeway all across the lagune like thaton which the trains now glide into Venice. Strange to say, the air ofRavenna was remarkably salubrious: this fact, and the ease of lifethat prevailed there, and the security afforded by the situation ofthe town, rendered it a most desirable retreat for the monarchs ofItaly during those troublous times in which the empire nodded to itsfall. Honorius retired to its lagunes for safety; Odoacer, whodethroned the last Cæsar of the West, succeeded him; and was in turn, supplanted by Theodoric the Ostrogoth. Ravenna, as we see it now, recalls the peaceful and half-Roman rule of the great Gothic king. Hispalace, his churches, and the mausoleums in which his daughterAmalasuntha laid the hero's bones, have survived the sieges ofBelisarius and Astolphus, the conquest of Pepin, the bloody quarrelsof Iconoclasts with the children of the Roman Church, the mediævalwars of Italy, the victory of Gaston de Foix, and still stand gorgeouswith marbles and mosaics in spite of time and the decay of all aroundthem. 

As early as the sixth century, the sea had already retreated to such adistance from Ravenna that orchards and gardens were cultivated onthe spot where once the galleys of the Cæsars rode at anchor. Grovesof pines sprang up along the shore, and in their lofty tops the musicof the wind moved like the ghost of waves and breakers plunging upondistant sands. This Pinetum stretches along the shore of the Adriaticfor about forty miles, forming a belt of variable width between thegreat marsh and the tumbling sea. From a distance the bare stems andvelvet crowns of the pine-trees stand up like palms that cover anoasis on Arabian sands; but at a nearer view the trunks detachthemselves from an inferior forest-growth of juniper and thorn and ashand oak, the tall roofs of the stately firs shooting their breadth ofsheltering greenery above the lower and less sturdy brushwood. It ishardly possible to imagine a more beautiful and impressive scene thanthat presented by these long alleys of imperial pines. They grow sothickly one behind another, that we might compare them to the pipes ofa great organ, or the pillars of a Gothic church, or the basalticcolumns of the Giant's Causeway. Their tops are evergreen and ladenwith the heavy cones, from which Ravenna draws considerable wealth. Scores of peasants are quartered on the outskirts of the forest, whosebusiness it is to scale the pines and rob them of their fruit atcertain seasons of the year. Afterwards they dry the fir-cones in thesun, until the nuts which they contain fall out. The empty husks aresold for firewood, and the kernels in their stony shells reserved forexportation. You may see the peasants, men, women, and boys, sortingthem by millions, drying and sifting them upon the open spaces of thewood, and packing them in sacks to send abroad through Italy. The_pinocchi_ or kernels of the stone-pine are largely used in cookery, and those of Ravenna are prized for their good quality and aromaticflavour. When roasted or pounded, they taste like a softer and moremealy kind of almonds. The task of gathering this harvest is not alittle dangerous. Men have to cut notches in the straight shafts, andhaving climbed, often to the height of eighty feet, to lean upon thebranches, and detach the fir-cones with a pole--and this for everytree. Some lives, they say, are yearly lost in the business. 

As may be imagined, the spaces of this great forest form the haunt ofinnumerable living creatures. Lizards run about by myriads in thegrass. Doves coo among the branches of the pines, and nightingalespour their full-throated music all day and night from thickets ofwhite-thorn and acacia. The air is sweet with aromatic scents: theresin of the pine and juniper, the mayflowers and acacia-blossoms, theviolets that spring by thousands in the moss, the wild roses and fainthoneysuckles which throw fragrant arms from bough to bough of ash ormaple, join to make one most delicious perfume. And though the airupon the neighbouring marsh is poisonous, here it is dry, and spreadsa genial health. The sea-wind murmuring through these thickets atnightfall or misty sunrise, conveys no fever to the peasants stretchedamong their flowers. They watch the red rays of sunset flaming throughthe columns of the leafy hall, and flaring on its fretted rafters ofentangled boughs; they see the stars come out, and Hesper gleam, aneye of brightness, among dewy branches; the moon walks silver-footedon the velvet tree-tops, while they sleep beside the camp-fires; freshmorning wakes them to the sound of birds and scent of thyme andtwinkling of dewdrops on the grass around. Meanwhile ague, fever, anddeath have been stalking all night long about the plain, within a fewyards of their couch, and not one pestilential breath has reached thecharmed precincts of the forest. 

You may ride or drive for miles along green aisles between the pinesin perfect solitude; and yet the creatures of the wood, the sunlightand the birds, the flowers and tall majestic columns at your side, prevent all sense of loneliness or fear. Huge oxen haunt thewilderness--grey creatures, with mild eyes and spreading horns andstealthy tread. Some are patriarchs of the forest, the fathers andthe mothers of many generations who have been carried from their sidesto serve in ploughs or waggons on the Lombard plain. Others areyearling calves, intractable and ignorant of labour. In order tosubdue them to the yoke, it is requisite to take them very early fromtheir native glades, or else they chafe and pine away with weariness. Then there is a sullen canal, which flows through the forest from themarshes to the sea; it is alive with frogs and newts and snakes. Youmay see these serpents basking on the surface among thickets of theflowering rush, or coiled about the lily leaves and flowers--lithemonsters, slippery and speckled, the tyrants of the fen. 

It is said that when Dante was living at Ravenna he would spend wholedays alone among the forest glades, thinking of Florence and her civilwars, and meditating cantos of his poem. Nor have the influences ofthe pine-wood failed to leave their trace upon his verse. The charm ofits summer solitude seems to have sunk into his soul; for when hedescribes the whispering of winds and singing birds among the boughsof his terrestrial paradise, he says:--

 Non però dal lor esser dritto sparte Tanto, che gli augelletti per le cime Lasciasser d' operare ogni lor arte: Ma con piena letizia l' aure prime, Cantando, ricevano intra le foglie, Che tenevan bordone alle sue rime Tal, qual di ramo in ramo si raccoglie Per la pineta in sul lito di Chiassi Quand' Eolo Scirocco fuor discioglie. 

With these verses in our minds, while wandering down the grassyaisles, beside the waters of the solitary place, we seem to meet thatlady singing as she went, and plucking flower by flower, 'likeProserpine when Ceres lost a daughter, and she lost her spring. 'There, too, the vision of the griffin and the car, of singingmaidens, and of Beatrice descending to the sound of Benedictus and offalling flowers, her flaming robe and mantle green as grass, and veilof white, and olive crown, all flashed upon the poet's inner eye, andhe remembered how he bowed before her when a boy. There is yet anotherpassage in which it is difficult to believe that Dante had not thepine-forest in his mind. When Virgil and the poet were waiting inanxiety before the gates of Dis, when the Furies on the wall weretearing their breasts and crying, 'Venga Medusa, e si 'l farem dismalto, ' suddenly across the hideous river came a sound like thatwhich whirlwinds make among the shattered branches and bruised stemsof forest-trees; and Dante, looking out with fear upon the foam andspray and vapour of the flood, saw thousands of the damned flyingbefore the face of one who forded Styx with feet unwet. 'Like frogs, 'he says, 'they fled, who scurry through the water at the sight oftheir foe, the serpent, till each squats and hides himself close tothe ground. ' The picture of the storm among the trees might well haveoccurred to Dante's mind beneath the roof of pine-boughs. Nor is thereany place in which the simile of the frogs and water-snake attainssuch dignity and grandeur. I must confess that till I saw the pondsand marshes of Ravenna, I used to fancy that the comparison wassomewhat below the greatness of the subject; but there so grave a noteof solemnity and desolation is struck, the scale of Nature is solarge, and the serpents coiling in and out among the lily leaves andflowers are so much in their right place, that they suggest a scene byno means unworthy of Dante's conception. 

Nor is Dante the only singer who has invested this wood with poeticalassociations. It is well known that Boccaccio laid his story of'Honoria' in the pine-forest, and every student of English literaturemust be familiar with the noble tale in verse which Dryden has foundedon this part of the 'Decameron. ' We all of us have followed Theodore, and watched with him the tempest swelling in the grove, and seen thehapless ghost pursued by demon hounds and hunter down the glades. Thisstory should be read while storms are gathering upon the distant sea, or thunderclouds descending from the Apennines, and when the pinesbegin to rock and surge beneath the stress of labouring winds. Thenruns the sudden flash of lightning like a rapier through the boughs, the rain streams hissing down, and the thunder 'breaks like a wholesea overhead. '

With the Pinetum the name of Byron will be for ever associated. Duringhis two years' residence in Ravenna he used to haunt its wilderness, riding alone or in the company of friends. The inscription placedabove the entrance to the house he occupied alludes to it as one ofthe objects which principally attracted the poet to the neighbourhoodof Ravenna: 'Impaziente di visitare l' antica selva, che inspirò giàil Divino e Giovanni Boccaccio. ' We know, however, that a morepowerful attraction, in the person of the Countess Guiccioli, maintained his fidelity to 'that place of old renown, once in theAdrian Sea, Ravenna. '

Between the Bosco, as the people of Ravenna call this pine-wood, andthe city, the marsh stretches for a distance of about three miles. Itis a plain intersected by dykes and ditches, and mapped out intoinnumerable rice-fields. For more than half a year it lies underwater, and during the other months exhales a pestilential vapour, which renders it as uninhabitable as the Roman Campagna; yet inspringtime this dreary flat is even beautiful. The young blades of therice shoot up above the water, delicately green and tender. Theditches are lined with flowering rush and golden flags, while whiteand yellow lilies sleep in myriads upon the silent pools. Tamariskswave their pink and silver tresses by the road, and wherever a plot ofmossy earth emerges from the marsh, it gleams with purple orchises andflaming marigolds; but the soil beneath is so treacherous and spongy, that these splendid blossoms grow like flowers in dreams or fairystories. You try in vain to pick them; they elude your grasp, andflourish in security beyond the reach of arm or stick. 

Such is the sight of the old town of Classis. Not a vestige of theRoman city remains, not a dwelling or a ruined tower, nothing but theancient church of S. Apollinare in Classe. Of all desolate buildingsthis is the most desolate. Not even the deserted grandeur of S. Paolobeyond the walls of Rome can equal it. Its bare round campanile gazesat the sky, which here vaults only sea and plain--a perfect dome, star-spangled like the roof of Galla Placidia's tomb. Ravenna lies lowto west, the pine-wood stretches away in long monotony to east. Thereis nothing else to be seen except the spreading marsh, bounded by dimsnowy Alps and purple Apennines, so very far away that the level rackof summer clouds seem more attainable and real. What sunsets andsunrises that tower must see; what glaring lurid afterglows in August, when the red light scowls upon the pestilential fen; what sheets ofsullen vapour rolling over it in autumn; what breathless heats, andrainclouds big with thunder; what silences; what unimpeded blasts ofwinter winds! One old monk tends this deserted spot. He has the hugechurch, with its echoing aisles and marble columns and giddybell-tower and cloistered corridors, all to himself. At rareintervals, priests from Ravenna come to sing some special mass atthese cold altars; pious folk make vows to pray upon their mouldysteps and kiss the relics which are shown on great occasions. But noone stays; they hurry, after muttering their prayers, from thefever-stricken spot, reserving their domestic pieties and customarydevotions for the brighter and newer chapels of the fashionablechurches in Ravenna. So the old monk is left alone to sweep the marshwater from his church floor, and to keep the green moss from growingtoo thickly on its monuments. A clammy conferva covers everythingexcept the mosaics upon tribune, roof, and clerestory, which defy thecourse of age. Christ on His throne _sedet aternumque sedebit_: thesaints around him glitter with their pitiless uncompromising eyes andwooden gestures, as if twelve centuries had not passed over them, andthey were nightmares only dreamed last night, and rooted in a sickman's memory. For those gaunt and solemn forms there is no change oflife or end of days. No fever touches them; no dampness of the windand rain loosens their firm cement. They stare with senseless faces inbitter mockery of men who live and die and moulder away beneath. Theirpoor old guardian told us it was a weary life. He has had the feverthree times, and does not hope to survive many more Septembers. Thevery water that he drinks is brought him from Ravenna; for the vastfen, though it pours its overflow upon the church floor, and spreadslike a lake around, is death to drink. The monk had a gentle woman'svoice and mild brown eyes. What terrible crime had consigned him tothis living tomb? For what past sorrow is he weary of his life? Whatanguish of remorse has driven him to such a solitude? Yet he lookedsimple and placid; his melancholy was subdued and calm, as if lifewere over for him, and he were waiting for death to come with afriend's greeting upon noiseless wings some summer night across thefen-lands in a cloud of soft destructive fever-mist. 

Another monument upon the plain is worthy of a visit. It is theso-called Colonna dei Francesi, a _cinquecento_ pillar of Ionicdesign, erected on the spot where Gaston de Foix expired victoriousafter one of the bloodiest battles ever fought. The Ronco, a straightsluggish stream, flows by the lonely spot; mason bees have coveredwith laborious stucco-work the scrolls and leafage of its ornaments, confounding epitaphs and trophies under their mud houses. A fewcypress-trees stand round it, and the dogs and chickens of aneighbouring farmyard make it their rendezvous. Those mason bees arelike posterity, which settles down upon the ruins of a Baalbec or aLuxor, setting up its tents, and filling the fair spaces of Hellenicor Egyptian temples with clay hovels. Nothing differs but the scale;and while the bees content themselves with filling up and covering, man destroys the silent places of the past which he appropriates. 

In Ravenna itself, perhaps what strikes us most is the abrupttransition everywhere discernible from monuments of vast antiquity tobuildings of quite modern date. There seems to be no interval betweenthe marbles and mosaics of Justinian or Theodoric and theinsignificant frippery of the last century. The churches ofRavenna--S. Vitale, S. Apollinare, and the rest--are too well known, and have been too often described by enthusiastic antiquaries, to needa detailed notice in this place. Every one is aware that theecclesiastical customs and architecture of the early Church can bestudied in greater perfection here than elsewhere. Not even thebasilicas and mosaics of Rome, nor those of Palermo and Monreale, areequal for historical interest to those of Ravenna. Yet there is notone single church which remains entirely unaltered and unspoiled. Theimagination has to supply the atrium or outer portico from onebuilding, the vaulted baptistery with its marble font from another, the pulpits and ambones from a third the tribune from a fourth, theround brick bell-tower from a fifth, and then to cover all the concaveroofs and chapel walls with grave and glittering mosaics. 

There is nothing more beautiful in decorative art than the mosaics ofsuch tiny buildings as the tomb of Galla Placidia or the chapel of theBishop's Palace. They are like jewelled and enamelled cases; not aninch of wall can be seen which is not covered with elaborate patternsof the brightest colours. Tall date-palms spring from the floor withfruit and birds among their branches, and between them stand thepillars and apostles of the Church. In the spandrels and lunettesabove the arches and the windows angels fly with white extended wings. On every vacant place are scrolls and arabesques of foliage, --birdsand beasts, doves drinking from the vase, and peacocks spreadinggorgeous plumes--a maze of green and gold and blue. Overhead, thevault is powdered with stars gleaming upon the deepest azure, and inthe midst is set an aureole embracing the majestic head of Christ, orelse the symbol of the sacred fish, or the hand of the Creatorpointing from a cloud. In Galla Placidia's tomb these storied vaultsspring above the sarcophagi of empresses and emperors, each lying inthe place where he was laid more than twelve centuries ago. The lightwhich struggles through the narrow windows serves to harmonise thebrilliant hues and make a gorgeous gloom. 

Besides these more general and decorative subjects, many of thechurches are adorned with historical mosaics, setting forth the Biblenarrative or incidents from the life of Christian emperors and kings. In S. Apollinare Nuovo there is a most interesting treble series ofsuch mosaics extending over both walls of the nave. On the left hand, as we enter, we see the town of Classis; on the right the palace ofTheodoric, its doors and loggie rich with curtains, and its friezesblazing with coloured ornaments. From the city gate of Classis virginsissue, and proceed in a long line until they reach Madonna seated on athrone, with Christ upon her knees, and the three kings in adorationat her feet. From Theodoric's palace door a similar procession ofsaints and martyrs carry us to Christ surrounded by archangels. Abovethis double row of saints and virgins stand the fathers and prophetsof the Church, and highest underneath the roof are pictures from thelife of our Lord. It will be remembered in connection with thesesubjects that the women sat upon the left and the men upon the rightside of the church. Above the tribune, at the east end of the church, it was customary to represent the Creative Hand, or the monogram ofthe Saviour, or the head of Christ with the letters A and [Greek Ô]. Moses and Elijah frequently stand on either side to symbolise thetransfiguration, while the saints and bishops specially connected withthe church appeared upon a lower row. Then on the side walls weredepicted such subjects as Justinian and Theodora among theircourtiers, or the grant of the privileges of the church to its firstfounder from imperial patrons, with symbols of the old Hebraicritual--Abel's lamb, the sacrifice of Isaac, Melchisedec's offering ofbread and wine, --which were regarded as the types of Christianceremonies. The baptistery was adorned with appropriate mosaicsrepresenting Christ's baptism in Jordan. 

Generally speaking, one is struck with the dignity of these designs, and especially with the combined majesty and sweetness of the face ofChrist. The sense for harmony of hue displayed in their composition ismarvellous. It would be curious to trace in detail the remnants ofclassical treatment which may be discerned--Jordan, for instance, pours his water from an urn like a river-god crowned with sedge--or toshow what points of ecclesiastical tradition are established theseancient monuments. We find Mariolatry already imminent, the names ofthe three kings, Kaspar, Melchior, and Balthazar, the four evangelistsas we now recognise them, and many of the rites and vestments whichRitualists of all denominations regard with superstitious reverence. 

There are two sepulchral monuments in Ravenna which cannot be passedover unnoticed. The one is that of Theodoric the Goth, crowned by itssemisphere of solid stone, a mighty tomb, well worthy of the conquerorand king. It stands in a green field, surrounded by acacias, where thenightingales sing ceaselessly in May. The mason bees have covered it, and the water has invaded its sepulchral vaults. In spite of manytrials, it seems that human art is unable to pump out the pond andclear the frogs and efts from the chamber where the great Goth waslaid by Amalasuntha. 

The other is Dante's temple, with its basrelief and withered garlands. The story of his burial, and of the discovery of his real tomb, isfresh in the memory of every one. But the 'little cupola, more neatthan solemn, ' of which Lord Byron speaks, will continue to be the goalof many a pilgrimage. For myself--though I remember Chateaubriand'sbareheaded genuflection on its threshold, Alfieri's passionateprostration at the altar-tomb, and Byron's offering of poems on thepoet's shrine--I confess that a single canto of the 'Inferno, ' asingle passage of the 'Vita Nuova, ' seems more full of soul-stirringassociations than the place where, centuries ago, the mighty dust waslaid. It is the spirit that lives and makes alive. And Dante's spiritseems more present with us under the pine-branches of the Bosco thanbeside his real or fancied tomb. 'He is risen, '--'Lo, I am with youalway'--these are the words that ought to haunt us in aburying-ground. There is something affected and self-conscious inoverpowering grief or enthusiasm or humiliation at a tomb. 

 * * * * *

_RIMINI_

SIGISMONDO PANDOLFO MALATESTA AND LEO BATTISTA ALBERTI

Rimini is a city of about 18, 000 souls, famous for its Stabilmento de'Bagni and its antiquities, seated upon the coast of the Adriatic, alittle to the south-east of the world-historical Rubicon. It is ourduty to mention the baths first among its claims to distinction, since the prosperity and cheerfulness of the little town depend onthem in a great measure. But visitors from the north will fly fromthese, to marvel at the bridge which Augustus built and Tiberiuscompleted, and which still spans the Marecchia with five giganticarches of white Istrian limestone, as solidly as if it had not bornethe tramplings of at least three conquests. The triumphal arch, too, erected in honour of Augustus, is a notable monument of Romanarchitecture. Broad, ponderous, substantial, tufted here and therewith flowering weeds, and surmounted with mediaeval machicolations, proving it to have sometimes stood for city gate or fortress, itcontrasts most favourably with the slight and somewhat gimcrack archof Trajan in the sister city of Ancona. Yet these remains of theimperial pontifices, mighty and interesting as they are, sink intocomparative insignificance beside the one great wonder of Rimini, thecathedral remodelled for Sigismondo Pandolfo Malatesta by Leo BattistaAlberti in 1450. This strange church, one of the earliest extantbuildings in which the Neopaganism of the Renaissance showed itself infull force, brings together before our memory two men who might bechosen as typical in their contrasted characters of the transitionalage which gave them birth. 

No one with any tincture of literary knowledge is ignorant of the fameat least of the great Malatesta family--the house of the Wrongheads, as they were rightly called by some prevision of their future part inLombard history. The readers of the twenty-seventh and twenty-eighthcantos of the 'Inferno' have all heard of

 E il mastin vecchio e il nuovo da Verucchio Che fecer di Montagna il mal governo, while the story of Francesca da Polenta, who was wedded to thehunchback Giovanni Malatesta and murdered by him with her lover Paolo, is known not merely to students of Dante, but to readers of Byron andLeigh Hunt, to admirers of Flaxman, Ary Scheffer, Doré--to all, infact, who have of art and letters any love. 

The history of these Malatesti, from their first establishment underOtho III. As lieutenants for the Empire in the Marches of Ancona, downto their final subjugation by the Papacy in the age of theRenaissance, is made up of all the vicissitudes which could befall amediaeval Italian despotism. Acquiring an unlawful right over thetowns of Rimini, Cesena, Sogliano, Ghiacciuolo, they ruled their pettyprincipalities like tyrants by the help of the Guelf and Ghibellinefactions, inclining to the one or the other as it suited their humouror their interest, wrangling among themselves, transmitting thesuccession of their dynasty through bastards and by deeds of force, quarrelling with their neighbours the Counts of Urbino, alternatelydefying and submitting to the Papal legates in Romagna, serving ascondottieri in the wars of the Visconti and the state of Venice, andby their restlessness and genius for military intrigues contributingin no slight measure to the general disturbance of Italy. TheMalatesti were a race of strongly marked character: more, perhaps, than any other house of Italian tyrants, they combined for generationsthose qualities of the fox and the lion, which Machiavelli thoughtindispensable to a successful despot. Son after son, brother withbrother, they continued to be fierce and valiant soldiers, cruel inpeace, hardy in war, but treasonable and suspicious in alltransactions that could not be settled by the sword. Want of union, with them as with the Baglioni and many other of the minor noblefamilies in Italy, prevented their founding a substantial dynasty. Their power, based on force, was maintained by craft and crime, andtransmitted through tortuous channels by intrigue. While false intheir dealings with the world at large, they were diabolical in theperfidy with which they treated one another. No feudal custom, nostandard of hereditary right, ruled the succession in their family. Therefore the ablest Malatesta for the moment clutched what he couldof the domains that owned his house for masters. Partitions among sonsor brothers, mutually hostile and suspicious, weakened the wholestock. Yet they were great enough to hold their own for centuriesamong the many tyrants who infested Lombardy. That the other princelyfamilies of Romagna, Emilia, and the March were in the same state ofinternal discord and dismemberment, was probably one reason why theMalatesti stood their ground so firmly as they did. 

So far as Rimini is concerned, the house of Malatesta culminated inSigismondo Pandolfo, son of Gian Galeazzo Visconti's general, theperfidious Pandolfo. It was he who built the Rocca, or castle of thedespots, which stands a little way outside the town, commanding a fairview of Apennine tossed hill-tops and broad Lombard plain, and whoremodelled the Cathedral of S. Francis on a plan suggested by thegreatest genius of the age. Sigismondo Pandolfo Malatesta was one ofthe strangest products of the earlier Renaissance. To enumerate thecrimes which he committed within the sphere of his own family, mysterious and inhuman outrages which render the tale of the Cencicredible, would violate the decencies of literature. A thoroughlybestial nature gains thus much with posterity that its worst qualitiesmust be passed by in silence. It is enough to mention that he murderedthree wives in succession, [2] Bussoni di Carmagnuola, Guiniperad'Este, and Polissena Sforza, on various pretexts of infidelity, andcarved horns upon his own tomb with this fantastic legendunderneath:--

 Porto le corna ch' ognuno le vede, E tal le porta che non se lo crede. 

He died in wedlock with the beautiful and learned Isotta degli Atti, who had for some time been his mistress. But, like most of theMalatesti, he left no legitimate offspring. Throughout his life he wasdistinguished for bravery and cunning, for endurance of fatigue andrapidity of action, for an almost fretful rashness in the execution ofhis schemes, and for a character terrible in its violence. He wasacknowledged as a great general; yet nothing succeeded with him. Thelong warfare which he carried on against the Duke of Montefeltro endedin his discomfiture. Having begun by defying the Holy See, he wasimpeached at Rome for heresy, parricide, incest, adultery, rape, andsacrilege, burned in effigy by Pope Pius II. , and finally restored tothe bosom of the Church, after suffering the despoliation of almostall his territories, in 1463. The occasion on which this fierce andturbulent despiser of laws human and divine was forced to kneel as apenitent before the Papal legate in the gorgeous temple dedicated tohis own pride, in order that the ban of excommunication might beremoved from Rimini, was one of those petty triumphs, interestingchiefly for their picturesqueness, by which the Popes confirmed theirquestionable rights over the cities of Romagna. Sigismondo, shorn ofhis sovereignty, took the command of the Venetian troops against theTurks in the Morea, and returned in 1465, crowned with laurels, to dieat Rimini in the scene of his old splendour. 

A very characteristic incident belongs to this last act of his life. Dissolute, treacherous, and inhuman as he was, the tyrant of Riminihad always encouraged literature, and delighted in the society ofartists. He who could brook no contradiction from a prince or soldier, allowed the pedantic scholars of the sixteenth century to dictate tohim in matters of taste, and sat with exemplary humility at the feetof Latinists like Porcellio, Basinio, and Trebanio. Valturio, theengineer, and Alberti, the architect, were his familiar friends; andthe best hours of his life were spent in conversation with these men. Now that he found himself upon the sacred soil of Greece, he wasdetermined not to return to Italy empty-handed. Should he bringmanuscripts or marbles, precious vases or inscriptions in half-legibleGreek character? These relics were greedily sought for by thepotentates of Italian cities; and no doubt Sigismondo enriched hislibrary with some such treasures. But he obtained a noblerprize--nothing less than the body of a saint of scholarship, theauthentic bones of the great Platonist, Gemisthus Pletho. [3] These heexhumed from their Greek grave and caused them to be deposited in astone sarcophagus outside the cathedral of his building in Rimini. TheVenetians, when they stole the body of S. Mark from Alexandria, werescarcely more pleased than was Sigismondo with the acquisition of thisFather of the Neopagan faith. Upon the tomb we still may read thislegend: 'Jemisthii Bizantii philosopher sua temp principis reliquumSig. Pan. Mal. Pan. F. Belli Pelop adversus Turcor regem Imp obingentem eruditorum quo flagrat amorem huc afferendum introquemittendum curavit MCCCCLXVI. ' Of the Latinity of the inscription muchcannot be said; but it means that 'Sigismondo Pandolfo Malatesta, having served as general against the Turks in the Morea, induced bythe great love with which he burns for all learned men, brought andplaced here the remains of Gemisthus of Byzantium, the prince of thephilosophers of his day. '

Sigismondo's portrait, engraved on medals, and sculptured upon everyfrieze and point of vantage in the Cathedral of Rimini, well denotesthe man. His face is seen in profile. The head, which is low and flatabove the forehead, rising swiftly backward from the crown, carries athick bushy shock of hair curling at the ends, such as the Italianscall a _zazzera_. The eye is deeply sunk, with long venomous flateyelids, like those which Leonardo gives to his most wicked faces. Thenose is long and crooked, curved like a vulture's over a petulantmouth, with lips deliberately pressed together, as though it werenecessary to control some nervous twitching. The cheek is broad, andits bone is strongly marked. Looking at these features in repose, wecannot but picture to our fancy what expression they might assumeunder a sudden fit of fury, when the sinews of the face werecontracted with quivering spasms, and the lips writhed in sympathywith knit forehead and wrinkled eyelids. 

Allusion has been made to the Cathedral of S. Francis at Rimini, asthe great ornament of the town, and the chief monument of Sigismondo'sfame. It is here that all the Malatesti lie. Here too is the chapelconsecrated to Isotta, 'Divæ Isottæ Sacrum;' and the tombs of theMalatesta ladies, 'Malatestorum domûs heroidum sepulchrum;' andSigismondo's own grave with the cuckold's horns and scornful epitaph. Nothing but the fact that the church is duly dedicated to S. Francis, and that its outer shell of classic marble encases an old Gothicedifice, remains to remind us that it is a Christian place ofworship. [4] It has no sanctity, no spirit of piety. The pride of thetyrant whose legend--'Sigismundus Pandulphus Malatesta Pan. F. FecitAnno Gratiæ MCCCCL'--occupies every arch and stringcourse of thearchitecture, and whose coat-of-arms and portrait in medallion, withhis cipher and his emblems of an elephant and a rose, are wrought inevery piece of sculptured work throughout the building, seems so tofill this house of prayer that there is no room left for God. Yet theCathedral of Rimini remains a monument of first-rate importance forall students who seek to penetrate the revived Paganism of thefifteenth century. It serves also to bring a far more interestingItalian of that period than the tyrant of Rimini himself, before ournotice. 

In the execution of his design, Sigismondo received the assistance ofone of the most remarkable men of this or any other age. Leo BattistaAlberti, a scion of the noble Florentine house of that name, bornduring the exile of his parents, and educated in the Venetianterritory, was endowed by nature with aptitudes, faculties, andsensibilities so varied, as to deserve the name of universal genius. Italy in the Renaissance period was rich in natures of this sort, towhom nothing that is strange or beautiful seemed unfamiliar, and who, gifted with a kind of divination, penetrated the secrets of the worldby sympathy. To Pico della Mirandola, Lionardo da Vinci, and MichelAgnolo Buonarroti may be added Leo Battista Alberti. That he achievedless than his great compeers, and that he now exists as the shadow ofa mighty name, was the effect of circumstances. He came half a centurytoo early into the world, and worked as a pioneer rather than asettler of the realm which Lionardo ruled as his demesne. Very earlyin his boyhood Alberti showed the versatility of his talents. The useof arms, the management of horses, music, painting, modelling forsculpture, mathematics, classical and modern literature, physicalscience as then comprehended, and all the bodily exercises proper tothe estate of a young nobleman, were at his command. His biographerasserts that he was never idle, never subject to ennui or fatigue. Heused to say that books at times gave him the same pleasure asbrilliant jewels or perfumed flowers: hunger and sleep could not keephim from them then. At other times the letters on the page appeared tohim like twining and contorted scorpions, so that he preferred to gazeon anything but written scrolls. He would then turn to music orpainting, or to the physical sports in which he excelled. The languagein which this alternation of passion and disgust for study isexpressed, bears on it the stamp of Alberti's peculiar temperament, his fervid and imaginative genius, instinct with subtle sympathies andstrange repugnances. Flying from his study, he would then betakehimself to the open air. No one surpassed him in running, inwrestling, in the force with which he cast his javelin or dischargedhis arrows. So sure was his aim and so skilful his cast, that he couldfling a farthing from the pavement of the square, and make it ringagainst a church roof far above. When he chose to jump, he put hisfeet together and bounded over the shoulders of men standing erectupon the ground. On horseback he maintained perfect equilibrium, andseemed incapable of fatigue. The most restive and vicious animalstrembled under him and became like lambs. There was a kind ofmagnetism in the man. We read, besides these feats of strength andskill, that he took pleasure in climbing mountains, for no otherpurpose apparently than for the joy of being close to nature. 

In this, as in many other of his instincts, Alberti was before hisage. To care for the beauties of landscape unadorned by art, and tosympathise with sublime or rugged scenery, was not in the spirit ofthe Renaissance. Humanity occupied the attention of poets andpainters; and the age was yet far distant when the pantheistic feelingfor the world should produce the art of Wordsworth and of Turner. Yeta few great natures even then began to comprehend the charm andmystery which the Greeks had imaged in their Pan, the sense of anall-pervasive spirit in wild places, the feeling of a hidden want, theinvisible tie which makes man a part of rocks and woods and streamsaround him. Petrarch had already ascended the summit of Mont Ventoux, to meditate, with an exaltation of the soul he scarcely understood, upon the scene spread at his feet and above his head. Æneas SylviusPiccolomini delighted in wild places for no mere pleasure of thechase, but for the joy he took in communing with nature. How S. Francis found God in the sun and the air, the water and the stars, weknow by his celebrated hymn; and of Dante's acute observation, everycanto of the 'Divine Comedy' is witness. 

Leo Alberti was touched in spirit by even a deeper and a strangerpathos than any of these men: 'In the early spring, when he beheld themeadows and hills covered with flowers, and saw the trees and plantsof all kinds bearing promise of fruit, his heart became exceedingsorrowful; and when in autumn he looked on fields heavy with harvestand orchards apple-laden, he felt such grief that many even saw himweep for the sadness of his soul. ' It would seem that he scarcelyunderstood the source of this sweet trouble: for at such times hecompared the sloth and inutility of men with the industry andfertility of nature; as though this were the secret of his melancholy. A poet of our century has noted the same stirring of the spirit, andhas striven to account for it:--

 Tears from the depth of some divine despair Rise in the heart, and gather to the eyes, In looking on the happy autumn fields, And thinking of the days that are no more. 

Both Alberti and Tennyson have connected the _mal du pays_ of thehuman soul for that ancient country of its birth, the mild Saturnianearth from which we sprang, with a sense of loss. It is the waste ofhuman energy that affects Alberti; the waste of human life touches themodern poet. Yet both perhaps have scarcely interpreted their ownspirit; for is not the true source of tears deeper and more secret?Man is a child of nature in the simplest sense; and the stirrings ofthe secular breasts that gave him suck, and on which he even now musthang, have potent influences over his emotions. 

Of Alberti's extraordinary sensitiveness to all such impressions manycurious tales are told. The sight of refulgent jewels, of flowers, andof fair landscapes, had the same effect upon his nerves as the soundof the Dorian mood upon the youths whom Pythagoras cured of passion bymusic. He found in them an anodyne for pain, a restoration fromsickness. Like Walt Whitman, who adheres to nature by closer and morevital sympathy than any other poet of the modern world, Alberti feltthe charm of excellent old age no less than that of florid youth. 'Onold men gifted with a noble presence and hale and vigorous, he gazedagain and again, and said that he revered in them the delights ofnature (_naturæ delitias_). ' Beasts and birds and all living creaturesmoved him to admiration for the grace with which they had been gifted, each in his own kind. It is even said that he composed a funeraloration for a dog which he had loved and which died. 

To this sensibility for all fair things in nature, Alberti added thecharm of a singularly sweet temper and graceful conversation. Theactivity of his mind, which was always being exercised on subjects ofgrave speculation, removed him from the noise and bustle ofcommonplace society. He was somewhat silent, inclined to solitude, and of a pensive countenance; yet no man found him difficult ofaccess: his courtesy was exquisite, and among familiar friends he wasnoted for the flashes of a delicate and subtle wit. Collections weremade of his apophthegms by friends, and some are recorded by hisanonymous biographer. [5] Their finer perfume, as almost always happenswith good sayings which do not certain the full pith of a proverb, butowe their force, in part at least, to the personality of their author, and to the happy moment of their production, has evanesced. Here, however, is one which seems still to bear the impress of Alberti'sgenius: 'Gold is the soul of labour, and labour the slave ofpleasure. ' Of women he used to say that their inconstancy was anantidote to their falseness; for if a woman could but persevere inwhat she undertook, all the fair works of men would be ruined. One ofhis strongest moral sentences is aimed at envy, from which he sufferedmuch in his own life, and against which he guarded with a curiousamount of caution. His own family grudged the distinction which histalents gained for him, and a dark story is told of a secret attemptmade by them to assassinate him through his servants. Alberti metthese ignoble jealousies with a stately calm and a sweet dignity ofdemeanour, never condescending to accuse his relatives, never seekingto retaliate, but acting always for the honour of his illustrioushouse. In the same spirit of generosity he refused to enter into wordywarfare with detractors and calumniators, sparing the reputation evenof his worst enemy when chance had placed him in his power. Thismoderation both of speech and conduct was especially distinguished inan age which tolerated the fierce invectives of Filelfo, and applaudedthe vindictive courage of Cellini. To money Alberti showed a calmindifference. He committed his property to his friends and shared withthem in common. Nor was he less careless about vulgar fame, spendingfar more pains in the invention of machinery and the discovery oflaws, than in their publication to the world. His service was toknowledge, not to glory. Self-control was another of his eminentqualities. With the natural impetuosity of a large heart, and thevivacity of a trained athlete, he yet never allowed himself to besubdued by anger or by sensual impulses, but took pains to preservehis character unstained and dignified before the eyes of men. A storyis told of him which may remind us of Goethe's determination toovercome his giddiness. In his youth his head was singularly sensitiveto changes of temperature; but by gradual habituation he broughthimself at last to endure the extremes of heat and cold bareheaded. Inlike manner he had a constitutional disgust for onions and honey; sopowerful, that the very sight of these things made him sick. Yet byconstantly viewing and touching what was disagreeable, he conqueredthese dislikes; and proved that men have a complete mastery over whatis merely instinctive in their nature. His courage corresponded to hissplendid physical development. When a boy of fifteen, he severelywounded himself in the foot. The gash had to be probed and then sewnup. Alberti not only bore the pain of this operation without a groan, but helped the surgeon with his own hands; and effected a cure of thefever which succeeded by the solace of singing to his cithern. Formusic he had a genius of the rarest order; and in painting he is saidto have achieved success. Nothing, however, remains of his work andfrom what Vasari says of it, we may fairly conclude that he gave lesscare to the execution of finished pictures, than to drawingssubsidiary to architectural and mechanical designs. His biographerrelates that when he had completed a painting, he called children andasked them what it meant. If they did not know, he reckoned it afailure. He was also in the habit of painting from memory. While atVenice, he put on canvas the faces of friends at Florence whom he hadnot seen for months. That the art of painting was subservient in hisestimation to mechanics, is indicated by what we hear about thecamera, in which he showed landscapes by day and the revolutions ofthe stars by night, so lively drawn that the spectators were affectedwith amazement. The semi-scientific impulse to extend man's masteryover nature, the magician's desire to penetrate secrets, which sopowerfully influenced the development of Lionardo's genius, seems tohave overcome the purely æsthetic instincts of Alberti, so that hebecame in the end neither a great artist like Raphael, nor a greatdiscoverer like Galileo, but rather a clairvoyant to whom the miraclesof nature and of art lie open. 

After the first period of youth was over, Leo Battista Alberti devotedhis great faculties and all his wealth of genius to the study of thelaw--then, as now, the quicksand of the noblest natures. The industrywith which he applied himself to the civil and ecclesiastical codesbroke his health. For recreation he composed a Latin comedy called'Philodoxeos, ' which imposed upon the judgment of scholars, and wasascribed as a genuine antique to Lepidus, the comic poet. Feelingstronger, Alberti returned at the age of twenty to his law studies, and pursued them in the teeth of disadvantages. His health was stilluncertain, and the fortune of an exile reduced him to the utmost want. It was no wonder that under these untoward circumstances even hisHerculean strength gave way. Emaciated and exhausted, he lost theclearness of his eyesight, and became subject to arterialdisturbances, which filled his ears with painful sounds. This nervousillness is not dissimilar to that which Rousseau describes in theconfessions of his youth. In vain, however, his physicians warnedAlberti of impending peril. A man of so much stanchness, accustomedto control his nature with an iron will, is not ready to acceptadvice. Alberti persevered in his studies, until at last the very seatof intellect was invaded. His memory began to fail him for names, while he still retained with wonderful accuracy whatever he had seenwith his eyes. It was now impossible to think of law as a profession. Yet since he could not live without severe mental exercise, he hadrecourse to studies which tax the verbal memory less than theintuitive faculties of the reason. Physics and mathematics became hischief resource; and he devoted his energies to literature. His'Treatise on the Family' may be numbered among the best of thosecompositions on social and speculative subjects in which the Italiansof the Renaissance sought to rival Cicero. His essays on the arts arementioned by Vasari with sincere approbation. Comedies, interludes, orations, dialogues, and poems flowed with abundance from his facilepen. Some were written in Latin, which he commanded more than fairly;some in the Tuscan tongue, of which owing to the long exile of hisfamily in Lombardy, he is said to have been less a master. It wasowing to this youthful illness, from which apparently his constitutionnever wholly recovered, that Alberti's genius was directed toarchitecture. 

Through his friendship with Flavio Biondo, the famous Roman antiquary, Alberti received an introduction to Nicholas V. At the time when this, the first great Pope of the Renaissance, was engaged in rebuilding thepalaces and fortifications of Rome. Nicholas discerned the genius ofthe man, and employed him as his chief counsellor in all matters ofarchitecture. When the Pope died, he was able, while reciting his longLatin will upon his deathbed, to boast that he had restored the HolySee to its due dignity, and the Eternal City to the splendour worthyof the seat of Christendom. The accomplishment of the second part ofhis work he owed to the genius of Alberti. After doing thus much forRome under Thomas of Sarzana, and before beginning to beautifyFlorence at the instance of the Rucellai family, Alberti entered theservice of the Malatesta, and undertook to remodel the Cathedral of S. Francis at Rimini. He found it a plain Gothic structure with apse andside chapels. Such churches are common enough in Italy, where pointedarchitecture never developed its true character of complexity andrichness, but was doomed to the vast vacuity exemplified in S. Petronio of Bologna. He left it a strange medley of mediæval andRenaissance work, a symbol of that dissolving scene in the world'spantomime, when the spirit of classic art, as yet but littlecomprehended, was encroaching on the early Christian taste. Perhapsthe mixture of styles so startling in S. Francesco ought not to belaid to the charge of Alberti, who had to execute the task of turninga Gothic into a classic building. All that he could do was to alterthe whole exterior of the church, by affixing a screen-work of Romanarches and Corinthian pilasters, so as to hide the old design and yetto leave the main features of the fabric, the windows and doorsespecially, _in statu quo_. With the interior he dealt upon the samegeneral principle, by not disturbing its structure, while he coveredevery available square inch of surface with decorations alien to theGothic manner. Externally, S. Francesco is perhaps the most originaland graceful of the many attempts made by Italian builders to fuse themediæval and the classic styles. For Alberti attempted nothing less. Acentury elapsed before Palladio, approaching the problem from adifferent point of view, restored the antique in its purity, anderected in the Palazzo della Ragione of Vicenza an almost uniquespecimen of resuscitated Roman art. 

Internally, the beauty of the church is wholly due to its exquisitewall-ornaments. These consist for the most part of low reliefs in asoft white stone, many of them thrown out upon a blue ground in thestyle of Della Robbia. Allegorical figures designed with the purity ofoutline we admire in Botticelli, draperies that Burne-Jones mightcopy, troops of singing boys in the manner of Donatello, great angelstraced upon the stone so delicately that they seem to be rather drawnthan sculptured, statuettes in niches, personifications of all artsand sciences alternating with half-bestial shapes of satyrs andsea-children:--such are the forms which fill the spaces of the chapelwalls, and climb the pilasters, and fret the arches, in such abundancethat had the whole church been finished as it was designed, it wouldhave presented one splendid though bizarre effect of incrustation. Heavy screens of Verona marble, emblazoned in open arabesques with theciphers of Sigismondo and Isotta, with coats-of-arms, emblems, andmedallion portraits, shut the chapels from the nave. Who produced allthis sculpture it is difficult to say. Some of it is very good: muchis indifferent. We may hazard the opinion that, besides BernardoCiuffagni, of whom Vasari speaks, some pupils of Donatello andBenedetto da Majano worked at it. The influence of the sculptors ofFlorence is everywhere perceptible. 

Whatever be the merit of these reliefs, there is no doubt that theyfairly represent one of the most interesting moments in the history ofmodern art. Gothic inspiration had failed; the early Tuscan style ofthe Pisani had been worked out; Michelangelo was yet far distant, andthe abundance of classic models had not overwhelmed originality. Thesculptors of the school of Ghiberti and Donatello, who are representedin this church, were essentially pictorial, preferring low to highrelief, and relief in general to detached figures. Their style, likethe style of Boiardo in poetry, of Botticelli in painting, is specificto Italy in the middle of the fifteenth century. Mediæval standards oftaste were giving way to classical, Christian sentiment to Pagan; yetthe imitation of the antique had not been carried so far as to effacethe spontaneity of the artist, and enough remained of Christianfeeling to tinge the fancy with a grave and sweet romance. Thesculptor had the skill and mastery to express his slightest shade ofthought with freedom, spirit, and precision. Yet his work showed nosign of conventionality, no adherence to prescribed rules. Everyoutline, every fold of drapery, every attitude was pregnant, to theartist's own mind at any rate, with meaning. In spite of itssymbolism, what he wrought was never mechanically figurative, butgifted with the independence of its own beauty, vital with aninbreathed spirit of life. It was a happy moment, when art had reachedconsciousness, and the artist had not yet become self-conscious. Thehand and the brain then really worked together for the procreation ofnew forms of grace, not for the repetition of old models, or for theinvention of the strange and startling. 'Delicate, sweet, andcaptivating, ' are good adjectives to express the effect produced uponthe mind by the contemplation even of the average work of this period. 

To study the flowing lines of the great angels traced upon the wallsof the Chapel of S. Sigismund in the Cathedral of Rimini, to followthe undulations of their drapery that seems to float, to feel thedignified urbanity of all their gestures, is like listening to one ofthose clear early Italian compositions for the voice, which surpassesin suavity of tone and grace of movement all that Music in herfull-grown vigour has produced. There is indeed something infinitelycharming in the crepuscular moments of the human mind. Whether it bethe rathe loveliness of an art still immature, or the beauty of artupon the wane--whether, in fact, the twilight be of morning or ofevening, we find in the masterpieces of such periods a placid calm andchastened pathos, as of a spirit self-withdrawn from vulgar cares, which in the full light of meridian splendour is lacking. In theChurch of S. Francesco at Rimini the tempered clearness of the dawn isjust about to broaden into day. 

 * * * * *

_MAY IN UMBRIA_

FROM ROME TO TERNI

We left Rome in clear sunset light. The Alban Hills defined themselveslike a cameo of amethyst upon a pale blue distance; and over theSabine Mountains soared immeasurable moulded domes of alabasterthunderclouds, casting deep shadows, purple and violet, across theslopes of Tivoli. To westward the whole sky was lucid, like somehalf-transparent topaz, flooded with slowly yellowing sunbeams. TheCampagna has often been called a garden of wild-flowers. Just nowpoppy and aster, gladiolus and thistle, embroider it with patternsinfinite and intricate beyond the power of art. They have already mownthe hay in part; and the billowy tracts of greyish green, where noflowers are now in bloom, supply a restful groundwork to thosebrilliant patches of diapered _fioriture_. These are likepraying-carpets spread for devotees upon the pavement of a mosquewhose roof is heaven. In the level light the scythes of the mowersflash as we move past. From their bronzed foreheads the men tossmasses of dark curls. Their muscular flanks and shoulders swaysideways from firm yet pliant reins. On one hill, fronting the sunset, there stands a herd of some thirty huge grey oxen, feeding and raisingtheir heads to look at us, with just a flush of crimson on theirhorns and dewlaps. This is the scale of Mason's and of Costa'scolouring. This is the breadth and magnitude of Rome. 

Thus, through dells of ilex and oak, yielding now a glimpse of Tiberand S. Peter's, now opening on a purple section of the distant SabineHills, we came to Monte Rotondo. The sun sank; and from the flameswhere he had perished, Hesper and the thin moon, very white and keen, grew slowly into sight. Now we follow the Tiber, a swollen, hurrying, turbid river, in which the mellowing Western sky reflects itself. Thischangeful mirror of swift waters spreads a dazzling foreground tovalley, hill, and lustrous heaven. There is orange on the far horizon, and a green ocean above, in which sea-monsters fashioned from theclouds are floating. Yonder swims an elf with luminous hair astrideupon a sea-horse, and followed by a dolphin plunging through the fierywaves. The orange deepens into dying red. The green divides intodaffodil and beryl. The blue above grows fainter, and the moon andstars shine stronger. 

Through these celestial changes we glide into a landscape fit forFrancia and the early Umbrian painters. Low hills to right and left;suavely modelled heights in the far distance; a very quiet width ofplain, with slender trees ascending into the pellucid air; and down inthe mystery of the middle distance a glimpse of heaven-reflectingwater. The magic of the moon and stars lends enchantment to thisscene. No painting could convey their influences. Sometimes bothluminaries tremble, all dispersed and broken, on the swirling river. Sometimes they sleep above the calm cool reaches of a rush-grown mere. And here and there a ruined turret, with a broken window and a tuftof shrubs upon the rifted battlement, gives value to the fading pallorof the West. The last phase in the sunset is a change to blue-greymonochrome, faintly silvered with starlight; hills, Tiber, fields andwoods, all floating in aërial twilight. There is no definition ofoutline now. The daffodil of the horizon has faded into scarcelyperceptible pale greenish yellow. 

We have passed Stimigliano. Through the mystery of darkness we hurrypast the bridges of Augustus and the lights of Narni. 

THE CASCADES OF TERNI

The Velino is a river of considerable volume which rises in thehighest region of the Abruzzi, threads the upland valley of Rieti, andprecipitates itself by an artificial channel over cliffs about sevenhundred feet in height into the Nera. The water is densely chargedwith particles of lime. This calcareous matter not only tendscontinually to choke its bed, but clothes the precipices over whichthe torrent thunders with fantastic drapery of stalactite; and, carried on the wind in foam, incrusts the forests that surround thefalls with fine white dust. These famous cascades are undoubtedly themost sublime and beautiful which Europe boasts; and their situation isworthy of so great a natural wonder. We reach them through a noblemid-Italian landscape, where the mountain forms are austere and boldlymodelled, but the vegetation, both wild and cultivated, has somethingof the South-Italian richness. The hillsides are a labyrinth of boxand arbutus, with coronilla in golden bloom. The turf is starred withcyclamens and orchises. Climbing the staircase paths beside the fallsin morning sunlight, or stationed on the points of vantage thatcommand their successive cataracts, we enjoyed a spectacle which mightbe compared in its effect upon the mind to the impression left by asymphony or a tumultuous lyric. The turbulence and splendour, theswiftness and resonance, the veiling of the scene in smoke ofshattered water-masses, the withdrawal of these veils according as thevolume of the river slightly shifted in its fall, the rainbowsshimmering on the silver spray, the shivering of poplars hung aboveimpendent precipices, the stationary grandeur of the mountains keepingwatch around, the hurry and the incoherence of the cataracts, theimmobility of force and changeful changelessness in nature, were allfor me the elements of one stupendous poem. It was like an ode ofShelley translated into symbolism, more vivid through inarticulateappeal to primitive emotion than any words could be. 

MONTEFALCO

The rich land of the Clitumnus is divided into meadows by transparentwatercourses, gliding with a glassy current over swaying reeds. Through this we pass, and leave Bevagna to the right, and ascend oneof those long gradual roads which climb the hills where all the citiesof the Umbrians perch. The view expands, revealing Spello, Assisi, Perugia on its mountain buttress, and the far reaches northward of theTiber valley. Then Trevi and Spoleto came into sight, and the severehill-country above Gubbio in part disclosed itself. Over Spoleto thefierce witch-haunted heights of Norcia rose forbidding. This is thekind of panorama that dilates the soul. It is so large, so dignified, so beautiful in tranquil form. The opulent abundance of the plaincontrasts with the severity of mountain ranges desolately grand; andthe name of each of all those cities thrills the heart with memories. 

The main object of a visit to Montefalco is to inspect its manyexcellent frescoes; painted histories of S. Francis and S. Jerome, byBenozzo Gozzoli; saints, angels, and Scripture episodes by the gentleTiberio d'Assisi. Full justice had been done to these, when a littleboy, seeing us lingering outside the church of S. Chiara, askedwhether we should not like to view the body of the saint. Thisprivilege could be purchased at the price of a small fee. It was onlynecessary to call the guardian of her shrine at the high altar. Indolent, and in compliant mood, with languid curiosity and half anhour to spare, we assented. A handsome young man appeared, whoconducted us with decent gravity into a little darkened chamber behindthe altar. There he lighted wax tapers, opened sliding doors in whatlooked like a long coffin, and drew curtains. Before us in the dimlight there lay a woman covered with a black nun's dress. Only herhands, and the exquisitely beautiful pale contour of her face(forehead, nose, mouth, and chin, modelled in purest outline, asthough the injury of death had never touched her) were visible. Herclosed eyes seemed to sleep. She had the perfect peace of Luini's S. Catherine borne by the angels to her grave on Sinai. I have rarelyseen anything which surprised and touched me more. The religiousearnestness of the young custode, the hushed adoration of thecountry-folk who had silently assembled round us, intensified thesympathy-inspiring beauty of the slumbering girl. Could Julia, daughter of Claudius, have been fairer than this maiden, when theLombard workmen found her in her Latin tomb, and brought her to beworshipped on the Capitol? S. Chiara's shrine was hung round with herrelics; and among these the heart extracted from her body wassuspended. Upon it, apparently wrought into the very substance of themummied flesh, were impressed a figure of the crucified Christ, thescourge, and the five stigmata. The guardian's faith in thismiraculous witness to her sainthood, the gentle piety of the men andwomen who knelt before it, checked all expressions of incredulity. Weabandoned ourselves to the genius of the place; forgot even to askwhat Santa Chiara was sleeping here; and withdrew, toned to a notunpleasing melancholy. The world-famous S. Clair, the spiritual sisterof S. Francis, lies in Assisi. I have often asked myself, Who, then, was this nun? What history had she? And I think now of this girl as ofa damsel of romance, a Sleeping Beauty in the wood of time, secludedfrom intrusive elements of fact, and folded in the love and faith ofher own simple worshippers. Among the hollows of Arcadia, how manyrustic shrines in ancient days held saints of Hellas, apocryphal, perhaps, like this, but hallowed by tradition and enduring homage![6]

FOLIGNO

In the landscape of Raphael's votive picture, known as the Madonna diFoligno, there is a town with a few towers, placed upon a broad plainat the edge of some blue hills. Allowing for that license as todetails which imaginative masters permitted themselves in matters ofsubordinate importance, Raphael's sketch is still true to Foligno. Theplace has not materially changed since the beginning of the sixteenthcentury. Indeed, relatively to the state of Italy at large, it isstill the same as in the days of ancient Rome. Foligno forms a stationof commanding interest between Rome and the Adriatic upon the greatFlaminian Way. At Foligno the passes of the Apennines debouch into theUmbrian plain, which slopes gradually toward the valley of the Tiber, and from it the valley of the Nera is reached by an easy ascentbeneath the walls of Spoleto. An army advancing from the north by theMetaurus and the Furlo Pass must find itself at Foligno; and the levelchampaign round the city is well adapted to the maintenance andexercises of a garrison. In the days of the Republic and the Empire, the value of this position was well understood; but Foligno'simportance, as the key to the Flaminian Way, was eclipsed by twoflourishing cities in its immediate vicinity, Hispellum and Mevania, the modern Spello and Bevagna. We might hazard a conjecture that theLombards, when they ruled the Duchy of Spoleto, following their usualpolicy of opposing new military centres to the ancient Romanmunicipia, encouraged Fulginium at the expense of her two neighbours. But of this there is no certainty to build upon. All that can beaffirmed with accuracy is that in the Middle Ages, while Spello andBevagna declined into the inferiority of dependent burghs, Folignogrew in power and became the chief commune of this part of Umbria. Itwas famous during the last centuries of struggle between the Italianburghers and their native despots, for peculiar ferocity in civilstrife. Some of the bloodiest pages in mediæval Italian history arethose which relate the vicissitudes of the Trinci family, theexhaustion of Foligno by internal discord, and its final submission tothe Papal power. Since railways have been carried from Rome throughNarni and Spoleto to Ancona and Perugia, Foligno has gainedconsiderably in commercial and military status. It is the point ofintersection for three lines; the Italian government has made it agreat cavalry depôt, and there are signs of reviving traffic in itsdecayed streets. Whether the presence of a large garrison has alreadymodified the population, or whether we may ascribe something to theabsence of Roman municipal institutions in the far past, and to thesavagery of the mediæval period, it is difficult to say. Yet theimpression left by Foligno upon the mind is different from that ofAssisi, Spello, and Montefalco, which are distinguished for a certaingrace and gentleness in their inhabitants. 

My window in the city wall looks southward across the plain toSpoleto, with Montefalco perched aloft upon the right, and Trevi onits mountain-bracket to the left. From the topmost peaks of the SabineApennines, gradual tender sloping lines descend to find their quiet inthe valley of Clitumnus. The space between me and that distance isinfinitely rich with every sort of greenery, dotted here and therewith towers and relics of baronial houses. The little town is incommotion; for the working men of Foligno and its neighbourhood haveresolved to spend their earnings on a splendid festa--horse-races, andtwo nights of fireworks. The acacias and paulownias on the rampartsare in full bloom of creamy white and lilac. In the glare of Bengallights these trees, with all their pendulous blossoms, surpassed themost fantastic of artificial decorations. The rockets sent aloft intothe sky amid that solemn Umbrian landscape were nowise out of harmonywith nature. I never sympathised with critics who resent the intrusionof fireworks upon scenes of natural beauty. The Giessbach, lighted upat so much per head on stated evenings, with a band playing and acrowd of cockneys staring, presents perhaps an incongruous spectacle. But where, as here at Foligno, a whole city has made itself afestival, where there are multitudes of citizens and soldiers andcountry-people slowly moving and gravely admiring, with the decencyand order characteristic of an Italian crowd, I have nothing but asense of satisfaction. 

It is sometimes the traveller's good fortune in some remote place tomeet with an inhabitant who incarnates and interprets for him the_genius loci_ as he has conceived it. Though his own subjectivity willassuredly play a considerable part in such an encounter, transferringto his chance acquaintance qualities he may not possess, andconnecting this personality in some purely imaginative manner withthoughts derived from study, or impressions made by nature; yet thestranger will henceforth become the meeting-point of many memories, the central figure in a composition which derives from him itsvividness. Unconsciously and innocently he has lent himself to thecreation of a picture, and round him, as around the hero of a myth, have gathered thoughts and sentiments of which he had himself noknowledge. On one of these nights I had been threading the aisles ofacacia-trees, now glaring red, now azure, as the Bengal lights keptchanging. My mind instinctively went back to scenes of treachery andbloodshed in the olden time, when Gorrado Trinci paraded the mangledremnants of three hundred of his victims, heaped on mule-back, throughFoligno, for a warning to the citizens. As the procession moved alongthe ramparts, I found myself in contest with a young man, who readilyfell into conversation. He was very tall, with enormous breadth ofshoulders, and long sinewy arms, like Michelangelo's favourite models. His head was small, curled over with crisp black hair. Low forehead, and thick level eyebrows absolutely meeting over intensely brightfierce eyes. The nose descending straight from the brows, as in astatue of Hadrian's age. The mouth full-lipped, petulant, andpassionate above a firm round chin. He was dressed in the shirt, whitetrousers, and loose white jacket of a contadino; but he did not movewith a peasant's slouch, rather with the elasticity and alertness ofan untamed panther. He told me that he was just about to join acavalry regiment; and I could well imagine, when military dignity wasadded to that gait, how grandly he would go. This young man, of whom Iheard nothing more after our half-hour's conversation among thecrackling fireworks and roaring cannon, left upon my mind anindescribable impression of dangerousness--of 'something fierce andterrible, eligible to burst forth. ' Of men like this, then, wereformed the Companies of Adventure who flooded Italy with villany, ambition, and lawlessness in the fifteenth century. Gattamelata, whobegan life as a baker's boy at Narni and ended it with a bronze statueby Donatello on the public square in Padua, was of this breed. Likethis were the Trinci and their bands of murderers. Like this were thebravi who hunted Lorenzaccio to death at Venice. Like this was PietroPaolo Baglioni, whose fault, in the eyes of Machiavelli, was that hecould not succeed in being 'perfettamente tristo. ' Beautiful, butinhuman; passionate, but cold; powerful, but rendered impotent forfirm and lofty deeds by immorality and treason; how many centuries ofmen like this once wasted Italy and plunged her into servitude! Yetwhat material is here, under sterner discipline, and with a noblernational ideal, for the formation of heroic armies. Of such stuff, doubtless, were the Roman legionaries. When will the Italians learn touse these men as Fabius or as Cæsar, not as the Vitelli and the Trinciused them? In such meditations, deeply stirred by the meeting of myown reflections with one who seemed to represent for me in life andblood the spirit of the place which had provoked them, I said farewellto Cavallucci, and returned to my bedroom on the city wall. The lastrockets had whizzed and the last cannons had thundered ere I fellasleep. 

SPELLO

Spello contains some not inconsiderable antiquities--the remains of aRoman theatre, a Roman gate with the heads of two men and a womanleaning over it, and some fragments of Roman sculpture scatteredthrough its buildings. The churches, especially those of S. M. Maggioreand S. Francesco, are worth a visit for the sake of Pinturicchio. Nowhere, except in the Piccolomini Library at Siena, can that master'swork in fresco be better studied than here. The satisfaction withwhich he executed the wall paintings in S. Maria Maggiore is testifiedby his own portrait introduced upon a panel in the decoration of theVirgin's chamber. The scrupulously rendered details of books, chairs, window seats, &c. , which he here has copied, remind one of Carpaccio'sstudy of S. Benedict at Venice. It is all sweet, tender, delicate, andcarefully finished; but without depth, not even the depth ofPerugino's feeling. In S. Francesco, Pinturicchio, with the samemeticulous refinement, painted a letter addressed to him by GentileBaglioni. It lies on a stool before Madonna and her court of saints. Nicety of execution, technical mastery of fresco as a medium for Dutchdetail-painting, prettiness of composition, and cheerfulness ofcolouring, are noticeable throughout his work here rather than eitherthought or sentiment. S. Maria Maggiore can boast a fresco of Madonnabetween a young episcopal saint and Catherine of Alexandria from thehand of Perugino. The rich yellow harmony of its tones, and thegraceful dignity of its emotion, conveyed no less by a certainRaphaelesque pose and outline than by suavity of facial expression, enable us to measure the distance between this painter and hisquasi-pupil Pinturicchio. 

We did not, however, drive to Spello to inspect either Romanantiquities or frescoes, but to see an inscription on the city wallsabout Orlando. It is a rude Latin elegiac couplet, saying that, 'fromthe sign below, men may conjecture the mighty members of Roland, nephew of Charles; his deeds are written in history. ' Three agreeableold gentlemen of Spello, who attended us with much politeness, andwere greatly interested in my researches, pointed out a markwaist-high upon the wall, where Orlando's knee is reported to havereached. But I could not learn anything about a phallic monolith, which is said by Guerin or Panizzi to have been identified with theRoland myth at Spello. Such a column either never existed here, orhad been removed before the memory of the present generation. 

EASTER MORNING AT ASSISI

We are in the lower church of S. Francesco. High mass is being sung, with orchestra and organ and a choir of many voices. Candles arelighted on the altar, over-canopied with Giotto's allegories. From thelow southern windows slants the sun, in narrow bands, upon themany-coloured gloom and embrowned glory of these painted aisles. Womenin bright kerchiefs kneel upon the stones, and shaggy men from themountains stand or lean against the wooden benches. There is no movingfrom point to point. Where we have taken our station, at thenorth-western angle of the transept, there we stay till mass be over. The whole low-vaulted building glows duskily; the frescoed roof, thestained windows, the figure-crowded pavements blending their rich butsubdued colours, like hues upon some marvellous moth's wings, or likea deep-toned rainbow mist discerned in twilight dreams, or like suchtapestry as Eastern queens, in ancient days, wrought for the pavilionof an empress. Forth from this maze of mingling tints, indefinite inshade and sunbeams, lean earnest, saintly faces--ineffablypure--adoring, pitying, pleading; raising their eyes in ecstasy toheaven, or turning them in ruth toward earth. Men and women of whomthe world was not worthy--at the hands of those old painters they havereceived the divine grace, the dovelike simplicity, whereof Italiansin the fourteenth century possessed the irrecoverable secret. Eachface is a poem; the counterpart in painting to a chapter from theFioretti di San Francesco. Over the whole scene--in the architecture, in the frescoes, in the coloured windows, in the gloom, on thepeople, in the incense, from the chiming bells, through themusic--broods one spirit: the spirit of him who was 'the co-espoused, co-transforate with Christ;' the ardent, the radiant, the beautiful insoul; the suffering, the strong, the simple, the victorious over selfand sin; the celestial who trampled upon earth and rose on wings ofecstasy to heaven; the Christ-inebriated saint of visions supersensualand life beyond the grave. Far down below the feet of those whoworship God through him, S. Francis sleeps; but his soul, theincorruptible part of him, the message he gave the world, is in thespaces round us. This is his temple. He fills it like an unseen god. Not as Phoebus or Athene, from their marble pedestals; but as anabiding spirit, felt everywhere, nowhere seized, absorbing in itselfall mysteries, all myths, all burning exaltations, all abasements, alllove, self-sacrifice, pain, yearning, which the thought of Christ, sweeping the centuries, hath wrought for men. Let, therefore, choirand congregation raise their voices on the tide of prayers andpraises; for this is Easter morning--Christ is risen! Our sister, Death of the Body, for whom S. Francis thanked God in his hymn, isreconciled to us this day, and takes us by the hand, and leads us tothe gate whence floods of heavenly glory issue from the faces of amultitude of saints. Pray, ye poor people; chant and pray. If all bebut a dream, to wake from this were loss for you indeed!

PERUSIA AUGUSTA

The piazza in front of the Prefettura is my favourite resort on thesenights of full moon. The evening twilight is made up partly of sunsetfading over Thrasymene and Tuscany; partly of moonrise from themountains of Gubbio and the passes toward Ancona. The hills are cappedwith snow, although the season is so forward. Below our parapets thebulk of S. Domenico, with its gaunt perforated tower, and the finergroup of S. Pietro, flaunting the arrowy 'Pennacchio di Perugia, ' jutout upon the spine of hill which dominates the valley of the Tiber. Asthe night gloom deepens, and the moon ascends the sky, these buildingsseem to form the sombre foreground to some French etching. Beyond themspreads the misty moon-irradiated plain of Umbria. Over all riseshadowy Apennines, with dim suggestions of Assisi, Spello, Foligno, Montefalco, and Spoleto on their basements. Little thin whiffs ofbreezes, very slight and searching, flit across, and shiver as theypass from Apennine to plain. The slowly moving population--women inveils, men winter-mantled--pass to and fro between the buildings andthe grey immensity of sky. Bells ring. The bugles of the soldiers blowretreat in convents turned to barracks. Young men roam the streetsbeneath, singing May songs. Far, far away upon the plain, red throughthe vitreous moonlight ringed with thundery gauze, fires of unnamedcastelli smoulder. As we lean from ledges eighty feet in height, gasvies with moon in chequering illuminations on the ancient walls;Etruscan mouldings, Roman letters, high-piled hovels, suburbanworld-old dwellings plastered like martins' nests against the masonry. 

Sunlight adds more of detail to this scene. To the right of Subasio, where the passes go from Foligno towards Urbino and Ancona, heavymasses of thundercloud hang every day; but the plain andhill-buttresses are clear in transparent blueness. First comes Assisi, with S. M. Degli Angeli below; then Spello; then Foligno; then Trevi;and, far away, Spoleto; with, reared against those misty battlements, the village height of Montefalco--the 'ringhiera dell' Umbria, ' asthey call it in this country. By daylight, the snow on yonder peaks isclearly visible, where the Monti della Sibilla tower up above thesources of the Nera and Velino from frigid wastes of Norcia. The lowerranges seem as though painted, in films of airiest and palest azure, upon china; and then comes the broad green champaign, flecked withvillages and farms. Just at the basement of Perugia winds Tiber, through sallows and grey poplar-trees, spanned by ancient arches ofred brick, and guarded here and there by castellated towers. The millsbeneath their dams and weirs are just as Raphael drew them; and thefeeling of air and space reminds one, on each coign of vantage, ofsome Umbrian picture. Every hedgerow is hoary with May-bloom andhoneysuckle. The oaks hang out their golden-dusted tassels. Waysideshrines are decked with laburnum boughs and iris blossoms plucked fromthe copse-woods, where spires of purple and pink orchis variegate thethin, fine grass. The land waves far and wide with young corn, emeraldgreen beneath the olive-trees, which take upon their under-foliagetints reflected from this verdure or red tones from the naked earth. Afine race of _contadini_, with large, heroically graceful forms, andbeautiful dark eyes and noble faces, move about this garden, intent onancient, easy tillage of the kind Saturnian soil. 

LA MAGIONE

On the road from Perugia to Cortona, the first stage ends at LaMagione, a high hill-village commanding the passage from the Umbrianchampaign to the lake of Thrasymene. 

It has a grim square fortalice above it, now in ruins, and a statelycastle to the south-east, built about the time of Braccio. Here tookplace that famous diet of Cesare Borgia's enemies, when the son ofAlexander VI. Was threatening Bologna with his arms, and bidding fairto make himself supreme tyrant of Italy in 1502. It was the policy ofCesare to fortify himself by reducing the fiefs of the Church tosubmission, and by rooting out the dynasties which had acquired asort of tyranny in Papal cities. The Varani of Camerino and theManfredi of Faenza had been already extirpated. There was only toogood reason to believe that the turn of the Vitelli at Città diCastello, of the Baglioni at Perugia, and of the Bentivogli at Bolognawould come next. Pandolfo Petrucci at Siena, surrounded on all sidesby Cesare's conquests, and specially menaced by the fortification ofPiombino, felt himself in danger. The great house of the Orsini, whoswayed a large part of the Patrimony of S. Peter's, and were closelyallied to the Vitelli, had even graver cause for anxiety. But such wasthe system of Italian warfare, that nearly all these noble familieslived by the profession of arms, and most of them were in the pay ofCesare. When, therefore, the conspirators met at La Magione, they wereplotting against a man whose money they had taken, and whom they hadhitherto aided in his career of fraud and spoliation. 

The diet consisted of the Cardinal Orsini, an avowed antagonist ofAlexander VI. ; his brother Paolo, the chieftain of the clan;Vitellozzo Vitelli, lord of Città di Castello; Gian-Paolo Baglioni, made undisputed master of Perugia by the recent failure of his cousinGrifonetto's treason; Oliverotto, who had just acquired the March ofFermo by the murder of his uncle Giovanni da Fogliani; ErmesBentivoglio, the heir of Bologna; and Antonio da Venafro, thesecretary of Pandolfo Petrueci. These men vowed hostility on the basisof common injuries and common fear against the Borgia. But they werefor the most part stained themselves with crime, and dared not trusteach other, and could not gain the confidence of any respectable powerin Italy except the exiled Duke of Urbino. Procrastination was thefirst weapon used by the wily Cesare, who trusted that time would sowamong his rebel captains suspicion and dissension. He next madeovertures to the leaders separately, and so far succeeded in hisperfidious policy as to draw Vitellozzo Vitelli, Oliverotto da Fermo, Paolo Orsini, and Francesco Orsini, Duke of Gravina, into his nets atSinigaglia. Under pretext of fair conference and equitable settlementof disputed claims, he possessed himself of their persons, and hadthem strangled--two upon December 31, and two upon January 18, 1503. Of all Cesare's actions, this was the most splendid for its successfulcombination of sagacity and policy in the hour of peril, of persuasivediplomacy, and of ruthless decision when the time to strike his blowarrived. 

CORTONA

After leaving La Magione, the road descends upon the lake ofThrasymene through oak-woods full of nightingales. The lake laybasking, leaden-coloured, smooth and waveless, under a misty, rain-charged, sun-irradiated sky. At Passignano, close beside itsshore, we stopped for mid-day. This is a little fishing village ofvery poor people, who live entirely by labour on the waters. Theyshowed us huge eels coiled in tanks, and some fine specimens of thesilver carp--Reina del Lago. It was off one of the eels that we madeour lunch; and taken, as he was, alive from his cool lodging, hefurnished a series of dishes fit for a king. 

Climbing the hill of Cortona seemed a quite interminable business. Itpoured a deluge. Our horses were tired, and one lean donkey, who, after much trouble, was produced from a farmhouse and yoked in frontof them, rendered but little assistance. 

Next day we duly saw the Muse and Lamp in the Museo, the FraAngelicos, and all the Signorellis. One cannot help thinking that toomuch fuss is made nowadays about works of art--running after them fortheir own sakes, exaggerating their importance, and detaching them asobjects of study, instead of taking them with sympathy andcarelessness as pleasant or instructive adjuncts to our actual life. Artists, historians of art, and critics are forced to isolatepictures; and it is of profit to their souls to do so. But simplefolk, who have no aesthetic vocation, whether creative or critical, suffer more than is good for them by compliance with mere fashion. Sooner or later we shall return to the spirit of the ages whichproduced these pictures, and which regarded them with less of anindustrious bewilderment than they evoke at present. 

I am far indeed from wishing to decry art, the study of art, or thebenefits to be derived from its intelligent enjoyment. I only mean tosuggest that we go the wrong way to work at present in this matter. Picture and sculpture galleries accustom us to the separation of artfrom life. Our methods of studying art, making a beginning ofart-study while traveling, tend to perpetuate this separation. It isonly on reflection, after long experience, that we come to perceivethat the most fruitful moments in our art education have been casualand unsought, in quaint nooks and unexpected places, where nature, art, and life are happily blent. 

The Palace of the Commune at Cortona is interesting because of theshields of Florentine governors, sculptured on blocks of grey stone, and inserted in its outer walls--Peruzzi, Albizzi, Strozzi, Salviati, among the more ancient--de' Medici at a later epoch. The revolutionsin the Republic of Florence may be read by a herald from thesecoats-of-arms and the dates beneath them. 

The landscape of this Tuscan highland satisfies me more and more withsense of breadth and beauty. From S. Margherita above the town theprospect is immense and wonderful and wild--up into those brown, forbidding mountains; down to the vast plain; and over to the citiesof Chiusi, Montepulciano, and Foiano. The jewel of the view isTrasimeno, a silvery shield encased with serried hills, and set uponone corner of the scene, like a precious thing apart and meant forseparate contemplation. There is something in the singularity andcircumscribed completeness of the mountain-girded lake, diminished bydistance, which would have attracted Lionardo da Vinci's pencil, hadhe seen it. 

Cortona seems desperately poor, and the beggars are intolerable. Onelittle blind boy, led by his brother, both frightfully ugly and raggedurchins, pursued us all over the city, incessantly whining 'SignorePadrone!' It was only on the threshold of the inn that I ventured togive them a few coppers, for I knew well that any public beneficencewould raise the whole swarm of the begging population round us. Sitting later in the day upon the piazza of S. Domenico, I saw thesame blind boy taken by his brother to play. The game consists, in thelittle creature throwing his arms about the trunk of a big tree, andrunning round and round it, clasping it. This seemed to make him quiteinexpressibly happy. His face lit up and beamed with that innerbeatitude blind people show--a kind of rapture shining over it, asthough nothing could be more altogether delightful. This little boyhad the smallpox at eight months, and has never been able to seesince. He looks sturdy, and may live to be of any age--doomed always, is that possible, to beg?

CHIUSI

What more enjoyable dinner can be imagined than a flask of excellentMontepulciano, a well-cooked steak, and a little goat's cheese in theinn of the Leone d'Oro at Chiusi? The windows are open, and the sun issetting. Monte Cetona bounds the view to the right, and the woodedhills of Città della Pieve to the left. The deep green dimpled valleygoes stretching away toward Orvieto; and at its end a purple mountainmass, distinct and solitary, which may peradventure be Soracte! Thenear country is broken into undulating hills, forested with fineolives and oaks; and the composition of the landscape, with itscrowning villages, is worthy of a background to an Umbrian picture. The breadth and depth and quiet which those painters loved, the spaceof lucid sky, the suggestion of winding waters in verdant fields, allare here. The evening is beautiful--golden light streaming softly frombehind us on this prospect, and gradually mellowing to violet and bluewith stars above. 

At Chiusi we visited several Etruscan tombs, and saw their red andblack scrawled pictures. One of the sepulchres was a well-jointedvault of stone with no wall-paintings. The rest had been scooped outof the living tufa. This was the excuse for some pleasant hours spentin walking and driving through the country. Chiusi means for me themingling of grey olives and green oaks in limpid sunlight; deep leafylanes; warm sandstone banks; copses with nightingales and cyclamensand cuckoos; glimpses of a silvery lake; blue shadowy distances; thebristling ridge of Monte Cetona; the conical towers, Becca di Questoand Becca di Quello, over against each other on the borders; wayswinding among hedgerows like some bit of England in June, but not sofull of flowers. It means all this, I fear, for me far more thantheories about Lars Porsenna and Etruscan ethnology. 

GUBBIO

Gubbio ranks among the most ancient of Italian hill-towns. With itsback set firm against the spine of central Apennines, and piled, houseover house, upon the rising slope, it commands a rich tract of uplandchampaign, bounded southward toward Perugia and Foligno by peaked androlling ridges. This amphitheatre, which forms its source of wealthand independence, is admirably protected by a chain of naturaldefences; and Gubbio wears a singularly old-world aspect of antiquityand isolation. Houses climb right to the crests of gaunt bare peaks;and the brown mediæval walls with square towers which protected themupon the mountain side, following the inequalities of the ground, arestill a marked feature in the landscape. It is a town of steep streetsand staircases, with quaintly framed prospects, and solemn vistasopening at every turn across the lowland. One of these views might beselected for especial notice. In front, irregular buildings losingthemselves in country as they straggle by the roadside; then the openpost-road with a cypress to the right; afterwards, the rich greenfields, and on a bit of rising ground an ancient farmhouse with itsbrown dependencies; lastly, the blue hills above Fossato, and far awaya wrack of tumbling clouds. All this enclosed by the heavy archway ofthe Porta Romana, where sunlight and shadow chequer the mellow tonesof a dim fresco, indistinct with age, but beautiful. 

Gubbio has not greatly altered since the middle ages. But poor peopleare now living in the palaces of noblemen and merchants. These newinhabitants have walled up the fair arched windows and slender portalsof the ancient dwellers, spoiling the beauty of the streets withoutmaterially changing the architectural masses. In that witching hourwhen the Italian sunset has faded, and a solemn grey replaces theglowing tones of daffodil and rose, it is not difficult, here dreamingby oneself alone, to picture the old noble life--the ladies movingalong those open loggias, the young men in plumed caps and curlinghair with one foot on those doorsteps, the knights in armour and thesumpter mules and red-robed Cardinals defiling through those gatesinto the courts within. The modern bricks and mortar with which thatpicturesque scene has been overlaid, the ugly oblong windows andbright green shutters which now interrupt the flowing lines of archand gallery; these disappear beneath the fine remembered touch of asonnet sung by Folgore, when still the Parties had their day, and thisdeserted city was the centre of great aims and throbbing aspirations. 

The names of the chief buildings in Gubbio are strongly suggestive ofthe middle ages. They abut upon a Piazza de' Signori. One of them, thePalazzo del Municipio, is a shapeless unfinished block of masonry. Itis here that the Eugubine tables, plates of brass with Umbrian andRoman incised characters, are shown. The Palazzo de' Consoli hashigher architectural qualities, and is indeed unique among Italianpalaces for the combination of massiveness with lightness in asituation of unprecedented boldness. Rising from enormoussubstructures mortised into the solid hillside, it rears its vastrectangular bulk to a giddy height above the town; airy loggiasimposed on great forbidding masses of brown stone, shooting aloft intoa light aërial tower. The empty halls inside are of fair proportionsand a noble size, and the views from the open colonnades in alldirections fascinate. But the final impression made by the building isone of square, tranquil, massive strength--perpetuity embodied inmasonry--force suggesting facility by daring and successful additionof elegance to hugeness. Vast as it is, this pile is not forbidding, as a similarly weighty structure in the North would be. The finequality of the stone and the delicate though simple mouldings of thewindows give it an Italian grace. 

These public palaces belong to the age of the Communes, when Gubbiowas a free town, with a policy of its own, and an important part toplay in the internecine struggles of Pope and Empire, Guelf andGhibelline. The ruined, deserted, degraded Palazzo Ducale reminds usof the advent of the despots. It has been stripped of all itstarsia-work and sculpture. Only here and there a Fe. D. , with thecupping-glass of Federigo di Montefeltro, remains to show that Gubbioonce became the fairest fief of the Urbino duchy. S. Ubaldo, who gavehis name to this duke's son, was the patron of Gubbio, and to him thecathedral is dedicated--one low enormous vault, like a cellar orfeudal banqueting hall, roofed with a succession of solid Gothicarches. This strange old church, and the House of Canons, buttressedon the hill beside it, have suffered less from modernisation than mostbuildings in Gubbio. The latter, in particular, helps one tounderstand what this city of grave palazzi must have been, and how themere opening of old doors and windows would restore it to itsprimitive appearance. The House of the Canons has, in fact, not yetbeen given over to the use of middle-class and proletariate. 

At the end of a day in Gubbio, it is pleasant to take our ease in theprimitive hostelry, at the back of which foams a mountain-torrent, rushing downward from the Apennines. The Gubbio wine is very fragrant, and of a rich ruby colour. Those to whom the tints of wine and jewelsgive a pleasure not entirely childish, will take delight in itsspecific blending of tawny hues with rose. They serve the table still, at Gubbio, after the antique Italian fashion, covering it with acream-coloured linen cloth bordered with coarse lace--the creases ofthe press, the scent of old herbs from the wardrobe, are still uponit--and the board is set with shallow dishes of warm, whiteearthenware, basket-worked in open lattice at the edge, which containlittle separate messes of meat, vegetables, cheese, and comfits. Thewine stands in strange, slender phials of smooth glass, with stoppers;and the amber-coloured bread lies in fair round loaves upon the cloth. Dining thus is like sitting down to the supper at Emmaus, in somepicture of Gian Bellini or of Masolino. The very bareness of theroom--its open rafters, plastered walls, primitive settees, andred-brick floor, on which a dog sits waiting for a bone--enhances theimpression of artistic delicacy in the table. 

FROM GUBBIO TO FANO

The road from Gubbio, immediately after leaving the city, enters anarrow Alpine ravine, where a thin stream dashes over dark, red rocks, and pendent saxifrages wave to the winds. The carriage in which wetravelled at the end of May, one morning, had two horses, which ourdriver soon supplemented with a couple of white oxen. Slowly andtoilsomely we ascended between the flanks of barren hills--gauntmasses of crimson and grey crag, clothed at their summits with shortturf and scanty pasture. The pass leads first to the little town ofScheggia, and is called the Monte Calvo, or bald mountain. AtScheggia, it joins the great Flaminian Way, or North road of the Romanarmies. At the top there is a fine view over the conical hills thatdominate Gubbio, and, far away, to noble mountains above the Furlo andthe Foligno line of railway to Ancona. Range rises over range, crossing at unexpected angles, breaking into sudden precipices, andstretching out long, exquisitely modelled outlines, as only Apenninescan do, in silvery sobriety of colours toned by clearest air. Everysquare piece of this austere, wild landscape forms a varied picture, whereof the composition is due to subtle arrangements of lines alwaysdelicate; and these lines seem somehow to have been determined intheir beauty by the vast antiquity of the mountain system, as thoughthey all had taken time to choose their place and wear down intoharmony. The effect of tempered sadness was heightened for us bystormy lights and dun clouds, high in air, rolling vapours and flyingshadows, over all the prospect, tinted in ethereal grisaille. 

After Scheggia, one enters a land of meadow and oak-trees. This is thesacred central tract of Jupiter Apenninus, whose fane--

 Delubra Jovis saxoque minantes Apenninigenis cultae pastoribus arae

--once rose behind us on the bald Iguvian summits. A second littlepass leads from this region to the Adriatic side of the Italianwatershed, and the road now follows the Barano downward toward thesea. The valley is fairly green with woods, where mistletoe may hereand there be seen on boughs of oak, and rich with cornfields. Cagli isthe chief town of the district, and here they show one of the bestpictures left to us by Raphael's father, Giovanni Santi. It is aMadonna, attended by S. Peter, S. Francis, S. Dominic, S. John, andtwo angels. One of the angels is traditionally supposed to have beenpainted from the boy Raphael, and the face has something which remindsus of his portraits. The whole composition, excellent in modelling, harmonious in grouping, soberly but strongly coloured, with a peculiarblending of dignity and sweetness, grace and vigour, makes one wonderwhy Santi thought it necessary to send his son from his own workshopto study under Perugino. He was himself a master of his art, and this, perhaps the most agreeable of his paintings, has a masculine sinceritywhich is absent from at least the later works of Perugino. 

Some miles beyond Cagli, the real pass of the Furlo begins. It owesits name to a narrow tunnel bored by Vespasian in the solid rock, where limestone crags descend on the Barano. The Romans called thisgallery Petra Pertusa, or Intercisa, or more familiarly Forulus, whence comes the modern name. Indeed, the stations on the oldFlaminian Way are still well marked by Latin designations; for Cagliis the ancient Calles, and Fossombrone is Forum Sempronii, and Fanothe Fanum Fortunæ. Vespasian commemorated this early achievement inengineering by an inscription carved on the living stone, which stillremains; and Claudian, when he sang the journey of his EmperorHonorius from Rimini to Rome, speaks thus of what was even then anobject of astonishment to travellers:--

 Laetior hinc fano recipit fortuna vetusto, Despiciturque vagus praerupta valle Metaurus, Qua mons arte patens vivo se perforat arcu Admittitque viam sectae per viscera rupis. 

The Forulus itself may now be matched, on any Alpine pass, by severaltunnels of far mightier dimensions; for it is narrow, and does notextend more than 126 feet in length. But it occupies a fine positionat the end of a really imposing ravine. The whole Furlo Pass might, without too much exaggeration, be described as a kind of Cheddar onthe scale of the Via Mala. The limestone rocks, which rise on eitherhand above the gorge to an enormous height, are noble in form andsolemn, like a succession of gigantic portals, with stupendousflanking obelisks and pyramids. Some of these crag-masses rival thefantastic cliffs of Capri, and all consist of that southern mountainlimestone which changes from pale yellow to blue grey and duskyorange. A river roars precipitately through the pass, and theroadsides wave with many sorts of campanulas--a profusion of azure andpurple bells upon the hard white stone. Of Roman remains there isstill enough (in the way of Roman bridges and bits of broken masonry)to please an antiquary's eye. But the lover of nature will dwellchiefly on the picturesque qualities of this historic gorge, so aliento the general character of Italian scenery, and yet so remote fromanything to which Swiss travelling accustoms one. 

The Furlo breaks out into a richer land of mighty oaks and wavingcornfields, a fat pastoral country, not unlike Devonshire in detail, with green uplands, and wild-rose tangled hedgerows, and much runningwater, and abundance of summer flowers. At a point above Fossombrone, the Barano joins the Metauro, and here one has a glimpse of farawayUrbino, high upon its mountain eyrie. It is so rare, in spite ofimmemorial belief, to find in Italy a wilderness of wild flowers, thatI feel inclined to make a list of those I saw from our carriagewindows as we rolled down lazily along the road to Fossombrone. Broom, and cytisus, and hawthorn mingled with roses, gladiolus, and sainfoin. There were orchises, and clematis, and privet, and wild-vine, vetchesof all hues, red poppies, sky-blue cornflowers, and lilac pimpernel. In the rougher hedges, dogwood, honeysuckle, pyracanth, and acaciamade a network of white bloom and blushes. Milk-worts of all brightand tender tints combined with borage, iris, hawkweeds, harebells, crimson clover, thyme, red snap-dragon, golden asters, and dreamylove-in-a-mist, to weave a marvellous carpet such as the looms ofShiraz or of Cashmere never spread. Rarely have I gazed on Flora insuch riot, such luxuriance, such self-abandonment to joy. The air wasfilled with fragrances. Songs of cuckoos and nightingales echoed fromthe copses on the hillsides. The sun was out, and dancing over all thelandscape. 

After all this, Fano was very restful in the quiet sunset. It has asandy stretch of shore, on which the long, green-yellow rollers of theAdriatic broke into creamy foam, beneath the waning saffron light overPesaro and the rosy rising of a full moon. This Adriatic sea carriesan English mind home to many a little watering-place upon our coast. In colour and the shape of waves it resembles our Channel. 

The sea-shore is Fano's great attraction; but the town has manychurches, and some creditable pictures, as well as Roman antiquities. Giovanni Santi may here be seen almost as well as at Cagli; and ofPerugino there is one truly magnificent altar-piece--lunette, greatcentre panel, and predella--dusty in its present condition, butsplendidly painted, and happily not yet restored or cleaned. It isworth journeying to Fano to see this. Still better would the journeybe worth the traveller's while if he could be sure to witness such agame of _Pallone_ as we chanced upon in the Via dell' Arco diAugusto--lads and grown-men, tightly girt, in shirt sleeves, drivingthe great ball aloft into the air with cunning bias and calculation ofprojecting house-eaves. I do not understand the game; but it wasclearly played something after the manner of our football, that is tosay; with sides, and front and back players so arranged as to coverthe greatest number of angles of incidence on either wall. 

Fano still remembers that it is the Fane of Fortune. On the fountainin the market-place stands a bronze Fortuna, slim and airy, offeringher veil to catch the wind. May she long shower health and prosperityupon the modern watering-place of which she is the patron saint!

 * * * * *

_THE PALACE OF URBINO_

I

At Rimini, one spring, the impulse came upon my wife and me to makeour way across San Marino to Urbino. In the Piazza, calledapocryphally after Julius Cæsar, I found a proper _vetturino_, with agood carriage and two indefatigable horses. He was a splendid fellow, and bore a great historic name, as I discovered when our bargain wascompleted. 'What are you called?' I asked him. '_Filippo Visconti, perservirla!_' was the prompt reply. Brimming over with the darkestmemories of the Italian Renaissance, I hesitated when I heard thisanswer. The associations seemed too ominous. And yet the man himselfwas so attractive--tall, stalwart, and well looking--no feature of hisface or limb of his athletic form recalling the gross tyrant whoconcealed worse than Caligula's ugliness from sight in secretchambers--that I shook this preconception from my mind. As it turnedout, Filippo Visconti had nothing in common with his infamous namesakebut the name. On a long and trying journey, he showed neither sullennor yet ferocious tempers; nor, at the end of it, did he attempt byany master-stroke of craft to wheedle from me more than his fair pay;but took the meerschaum pipe I gave him for a keepsake, with the frankgoodwill of an accomplished gentleman. The only exhibition of his hotItalian blood which I remember did his humanity credit. 

While we were ascending a steep hillside, he jumped from his box tothrash a ruffian by the roadside for brutal treatment to a little boy. He broke his whip, it is true, in this encounter; risked a dangerousquarrel; and left his carriage, with myself and wife inside it, to themercy of his horses in a somewhat perilous position. But when he cameback, hot and glowing, from this deed of justice, I could only applaudhis zeal. 

An Italian of this type, handsome as an antique statue, with therefinement of a modern gentleman and that intelligence which is innatein a race of immemorial culture, is a fascinating being. He may beabsolutely ignorant in all book-learning. He may be as ignorant as aBersagliere from Montalcino with whom I once conversed at Rimini, whogravely said that he could walk in three months to North America, andthought of doing it when his term of service was accomplished. But hewill display, as this young soldier did, a grace and ease of addresswhich are rare in London drawing-rooms; and by his shrewd remarks uponthe cities he has visited, will show that he possesses a fine naturaltaste for things of beauty. The speech of such men, drawn from thecommon stock of the Italian people, is seasoned with proverbialsayings, the wisdom of centuries condensed in a few nervous words. When emotion fires their brain, they break into spontaneous eloquence, or suggest the motive of a poem by phrases pregnant with imagery. 

For the first stage of the journey out of Rimini, Filippo's two horsessufficed. The road led almost straight across the level betweenquickset hedges in white bloom. But when we reached the long steephill which ascends to San Marino, the inevitable oxen were called out, and we toiled upwards leisurely through cornfields bright with redanemones and sweet narcissus. At this point pomegranate hedgesreplaced the May-thorns of the plain. In course of time our _bovi_brought us to the Borgo, or lower town, whence there is a furtherascent of seven hundred feet to the topmost hawk's-nest or acropolisof the republic. These we climbed on foot, watching the view expandaround us and beneath. Crags of limestone here break down abruptly tothe rolling hills, which go to lose themselves in field and shore. Misty reaches of the Adriatic close the world to eastward. Cesena, Rimini, Verucchio, and countless hill-set villages, each isolated onits tract of verdure conquered from the stern grey soil, define thepoints where Montefeltri wrestled with Malatestas in long bygoneyears. Around are marly mountain-flanks in wrinkles and gnarledconvolutions like some giant's brain, furrowed by rivers crawlingthrough dry wasteful beds of shingle. Interminable ranges of gauntApennines stretch, tier by tier, beyond; and over all this landscape, a grey-green mist of rising crops and new-fledged oak-trees lies likea veil upon the nakedness of Nature's ruins. 

Nothing in Europe conveys a more striking sense of geologicalantiquity than such a prospect. The denudation and abrasion ofinnumerable ages, wrought by slow persistent action of weather andwater on an upheaved mountain mass, are here made visible. Every wavein that vast sea of hills, every furrow in their worn flanks, tellsits tale of a continuous corrosion still in progress. The dominantimpression is one of melancholy. We forget how Romans, countermarchingCarthaginians, trod the land beneath us. The marvel of San Marino, retaining independence through the drums and tramplings of the lastseven centuries, is swallowed in a deeper sense of wonder. We turninstinctively in thought to Leopardi's musings on man's destiny at warwith unknown nature-forces and malignant rulers of the universe. 

 Omai disprezza Te, la natura, il brutto Poter che, ascoso, a comun danno impera, E l' infinita vanità del tutto. 

And then, straining our eyes southward, we sweep the dim blue distancefor Recanati, and remember that the poet of modern despair anddiscouragement was reared in even such a scene as this. 

The town of San Marino is grey, narrow-streeted, simple; with a great, new, decent, Greek-porticoed cathedral, dedicated to the eponymoussaint. A certain austerity defines it from more picturesquehill-cities with a less uniform history. There is a marble statue ofS. Marino in the choir of his church; and in his cell is shown thestone bed and pillow on which he took austere repose. One narrowwindow near the saint's abode commands a proud but melancholylandscape of distant hills and seaboard. To this, the great absorbingcharm of San Marino, our eyes instinctively, recurrently, takeflight. It is a landscape which by variety and beauty thrallsattention, but which by its interminable sameness might grow almostoverpowering. There is no relief. The gladness shed upon far humblerNorthern lands in May is ever absent here. The German word_Gemüthlichkeit_, the English phrase 'a home of ancient peace, ' arehere alike by art and nature untranslated into visibilities. And yet(as we who gaze upon it thus are fain to think) if peradventure theintolerable _ennui_ of this panorama should drive a citizen of SanMarino into out-lands, the same view would haunt him whithersoever hewent--the swallows of his native eyrie would shrill through hissleep--he would yearn to breathe its fine keen air in winter, and towatch its iris-hedges deck themselves with blue in spring;--likeVirgil's hero, dying, he would think of San Marino: _Aspicit, etdulces moriens reminiscitur Argos_. Even a passing stranger may feelthe mingled fascination and oppression of this prospect--the monotonywhich maddens, the charm which at a distance grows upon the mind, environing it with memories. 

Descending to the Borgo, we found that Filippo Visconti had ordered aluncheon of excellent white bread, pigeons, and omelette, with thebest red muscat wine I ever drank, unless the sharp air of the hillsdeceived my appetite. An Italian history of San Marino, including itsstatutes, in three volumes, furnished intellectual food. But I confessto having learned from these pages little else than this: first, thatthe survival of the Commonwealth through all phases of Europeanpolitics had been semi-miraculous; secondly, that the most eminent SanMarinesi had been lawyers. It is possible on a hasty deduction fromthese two propositions (to which, however, I am far from wishing tocommit myself), that the latter is a sufficient explanation of theformer. 

From San Marino the road plunges at a break-neck pace. We are now inthe true Feltrian highlands, whence the Counts of Montefeltro issuedin the twelfth century. Yonder eyrie is San Leo, which formed the keyof entrance to the duchy of Urbino in campaigns fought many hundredyears ago. Perched on the crest of a precipitous rock, this fortresslooks as though it might defy all enemies but famine. And yet San Leowas taken and re-taken by strategy and fraud, when Montefeltro, Borgia, Malatesta, Rovere, contended for dominion in these valleys. Yonder is Sta. Agata, the village to which Guidobaldo fled by nightwhen Valentino drove him from his dukedom. A little farther towersCarpegna, where one branch of the Montefeltro house maintained acountship through seven centuries, and only sold their fief to Rome in1815. Monte Coppiolo lies behind, Pietra Rubia in front: two othereagles' nests of the same brood. What a road it is!

It beats the tracks on Exmoor. The uphill and downhill of Devonshirescorns compromise or mitigation by _détour_ and zigzag. But heregeography is on a scale so far more vast, and the roadway is so farworse metalled than with us in England--knotty masses of talc andnodes of sandstone cropping up at dangerous turnings--that onlyDante's words describe the journey:--

 Vassi in Sanleo, e discendesi in Noli, Montasi su Bismantova in cacume Con esso i piè; ma qui convien ch' uom voli. 

Of a truth, our horses seemed rather to fly than scramble up and downthese rugged precipices; Visconti cheerily animating them with thebrave spirit that was in him, and lending them his wary driver's helpof hand and voice at need. 

We were soon upon a cornice-road between the mountains and theAdriatic: following the curves of gulch and cleft ravine; windinground ruined castles set on points of vantage; the sea-line highabove their grass-grown battlements, the shadow-dappled champaigngirdling their bastions mortised on the naked rock. Except for theblue lights across the distance, and the ever-present sea, theseearthy Apennines would be too grim. Infinite air and this spare veilof spring-tide greenery on field and forest soothe their sternness. Two rivers, swollen by late rains, had to be forded. Through one ofthese, the Foglia, bare-legged peasants led the way. The horses wadedto their bellies in the tawny water. Then more hills and vales; greennooks with rippling corn-crops; secular oaks attired in goldenleafage. The clear afternoon air rang with the voices of a thousandlarks overhead. The whole world seemed quivering with light anddelicate ethereal sound. And yet my mind turned irresistibly tothoughts of war, violence, and pillage. How often has thisintermediate land been fought over by Montefeltro and Brancaleoni, byBorgia and Malatesta, by Medici and Della Rovere! Its _contadini_ arerobust men, almost statuesque in build, and beautiful of feature. Nowonder that the Princes of Urbino, with such materials to draw from, sold their service and their troops to Florence, Rome, S. Mark, andMilan. The bearing of these peasants is still soldierly and proud. Yetthey are not sullen or forbidding like the Sicilians, whose habits oflife, for the rest, much resemble theirs. The villages, there as here, are few and far between, perched high on rocks, from which the folkdescend to till the ground and reap the harvest. But the southern_brusquerie_ and brutality are absent from this district. The men havesomething of the dignity and slow-eyed mildness of their own hugeoxen. As evening fell, more solemn Apennines upreared themselves tosouthward. The Monte d'Asdrubale, Monte Nerone, and Monte Catria hoveinto sight. At last, when light was dim, a tower rose above theneighbouring ridge, a broken outline of some city barred the sky-line. Urbino stood before us. Our long day's march was at an end. 

The sunset was almost spent, and a four days' moon hung above thewestern Apennines, when we took our first view of the palace. It is afancy-thralling work of wonder seen in that dim twilight; like somecastle reared by Atlante's magic for imprisonment of Ruggiero, orpalace sought in fairyland by Astolf winding his enchanted horn. Whereshall we find its like, combining, as it does, the buttressedbattlemented bulk of mediæval strongholds with the airy balconies, suspended gardens, and fantastic turrets of Italian pleasure-houses?This unique blending of the feudal past with the Renaissance spirit ofthe time when it was built, connects it with the art of Ariosto--ormore exactly with Boiardo's epic. Duke Federigo planned his palace atUrbino just at the moment when the Count of Scandiano had began tochaunt his lays of Roland in the Castle of Ferrara. Chivalry, transmuted by the Italian genius into something fanciful and quaint, survived as a frail work of art. The men-at-arms of the Condottieristill glittered in gilded hauberks. Their helmets waved with plumesand bizarre crests. Their surcoats blazed with heraldries; theirvelvet caps with medals bearing legendary emblems. The pomp andcircumstance of feudal war had not yet yielded to the cannon of theGascon or the Switzer's pike. The fatal age of foreign invasions hadnot begun for Italy. Within a few years Charles VIII. 's holidayexcursion would reveal the internal rottenness and weakness of herrival states, and the peninsula for half a century to come would bedrenched in the blood of Frenchmen, Germans, Spaniards, fighting forher cities as their prey. But now Lorenzo de' Medici was still alive. The famous policy which bears his name held Italy suspended for agolden time in false tranquillity and independence. The princes whoshared his culture and his love of art were gradually passing intomodern noblemen, abandoning the savage feuds and passions of morevirile centuries, yielding to luxury and scholarly enjoyments. Thecastles were becoming courts, and despotisms won by force weresettling into dynasties. 

It was just at this epoch that Duke Federigo built his castle atUrbino. One of the ablest and wealthiest Condottieri of his time, oneof the best instructed and humanest of Italian princes, he combined inhimself the qualities which mark that period of transition. And thesehe impressed upon his dwelling-house, which looks backward to themediæval fortalice and forward to the modern palace. This makes it thejust embodiment in architecture of Italian romance, the perfectanalogue of the 'Orlando Innamorato. ' By comparing it with the castleof the Estes at Ferrara and the Palazzo del Te of the Gonzagas atMantua, we place it in its right position between mediæval andRenaissance Italy, between the age when principalities arose upon theruins of commercial independence and the age when they became dynasticunder Spain. 

The exigencies of the ground at his disposal forced Federigo to givethe building an irregular outline. The fine façade, with its embayed_loggie_ and flanking turrets, is placed too close upon the cityramparts for its due effect. We are obliged to cross the deep ravinewhich separates it from a lower quarter of the town, and take ourstation near the Oratory of S. Giovanni Battista, before we canappreciate the beauty of its design, or the boldness of the group itforms with the cathedral dome and tower and the square masses ofnumerous out-buildings. Yet this peculiar position of the palace, though baffling to a close observer of its details, is one of singularadvantage to the inhabitants. Set on the verge of Urbino's toweringeminence, it fronts a wave-tossed sea of vales and mountain summitstoward the rising and the setting sun. There is nothing butillimitable air between the terraces and loggias of the Duchess'sapartments and the spreading pyramid of Monte Catria. 

A nobler scene is nowhere swept from palace windows than this, whichCastiglione touched in a memorable passage at the end of his'Cortegiano. ' To one who in our day visits Urbino, it is singular howthe slight indications of this sketch, as in some silhouette, bringback the antique life, and link the present with the past--a hint, perhaps, for reticence in our descriptions. The gentlemen and ladiesof the court had spent a summer night in long debate on love, risingto the height of mystical Platonic rapture on the lips of Bembo, whenone of them exclaimed, 'The day has broken!' 'He pointed to the lightwhich was beginning to enter by the fissures of the windows. Whereuponwe flung the casements wide upon that side of the palace which lookstoward the high peak of Monte Catria, and saw that a fair dawn of rosyhue was born already in the eastern skies, and all the stars hadvanished except the sweet regent of the heaven of Venus, who holds theborderlands of day and night; and from her sphere it seemed as thougha gentle wind were breathing, filling the air with eager freshness, and waking among the numerous woods upon the neighbouring hills thesweet-toned symphonies of joyous birds. '

II

The House of Montefeltro rose into importance early in the twelfthcentury. Frederick Barbarossa erected their fief into a county in1160. Supported by imperial favour, they began to exercise anundefined authority over the district, which they afterwards convertedinto a duchy. But, though Ghibelline for several generations, theMontefeltri were too near neighbours of the Papal power to freethemselves from ecclesiastical vassalage. Therefore in 1216 theysought and obtained the title of Vicars of the Church. Urbinoacknowledged them as semi-despots in their double capacity of Imperialand Papal deputies. Cagli and Gubbio followed in the fourteenthcentury. In the fifteenth, Castel Durante was acquired from theBrancaleoni by warfare, and Fossombrone from the Malatestas bypurchase. Numerous fiefs and villages fell into their hands upon theborders of Rimini in the course of a continued struggle with the Houseof Malatesta: and when Fano and Pesaro were added at the opening ofthe sixteenth century, the domain over which they ruled was a compactterritory, some forty miles square, between the Adriatic and theApennines. From the close of the thirteenth century they bore thetitle of Counts of Urbino. The famous Conte Guido, whom Dante placedamong the fraudulent in hell, supported the honours of the house andincreased its power by his political action, at this epoch. But it wasnot until the year 1443 that the Montefeltri acquired their ducaltitle. This was conferred by Eugenius IV. Upon Oddantonio, over whosealleged crimes and indubitable assassination a veil of mystery stillhangs. He was the son of Count Guidantonio, and at his death theMontefeltri of Urbino were extinct in the legitimate line. A naturalson of Guidantonio had been, however, recognised in his father'slifetime, and married to Gentile, heiress of Mercatello. This wasFederigo, a youth of great promise, who succeeded his half-brother in1444 as Count of Urbino. It was not until 1474 that the ducal titlewas revived for him. 

Duke Frederick was a prince remarkable among Italian despots forprivate virtues and sober use of his hereditary power. He spent hisyouth at Mantua, in that famous school of Vittorino da Feltre, wherethe sons and daughters of the first Italian nobility received a modeleducation in humanities, good manners, and gentle physicalaccomplishments. More than any of his fellow-students Frederickprofited by this rare scholar's discipline. On leaving school headopted the profession of arms, as it was then practised, and joinedthe troop of the Condottiere Niccolò Piccinino. Young men of his ownrank, especially the younger sons and bastards of ruling families, sought military service under captains of adventure. If theysucceeded they were sure to make money. The coffers of the Church andthe republics lay open to their not too scrupulous hands; the wealthof Milan and Naples was squandered on them in retaining-fees andsalaries for active service. There was always the further possibilityof placing a coronet upon their brows before they died, if haply theyshould wrest a town from their employers, or obtain the cession of aprovince from a needy Pope. The neighbours of the Montefeltri inUmbria, Romagna, and the Marches of Ancona were all of themCondottieri. Malatestas of Rimini and Pesaro, Vitelli of Città diCastello, Varani of Camerino, Baglioni of Perugia, to mention only afew of the most eminent nobles, enrolled themselves under the bannersof plebeian adventurers like Piccinino and Sforza Attendolo. Thoughtheir family connections gave them a certain advantage, the system wasessentially democratic. Gattamelata and Carmagnola sprang fromobscurity by personal address and courage to the command of armies. Colleoni fought his way up from the grooms to princely station and the_bâton_ of S. Mark. Francesco Sforza, whose father had begun life as atiller of the soil, seized the ducal crown of Milan, and founded ahouse which ranked among the first in Europe. 

It is not needful to follow Duke Frederick in his military career. Wemay briefly remark that when he succeeded to Urbino by his brother'sdeath in 1444, he undertook generalship on a grand scale. His owndominions supplied him with some of the best troops in Italy. He wascareful to secure the goodwill of his subjects by attending personallyto their interests, relieving them of imposts, and executing equaljustice. He gained the then unique reputation of an honest prince, paternally disposed toward his dependents. Men flocked to hisstandards willingly, and he was able to bring an important contingentinto any army. These advantages secured for him alliances withFrancesco Sforza, and brought him successively into connection withMilan, Venice, Florence, the Church of Naples. As a tactician in thefield he held high rank among the generals of the age, and soconsiderable were his engagements that he acquired great wealth in theexercise of his profession. We find him at one time receiving 8000ducats a month as war-pay from Naples, with a peace pension of 6000. While Captain-General of the League, he drew for his own use in war45, 000 ducats of annual pay. Retaining-fees and pensions in the nameof past services swelled his income, the exact extent of which hasnot, so far as I am aware, been estimated, but which must have madehim one of the richest of Italian princes. All this wealth he spentupon his duchy, fortifying and beautifying its cities, drawing youthsof promise to his court, maintaining a great train of life, andkeeping his vassals in good-humour by the lightness of a rule whichcontrasted favourably with the exactions of needier despots. 

While fighting for the masters who offered him _condotta_ in thecomplicated wars of Italy, Duke Frederick used his arms, when occasionserved, in his own quarrels. Many years of his life were spent in aprolonged struggle with his neighbour Sigismondo Pandolfo Malatesta, the bizarre and brilliant tyrant of Rimini, who committed the fatalerror of embroiling himself beyond all hope of pardon with the Church, and who died discomfited in the duel with his warier antagonist. Urbino profited by each mistake of Sigismondo, and the history of thislong desultory strife with Rimini is a history of gradualaggrandisement and consolidation for the Montefeltrian duchy. 

In 1459 Duke Frederick married his second wife, Battista, daughter ofAlessandro Sforza, Lord of Pesaro. Their portraits, painted by Pierodella Francesca, are to be seen in the Uffizzi at Florence. Some yearsearlier, Frederick lost his right eye and had the bridge of his nosebroken in a jousting match outside the town-gate of Urbino. After thisaccident, he preferred to be represented in profile--the profile sowell known to students of Italian art on medals and basreliefs. It wasnot without medical aid and vows fulfilled by a mother'sself-sacrifice to death, if we may trust the diarists of Urbino, thatthe ducal couple got an heir. In 1472, however, a son was born tothem, whom they christened Guido Paolo Ubaldo. He proved a youth ofexcellent parts and noble nature--apt at study, perfect in allchivalrous accomplishments. But he inherited some fatal physicaldebility, and his life was marred with a constitutional disease, whichthen received the name of gout, and which deprived him of the free useof his limbs. After his father's death in 1482, Naples, Florence, andMilan continued Frederick's war engagements to Guidobaldo. The princewas but a boy of ten. Therefore these important _condotte_ must beregarded as compliments and pledges for the future. They prove to whata pitch Duke Frederick had raised the credit of his state and warestablishment. Seven years later, Guidobaldo married Elisabetta, daughter of Francesco Gonzaga, Marquis of Mantua. This union, though ahappy one, was never blessed with children; and in the certainty ofbarrenness, the young Duke thought it prudent to adopt a nephew asheir to his dominions. He had several sisters, one of whom, Giovanna, had been married to a nephew of Sixtus IV. , Giovanni della Rovere, Lord of Sinigaglia and Prefect of Rome. They had a son, FrancescoMaria, who, after his adoption by Guidobaldo, spent his boyhood atUrbino. 

The last years of the fifteenth century were marked by the sudden riseof Cesare Borgia to a power which threatened the liberties of Italy. Acting as General for the Church, he carried his arms against thepetty tyrants of Romagna, whom he dispossessed and extirpated. Hisnext move was upon Camerino and Urbino. He first acquired Camerino, having lulled Guidobaldo into false security by treacherousprofessions of goodwill. Suddenly the Duke received intelligence thatthe Borgia was marching on him over Cagli. This was in the middle ofJune 1502. It is difficult to comprehend the state of weakness inwhich Guidobaldo was surprised, or the panic which then seized him. Hemade no efforts to rouse his subjects to resistance, but fled by nightwith his nephew through rough mountain roads, leaving his capital andpalace to the marauder. Cesare Borgia took possession without strikinga blow, and removed the treasures of Urbino to the Vatican. Hisoccupation of the duchy was not undisturbed, however; for the peoplerose in several places against him, proving that Guidobaldo hadyielded too hastily to alarm. By this time the fugitive was safe inMantua, whence he returned, and for a short time succeeded inestablishing himself again at Urbino. But he could not hold his ownagainst the Borgias, and in December, by a treaty, he resigned hisclaims and retired to Venice, where he lived upon the bounty of S. Mark. It must be said, in justice to the Duke, that his constitutionaldebility rendered him unfit for active operations in the field. Perhaps he could not have done better than thus to bend beneath thestorm. 

The sudden death of Alexander VI. And the election of a Della Rovereto the Papacy in 1503 changed Guidobaldo's prospects. Julius II. Wasthe sworn foe of the Borgias and the close kinsman of Urbino's heir. It was therefore easy for the Duke to walk into his empty palace onthe hill, and to reinstate himself in the domains from which he had sorecently been ousted. The rest of his life was spent in the retirementof his court, surrounded with the finest scholars and the noblestgentlemen of Italy. The ill-health which debarred him from the activepleasures and employments of his station, was borne with uniformsweetness of temper and philosophy. 

When he died, in 1508, his nephew, Francesco Maria della Rovere, succeeded to the duchy, and once more made the palace of Urbino theresort of men-at-arms and captains. He was a prince of very violenttemper: of its extravagance history has recorded three remarkableexamples. He murdered the Cardinal of Pavia with his own hand in thestreets of Ravenna; stabbed a lover of his sister to death at Urbino;and in a council of war knocked Francesco Guicciardini down with ablow of his fist. When the history of Italy came to be written, Guicciardini was probably mindful of that insult, for he paintedFrancesco Maria's character and conduct in dark colours. At the sametime this Duke of Urbino passed for one of the first generals of theage. The greatest stain upon his memory is his behaviour in the year1527, when, by dilatory conduct of the campaign in Lombardy, hesuffered the passage of Frundsberg's army unopposed, and afterwardshesitated to relieve Rome from the horrors of the sack. He was thelast Italian Condottiere of the antique type; and the vices whichMachiavelli exposed in that bad system of mercenary warfare wereillustrated on these occasions. During his lifetime, the conditions ofItaly were so changed by Charles V. 's imperial settlement in 1530, that the occupation of Condottiere ceased to have any meaning. Strozziand Farnesi, who afterwards followed this profession, enlisted in theranks of France or Spain, and won their laurels in Northern Europe. 

While Leo X. Held the Papal chair, the duchy of Urbino was for a whilewrested from the house of Della Rovere, and conferred upon Lorenzo de'Medici. Francesco Maria made a better fight for his heritage thanGuidobaldo had done. Yet he could not successfully resist the power ofRome. The Pope was ready to spend enormous sums of money on this pettywar; the Duke's purse was shorter, and the mercenary troops he wasobliged to use, proved worthless in the field. Spaniards, for themost part, pitted against Spaniards, they suffered the campaigns todegenerate into a guerilla warfare of pillage and reprisals. In 1517the duchy was formally ceded to Lorenzo. But this Medici did not livelong to enjoy it, and his only child Catherine, the future Queen ofFrance, never exercised the rights which had devolved upon her byinheritance. The shifting scene of Italy beheld Francesco Mariareinstated in Urbino after Leo's death in 1522. 

This Duke married Leonora Gonzaga, a princess of the House of Mantua. Their portraits, painted by Titian, adorn the Venetian room of theUffizzi. Of their son, Guidobaldo II. , little need be said. He wastwice married, first to Giulia Varano, Duchess by inheritance ofCamerino; secondly, to Vittoria Farnese, daughter of the Duke ofParma. Guidobaldo spent a lifetime in petty quarrels with hissubjects, whom he treated badly, attempting to draw from their pocketsthe wealth which his father and the Montefeltri had won in militaryservice. He intervened at an awkward period of Italian politics. Theold Italy of despots, commonwealths, and Condottieri, in which hispredecessors played substantial parts, was at an end. The new Italy ofPopes and Austro-Spanish dynasties had hardly settled into shape. Between these epochs, Guidobaldo II. , of whom we have a dim and hazypresentation on the page of history, seems somehow to have fallenflat. As a sign of altered circumstances, he removed his court toPesaro, and built the great palace of the Della Roveres upon thepublic square. 

Guidobaldaccio, as he was called, died in 1574, leaving an only son, Francesco Maria II. , whose life and character illustrate the new agewhich had begun for Italy. He was educated in Spain at the court ofPhilip II. , where he spent more than two years. When he returned, hisSpanish haughtiness, punctilious attention to etiquette, andsuperstitious piety attracted observation. The violent temper of theDella Roveres, which Francesco Maria I. Displayed in acts ofhomicide, and which had helped to win his bad name for Guidobaldaccio, took the form of sullenness in the last Duke. The finest episode inhis life was the part he played in the battle of Lepanto, under hisold comrade, Don John of Austria. His father forced him to anuncongenial marriage with Lucrezia d'Este, Princess of Ferrara. Sheleft him, and took refuge in her native city, then honoured by thepresence of Tasso and Guarini. He bore her departure withphilosophical composure, recording the event in his diary as somethingto be dryly grateful for. Left alone, the Duke abandoned himself tosolitude, religious exercises, hunting, and the economy of hisimpoverished dominions. He became that curious creature, a man ofnarrow nature and mediocre capacity, who, dedicated to the cult ofself, is fain to pass for saint and sage in easy circumstances. Hemarried, for the second time, a lady, Livia della Rovere, who belongedto his own family, but had been born in private station. She broughthim one son, the Prince Federigo-Ubaldo. This youth might havesustained the ducal honours of Urbino, but for his sage-saint father'swant of wisdom. The boy was a spoiled child in infancy. Inflated withSpanish vanity from the cradle, taught to regard his subjects asdependents on a despot's will, abandoned to the caprices of his ownungovernable temper, without substantial aid from the paternal pietyor stoicism, he rapidly became a most intolerable princeling. Hisfather married him, while yet a boy, to Claudia de' Medici, andvirtually abdicated in his favour. Left to his own devices, Federigochose companions from the troupes of players whom he drew from Venice. He filled his palaces with harlots, and degraded himself upon thestage in parts of mean buffoonery. The resources of the duchy wereracked to support these parasites. Spanish rules of etiquette andceremony were outraged by their orgies. His bride brought him onedaughter, Vittoria, who afterwards became the wife of Ferdinand, GrandDuke of Tuscany. Then in the midst of his low dissipation andoffences against ducal dignity, he died of apoplexy at the early ageof eighteen--the victim, in the severe judgment of history, of hisfather's selfishness and want of practical ability. 

This happened in 1623. Francesco Maria was stunned by the blow. Hiswithdrawal from the duties of the sovereignty in favour of such a sonhad proved a constitutional unfitness for the duties of his station. The life he loved was one of seclusion in a round of pious exercises, petty studies, peddling economies, and mechanical amusements. Apowerful and grasping Pope was on the throne of Rome. Urban at thisjuncture pressed Francesco Maria hard; and in 1624 the last Duke ofUrbino devolved his lordships to the Holy See. He survived the formalact of abdication seven years; when he died, the Pontiff added hisduchy to the Papal States, which thenceforth stretched from Naples tothe bounds of Venice on the Po. 

III

Duke Frederick began the palace at Urbino in 1454, when he was stillonly Count. The architect was Luziano of Lauranna, a Dalmatian; andthe beautiful white limestone, hard as marble, used in theconstruction, was brought from the Dalmatian coast. This stone, likethe Istrian stone of Venetian buildings, takes and retains the chiselmark with wonderful precision. It looks as though, when fresh, it musthave had the pliancy of clay, so delicately are the finest curves inscroll or foliage scooped from its substance. And yet it preserveseach cusp and angle of the most elaborate pattern with the crispnessand the sharpness of a crystal. 

When wrought by a clever craftsman, its surface has neither thewaxiness of Parian, nor the brittle edge of Carrara marble; and itresists weather better than marble of the choicest quality. This maybe observed in many monuments of Venice, where the stone has been longexposed to sea-air. These qualities of the Dalmatian limestone, noless than its agreeable creamy hue and smooth dull polish, adapt it todecoration in low relief. The most attractive details in the palace atUrbino are friezes carved of this material in choice designs of earlyRenaissance dignity and grace. One chimney-piece in the Sala degliAngeli deserves especial comment. A frieze of dancing Cupids, withgilt hair and wings, their naked bodies left white on a ground ofultramarine, is supported by broad flat pilasters. These are engravedwith children holding pots of flowers; roses on one side, carnationson the other. Above the frieze another pair of angels, one at eachend, hold lighted torches; and the pyramidal cap of the chimney iscarved with two more, flying, and supporting the eagle of theMontefeltri on a raised medallion. Throughout the palace we noticeemblems appropriate to the Houses of Montefeltro and Della Rovere:their arms, three golden bends upon a field of azure: the Imperialeagle, granted when Montefeltro was made a fief of the Empire: theGarter of England, worn by the Dukes Federigo and Guidobaldo: theermine of Naples: the _ventosa_, or cupping-glass, adopted for aprivate badge by Frederick: the golden oak-tree on an azure field ofDella Rovere: the palm-tree, bent beneath a block of stone, with itsaccompanying motto, _Inclinata Resurgam_: the cipher, FE DX. Profilemedallions of Federigo and Guidobaldo, wrought in the lowest possiblerelief, adorn the staircases. Round the great courtyard runs a friezeof military engines and ensigns, trophies, machines, and implements ofwar, alluding to Duke Frederick's profession of Condottiere. Thedoorways are enriched with scrolls of heavy-headed flowers, acanthusfoliage, honeysuckles, ivy-berries, birds and boys and sphinxes, inall the riot of Renaissance fancy. 

This profusion of sculptured _rilievo_ is nearly all that remains toshow how rich the palace was in things of beauty. Castiglione, writingin the reign of Guidobaldo, says that 'in the opinion of many it isthe fairest to be found in Italy; and the Duke filled it so well withall things fitting its magnificence, that it seemed less like a palacethan a city. Not only did he collect articles of common use, vesselsof silver, and trappings for chambers of rare cloths of gold and silk, and suchlike furniture, but he added multitudes of bronze and marblestatues, exquisite pictures, and instruments of music of all sorts. There was nothing but was of the finest and most excellent quality tobe seen there. Moreover, he gathered together at a vast cost a largenumber of the best and rarest books in Greek, Latin, and Hebrew, allof which he adorned with gold and silver, esteeming them the chiefesttreasure of his spacious palace. ' When Cesare Borgia entered Urbino asconqueror in 1502, he is said to have carried off loot to the value of150, 000 ducats, or perhaps about a quarter of a million sterling. Vespasiano, the Florentine bookseller, has left us a minute account ofthe formation of the famous library of manuscripts, which he valued atconsiderably over 30, 000 ducats. Yet wandering now through thesedeserted halls, we seek in vain for furniture or tapestry or works ofart. The books have been removed to Rome. The pictures are gone, noman knows whither. The plate has long been melted down. Theinstruments of music are broken. If frescoes adorned the corridors, they have been whitewashed; the ladies' chambers have been stripped oftheir rich arras. Only here and there we find a raftered ceiling, painted in fading colours, which, taken with the stonework of thechimney, and some fragments of inlaid panel-work on door or window, enables us to reconstruct the former richness of these princely rooms. 

Exception must be made in favour of two apartments between the towersupon the southern facade. These were apparently the private rooms ofthe Duke and Duchess, and they are still approached by a great windingstaircase in one of the _torricini_. Adorned in indestructible orirremovable materials, they retain some traces of their ancientsplendour. On the first floor, opening on the vaulted loggia, we finda little chapel encrusted with lovely work in stucco and marble;friezes of bulls, sphinxes, sea-horses, and foliage; with a low reliefof Madonna and Child in the manner of Mino da Fiesole. Close by is asmall study with inscriptions to the Muses and Apollo. The cabinetconnecting these two cells has a Latin legend, to say that Religionhere dwells near the temple of the liberal arts:

 Bina vides parvo discrimine juncta sacella, Altera pars Musis altera sacra Deo est. 

On the floor above, corresponding in position to this apartment, is asecond, of even greater interest, since it was arranged by the DukeFrederick for his own retreat. The study is panelled in tarsia ofbeautiful design and execution. Three of the larger compartments showFaith, Hope, and Charity; figures not unworthy of a Botticelli or aFilippino Lippi. The occupations of the Duke are represented on asmaller scale by armour, _bâtons_ of command, scientific instruments, lutes, viols, and books, some open and some shut. The Bible, Homer, Virgil, Seneca, Tacitus, and Cicero, are lettered; apparently toindicate his favourite authors. The Duke himself, arrayed in his staterobes, occupies a fourth great panel; and the whole of this elaboratecomposition is harmonised by emblems, badges, and occasional devicesof birds, articles of furniture, and so forth. The tarsia, or inlaidwood of different kinds and colours, is among the best in this kind ofart to be found in Italy, though perhaps it hardly deserves to rankwith the celebrated choir-stalls of Bergamo and Monte Oliveto. Hard byis a chapel, adorned, like the lower one, with excellent reliefs. Theloggia to which these rooms have access looks across the Apennines, and down on what was once a private garden. It is now enclosed andpaved for the exercise of prisoners who are confined in one part ofthe desecrated palace!

A portion of the pile is devoted to more worthy purposes; for theAcademy of Raphael here holds its sittings, and preserves a collectionof curiosities and books illustrative of the great painter's life andworks. They have recently placed in a tiny oratory, scooped byGuidobaldo II. From the thickness of the wall, a cast of Raphael'sskull, which will be studied with interest and veneration. It has thefineness of modelling combined with shapeliness of form and smallnessof scale which is said to have characterised Mozart and Shelley. 

The impression left upon the mind after traversing this palace in itslength and breadth is one of weariness and disappointment. How shallwe reconstruct the long-past life which filled its rooms with sound, the splendour of its pageants, the thrill of tragedies enacted here?It is not difficult to crowd its doors and vacant spaces with liveriedservants, slim pages in tight hose, whose well-combed hair escapesfrom tiny caps upon their silken shoulders. We may even replace thetapestries of Troy which hung one hall, and build again the sideboardswith their embossed gilded plate. But are these chambers really thosewhere Emilia Pia held debate on love with Bembo and Castiglione; whereBibbiena's witticisms and Fra Serafino's pranks raised smiles oncourtly lips; where Bernardo Accolti, 'the Unique, ' declaimed hisverses to applauding crowds? Is it possible that into yonder hall, where now the lion of S. Mark looks down alone on staring desolation, strode the Borgia in all his panoply of war, a gilded glitteringdragon, and from the dais tore the Montefeltri's throne, and from thearras stripped their ensigns, replacing these with his own Bull andValentinus Dux? Here Tasso tuned his lyre for Francesco Maria'swedding-feast, and read 'Aminta' to Lucrezia d'Este. Here Guidobaldolistened to the jests and whispered scandals of the Aretine. HereTitian set his easel up to paint; here the boy Raphael, cap in hand, took signed and sealed credentials from his Duchess to the Gonfalonierof Florence. Somewhere in these huge chambers, the courtiers satbefore a torch-lit stage, when Bibbiena's 'Calandria' andCaetiglione's 'Tirsi, ' with their miracles of masques and mummers, whiled the night away. Somewhere, we know not where, Giuliano de'Medici made love in these bare rooms to that mysterious mother ofill-fated Cardinal Ippolito; somewhere, in some darker nook, thebastard Alessandro sprang to his strange-fortuned life of tyranny andlicense, which Brutus-Lorenzino cut short with a traitor'spoignard-thrust in Via Larga. How many men, illustrious for arts andletters, memorable by their virtues or their crimes, have trod thesesilent corridors, from the great Pope Julius down to James III. , self-titled King of England, who tarried here with Clementina Sobieskithrough some twelve months of his ex-royal exile! The memories of allthis folk, flown guests and masters of the still-abidingpalace-chambers, haunt us as we hurry through. They are but filmyshadows. We cannot grasp them, localise them, people surroundingemptiness with more than withering cobweb forms. 

Death takes a stronger hold on us than bygone life. Therefore, returning to the vast Throne-room, we animate it with one scene itwitnessed on an April night in 1508. Duke Guidobaldo had died atFossombrone, repeating to his friends around his bed these lines ofVirgil:

 Me circum limus niger et deformis arundo Cocyti tardaque palus inamabilis unda Alligat, et novies Styx interfusa coercet. 

His body had been carried on the shoulders of servants through thosemountain ways at night, amid the lamentations of gathering multitudesand the baying of dogs from hill-set farms alarmed by flaringflambeaux. Now it is laid in state in the great hall. The dais and thethrone are draped in black. The arms and _bâtons_ of his father hangabout the doorways. His own ensigns are displayed in groups andtrophies, with the banners of S. Mark, the Montefeltrian eagle, andthe cross keys of S. Peter. The hall itself is vacant, save for thehigh-reared catafalque of sable velvet and gold damask, surroundedwith wax candles burning steadily. Round it passes a ceaseless streamof people, coming and going, gazing at their Duke. He is attired incrimson hose and doublet of black damask. Black velvet slippers are onhis feet, and his ducal cap is of black velvet. The mantle of theGarter, made of dark-blue Alexandrine velvet, hooded with crimson, lined with white silk damask, and embroidered with the badge, drapesthe stiff sleeping form. 

It is easier to conjure up the past of this great palace, strollinground it in free air and twilight; perhaps because the landscape andthe life still moving on the city streets bring its exterior intoharmony with real existence. The southern façade, with its vaultedbalconies and flanking towers, takes the fancy, fascinates the eye, and lends itself as a fit stage for puppets of the musing mind. Oncemore imagination plants trim orange-trees in giant jars of Gubbio wareupon the pavement where the garden of the Duchess lay--the pavementpaced in these bad days by convicts in grey canvas jackets--thatpavement where Monsignor Bombo courted 'dear dead women' withPlatonic phrase, smothering the Menta of his natural man in lettuceculled from Academe and thyme of Mount Hymettus. In yonder loggia, lifted above the garden and the court, two lovers are in earnestconverse. They lean beneath the coffered arch, against the marble ofthe balustrade, he fingering his dagger under the dark velvet doublet, she playing with a clove carnation, deep as her own shame. The man isGiannandrea, broad-shouldered bravo of Verona, Duke Guidobaldo'sfavourite and carpet-count. The lady is Madonna Maria, daughter ofRome's Prefect, widow of Venanzio Varano, whom the Borgia strangled. On their discourse a tale will hang of woman's frailty and man'sboldness--Camerino's Duchess yielding to a low-born suitor's stalwartcharms. And more will follow, when that lady's brother, furiousFrancesco Maria della Rovere, shall stab the bravo in torch-littenpalace rooms with twenty poignard strokes 'twixt waist and throat, andtheir Pandarus shall be sent down to his account by a varlet's_coltellata_ through the midriff. Imagination shifts the scene, andshows in that same loggia Rome's warlike Pope, attended by hiscardinals and all Urbino's chivalry. The snowy beard of Julius flowsdown upon his breast, where jewels clasp the crimson mantle, as inRaphael's picture. His eyes are bright with wine; for he has come togaze on sunset from the banquet-chamber, and to watch the line oflamps which soon will leap along that palace cornice in his honour. Behind him lies Bologna humbled. The Pope returns, a conqueror, toRome. Yet once again imagination is at work. A gaunt, bald man, close-habited in Spanish black, his spare, fine features carved inpurest ivory, leans from that balcony. Gazing with hollow eyes, hetracks the swallows in their flight, and notes that winter is at hand. This is the last Duke of Urbino, Francesco Maria II. , he whose youngwife deserted him, who made for himself alone a hermit-pedant's roundof petty cares and niggard avarice and mean-brained superstition. Hedrew a second consort from the convent, and raised up seed unto hisline by forethought, but beheld his princeling fade untimely in thebloom of boyhood. Nothing is left but solitude. To the mortmain of theChurch reverts Urbino's lordship, and even now he meditates the termsof devolution. Jesuits cluster in the rooms behind, with comfort forthe ducal soul and calculations for the interests of Holy See. 

A farewell to these memories of Urbino's dukedom should be taken inthe crypt of the cathedral, where Francesco Maria II. , the last Duke, buried his only son and all his temporal hopes. The place is scarcelysolemn. Its dreary _barocco_ emblems mar the dignity of death. A bulky_Pietà_ by Gian Bologna, with Madonna's face unfinished, towers up andcrowds the narrow cell. Religion has evanished from this lateRenaissance art, nor has the afterglow of Guido Reni's hectic pietyyet overflushed it. Chilled by the stifling humid sense of an extinctrace here entombed in its last representative, we gladly emerge fromthe sepulchral vault into the air of day. 

Filippo Visconti, with a smile on his handsome face, is waiting for usat the inn. His horses, sleek, well fed, and rested, toss their headsimpatiently. We take our seats in the carriage, open wide beneath asparkling sky, whirl past the palace and its ghost-like recollections, and are halfway on the road to Fossombrone in a cloud of dust andwhirr of wheels before we think of looking back to greet Urbino. Thereis just time. The last decisive turning lies in front. We standbareheaded to salute the grey mass of buildings ridged along the sky. Then the open road invites us with its varied scenery and movement. From the shadowy past we drive into the world of human things, forever changefully unchanged, unrestfully the same. This interchangebetween dead memories and present life is the delight of travel. 

 * * * * *

_VITTORIA ACCORAMBONI_

AND THE TRAGEDY OF WEBSTER

I

During the pontificate of Gregory XIII. (1572-85), Papal authority inRome reached its lowest point of weakness, and the ancient splendourof the Papal court was well-nigh eclipsed. Art and learning had diedout. The traditions of the days of Leo, Julius, and Paul III. Wereforgotten. It seemed as though the genius of the Renaissance hadmigrated across the Alps. All the powers of the Papacy were directedto the suppression of heresies and to the re-establishment ofspiritual supremacy over the intellect of Europe. Meanwhile society inRome returned to mediæval barbarism. The veneer of classicalrefinement and humanistic urbanity, which for a time had hidden thenatural savagery of the Roman nobles, wore away. The Holy City becamea den of bandits; the territory of the Church supplied a battle-groundfor senseless party strife, which the weak old man who wore the triplecrown was quite unable to control. It is related how a robberchieftain, Marianazzo, refused the offer of a general pardon from thePope, alleging that the profession of brigand was far more lucrative, and offered greater security of life, than any trade within the wallsof Rome. The Campagna, the ruined citadels about the basements of theSabine and Ciminian hills, the quarters of the aristocracy within thecity, swarmed with bravos, who were protected by great nobles and fedby decent citizens for the advantages to be derived from theassistance of abandoned and courageous ruffians. Life, indeed, hadbecome impossible without fixed compact with the powers oflawlessness. There was hardly a family in Rome which did not numbersome notorious criminal among the outlaws. Murder, sacrilege, the loveof adventure, thirst for plunder, poverty, hostility to the ascendantfaction of the moment, were common causes of voluntary or involuntaryoutlawry; nor did public opinion regard a bandit's calling as otherthan honourable. 

It may readily be imagined that in such a state of society thegrisliest tragedies were common enough in Rome. The history of some ofthese has been preserved to us in documents digested from publictrials and personal observation by contemporary writers. That of theCenci, in which a notorious act of parricide furnished the plot of apopular novella, is well known. And such a tragedy, even more rife incharacteristic incidents, and more distinguished by the quality of its_dramatis personæ_, is that of Vittoria Accoramboni. 

Vittoria was born in 1557, of a noble but impoverished family, atGubbio, among the hills of Umbria. Her biographers are rapturous intheir praises of her beauty, grace, and exceeding charm of manner. Notonly was her person most lovely, but her mind shone at first with allthe amiable lustre of a modest, innocent, and winning youth. Herfather, Claudio Accoramboni, removed to Rome, where his numerouschildren were brought up under the care of their mother, Tarquinia, anambitious and unscrupulous woman, bent on rehabilitating the decayedhonours of their house. Here Vittoria in early girlhood soon becamethe fashion. She exercised an irresistible influence over all who sawher, and many were the offers of marriage she refused. At length asuitor appeared whose condition and connection with the Romanecclesiastical nobility rendered him acceptable in the eyes of theAccoramboni. Francesco Peretti was welcomed as the successfulcandidate for Vittoria's hand. His mother, Camilla, was sister toFelice, Cardinal of Montalto; and her son, Francesco Mignucci, hadchanged his surname in compliment to this illustrious relative. ThePeretti were of humble origin. The cardinal himself had tended swinein his native village; but, supported by an invincible belief in hisown destinies, and gifted with a powerful intellect and determinedcharacter, he passed through all grades of the Franciscan Order to itsgeneralship, received the bishoprics of Fermo and S. Agata, andlastly, in the year 1570, assumed the scarlet with the title ofCardinal Montalto. He was now upon the high way to the Papacy, amassing money by incessant care, studying the humours of surroundingfactions, effacing his own personality, and by mixing but little inthe intrigues of the court, winning the reputation of a prudent, inoffensive old man. These were his tactics for securing the Papalthrone; nor were his expectations frustrated; for in 1585 he waschosen Pope, the parties of the Medici and the Farnesi agreeing toaccept him as a compromise. When Sixtus V. Was once firmly seated onS. Peter's chair, he showed himself in his true colours. An implacableadministrator of severest justice, a rigorous economist, aniconoclastic foe to paganism, the first act of his reign was todeclare a war of extirpation against the bandits who had reduced Romein his predecessor's rule to anarchy. 

It was the nephew, then, of this man, whom historians have judged thegreatest personage of his own times, that Vittoria Accoramboni marriedon the 28th of June 1573. For a short while the young couple livedhappily together. According to some accounts of their married life, the bride secured the favour of her powerful uncle-in-law, whoindulged her costly fancies to the full. It is, however, more probablethat the Cardinal Montalto treated her follies with a grudgingparsimony; for we soon find the Peretti household hopelessly involvedin debt. Discord, too, arose between Vittoria and her husband on thescore of a certain levity in her behaviour; and it was rumoured thateven during the brief space of their union she had proved a faithlesswife. Yet she contrived to keep Francesco's confidence, and it iscertain that her family profited by their connection with the Peretti. Of her six brothers, Mario, the eldest, was a favourite courtier ofthe great Cardinal d'Este. Ottavio was in orders, and throughMontalto's influence obtained the See of Fossombrone. The sameeminent protector placed Scipione in the service of the CardinalSforza. Camillo, famous for his beauty and his courage, followed thefortunes of Filibert of Savoy, and died in France. Flaminio was stilla boy, dependent, as the sequel of this story shows, upon his sister'sdestiny. Of Marcello, the second in age and most important in theaction of this tragedy, it is needful to speak with moreparticularity. He was young, and, like the rest of his breed, singularly handsome--so handsome, indeed, that he is said to havegained an infamous ascendency over the great Duke of Bracciano, whoseprivy chamberlain he had become. Marcello was an outlaw for the murderof Matteo Pallavicino, the brother of the Cardinal of that name. Thisdid not, however, prevent the chief of the Orsini house from makinghim his favourite and confidential friend. Marcello, who seems to haverealised in actual life the worst vices of those Roman courtiersdescribed for us by Aretino, very soon conceived the plan of exaltinghis own fortunes by trading on his sister's beauty. He worked upon theDuke of Bracciano's mind so cleverly, that he brought this haughtyprince to the point of an insane passion for Peretti's young wife; andmeanwhile so contrived to inflame the ambition of Vittoria and hermother, Tarquinia, that both were prepared to dare the worst of crimesin expectation of a dukedom. The game was a difficult one to play. Notonly had Francesco Peretti first to be murdered, but the inequality ofbirth and wealth and station between Vittoria and the Duke ofBracciano rendered a marriage almost impossible. It was also an affairof delicacy to stimulate without satisfying the Duke's passion. YetMarcello did not despair. The stakes were high enough to justify greatrisks; and all he put in peril was his sister's honour, the fame ofthe Accoramboni, and the favour of Montalto. Vittoria, for her part, trusted in her power to ensnare and secure the noble prey both had inview. 

Paolo Giordano Orsini, born about the year 1537, was reigning Duke ofBracciano. Among Italian princes he ranked at least upon a par withthe Dukes of Urbino, and his family, by its alliances, was moreillustrious than any of that time in Italy. He was a man of giganticstature, prodigious corpulence, and marked personal daring; agreeablein manners, but subject to uncontrollable fits of passion, andincapable of self-restraint when crossed in any whim or fancy. Uponthe habit of his body it is needful to insist, in order that the parthe played in this tragedy of intrigue, crime, and passion may be welldefined. He found it difficult to procure a charger equal to hisweight, and he was so fat that a special dispensation relieved himfrom the duty of genuflexion in the Papal presence. Though lord of alarge territory, yielding princely revenues, he laboured under heavydebts; for no great noble of the period lived more splendidly, withless regard for his finances. In the politics of that age and country, Paolo Giordano leaned toward France. Yet he was a grandee of Spain, and had played a distinguished part in the battle of Lepanto. Now theDuke of Bracciano was a widower. He had been married in 1553 toIsabella de' Medici, daughter of the Grand Duke Cosimo, sister ofFrancesco, Bianca Capello's lover, and of the Cardinal Ferdinando. Suspicion of adultery with Troilo Orsini had fallen on Isabella, andher husband, with the full concurrence of her brothers, removed her in1576 from this world. [7] No one thought the worse of Bracciano forthis murder of his wife. In those days of abandoned vice and intricatevillany, certain points of honour were maintained with scrupulousfidelity. A wife's adultery was enough to justify the most savage andlicentious husband in an act of semi-judicial vengeance; and the shameshe brought upon his head was shared by the members of her own house, so that they stood by, consenting to her death. Isabella, it may besaid, left one son, Virginio, who became in due time Duke ofBracciano. 

It appears that in the year 1581, four years after Vittoria'smarriage, the Duke of Bracciano had satisfied Marcello of hisintention to make her his wife, and of his willingness to countenanceFrancesco Peretti's murder. Marcello, feeling sure of his game, introduced the Duke in private to his sister, and induced her toovercome any natural repugnance she may have felt for the unwieldy andgross lover. Having reached this point, it was imperative to pushmatters quickly on toward matrimony. 

But how should the unfortunate Francesco be entrapped? They caught himin a snare of peculiar atrocity, by working on the kindly feelingswhich his love for Vittoria had caused him to extend to all theAcooramboni. Marcello, the outlaw, was her favourite brother, andMarcello at that time lay in hiding, under the suspicion of more thanordinary crime, beyond the walls of Rome. Late in the evening of the18th of April, while the Peretti family were retiring to bed, amessenger from Marcello arrived, entreating Francesco to repair atonce to Monte Cavallo. Marcello had affairs of the utmost importanceto communicate, and begged his brother-in-law not to fail him at agrievous pinch. The letter containing this request was borne by oneDominico d'Aquaviva, _alias_ Il Mancino, a confederate of Vittoria'swaiting-maid. This fellow, like Marcello, was an outlaw; but when heventured into Rome he frequented Peretti's house, and had made himselffamiliar with its master as a trusty bravo. Neither in the message, therefore, nor in the messenger was there much to rouse suspicion. Thetime, indeed, was oddly chosen, and Marcello had never made a similarappeal on any previous occasion. Yet his necessities might surely haveobliged him to demand some more than ordinary favour from a brother. Francesco immediately made himself ready to set out, armed only withhis sword and attended by a single servant. It was in vain that hiswife and his mother reminded him of the dangers of the night, theloneliness of Monte Cavallo, its ruinous palaces and robber-hauntedcaves. He was resolved to undertake the adventure, and went forth, never to return. As he ascended the hill, he fell to earth, shot withthree harquebuses. His body was afterwards found on Monte Cavallo, stabbed through and through, without a trace that could identify themurderers. Only, in the course of subsequent investigations, IlMancino (on the 24th of February 1582) made the followingstatements:--That Vittoria's mother, assisted by the waiting woman, had planned the trap; that Marchionne of Gubbio and Paolo Barca ofBracciano, two of the Duke's men, had despatched the victim. Marcellohimself, it seems, had come from Bracciano to conduct the wholeaffair. Suspicion fell immediately upon Vittoria and her kindred, together with the Duke of Bracciano; nor was this diminished when theAccoramboni, fearing the pursuit of justice, took refuge in a villa ofthe Duke's at Magnanapoli a few days after the murder. 

A cardinal's nephew, even in those troublous times, was not killedwithout some noise being made about the matter. Accordingly PopeGregory XIII. Began to take measures for discovering the authors ofthe crime. Strange to say, however, the Cardinal Montalto, notwithstanding the great love he was known to bear his nephew, beggedthat the investigation might be dropped. The coolness with which hefirst received the news of Francesco Peretti's death, thedissimulation with which he met the Pope's expression of sympathy in afull consistory, his reserve in greeting friends on ceremonial visitsof condolence, and, more than all, the self-restraint he showed in thepresence of the Duke of Bracciano, impressed the society of Rome withthe belief that he was of a singularly moderate and patient temper. Itwas thought that the man who could so tamely submit to his nephew'smurder, and suspend the arm of justice when already raised forvengeance, must prove a mild and indulgent ruler. When, therefore, inthe fifth year after this event, Montalto was elected Pope, menascribed his elevation in no small measure to his conduct at thepresent crisis. Some, indeed, attributed his extraordinary moderationand self-control to the right cause. _'Veramente costui è un granfrate!_' was Gregory's remark at the close of the consistory whenMontalto begged him to let the matter of Peretti's murder rest. '_Of atruth, that fellow is a consummate hypocrite!_' How accurate thisjudgment was, appeared when Sixtus V. Assumed the reins of power. Thesame man who, as monk and cardinal, had smiled on Bracciano, though heknew him to be his nephew's assassin, now, as Pontiff and sovereign, bade the chief of the Orsini purge his palace and dominions of thescoundrels he was wont to harbour, adding significantly, that ifFelice Peretti forgave what had been done against him in a privatestation, he would exact uttermost vengeance for disobedience to thewill of Sixtus. The Duke of Bracciano judged it best, after thatwarning, to withdraw from Rome. 

Francesco Peretti had been murdered on the 16th of April 1581. SixtusV. Was proclaimed on the 24th of April 1585. In this interval Vittoriaunderwent a series of extraordinary perils and adventures. First ofall, she had been secretly married to the Duke in his gardens ofMagnanapoli at the end of April 1581. That is to say, Marcello and shesecured their prize, as well as they were able, the moment afterFrancesco had been removed by murder. But no sooner had the marriagebecome known, than the Pope, moved by the scandal it created, no lessthan by the urgent instance of the Orsini and Medici, declared itvoid. After some while spent in vain resistance, Bracciano submitted, and sent Vittoria back to her father's house. By an order issued underGregory's own hand, she was next removed to the prison of CorteSavella, thence to the monastery of S. Cecilia in Trastevere, andfinally to the Castle of S. Angelo. Here, at the end of December 1581, she was put on trial for the murder of her first husband. In prisonshe seems to have borne herself bravely, arraying her beautiful personin delicate attire, entertaining visitors, exacting from her friendsthe honours due to a duchess, and sustaining the frequent examinationsto which she was submitted with a bold, proud front. In the middle ofthe month of July her constancy was sorely tried by the receipt of aletter in the Duke's own handwriting, formally renouncing hismarriage. It was only by a lucky accident that she was prevented onthis occasion from committing suicide. The Papal court meanwhile kepturging her either to retire to a monastery or to accept anotherhusband. She firmly refused to embrace the religious life, anddeclared that she was already lawfully united to a living husband, theDuke of Bracciano. It seemed impossible to deal with her; and at last, on the 8th of November, she was released from prison under thecondition of retirement to Gubbio. The Duke had lulled his enemies torest by the pretence of yielding to their wishes. But Marcello wascontinually beside him at Bracciano, where we read of a mysteriousGreek enchantress whom he hired to brew love-philters for thefurtherance of his ambitious plots. Whether Bracciano was stimulatedby the brother's arguments or by the witch's potions need not be toocuriously questioned. But it seems in any case certain that absenceinflamed his passion instead of cooling it. 

Accordingly, in September 1583, under the excuse of a pilgrimage toLoreto, he contrived to meet Vittoria at Trevi, whence he carried herin triumph to Bracciano. Here he openly acknowledged her as his wife, installing her with all the splendour due to a sovereign duchess. Onthe 10th of October following, he once more performed the marriageceremony in the principal church of his fief; and in the January of1584 he brought her openly to Rome. This act of contumacy to the Pope, both as feudal superior and as supreme Pontiff, roused all the formeropposition to his marriage. Once more it was declared invalid. Oncemore the Duke pretended to give way. But at this juncture Gregorydied; and while the conclave was sitting for the election of the newPope, he resolved to take the law into his own hands, and to ratifyhis union with Vittoria by a third and public marriage in Rome. On themorning of the 24th of April 1585, their nuptials were accordinglyonce more solemnised in the Orsini palace. Just one hour after theceremony, as appears from the marriage register, the news arrived ofCardinal Montalto's election to the Papacy, Vittoria lost no time inpaying her respects to Camilla, sister of the new Pope, her formermother-in-law. The Duke visited Sixtus V. In state to compliment himon his elevation. But the reception which both received proved thatRome was no safe place for them to live in. They consequently made uptheir minds for flight. 

A chronic illness from which Bracciano had lately suffered furnished asufficient pretext. This seems to have been something of the nature ofa cancerous ulcer, which had to be treated by the application of rawmeat to open sores. Such details are only excusable in the presentnarrative on the ground that Bracciano's disease considerably affectsour moral judgment of the woman who could marry a man thus physicallytainted, and with her husband's blood upon his hands. At any rate, the Duke's _lupa_ justified his trying what change of air, togetherwith the sulphur waters of Abano, would do for him. 

The Duke and Duchess arrived in safety at Venice, where they hadengaged the Dandolo palace on the Zuecca. There they only stayed a fewdays, removing to Padua, where they had hired palaces of the Foscariin the Arena and a house called De' Cavalli. At Salò, also, on theLake of Garda, they provided themselves with fit dwellings for theirprincely state and their large retinues, intending to divide theirtime between the pleasures which the capital of luxury afforded andthe simpler enjoyments of the most beautiful of the Italian lakes. But_la gioia dei profani è un fumo passaggier_. Paolo Giordano Orsini, Duke of Bracciano, died suddenly at Salò on the 10th of November 1585, leaving the young and beautiful Vittoria helpless among enemies. Whatwas the cause of his death? It is not possible to give a clear andcertain answer. We have seen that he suffered from a horrible andvoracious disease, which after his removal from Rome seems to havemade progress. Yet though this malady may well have cut his lifeshort, suspicion of poison was not, in the circumstances, quiteunreasonable. The Grand Duke of Tuscany, the Pope, and the Orsinifamily were all interested in his death. Anyhow, he had time to make awill in Vittoria's favour, leaving her large sums of money, jewels, goods, and houses--enough, in fact, to support her ducal dignity withsplendour. His hereditary fiefs and honours passed by right to hisonly son, Virginio. 

Vittoria, accompanied by her brother, Marcello, and the whole court ofBracciano, repaired at once to Padua, where she was soon after joinedby Flaminio, and by the Prince Lodovico Orsini. Lodovico Orsiniassumed the duty of settling Vittoria's affairs under her deadhusband's will. In life he had been the Duke's ally as well asrelative. His family pride was deeply wounded by what seemed to him anignoble, as it was certainly an unequal, marriage. He now showedhimself the relentless enemy of the Duchess. Disputes arose betweenthem as to certain details, which seem to have been legally decided inthe widow's favour. On the night of the 22nd of December, however, forty men disguised in black and fantastically tricked out to eludedetection, surrounded her palace. Through the long galleries andchambers hung with arras, eight of them went, bearing torches, insearch of Vittoria and her brothers. Marcello escaped, having fled thehouse under suspicion of the murder of one of his own followers. Flaminio, the innocent and young, was playing on his lute and singing_Miserere_ in the great hall of the palace. The murderers surprisedhim with a shot from one of their harquebuses. He ran, wounded in theshoulder, to his sister's room. She, it is said, was telling her beadsbefore retiring for the night. When three of the assassins entered, she knelt before the crucifix, and there they stabbed her in the leftbreast, turning the poignard in the wound, and asking her with savageinsults if her heart was pierced. Her last words were, 'Jesus, Ipardon you. ' Then they turned to Flaminio, and left him pierced withseventy-four stiletto wounds. 

The authorities of Padua identified the bodies of Vittoria andFlaminio, and sent at once for further instructions to Venice. Meanwhile it appears that both corpses were laid out in one opencoffin for the people to contemplate. The palace and the church of theEremitani, to which they had been removed, were crowded all throughthe following day with a vast concourse of the Paduans. Vittoria'swonderful dead body, pale yet sweet to look upon, the golden hairflowing around her marble shoulders, the red wound in her breastuncovered, the stately limbs arrayed in satin as she died, maddenedthe populace with its surpassing loveliness. '_Dentibus fremebant_, 'says the chronicler, when they beheld that gracious lady stiff indeath. And of a truth, if her corpse was actually exposed in thechapel of the Eremitani, as we have some right to assume, thespectacle must have been impressive. Those grim gaunt frescoes ofMantegna looked down on her as she lay stretched upon her bier, solemnand calm, and, but for pallor, beautiful as though in life. No wonderthat the folk forgot her first husband's murder, her less than comelymarriage to the second. It was enough for them that this flower ofsurpassing loveliness had been cropped by villains in its bloom. Gathering in knots around the torches placed beside the corpse, theyvowed vengeance against the Orsini; for suspicion, not unnaturally, fell on Prince Lodovico. 

The Prince was arrested and interrogated before the court of Padua. Heentered their hall attended by forty armed men, responded haughtily totheir questions, and demanded free passage for his courier to VirginioOrsini, then at Florence. To this demand the court acceded; but theprecaution of way-laying the courier and searching his person wasvery wisely taken. Besides some formal dispatches which announcedVittoria's assassination, they found in this man's boot a compromisingletter, declaring Virginio a party to the crime, and asserting thatLodovico had with his own poignard killed their victim. Padua placeditself in a state of defence, and prepared to besiege the palace ofPrince Lodovico, who also got himself in readiness for battle. Engines, culverins, and firebrands were directed against thebarricades which he had raised. The militia was called out and theBrenta was strongly guarded. Meanwhile the Senate of S. Mark haddispatched the Avogadore, Aloisio Bragadin, with full power to thescene of action. Lodovico Orsini, it may be mentioned, was in theirservice; and had not this affair intervened, he would in a few weekshave entered on his duties as Governor for Venice of Corfu. 

The bombardment of Orsini's palace began on Christmas Day. Three ofthe Prince's men were killed in the first assault; and since theartillery brought to bear upon him threatened speedy ruin to the houseand its inhabitants, he made up his mind to surrender. 'The PrinceLuigi, ' writes one-chronicler of these events, 'walked attired inbrown, his poignard at his side, and his cloak slung elegantly underhis arm. The weapon being taken from him, he leaned upon a balustrade, and began to trim his nails with a little pair of scissors he happenedto find there. ' On the 27th he was strangled in prison by order of theVenetian Republic. His body was carried to be buried, according to hisown will, in the church of S. Maria dell' Orto at Venice. Two of hisfollowers were hung next day. Fifteen were executed on the followingMonday; two of these were quartered alive; one of them, the ContePaganello, who confessed to having slain Vittoria, had his left sideprobed with his own cruel dagger. Eight were condemned to the galleys, six to prison, and eleven were acquitted. Thus ended this terribleaffair, which brought, it is said, good credit and renown to the lordsof Venice through all nations of the civilised world. It only remainsto be added that Marcello Accoramboni was surrendered to the Pope'svengeance and beheaded at Ancona, where also his mysteriousaccomplice, the Greek sorceress, perished. 

II

This story of Vittoria Accoramboni's life and tragic ending is drawn, in its main details, from a narrative published by Henri Beyle in his'Chroniques et Novelles. '[8] He professes to have translated itliterally from a manuscript communicated to him by a nobleman ofMantua; and there are strong internal evidences of the truth of thisassertion. Such compositions are frequent in Italian libraries, nor isit rare for one of them to pass into the common market--as Mr. Browning's famous purchase of the tale on which he based his 'Ringand the Book' sufficiently proves. These pamphlets were produced, inthe first instance, to gratify the curiosity of the educated public inan age which had no newspapers, and also to preserve the memory offamous trials. How far the strict truth was represented, or whether, as in the case of Beatrice Cenci, the pathetic aspect of the tragedywas unduly dwelt on, depended, of course, upon the mental bias of thescribe, upon his opportunities of obtaining exact information, andupon the taste of the audience for whom he wrote. Therefore, intreating such documents as historical data, we must be upon ourguard. Professor Gnoli, who has recently investigated the whole ofVittoria's eventful story by the light of contemporary documents, informs us that several narratives exist in manuscript, all dealingmore or less accurately with the details of the tragedy. One of thesewas published in Italian at Brescia in 1586. A Frenchman, De Rosset, printed the same story in its main outlines at Lyons in 1621. Our owndramatist, John Webster, made it the subject of a tragedy, which hegave to the press in 1612. What were his sources of information we donot know for certain. But it is clear that he was well acquainted withthe history. He has changed some of the names and redistributed someof the chief parts. Vittoria's first husband, for example, becomesCamillo; her mother, named Cornelia instead of Tarquinia, is so farfrom abetting Peretti's murder and countenancing her daughter's shame, that she acts the _rôle_ of a domestic Cassandra. Flaminio and notMarcello is made the main instrument of Vittoria's crime andelevation. The Cardinal Montalto is called Monticelso, and his papaltitle is Paul IV. Instead of Sixtus V. These are details ofcomparative indifference, in which a playwright may fairly use hisliberty of art. On the other hand, Webster shows a curious knowledgeof the picturesque circumstances of the tale. The garden in whichVittoria meets Bracciano is the villa of Magnanapoli; Zanche, theMoorish slave, combines Vittoria's waiting-woman, Caterina, and theGreek sorceress who so mysteriously dogged Marcello's footsteps to thedeath. The suspicion of Bracciano's murder is used to introduce aquaint episode of Italian poisoning. 

Webster exercised the dramatist's privilege of connecting variousthreads of action in one plot, disregarding chronology, and hazardingan ethical solution of motives which mere fidelity to fact hardlywarrants. He shows us Vittoria married to Camillo, a low-born andwitless fool, whose only merit consists in being nephew to theCardinal Monticelso, afterwards Pope Paul IV. [9] Paulo GiordanoUrsini, Duke of Brachiano, loves Vittoria, and she suggests to himthat, for the furtherance of their amours, his wife, the DuchessIsabella, sister to Francesco de' Medici, Grand Duke of Florence, should be murdered at the same time as her own husband, Camillo. Brachiano is struck by this plan, and with the help of Vittoria'sbrother, Flamineo, he puts it at once into execution. Flamineo hires adoctor who poisons Brachiano's portrait, so that Isabella dies afterkissing it. He also with his own hands twists Camillo's neck during avaulting-match, making it appear that he came by his deathaccidentally. Suspicion of the murder attaches, however, to Vittoria. She is tried for her life before Monticelso and De' Medici; acquitted, and relegated to a house of Convertites or female reformatory. Brachiano, on the accession of Monticelso to the Papal throne, resolves to leave Rome with Vittoria. They escape, together with hermother Cornelia, and her brothers Flamineo and Marcello, to Padua; andit is here that the last scenes of the tragedy are laid. 

The use Webster made of Lodovico Orsini deserves particular attention. He introduces this personage in the very first scene as a spendthrift, who, having run through his fortune, has been outlawed. CountLodovico, as he is always called, has no relationship with the Orsini, but is attached to the service of Francesco de' Medici, and is an oldlover of the Duchess Isabella. When, therefore, the Grand Dukemeditates vengeance on Brachiano, he finds a fitting instrument in thedesperate Lodovico. Together, in disguise, they repair to Padua. Lodovico poisons the Duke of Brachiano's helmet, and has thesatisfaction of ending his last struggles by the halter. Afterwards, with companions, habited as a masquer, he enters Vittoria's palace andputs her to death together with her brother Flamineo. Just when thedeed of vengeance has been completed, young Giovanni Orsini, heir ofBrachiano, enters and orders the summary execution of Lodovico forthis deed of violence. Webster's invention in this plot is confined tothe fantastic incidents attending on the deaths of Isabella, Camillo, and Brachiano, and to the murder of Marcello by his brother Flamineo, with the further consequence of Cornelia's madness and death. He hasheightened our interest in Isabella, at the expense of Brachiano'scharacter, by making her an innocent and loving wife instead of anadulteress. He has ascribed different motives from the real ones toLodovico in order to bring this personage into rank with the chiefactors, though this has been achieved with only moderate success. Vittoria is abandoned to the darkest interpretation. She is a womanwho rises to eminence by crime, as an unfaithful wife, the murderessof her husband, and an impudent defier of justice. Her brother, Flamineo, becomes under Webster's treatment one of those worst humaninfamies--a court dependent; ruffian, buffoon, pimp, murderer byturns. Furthermore, and without any adequate object beyond that ofcompleting this study of a type he loved, Webster makes him murder hisown brother Marcello by treason. The part assigned to Marcello, itshould be said, is a genial and happy one; and Cornelia, the mother ofthe Accoramboni, is a dignified character, pathetic in her suffering. Webster, it may be added, treats the Cardinal Monticelso as allied insome special way to the Medici. Yet certain traits in his character, especially his avoidance of bloodshed and the tameness of his temperafter Camillo has been murdered, seem to have been studied from thehistorical Sixtus. 

III

The character of the 'White Devil, or Vittoria Corombona, ' is perhapsthe most masterly creation of Webster's genius. Though her history isa true one in its leading incidents, the poet, while portraying a realpersonage, has conceived an original individuality. It is impossibleto know for certain how far the actual Vittoria was guilty of herfirst husband's murder. Her personality fails to detach itself fromthe romance of her biography by any salient qualities. But Webster, with true playwright's instinct, casts aside historical doubts, anddelineates in his heroine a woman of a very marked and terriblenature. Hard as adamant, uncompromising, ruthless, Vittoria followsambition as the loadstar of her life. It is the ambition to reign asDuchess, far more than any passion for a paramour, which makes herplot Camillo's and Isabella's murders, and throws her before marriageinto Brachiano's arms. Added to this ambition, she is possessed withthe cold demon of her own imperial and victorious beauty. She has thecourage of her criminality in the fullest sense; and much of thefascination with which Webster has invested her, depends upon herdreadful daring. Her portrait is drawn with full and firm touches. Although she appears but five times on the scene, she fills it fromthe first line of the drama to the last. Each appearance addseffectively to the total impression. We see her first during acriminal interview with Brachiano, contrived by her brother Flamineo. The plot of the tragedy is developed in this scene; Vittoriasuggesting, under the metaphor of a dream, that her lover shouldcompass the deaths of his duchess and her husband. The dream is toldwith deadly energy and ghastly picturesqueness. The cruel sneer at itsconclusion, murmured by a voluptuous woman in the ears of animpassioned paramour, chills us with the sense of concentrated vice. Her next appearance is before the court, on trial for her husband'smurder. The scene is celebrated, and has been much disputed bycritics. Relying on her own dauntlessness, on her beauty, and on theprotection of Brachiano, Vittoria hardly takes the trouble to pleadinnocence or to rebut charges. She stands defiant, arrogant, vigilant, on guard; flinging the lie in the teeth of her arraigners; quick toseize the slightest sign of feebleness in their attack; protesting herguiltlessness so loudly that she shouts truth down by brazen strengthof lung; retiring at the close with taunts; blazing throughout withthe intolerable lustre of some baleful planet. When she enters for thethird time, it is to quarrel with her paramour. He has been stung tojealousy by a feigned love-letter. She knows that she has given him nocause; it is her game to lure him by fidelity to marriage. Thereforeshe resolves to make his mistake the instrument of her exaltation. Beginning with torrents of abuse, hurling reproaches at him for herown dishonour and the murder of his wife, working herself by studieddegrees into a tempest of ungovernable rage, she flings herself uponthe bed, refuses his caresses, spurns and tramples on him, till shehas brought Brachiano, terrified, humbled, fascinated, to her feet. Then she gradually relents beneath his passionate protestations andrepeated promises of marriage. At this point she speaks but little. We only feel her melting humour in the air, and long to see the sceneplayed by such an actress as Madame Bernhardt. When Vittoria nextappears, it is as Duchess by the deathbed of the Duke, her husband. Her attendance here is necessary, but it contributes little to thedevelopment of her character. We have learned to know her, and expectneither womanish tears nor signs of affection at a crisis whichtouches her heart less than her self-love. Webster, among his otherexcellent qualities, knew how to support character by reticence. Vittoria's silence in this act is significant; and when she retiresexclaiming, 'O me! this place is hell!' we know that it is the outcry, not of a woman who has lost what made life dear, but of one who seesthe fruits of crime imperilled by a fatal accident. The last scene ofthe play is devoted to Vittoria. It begins with a notable altercationbetween her and Flamineo. She calls him 'ruffian' and 'villain, 'refusing him the reward of his vile service. This quarrel emerges inone of Webster's grotesque contrivances to prolong a poignantsituation. Flamineo quits the stage and reappears with pistols. Heaffects a kind of madness; and after threatening Vittoria, who neverflinches, he proposes they should end their lives by suicide. Shehumours him, but manages to get the first shot. Flamineo falls, wounded apparently to death. Then Vittoria turns and tramples on himwith her feet and tongue, taunting him in his death agony with theenumeration of his crimes. Her malice and her energy are equallyinfernal. Soon, however, it appears that the whole device was but atrick of Flamineo's to test his sister. The pistol was not loaded. Henow produces a pair which are properly charged, and proceeds in goodearnest to the assassination of Vittoria. But at this critical momentLodovico and his masquers appear; brother and sister both dieunrepentant, defiant to the end. Vittoria's customary pride and herfamiliar sneers impress her speech in these last moments with atrenchant truth to nature:

 _You_ my death's-man! Methinks thou dost not look horrid enough, Thou hast too good a face to be a hangman: If thou be, do thy office in right form; Fall down upon thy knees, and ask forgiveness!

 * * * * *

 I will be waited on in death; my servant Shall never go before me. 

 * * * * *

 Yes, I shall welcome death As princes do some great ambassadors: I'll meet thy weapon half-way. 

 * * * * *

 'Twas a manly blow! The next thou giv'st, murder some sucking infant; And then thou wilt be famous. 

So firmly has Webster wrought the character of this white devil, thatwe seem to see her before us as in a picture. 'Beautiful as theleprosy, dazzling as the lightning, ' to use a phrase of herenthusiastic admirer Hazlitt, she takes her station like a lady insome portrait by Paris Bordone, with gleaming golden hair twisted intosnakelike braids about her temples, with skin white as cream, brightcheeks, dark dauntless eyes, and on her bosom, where it has beenchafed by jewelled chains, a flush of rose. She is luxurious, but notso abandoned to the pleasures of the sense as to forget the purpose ofher will and brain. Crime and peril add zest to her enjoyment. Whenarraigned in open court before the judgment-seat of deadly andunscrupulous foes, she conceals the consciousness of guilt, and standserect, with fierce front, unabashed, relying on the splendour of herirresistible beauty and the subtlety of her piercing wit. Chafing withrage, the blood mounts and adds a lustre to her cheek. It is no flushof modesty, but of rebellious indignation. The Cardinal, who hatesher, brands her emotion with the name of shame. She rebukes him, hurling a jibe at his own mother. And when they point with spitefuleagerness to the jewels blazing on her breast, to the silks and satinsthat she rustles in, her husband lying murdered, she retorts:

 Had I foreknown his death, as you suggest, I would have bespoke my mourning. 

She is condemned, but not vanquished, and leaves the court with astinging sarcasm. They send her to a house of Convertites:

 _V. C_. A house of Convertites! what's that?

 _M_. A house of penitent whores. 

 _V. C_. Do the noblemen of Rome Erect it for their wives, that I am sent To lodge there?

Charles Lamb was certainly in error? when he described Vittoria'sattitude as one of 'innocence-resembling boldness. ' In the trialscene, no less than in the scenes of altercation with Brachiano andFlamineo, Webster clearly intended her to pass for a magnificentvixen, a beautiful and queenly termagant. Her boldness is the audacityof impudence, which does not condescend to entertain the thought ofguilt. Her egotism is so hard and so profound that the very victimswhom she sacrifices to ambition seem in her sight justly punished. OfCamillo and Isabella, her husband and his wife, she says to Brachiano:

 And both were struck dead by that sacred yew, In that base shallow grave that was their due. 

IV

It is tempting to pass from this analysis of Vittoria's life to aconsideration of Webster's drama as a whole, especially in a bookdedicated to Italian byways. For that mysterious man of genius hadexplored the dark and devious paths of Renaissance vice, and hadpenetrated the secrets of Italian wickedness with truly appallinglucidity. His tragedies, though worthless as historical documents, have singular value as commentaries upon history, as revelations to usof the spirit of the sixteenth century in its deepest gloom. 

Webster's plays, owing to the condensation of their thought and thecompression of their style, are not easy to read for the first time. He crowds so many fantastic incidents into one action, and burdens hisdiscourse with so much profoundly studied matter, that we rise fromthe perusal of his works with a blurred impression of the fables, adeep sense of the poet's power and personality, and an ineffaceablerecollection of one or two resplendent scenes. His Roman history-playof 'Appius and Virginia' proves that he understood the value of asimple plot, and that he was able, when he chose, to work one out withconscientious calmness. But the two Italian dramas upon which his fameis justly founded, by right of which he stands alone among theplaywrights of all literatures, are marked by a peculiar and waywardmannerism. Each part is etched with equal effort after luminous effectupon a back-ground of lurid darkness; and the whole play is made upof these parts, without due concentration on a master-motive. Thecharacters are definite in outline, but, taken together in the conductof a single plot, they seem to stand apart, like figures in a _tableauvivant_; nor do they act and react each upon the other in the play ofinterpenetrative passions. That this mannerism was deliberatelychosen, we have a right to believe. 'Willingly, and not ignorantly, inthis kind have I faulted, ' is the answer Webster gives to such as mayobject that he has not constructed his plays upon the classic model. He seems to have had a certain sombre richness of tone and intricacyof design in view, combining sensational effect and sententiouspregnancy of diction in works of laboured art, which, when adequatelyrepresented to the ear and eye upon the stage, might at a touch obtainthe animation they now lack for chamber-students. 

When familiarity has brought us acquainted with his style, when wehave disentangled the main characters and circumstances from theiradjuncts, we perceive that he treats poignant and tremendoussituations with a concentrated vigour special to his genius; that hehas studied each word and trait of character, and that he has preparedby gradual approaches and degrees of horror for the culmination of histragedies. The sentences which seem at first sight copied from acommonplace book, are found to be appropriate. Brief lightning flashesof acute perception illuminate the midnight darkness of his all butunimaginably depraved characters. Sharp unexpected touches evokehumanity in the _fantoccini_ of his wayward art. No dramatist hasshown more consummate ability in heightening terrific effects, inlaying bare the innermost mysteries of crime, remorse, and pain, combined to make men miserable. It has been said of Webster that, feeling himself deficient in the first poetic qualities, heconcentrated his powers upon one point, and achieved success by sheerforce of self-cultivation. There is perhaps some truth in this. At anyrate, his genius was of a narrow and peculiar order, and he knew wellhow to make the most of its limitations. Yet we must not forget thathe felt a natural bias toward the dreadful stuff with which he deals. The mystery of iniquity had an irresistible attraction for his mind. He was drawn to comprehend and reproduce abnormal elements ofspiritual anguish. The materials with which he builds his tragediesare sought for in the ruined places of lost souls, in the agonies ofmadness and despair, in the sarcasms of criminal and reckless atheism, in slow tortures, griefs beyond endurance, the tempests of remorsefuldeath, the spasms of fratricidal bloodshed. He is often melodramaticin the means employed to bring these psychological conditions home tous. He makes too free use of poisoned engines, daggers, pistols, disguised murderers, and so forth. Yet his firm grasp upon theessential qualities of diseased and guilty human nature saves him, even at his wildest, from the unrealities and extravagances into whichless potent artists of the _drame sanglant_--Marston, forexample--blundered. 

With Webster, the tendency to brood on horrors was no result ofcalculation. It belonged to his idiosyncrasy. He seems to have beensuckled from birth at the breast of that _Mater Tenebrarum_, our Ladyof Darkness, whom De Quincey in one of his 'Suspiria de Profundis'describes among the Semnai Theai, the august goddesses, the mysteriousfoster-nurses of suffering humanity. He cannot say the simplest thingwithout giving it a ghastly or sinister turn. If one of his charactersdraws a metaphor from pie-crust, he must needs use language of thechurchyard:

 You speak as if a man Should know what fowl is coffined in a baked meat Afore you cut it open. 

Hideous similes are heaped together in illustration of the commonestcircumstances:

 Places at court are but like beds in the hospital, where this man's head lies at that man's foot, and so lower and lower. 

 When knaves come to preferment, they rise as gallowses are raised in the Low Countries, one upon another's shoulders. 

 I would sooner eat a dead pigeon taken from the soles of the feet of one sick of the plague than kiss one of you fasting. 

A soldier is twitted with serving his master:

 As witches do their serviceable spirits, Even with thy prodigal blood. 

An adulterous couple get this curse:

 Like mistletoe on sear elms spent by weather, Let him cleave to her, and both rot together. 

A bravo is asked:

 Dost thou imagine thou canst slide on blood, And not be tainted with a shameful fall? Or, like the black and melancholic yew-tree, Dost think to root thyself in dead men's graves, And yet to prosper?

It is dangerous to extract philosophy of life from any dramatist. YetWebster so often returns to dark and doleful meditations, that we mayfairly class him among constitutional pessimists. Men, according tothe grimness of his melancholy, are:

 Only like dead walls or vaulted graves, That, ruined, yield no echo. O this gloomy world! In what a shadow or deep pit of darkness Doth womanish and fearful mankind live!

 * * * * *

 We are merely the stars' tennis-balls, struck and banded Which way please them. 

 * * * * *

 Pleasure of life! what is't? only the good hours of an ague. 

A Duchess is 'brought to mortification, ' before her strangling by theexecutioner, in this high fantastical oration:

 Thou art a box of worm-seed, at best but a salvatory of green mummy. What's this flesh? A little crudded milk, fantastical puff-paste, &c. &c. 

Man's life in its totality is summed up with monastic cynicism inthese lyric verses:

 Of what is't fools make such vain keeping? Sin their conception, their birth weeping, Their life a general mist of error, Their death a hideous storm of terror. 

The greatness of the world passes by with all its glory:

 Vain the ambition of kings, Who seek by trophies and dead things To leave a living name behind, And weave but nets to catch the wind. 

It would be easy to surfeit criticism with similar examples; whereWebster is writing in sarcastic, meditative, or deliberatelyterror-stirring moods. The same dark dye of his imagination showsitself even more significantly in circumstances where, in the work ofany other artist, it would inevitably mar the harmony of the picture. A lady, to select one instance, encourages her lover to embrace her atthe moment of his happiness. She cries:

 Sir, be confident! What is't distracts you? This is flesh and blood, sir; 'Tis not the figure cut in alabaster, Kneels at my husband's tomb. 

Yet so sustained is Webster's symphony of sombre tints, that we do notfeel this sepulchral language, this 'talk fit for a charnel' (to useone of his own phrases), to be out of keeping. It sounds like apresentiment of coming woes, which, as the drama grows to itsconclusion, gather and darken on the wretched victims of his bloodyplot. 

It was with profound sagacity, or led by some deep-rooted instinct, that Webster sought the fables of his two great tragedies, 'The WhiteDevil' and 'The Duchess of Malfi, ' in Italian annals. Whether he hadvisited Italy in his youth, we cannot say; for next to nothing isknown about Webster's life. But that he had gazed long and earnestlyinto the mirror held up by that enchantress of the nations in his age, is certain. Aghast and fascinated by the sins he saw there flauntingin the light of day--sins on whose pernicious glamour Ascham, Greene, and Howell have insisted with impressive vehemence--Webster discernedin them the stuff he needed for philosophy and art. Withdrawing fromthat contemplation, he was like a spirit 'loosed out of hell to speakof horrors. ' Deeper than any poet of the time, deeper than any even ofthe Italians, he read the riddle of the sphinx of crime. He foundthere something akin to his own imaginative mood, something which healone could fully comprehend and interpret. From the superficialnarratives of writers like Bandello he extracted a spiritual essencewhich was, if not the literal, at least the ideal, truth involved inthem. 

The enormous and unnatural vices, the domestic crimes of cruelty, adultery, and bloodshed, the political scheming and the subtle arts ofvengeance, the ecclesiastical tyranny and craft, the cynicalscepticism and lustre of luxurious godlessness, which made Italy inthe midst of her refinement blaze like 'a bright and ominous star'before the nations; these were the very elements in which the geniusof Webster--salamander-like in flame--could live and flourish. Onlythe incidents of Italian history, or of French history in itsItalianated epoch, were capable of supplying him with the proper typeof plot. It was in Italy alone, or in an Italianated country, such asEngland for a brief space in the reign of the first Stuart threatenedto become, that the well-nigh diabolical wickedness of his charactersmight have been realised. An audience familiar with Italian novelsthrough Belleforest and Painter, inflamed by the long struggle of theReformation against the scarlet abominations of the Papal See, outraged in their moral sense by the political paradoxes ofMachiavelli, horror-stricken at the still recent misdoings of Borgiasand Medici and Farnesi, alarmed by that Italian policy which hadconceived the massacre of S. Bartholomew in France, and infuriated bythat ecclesiastical hypocrisy which triumphed in the same; such anaudience were at the right point of sympathy with a poet who undertookto lay the springs of Southern villany before them bare in a dramaticaction. But, as the old proverb puts it, 'Inglese Italianato è undiavolo incarnato. ' 'An Englishman assuming the Italian habit is adevil in the flesh. ' The Italians were depraved, but spirituallyfeeble. The English playwright, when he brought them on the stage, arrayed with intellectual power and gleaming with the lurid splendourof a Northern fancy, made them tenfold darker and more terrible. Tothe subtlety and vices of the South he added the melancholy, meditation, and sinister insanity of his own climate. He deepened thecomplexion of crime and intensified lawlessness by robbing the Italiancharacter of levity. Sin, in his conception of that character, wascomplicated with the sense of sin, as it never had been in aFlorentine or a Neapolitan. He had not grasped the meaning of theMachiavellian conscience, in its cold serenity and disengagement fromthe dread of moral consequence. Not only are his villains stealthy, frigid, quick to evil, merciless, and void of honour; but they broodupon their crimes and analyse their motives. In the midst of theiraudacity they are dogged by dread of coming retribution. At the crisisof their destiny they look back upon their better days withintellectual remorse. In the execution of their bloodiest schemes theygroan beneath the chains of guilt they wear, and quake before thephantoms of their haunted brains. 

Thus passion and reflection, superstition and profanity, deliberateatrocity and fear of judgment, are united in the same nature; and tomake the complex still more strange, the play-wright has gifted thesetremendous personalities with his own wild humour and imaginativeirony. The result is almost monstrous, such an ideal of character asmakes earth hell. And yet it is not without justification. To theItalian text has been added the Teutonic commentary, and both arefused by a dramatic genius into one living whole. 

One of these men is Flamineo, the brother of Vittoria Corombona, uponwhose part the action of the 'White Devil' depends. He has been bredin arts and letters at the university of Padua; but being poor and ofluxurious appetites, he chooses the path of crime in courts for hisadvancement. A duke adopts him for his minion, and Flamineo acts thepander to this great man's lust. He contrives the death of hisbrother-in-law, suborns a doctor to poison the Duke's wife, andarranges secret meetings between his sister and the paramour who is tomake her fortune and his own. His mother appears like a warning Até toprevent her daughter's crime. In his rage he cries:

 What fury raised _thee_ up? Away, away!

And when she pleads the honour of their house he answers:

 Shall I, Having a path so open and so free To my preferment, still retain your milk In my pale forehead?

Later on, when it is necessary to remove another victim, he runs hisown brother through the body and drives his mother to madness. Yet, inthe midst of these crimes, we are unable to regard him as a simplecut-throat. His irony and reckless courting of damnation open-eyed toget his gust of life in this world, make him no common villain. He canbe brave as well as fierce. When the Duke insults him he bandies tauntfor taunt:

 _Brach_. No, you pander?

 _Flam_. What, me, my lord? Am I your dog?

 _B_. A bloodhound; do you brave, do you stand me?

 _F_. Stand you! let those that have diseases run; I need no plasters. 

 _B_. Would you be kicked?

 _F_. Would you have your neck broke? I tell you, duke, I am not in Russia; My shins must be kept whole. 

 _B_. Do you know me?

 _F_. Oh, my lord, methodically: As in this world there are degrees of evils, So in this world there are degrees of devils. You're a great duke, I your poor secretary. 

When the Duke dies and his prey escapes him, the rage ofdisappointment breaks into this fierce apostrophe:

 I cannot conjure; but if prayers or oaths. Will get the speech of him, though forty devils Wait on him in his livery of flames, I'll speak to him and shake him by the hand, Though I be blasted. 

As crimes thicken round him, and he still despairs of the reward forwhich he sold himself, conscience awakes:

 I have lived Riotously ill, like some that live in court, And sometimes when my face was full of smiles Have felt the maze of conscience in my breast. 

The scholar's scepticism, which lies at the root of his perversity, finds utterance in this meditation upon death:

 Whither shall I go now? O Lucian, thy ridiculous purgatory! to find Alexander the Great cobbling shoes, Pompey tagging points, and Julius Cæsar making hair-buttons!

 Whether I resolve to fire, earth, water, air, or all the elements by scruples, I know not, nor greatly care. 

At the last moment he yet can say:

 We cease to grieve, cease to be Fortune's slaves, Nay, cease to die, by dying. 

And again, with the very yielding of his spirit:

 My life was a black charnel. 

It will be seen that in no sense does Flamineo resemble Iago. He isnot a traitor working by craft and calculating ability towell-considered ends. He is the desperado frantically clutching at anuncertain and impossible satisfaction. Webster conceives him as aself-abandoned atheist, who, maddened by poverty and tainted byvicious living, takes a fury to his heart, and, because the goodnessof the world has been for ever lost to him, recklessly seeks the bad. 

Bosola, in the 'Duchess of Malfi, ' is of the same stamp. He too hasbeen a scholar. He is sent to the galleys 'for a notorious murder, 'and on his release he enters the service of two brothers, the Duke ofCalabria and the Cardinal of Aragon, who place him as theirintelligencer at the court of their sister. 

 _Bos_. It seems you would create me One of your familiars. 

 _Ferd_. Familiar! what's that?

 _Bos_. Why, a very quaint invisible devil in flesh, An intelligencer. 

 _Ferd_. Such a kind of thriving thing I would wish thee; and ere long thou may'st arrive At a higher place by it. 

Lured by hope of preferment, Bosola undertakes the office of spy, tormentor, and at last of executioner. For:

 Discontent and want Is the best clay to mould a villain of. 

But his true self, though subdued to be what he quaintly styles 'thedevil's quilted anvil, ' on which 'all sins are fashioned and the blowsnever heard, ' continually rebels against this destiny. Compared withFlamineo, he is less unnaturally criminal. His melancholy is morefantastic, his despair more noble. Throughout the course of craft andcruelty on which he is goaded by a relentless taskmaster, his nature, hardened as it is, revolts. 

At the end, when Bosola presents the body of the murdered Duchess toher brother, Webster has wrought a scene of tragic savagery thatsurpasses almost any other that the English stage can show. Thesight, of his dead sister maddens Ferdinand, who, feeling the eclipseof reason gradually absorb his faculties, turns round with frenziedhatred on the accomplice of his fratricide. Bosola demands the priceof guilt. Ferdinand spurns him with the concentrated eloquence ofdespair and the extravagance of approaching insanity. The murderertaunts his master coldly and laconically, like a man whose life iswrecked, who has waded through blood to his reward, and who at thelast moment discovers the sacrifice of his conscience and masculinefreedom to be fruitless. Remorse, frustrated hopes, and thirst forvengeance convert Bosola from this hour forward into an instrument ofretribution. The Duke and his brother the Cardinal are both brought tobloody deaths by the hand which they had used to assassinate theirsister. 

It is fitting that something should be said about Webster's conceptionof the Italian despot. Brachiano and Ferdinand, the employers ofFlamineo and Bosola, are tyrants such as Savonarola described, and aswe read of in the chronicles of petty Southern cities. Nothing issuffered to stand between their lust and its accomplishment. Theyoverride the law by violence, or pervert its action to their ownadvantage:

 The law to him Is like a foul black cobweb to a spider; He makes it his dwelling and a prison To entangle those shall feed him. 

They are eaten up with parasites, accomplices, and all the creaturesof their crimes:

 He and his brother are like plum-trees that grow crooked over standing pools; they are rich and over-laden with fruit, but none but crows, pies, and caterpillars feed on them. 

In their lives they are without a friend; for society in guilt bringsnought of comfort, and honours are but emptiness:

 Glories, like glow-worms, afar off shine bright; But looked to near, have neither heat nor light. 

Their plots and counterplots drive repose far from them:

 There's but three furies found in spacious hell; But in a great man's breast three thousand dwell. 

Fearful shapes afflict their fancy; shadows of ancestral crime orghosts of their own raising:

 For these many years None of our family dies, but there is seen The shape of an old woman; which is given By tradition to us to have been murdered By her nephews for her riches. 

Apparitions haunt them:

 How tedious is a guilty conscience! When I look into the fish-ponds in my garden, Methinks I see a thing armed with a rake That seems to strike at me. 

Continually scheming against the objects of their avarice and hatred, preparing poisons or suborning bravoes, they know that these same artswill be employed against them. The wine-cup hides arsenic; theheadpiece is smeared with antimony; there is a dagger behind everyarras, and each shadow is a murderer's. When death comes, they meet ittrembling. What irony Webster has condensed in Brachiano's outcry:

 On pain of death, let no man name death to me; It is a word infinitely horrible. 

And how solemn are the following reflections on the death of princes:

 O thou soft natural death, that art joint-twin To sweetest slumber! no rough-bearded comet Stares on thy mild departure; the dull owl Beats not against thy casement, the hoarse wolf Scents not thy carrion: pity winds thy corse, Whilst horror waits on princes. 

After their death, this is their epitaph:

 These wretched eminent things Leave no more fame behind'em than should one Fall in a frost and leave his print in snow. 

Of Webster's despots, the finest in conception and the firmest inexecution is Ferdinand of Aragon. Jealousy of his sister and avaricetake possession of him and torment him like furies. The flash ofrepentance over her strangled body is also the first flash ofinsanity. He survives to present the spectacle of a crazed lunatic, and to be run through the body by his paid assassin. In the Cardinalof Aragon, Webster paints a profligate Churchman, no less voluptuous, blood-guilty, and the rest of it, than his brother the Duke ofCalabria. It seems to have been the poet's purpose in each of hisItalian tragedies to unmask Rome as the Papal city really was. In thelawless desperado, the intemperate tyrant, and the godlessecclesiastic, he portrayed the three curses from which Italian societywas actually suffering. 

It has been needful to dwell upon the gloomy and fantastic side ofWebster's genius. But it must not be thought that he could touch nofiner chord. Indeed, it might be said that in the domain of pathos heis even more powerful than in that of horror. His mastery in thisregion is displayed in the creation of that dignified and beautifulwoman, the Duchess of Malfi, who, with nothing in her nature, had shebut lived prosperously, to divide her from the sisterhood of gentleladies, walks, shrined in love and purity and conscious rectitude, amid the snares and pitfalls of her persecutors, to die at last thevictim of a brother's fevered avarice and a desperado's egotisticalambition. The apparatus of infernal cruelty, the dead man's hand, thesemblances of murdered sons and husband, the masque of madmen, thedirge and doleful emblems of the tomb with which she is environed inher prison by the torturers who seek to goad her into lunacy, areinsufficient to disturb the tranquillity and tenderness of her nature. When the rope is being fastened to her throat, she does not spend herbreath in recriminations, but turns to the waiting-woman and says:

 Farewell, Cariola! I pray thee look thou givest my little boy Some syrup for his cold, and let the girl Say her prayers ere she sleep. 

In the preceding scenes we have had enough, nay, over-much, ofmadness, despair, and wrestling with doom. This is the calm that comeswhen death is present, when the tortured soul lays down its burden ofthe flesh with gladness. But Webster has not spared another touch ofthrilling pathos. 

The death-struggle is over; the fratricide has rushed away, a maddenedman; the murderer is gazing with remorse upon the beautiful dead bodyof his lady, wishing he had the world wherewith to buy her back tolife again; when suddenly she murmurs 'Mercy!' Our interest, alreadyoverstrained, revives with momentary hope. But the guardians of thegrave will not be exorcised; and 'Mercy!' is the last groan of theinjured Duchess. 

Webster showed great skill in his delineation of the Duchess. He hadto paint a woman in a hazardous situation: a sovereign stooping in herwidowhood to wed a servant; a lady living with the mystery of thisunequal marriage round her like a veil. He dowered her with no salientqualities of intellect or heart or will; but he sustained our sympathywith her, and made us comprehend her. To the last she is a Duchess;and when she has divested state and bowed her head to enter the lowgate of heaven--too low for coronets--her poet shows us, in the linesalready quoted, that the woman still survives. 

The same pathos surrounds the melancholy portrait of Isabella in'Vittoria Corombona. ' But Isabella, in that play, serves chiefly toenhance the tyranny of her triumphant rival. The main difficulty underwhich these scenes of rarest pathos would labour, were they broughtupon the stage, is their simplicity in contrast with the ghastly andcontorted horrors that envelop them. A dialogue abounding in thepassages I have already quoted--a dialogue which bandies 'O youscreech-owl!' and 'Thou foul black cloud!'--in which a sister'sadmonition to her brother to think twice of suicide assumes a form soweird as this:

 I prithee, yet remember, Millions are now in graves, which at last day Like mandrakes shall rise shrieking. --

such a dialogue could not be rendered save by actors strung up to apitch of almost frenzied tension. To do full justice to what inWebster's style would be spasmodic were it not so weighty, and at thesame time to maintain the purity of outline and melodious rhythm ofsuch characters as Isabella, demands no common histrionic power. 

In attempting to define Webster's touch upon Italian tragic story, Ihave been led perforce to concentrate attention on what is painful andshocking to our sense of harmony in art. He was a vigorous andprofoundly imaginative playwright. But his most enthusiastic admirerswill hardly contend that good taste or moderation determined themovement of his genius. Nor, though his insight into the essentialdreadfulness of Italian tragedy was so deep, is it possible tomaintain that his portraiture of Italian life was true to its moresuperficial aspects. What place would there be for a Correggio or aRaphael in such a world as Webster's? Yet we know that the art ofRaphael and Correggio is in exact harmony with the Italian temperamentof the same epoch which gave birth to Cesare Borgia and BiancaGapello. The comparatively slighter sketch of Iachimo in 'Cymbeline'represents the Italian as he felt and lived, better than the labouredportrait of Flamineo. Webster's Italian tragedies are consequentlytrue, not so much to the actual conditions of Italy, as to the moralimpression made by those conditions on a Northern imagination. 

 * * * * *

_AUTUMN WANDERINGS_

I. --ITALIAM PETIMUS

_Italiam Petimus!_ We left our upland home before daybreak on a clearOctober morning. There had been a hard frost, spangling the meadowswith rime-crystals, which twinkled where the sun's rays touched them. Men and women were mowing the frozen grass with thin short Alpinescythes; and as the swathes fell, they gave a crisp, an almosttinkling sound. Down into the gorge, surnamed of Avalanche, our horsesplunged; and there we lost the sunshine till we reached the Bear'sWalk, opening upon the vales of Albula, and Julier, and Schyn. But upabove, shone morning light upon fresh snow, and steep torrent-clovenslopes reddening with a hundred fading plants; now and then it caughtthe grey-green icicles that hung from cliffs where summer streams haddripped. There is no colour lovelier than the blue of an autumn sky inthe high Alps, defining ridges powdered with light snow, and meltingimperceptibly downward into the warm yellow of the larches and thecrimson of the bilberry. Wiesen was radiantly beautiful: those aërialranges of the hills that separate Albula from Julier soaredcrystal-clear above their forests; and for a foreground, on the greenfields starred with lilac crocuses, careered a group of children ontheir sledges. Then came the row of giant peaks--Pitz d'Aela, Tinzenhorn, and Michelhorn, above the deep ravine of Albula--all seenacross wide undulating golden swards, close-shaven and awaitingwinter. Carnations hung from cottage windows in full bloom, castingsharp angular black shadows on white walls. 

_Italiam petimus!_ We have climbed the valley of the Julier, followingits green, transparent torrent. A night has come and gone at Mühlen. The stream still leads us up, diminishing in volume as we rise, upthrough the fleecy mists that roll asunder for the sun, disclosingfar-off snowy ridges and blocks of granite mountains. The lifeless, soundless waste of rock, where only thin winds whistle out of silenceand fade suddenly into still air, is passed. Then comes the descent, with its forests of larch and cembra, golden and dark green upon aground of grey, and in front the serried shafts of the Bernina, andhere and there a glimpse of emerald lake at turnings of the road. Autumn is the season for this landscape. Through the fading ofinnumerable leaflets, the yellowing of larches, and somethingvaporous in the low sun, it gains a colour not unlike that of thelands we seek. By the side of the lake at Silvaplana the light wasstrong and warm, but mellow. Pearly clouds hung over the Maloja, andfloating overhead cast shadows on the opaque water, which mayliterally be compared to chrysoprase. The breadth of golden, brown, and russet tints upon the valley at this moment adds softness to itslines of level strength. Devotees of the Engadine contend that itpossesses an austere charm beyond the common beauty of Swisslandscape; but this charm is only perfected in autumn. The fresh snowon the heights that guard it helps. And then there are the forests ofdark pines upon those many knolls and undulating mountain-flanksbeside the lakes. Sitting and dreaming there in noonday sun, I keptrepeating to myself _Italiam petimus!_

A hurricane blew upward from the pass as we left Silvaplana, rufflingthe lake with gusts of the Italian wind. By Silz Maria we came insight of a dozen Italian workmen, arm linked in arm in two rows, tramping in rhythmic stride, and singing as they went. Two of themwere such nobly built young men, that for a moment the beauty of thelandscape faded from my sight, and I was saddened. They moved to theirsinging, like some of Mason's or Frederick Walker's figures, with thefree grace of living statues, and laughed as we drove by. And yet, with all their beauty, industry, sobriety, intelligence, theseItalians of the northern valleys serve the sterner people of theGrisons like negroes, doing their roughest work at scanty wages. 

So we came to the vast Alpine wall, and stood on a bare granite slab, and looked over into Italy, as men might lean from the battlements ofa fortress. Behind lies the Alpine valley, grim, declining slowlynorthward, with wind-lashed lakes and glaciers sprawling fromstorm-broken pyramids of gneiss. Below spread the unfathomable depthsthat lead to Lombardy, flooded with sunlight, filled with swirlingvapour, but never wholly hidden from our sight. For the blast keptshifting the cloud-masses, and the sun streamed through in spears andbands of sheeny rays. Over the parapet our horses dropped, downthrough sable spruce and amber larch, down between tangles of rowanand autumnal underwood. Ever as we sank, the mountains rose--thosesharp embattled precipices, toppling spires, impendent chasms blurredwith mist, that make the entrance into Italy sublime. Nowhere do theAlps exhibit their full stature, their commanding puissance, with suchmajesty as in the gates of Italy; and of all those gates I think thereis none to compare with Maloja, none certainly to rival it inabruptness of initiation into the Italian secret. Below Vico Sopranowe pass already into the violets and blues of Titian's landscape. Thencome the purple boulders among chestnut trees; then the doubledolomite-like peak of Pitz Badin and Promontogno. 

It is sad that words can do even less than painting could to bringthis window-scene at Promontogno before another eye. The casement justframes it. In the foreground are meadow slopes, thinly, capriciouslyplanted with chestnut trees and walnuts, each standing with its shadowcast upon the sward. A little farther falls the torrent, foaming downbetween black jaws of rain-stained granite, with the wooden buildingsof a rustic mill set on a ledge of rock. Suddenly above this landscapesoars the valley, clothing its steep sides on either hand with pines;and there are emerald isles of pasture on the wooded flanks; and thencliffs, where the red-stemmed larches glow; and at the summit, shooting into ether with a swathe of mist around their basement, soarthe double peaks, the one a pyramid, the other a bold broken crystalnot unlike the Finsteraarhorn seen from Furka. These are connected bya snowy saddle, and snow is lying on their inaccessible crags inpowdery drifts. Sunlight pours between them into the ravine. The greenand golden forests now join from either side, and now recede, according as the sinuous valley brings their lines together ordisparts them. There is a sound of cow-bells on the meadows; and theroar of the stream is dulled or quickened as the gusts of this Octoberwind sweep by or slacken. _Italiam petimus!_

_Tangimus Italiam!_ Chiavenna is a worthy key to this great gateItalian. We walked at night in the open galleries of the cathedralcloister--white, smoothly curving, well-proportioned loggie, enclosinga green space, whence soars the campanile to the stars. The moon hadsunk, but her light still silvered the mountains that stand at watchround Chiavenna; and the castle rock was flat and black against thatdreamy background. Jupiter, who walked so lately for us on the longridge of the Jacobshorn above our pines, had now an ample space of skyover Lombardy to light his lamp in. Why is it, we asked each other, aswe smoked our pipes and strolled, my friend and I;--why is it thatItalian beauty does not leave the spirit so untroubled as an Alpinescene? Why do we here desire the flower of some emergent feeling togrow from the air, or from the soil, or from humanity to greet us?This sense of want evoked by Southern beauty is perhaps the antiquemythopœic yearning. But in our perplexed life it takes another form, and seems the longing for emotion, ever fleeting, ever new, unrealised, unreal, insatiable. 

II. --OVER THE APENNINES

At Parma we slept in the Albergo della Croce Bianca, which is more abric-à-brac shop than an inn; and slept but badly, for the good folkof Parma twanged guitars and exercised their hoarse male voices allnight in the street below. We were glad when Christian called us, at 5A. M. , for an early start across the Apennines. This was the day of aright Roman journey. In thirteen and a half hours, leaving Parma at 6, and arriving in Sarzana at 7. 30, we flung ourselves across the spineof Italy, from the plains of Eridanus to the seashore of EtruscanLuna. I had secured a carriage and extra post-horses the night before;therefore we found no obstacles upon the road, but eager drivers, quick relays, obsequious postmasters, change, speed, perpetualmovement. The road itself is a noble one, and nobly entertained in allthings but accommodation for travellers. At Berceto, near the summitof the pass, we stopped just half an hour, to lunch off a mouldy henand six eggs; but that was all the halt we made. 

As we drove out of Parma, striking across the plain to the _ghiara_ ofthe Taro, the sun rose over the austere autumnal landscape, with itswithered vines and crimson haws. Christian, the mountaineer, who athome had never seen the sun rise from a flat horizon, stooped from thebox to call attention to this daily recurring miracle, which on theplain of Lombardy is no less wonderful than on a rolling sea. From thevillage of Fornovo, where the Italian League was camped awaitingCharles VIII. Upon that memorable July morn in 1495, the road strikessuddenly aside, gains a spur of the descending Apennines, and keepsthis vantage till the pass of La Cisa is reached. Many windings areoccasioned by thus adhering to arêtes, but the total result is agradual ascent with free prospect over plain and mountain. TheApennines, built up upon a smaller scale than the Alps, perplexed indetail and entangled with cross sections and convergent systems, lendthemselves to this plan of carrying highroads along their ridgesinstead of following the valley. 

What is beautiful in the landscape of that northern watershed is thesubtlety, delicacy, variety, and intricacy of the mountain outlines. There is drawing wherever the eye falls. Each section of the vastexpanse is a picture of tossed crests and complicated undulations. Andover the whole sea of stationary billows, light is shed like anethereal raiment, with spare colour--blue and grey, and parsimoniousgreen--in the near foreground. The detail is somewhat dry andmonotonous; for these so finely moulded hills are made up of washedearth, the immemorial wrecks of earlier mountain ranges. Brownvillages, not unlike those of Midland England, low houses built ofstone and tiled with stone, and square-towered churches, occur at rareintervals in cultivated hollows, where there are fields and fruittrees. Water is nowhere visible except in the wasteful river-beds. Aswe rise, we break into a wilder country, forested with oak, where oxenand goats are browsing. The turf is starred with lilac gentian andcrocus bells, but sparely. Then comes the highest village, Berceto, with keen Alpine air. After that, broad rolling downs of yellowinggrass and russet beech-scrub lead onward to the pass La Cisa. Thesense of breadth in composition is continually satisfied through thisascent by the fine-drawn lines, faint tints, and immense air-spaces ofItalian landscape. Each little piece reminds one of England; but thegeographical scale is enormously more grandiose, and the effect ofmajesty proportionately greater. 

From La Cisa the road descends suddenly; for the southern escarpmentof the Apennine, as of the Alpine, barrier is pitched at a far steeperangle than the northern. Yet there is no view of the sea. That isexcluded by the lower hills which hem the Magra. The upper valley isbeautiful, with verdant lawns and purple hillsides breaking down intothick chestnut woods, through which we wound at a rapid pace fornearly an hour. The leaves were still green, mellowing to golden; butthe fruit was ripe and heavy, ready at all points to fall. In thestill October air the husks above our heads would loosen, and thebrown nuts rustle through the foliage, and with a dull short thud, like drops of thunder-rain, break down upon the sod. At the foot ofthis rich forest, wedged in between huge buttresses, we foundPontremoli, and changed our horses here for the last time. It wasSunday, and the little town was alive with country-folk; tall stalwartfellows wearing peacock's feathers in their black slouched hats, andnut-brown maids. 

From this point the valley of the Magra is exceeding rich with fruittrees, vines, and olives. The tendrils of the vine are yellow now, andin some places hued like generous wine; through their thick leaves thesun shot crimson. In one cool garden, as the day grew dusk, I noticedquince trees laden with pale fruit entangled with pomegranates--greenspheres and ruddy amid burnished leaves. By the roadside too were manyberries of bright hues; the glowing red of haws and hips, the amber ofthe pyracanthus, the rose tints of the spindle-wood. These make autumneven lovelier than spring. And then there was a wood of chestnutscarpeted with pale pinkling, a place to dream of in the twilight. Butthe main motive of this landscape was the indescribable Carrara range, an island of pure form and shooting peaks, solid marble, crystallinein shape and texture, faintly blue against the blue sky, from whichthey were but scarce divided. These mountains close the valley tosouth-east, and seem as though they belonged to another and morecelestial region. 

Soon the sunlight was gone, and moonrise came to close the day, as werolled onward to Sarzana, through arundo donax and vine-girdled olivetrees and villages, where contadini lounged upon the bridges. Therewas a stream of sound in our ears, and in my brain a rhythmic dance ofbeauties caught through the long-drawn glorious golden autumn-day. 

III. --FOSDINOVO

The hamlet and the castle of Fosdinovo stand upon a mountain-spurabove Sarzana, commanding the valley of the Magra and the plains ofLuni. This is an ancient fief of the Malaspina House, and is still inthe possession of the Marquis of that name. 

The road to Fosdinovo strikes across the level through an avenue ofplane trees, shedding their discoloured leaves. It then takes to theopen fields, bordered with tall reeds waving from the foss on eitherhand, where grapes are hanging to the vines. The country-folk allowtheir vines to climb into the olives, and these golden festoons are agreat ornament to the grey branches. The berries on the trees arestill quite green, and it is a good olive season. Leaving the mainroad, we pass a villa of the Malaspini, shrouded in immense thicketsof sweet bay and ilex, forming a grove for the Nymphs or Pan. Here mayyou see just such clean stems and lucid foliage as Gian Bellinipainted, inch by inch, in his Peter Martyr picture. The place isneglected now; the semicircular seats of white Carrara marble arestained with green mosses, the altars chipped, the fountains chokedwith bay leaves; and the rose trees, escaped from what were once trimgarden alleys, have gone wandering a-riot into country hedges. Thereis no demarcation between the great man's villa and the neighbouringfarms. From this point the path rises, and the barren hillside isa-bloom with late-flowering myrtles. Why did the Greeks consecratethese myrtle-rods to Death as well as Love? Electra complained thather father's tomb had not received the honour of the myrtle branch;and the Athenians wreathed their swords with myrtle in memory ofHarmodius. Thinking of these matters, I cannot but remember lines ofGreek, which have themselves the rectitude and elasticity of myrtlewands:

(Greek:)

 kai prospesôn eklaus' erêmias tuchôn spondas te lusas askon hon pherô xenois espeisa tumbô d'amphethêka mursinas. 

As we approach Fosdinovo, the hills above us gain sublimity; theprospect over plain and sea--the fields where Luna was, the wideningbay of Spezzia--grows ever grander. The castle is a ruin, stillcapable of partial habitation, and now undergoing repair--the state inwhich a ruin looks most sordid and forlorn. How strange it is, too, that, to enforce this sense of desolation, sad dishevelled weeds clingever to such antique masonry! Here are the henbane, the sow-thistle, the wild cucumber. At Avignon, at Orvieto, at Dolce Acqua, at LesBaux, we never missed them. And they have the dusty courtyards, themassive portals, where portcullises still threaten, of Fosdinovo tothemselves. Over the gate, and here and there on corbels, are carvedthe arms of Malaspina--a barren thorn-tree, gnarled with thegeometrical precision of heraldic irony. 

Leaning from the narrow windows of this castle, with the spacious viewto westward, I thought of Dante. For Dante in this castle was theguest of Moroello Malaspina, what time he was yet finishing the'Inferno. ' There is a little old neglected garden, full to south, enclosed upon a rampart which commands the Borgo, where we found frailcanker-roses and yellow amaryllis. Here, perhaps, he may have satwith ladies--for this was the Marchesa's pleasaunce; or may havewatched through a short summer's night, until he saw that _tremolardella marina_, portending dawn, which afterwards he painted in the'Purgatory. '

From Fosdinovo one can trace the Magra work its way out seaward, notinto the plain where once the _candentia moenia Lunae_ flashed sunrisefrom their battlements, but close beside the little hills which backthe southern arm of the Spezzian gulf. At the extreme end of thatpromontory, called Del Corvo, stood the Benedictine convent of S. Croce; and it was here in 1309, if we may trust to tradition, thatDante, before his projected journey into France, appeared and left thefirst part of his poem with the Prior. Fra Ilario, such was the goodfather's name, received commission to transmit the 'Inferno' toUguccione della Faggiuola; and he subsequently recorded the fact ofDante's visit in a letter which, though its genuineness has beencalled in question, is far too interesting to be left withoutallusion. The writer says that on occasion of a journey into landsbeyond the Riviera, Dante visited this convent, appearing silent andunknown among the monks. To the Prior's question what he wanted, hegazed upon the brotherhood, and only answered, 'Peace!' Afterwards, inprivate conversation, he communicated his name and spoke about hispoem. A portion of the 'Divine Comedy' composed in the Italian tonguearoused Ilario's wonder, and led him to inquire why his guest had notfollowed the usual course of learned poets by committing his thoughtsto Latin. Dante replied that he had first intended to write in thatlanguage, and that he had gone so far as to begin the poem inVirgilian hexameters. Reflection upon the altered conditions ofsociety in that age led him, however, to reconsider the matter; and hewas resolved to tune another lyre, 'suited to the sense of modernmen. ' 'For, ' said he, 'it is idle to set solid food before the lipsof sucklings. '

If we can trust Fra Ilario's letter as a genuine record, which isunhappily a matter of some doubt, we have in this narration not only apicturesque, almost a melodramatically picturesque glimpse of thepoet's apparition to those quiet monks in their seagirt house ofpeace, but also an interesting record of the destiny which presidedover the first great work of literary art in a distinctly modernlanguage. 

IV. --LA SPEZZIA

While we were at Fosdinovo the sky filmed over, and there came a haloround the sun. This portended change; and by evening, after we hadreached La Spezzia, earth, sea, and air were conscious of a comingtempest. At night I went down to the shore, and paced the sea-wallthey have lately built along the Rada. The moon was up, but overdrivenwith dry smoky clouds, now thickening to blackness over the whole bay, now leaving intervals through which the light poured fitfully andfretfully upon the wrinkled waves; and ever and anon they shudderedwith electric gleams which were not actual lightning. Heaven seemed tobe descending on the sea; one might have fancied that some powerfulcharms were drawing down the moon with influence malign upon thosestill resisting billows. For not as yet the gulf was troubled to itsdepth, and not as yet the breakers dashed in foam against themoonlight-smitten promontories. There was but an uneasy murmuring ofwave to wave; a whispering of wind, that stooped its wing and hissedalong the surface, and withdrew into the mystery of clouds again; amomentary chafing of churned water round the harbour piers, subsidinginto silence petulant and sullen. I leaned against an iron stanchionand longed for the sea's message. But nothing came to me, and thedrowned secret of Shelley's death those waves which were his graverevealed not. 

 Howler and scooper of storms! capricious and dainty sea!

Meanwhile the incantation swelled in shrillness, the electric shuddersdeepened. Alone in this elemental overture to tempest I took no noteof time, but felt, through self-abandonment to the symphonicinfluence, how sea and air, and clouds akin to both, were dealing witheach other complainingly, and in compliance to some maker of unrestwithin them. A touch upon my shoulder broke this trance; I turned andsaw a boy beside me in a coastguard's uniform. Francesco was on patrolthat night; but my English accent soon assured him that I was no_contrabbandiere_, and he too leaned against the stanchion and told mehis short story. He was in his nineteenth year, and came fromFlorence, where his people live in the Borgo Ognissanti. He had allthe brightness of the Tuscan folk, a sort of innocent malice mixedwith _espieglerie_. It was diverting to see the airs he gave himselfon the strength of his new military dignity, his gun, and uniform, andnight duty on the shore. I could not help humming to myself _Non piùandrai_; for Francesco was a sort of Tuscan Cherubino. We talked aboutpicture galleries and libraries in Florence, and I had to hear hisfavourite passages from the Italian poets. And then there came theplots of Jules Verne's stories and marvellous narrations about _l'uomo cavallo, l' uomo volante, l' uomo pesce_. The last of thesepersonages turned out to be Paolo Boÿnton (so pronounced), who hadswam the Arno in his diving dress, passing the several bridges, andwhen he came to the great weir 'allora tutti stare con bocca aperta. 'Meanwhile the storm grew serious, and our conversation changed. Francesco told me about the terrible sun-stricken sand shores of theRiviera, burning in summer noon, over which the coast-guard has totramp, their perils from falling stones in storm, and the trains thatcome rushing from those narrow tunnels on the midnight line of march. It is a hard life; and the thirst for adventure which drove thisboy--'il più matto di tutta la famiglia'--to adopt it, seems well-nighquenched. And still, with a return to Giulio Verne, he talkedenthusiastically of deserting, of getting on board a merchant ship, and working his way to southern islands where wonders are. 

A furious blast swept the whole sky for a moment almost clear. Themoonlight fell, with racing cloud-shadows, upon sea and hills, thelights of Lerici, the great _fanali_ at the entrance of the gulf, andFrancesco's upturned handsome face. Then all again was whirled in mistand foam; one breaker smote the sea wall in a surge of froth, anotherplunged upon its heels; with inconceivable swiftness came rain;lightning deluged the expanse of surf, and showed the windy trees bentlandward by the squall. It was long past midnight now, and the stormwas on us for the space of three days. 

V. --PORTO VENERE

For the next three days the wind went worrying on, and a line of surfleapt on the sea-wall always to the same height. The hills all aroundwere inky black and weary. 

At night the wild libeccio still rose, with floods of rain andlightning poured upon the waste. I thought of the Florentine patrol. Is he out in it, and where?

At last there came a lull. When we rose on the fourth morning, thesky was sulky, spent and sleepy after storm--the air as soft and tepidas boiled milk or steaming flannel. We drove along the shore to PortoVenere, passing the arsenals and dockyards, which have changed theface of Spezzia since Shelley knew it. This side of the gulf is not sorich in vegetation as the other, probably because it lies open to thewinds from the Carrara mountains. The chestnuts come down to the shorein many places, bringing with them the wild mountain-side. To make upfor this lack of luxuriance, the coast is furrowed with a successionof tiny harbours, where the fishing-boats rest at anchor. There aremany villages upon the spurs of hills, and on the headlands navalstations, hospitals, lazzaretti, and prisons. A prickly bindweed (the_Smilax Sarsaparilla_) forms a feature in the near landscape, with itscreamy odoriferous blossoms, coral berries, and glossy thorned leaves. 

A turn of the road brought Porto Venere in sight, and on its greywalls flashed a gleam of watery sunlight. The village consists of onelong narrow street, the houses on the left side hanging sheer abovethe sea. Their doors at the back open on to cliffs which drop aboutfifty feet upon the water. A line of ancient walls, with mediaevalbattlements and shells of chambers suspended midway between earth andsky, runs up the rock behind the town; and this wall is pierced with adeep gateway above which the inn is piled. We had our lunch in a roomopening upon the town-gate, adorned with a deep-cut Pisan archenclosing images and frescoes--a curious episode in a place devoted tothe jollity of smugglers and seafaring folk. The whole house was suchas Tintoretto loved to paint--huge wooden rafters; open chimneys withpent-house canopies of stone, where the cauldrons hung above logs ofchestnut; rude low tables spread with coarse linen embroidered at theedges, and laden with plates of fishes, fruit, quaint glass, big-bellied jugs of earthenware, and flasks of yellow wine. The peopleof the place were lounging round in lazy attitudes. There were oddnooks and corners everywhere; unexpected staircases with windowsslanting through the thickness of the town-wall; pictures of saints;high-zoned serving women, on whose broad shoulders lay big coralbeads; smoke-blackened roofs, and balconies that opened on the sea. The house was inexhaustible in motives for pictures. 

We walked up the street, attended by a rabble rout of boys--_diavoliscatenati_--clean, grinning, white-teethed, who kept incessantlyshouting, 'Soldo, soldo!' I do not know why these sea-urchins are sofar more irrepressible than their land brethren. But it is always thusin Italy. They take an imperturbable delight in noise and mereannoyance. I shall never forget the sea-roar of Porto Venere, withthat shrill obligate, 'Soldo, soldo, soldo!' rattling like a droppingfire from lungs of brass. 

At the end of Porto Venere is a withered and abandoned city, climbingthe cliffs of S. Pietro; and on the headland stands the ruined church, built by Pisans with alternate rows of white and black marble, uponthe site of an old temple of Venus. This is a modest and pure piece ofGothic architecture, fair in desolation, refined and dignified, andnot unworthy in its grace of the dead Cyprian goddess. Through itsbroken lancets the sea-wind whistles and the vast reaches of theTyrrhene gulf are seen. Samphire sprouts between the blocks of marble, and in sheltered nooks the caper hangs her beautiful purpureal snowybloom. 

The headland is a bold block of white limestone stained with red. Ithas the pitch of Exmoor stooping to the sea near Lynton. To north, asone looks along the coast, the line is broken by Porto Fino'samethystine promontory; and in the vaporous distance we could tracethe Riviera mountains, shadowy and blue. The sea came roaring, rollingin with tawny breakers; but, far out, it sparkled in pure azure, andthe cloud-shadows over it were violet. Where Corsica should have beenseen, soared banks of fleecy, broad-domed alabaster clouds. 

This point, once dedicated to Venus, now to Peter--both, be itremembered, fishers of men--is one of the most singular in Europe. Theisland of Palmaria, rich in veined marbles, shelters the port; so thatoutside the sea rages, while underneath the town, reached by a narrowstrait, there is a windless calm. It was not without reason that ourLady of Beauty took this fair gulf to herself; and now that she haslong been dispossessed, her memory lingers yet in names. For PortoVenere remembers her, and Lerici is only Eryx. There is a grotto here, where an inscription tells us that Byron once 'tempted the Ligurianwaves. ' It is just such a natural sea-cave as might have inspiredEuripides when he described the refuge of Orestes in 'Iphigenia. '

VI. --LERICI

Libeccio at last had swept the sky clear. The gulf was ridged withfoam-fleeced breakers, and the water churned into green, tawny wastes. But overhead there flew the softest clouds, all silvery, dispersed inflocks. It is the day for pilgrimage to what was Shelley's home. 

After following the shore a little way, the road to Lerici breaks intothe low hills which part La Spezzia from Sarzana. The soil is red, andovergrown with arbutus and pinaster, like the country around Cannes. Through the scattered trees it winds gently upwards, with frequentviews across the gulf, and then descends into a land rich witholives--a genuine Riviera landscape, where the mountain-slopes arehoary, and spikelets of innumerable light-flashing leaves twinkleagainst a blue sea, misty-deep. The walls here are not unfrequentlyadorned with basreliefs of Carrara marble--saints and madonnas verydelicately wrought, as though they were love-labours of sculptors whohad passed a summer on this shore. San Terenzio is soon discovered lowupon the sands to the right, nestling under little cliffs; and thenthe high-built castle of Lerici comes in sight, looking across, the bayto Porto Venere--one Aphrodite calling to the other, with the foambetween. The village is piled around its cove with tall andpicturesquely coloured houses; the molo and the fishing-boats lie justbeneath the castle. There is one point of the descending carriage roadwhere all this gracefulness is seen, framed by the boughs of olivebranches, swaying, wind-ruffled, laughing the many-twinkling smiles ofocean back from their grey leaves. Here _Erycina ridens_ is at home. And, as we stayed to dwell upon the beauty of the scene, came womenfrom the bay below--barefooted, straight as willow wands, withburnished copper bowls upon their heads. These women have the port ofgoddesses, deep-bosomed, with the length of thigh and springing anklesthat betoken strength no less than elasticity and grace. The hair ofsome of them was golden, rippling in little curls around brown browsand glowing eyes. Pale lilac blent with orange on their dress, andcoral beads hung from their ears. 

At Lerici we took a boat and pushed into the rolling breakers. Christian now felt the movement of the sea for the first time. Thiswas rather a rude trial, for the grey-maned monsters played, as itseemed, at will with our cockle-shell, tumbling in dolphin curves toreach the shore. Our boatmen knew all about Shelley and the CasaMagni. It is not at Lerici, but close to San Terenzio, upon the southside of the village. Looking across the bay from the molo, one couldclearly see its square white mass, tiled roof, and terrace built onrude arcades with a broad orange awning. Trelawny's description hardlyprepares one for so considerable a place. I think the English exilesof that period must have been exacting if the Casa Magni seemed tothem no better than a bathing-house. 

We left our boat at the jetty, and walked through some gardens to thevilla. There we were kindly entertained by the present occupiers, who, when I asked them whether such visits as ours were not a greatannoyance, gently but feelingly replied: 'It is not so bad now as itused to be. ' The English gentleman who rents the Casa Magni has knownit uninterruptedly since Shelley's death, and has used it for_villeggiatura_ during the last thirty years. We found him in thecentral sitting-room, which readers of Trelawny's 'Recollections' haveso often pictured to themselves. The large oval table, the setteesround the walls, and some of the pictures are still unchanged. As wesat talking, I laughed to think of that luncheon party, when Shelleylost his clothes, and came naked, dripping with sea-water, into theroom, protected by the skirts of the sympathising waiting-maid. Andthen I wondered where they found him on the night when he stoodscreaming in his sleep, after the vision of his veiled self, with itsquestion, '_Siete soddisfatto_?'

There were great ilexes behind the house in Shelley's time, which havebeen cut down, and near these he is said to have sat and written the'Triumph of Life. ' Some new houses, too, have been built between thevilla and the town; otherwise the place is unaltered. Only an awninghas been added to protect the terrace from the sun. I walked out onthis terrace, where Shelley used to listen to Jane's singing. The seawas fretting at its base, just as Mrs. Shelley says it did when theDon Juan disappeared. 

From San Terenzio we walked back to Lerici through olive woods, attended by a memory which toned the almost overpowering beauty of theplace to sadness. 

VII. --VIAREGGIO

The same memory drew us, a few days later, to the spot whereShelley's body was burned. Viareggio is fast becoming a fashionablewatering-place for the people of Florence and Lucca, who seek fresherair and simpler living than Livorno offers. It has the usual new innsand improvised lodging-houses of such places, built on the outskirtsof a little fishing village, with a boundless stretch of noble sands. There is a wooden pier on which we walked, watching the long roll ofwaves, foam-flaked, and quivering with moonlight. The Apennines fadedinto the grey sky beyond, and the sea-wind was good to breathe. Thereis a feeling of 'immensity, liberty, action' here, which is not commonin Italy. It reminds us of England; and to-night the Mediterranean hadthe rough force of a tidal sea. 

Morning revealed beauty enough in Viareggio to surprise even one whoexpects from Italy all forms of loveliness. The sand-dunes stretch formiles between the sea and a low wood of stone pines, with the Carrarahills descending from their glittering pinnacles by long lines to theheadlands of the Spezzian Gulf. The immeasurable distance was allpainted in sky-blue and amethyst; then came the golden green of thedwarf firs; and then dry yellow in the grasses of the dunes; and thenthe many-tinted sea, with surf tossed up against the furthest cliffs. It is a wonderful and tragic view, to which no painter but the RomanCosta has done justice; and he, it may be said, has made thislandscape of the Carrarese his own. The space between sand andpine-wood was covered with faint, yellow, evening primroses. Theyflickered like little harmless flames in sun and shadow, and thespires of the Carrara range were giant flames transformed to marble. The memory of that day described by Trelawny in a passage of immortalEnglish prose, when he and Byron and Leigh Hunt stood beside thefuneral pyre, and libations were poured, and the 'Cor Cordium' wasfound inviolate among the ashes, turned all my thoughts to flamebeneath the gentle autumn sky. 

Still haunted by these memories, we took the carriage road to Pisa, over which Shelley's friends had hurried to and fro through those lastdays. It passes an immense forest of stone-pines--aisles and avenues;undergrowth of ilex, laurustinus, gorse, and myrtle; the crowdedcyclamens, the solemn silence of the trees; the winds hushed in theirvelvet roof and stationary domes of verdure. 

 * * * * *

_PARMA_

Parma is perhaps the brightest _Residenzstadt_ of the second class inItaly. Built on a sunny and fertile tract of the Lombard plain, withinview of the Alps, and close beneath the shelter of the Apennines, itshines like a well-set gem with stately towers and cheerful squares inthe midst of verdure. The cities of Lombardy are all like largecountry houses: walking out of their gates, you seem to be steppingfrom a door or window that opens on a trim and beautiful garden, wheremulberry-tree is married to mulberry by festoons of vines, and wherethe maize and sunflower stand together in rows between patches of flaxand hemp. But it is not in order to survey the union of well-orderedhusbandry with the civilities of ancient city-life that we break thejourney at Parma between Milan and Bologna. We are attracted rather bythe fame of one great painter, whose work, though it may be studiedpiecemeal in many galleries of Europe, in Parma has a fulness, largeness, and mastery that can nowhere else be found. In Parma aloneCorreggio challenges comparison with Raphael, with Tintoret, with allthe supreme decorative painters who have deigned to make their art thehandmaid of architecture. Yet even in the cathedral and the church ofS. Giovanni, where Correggio's frescoes cover cupola and chapel wall, we could scarcely comprehend his greatness now--so cruelly have timeand neglect dealt with those delicate dream-shadows of celestialfairyland--were it not for an interpreter, who consecrated a lifetimeto the task of translating his master's poetry of fresco into theprose of engraving. That man was Paolo Toschi--a name to be evervenerated by all lovers of the arts; since without his guidance weshould hardly know what to seek for in the ruined splendours of thedomes of Parma, or even seeking, how to find the object of our search. Toschi's labour was more effectual than that of a restorer howeverskilful, more loving than that of a follower however faithful. Herespected Correggio's handiwork with religious scrupulousness, addingnot a line or tone or touch of colour to the fading frescoes; but helived among them, aloft on scaffoldings, and face to face with theoriginals which he designed to reproduce. By long and closefamiliarity, by obstinate and patient interrogation, he divinedCorreggio's secret, and was able at last to see clearly through themist of cobweb and mildew and altar smoke, and through the still morecruel travesty of so-called restoration. What he discovered, hefaithfully committed first to paper in water colours, and then tocopperplate with the burin, so that we enjoy the privilege of seeingCorreggio's masterpieces as Toschi saw them, with the eyes of geniusand of love and of long scientific study. It is not too much to saythat some of Correggio's most charming compositions--for example, thedispute of S. Augustine and S. John--have been resuscitated from thegrave by Toschi's skill. The original offers nothing but a moulderingsurface from which the painter's work has dropped in scales. Theengraving presents a design which we doubt not was Correggio's, for itcorresponds in all particulars to the style and spirit of the master. To be critical in dealing with so successful an achievement ofrestoration and translation is difficult. Yet it may be admitted onceand for all that Toschi has not unfrequently enfeebled his original. Under his touch Correggio loses somewhat of his sensuous audacity, hisdithyrambic ecstasy, and approaches the ordinary standard ofprettiness and graceful beauty. The Diana of the Camera di S. Paolo, for instance, has the strong calm splendour of a goddess: the sameDiana in Toschi's engraving seems about to smile with girlish joy. Ina word, the engraver was a man of a more common stamp--more timid andmore conventional than the painter. But this is after all a triflingdeduction from the value of his work. 

Our debt to Paolo Toschi is such that it would be ungrateful not toseek some details of his life. The few that can be gathered even atParma are brief and bald enough. The newspaper articles and funeralpanegyrics which refer to him are as barren as all such occasionalnotices in Italy have always been; the panegyrist seeming more anxiousabout his own style than eager to communicate information. Yet a bareoutline of Toschi's biography may be supplied. He was born at Parma in1788. His father was cashier of the post-office, and his mother's namewas Anna Maria Brest. Early in his youth he studied painting at Parmaunder Biagio Martini; and in 1809 he went to Paris, where he learnedthe art of engraving from Bervic and of etching from Oortman. In Parishe contracted an intimate friendship with the painter Gérard. Butafter ten years he returned to Parma, where he established a companyand school of engravers in concert with his friend Antonio Isac. MariaLouisa, the then Duchess, under whose patronage the arts flourished atParma (witness Bodoni's exquisite typography), soon recognised hismerit, and appointed him Director of the Ducal Academy. He then formedthe project of engraving a series of the whole of Correggio'sfrescoes. The undertaking was a vast one. Both the cupolas of S. Johnand the cathedral, together with the vault of the apse of S. Giovanni[10] and various portions of the side aisles, and theso-called Camera di S. Paolo, are covered by frescoes of Correggio andhis pupil Parmegiano. These frescoes have suffered so much fromneglect and time, and from unintelligent restoration, that it isdifficult in many cases to determine their true character. Yet Toschidid not content himself with selections, or shrink from the task ofdeciphering and engraving the whole. He formed a school of disciples, among whom were Carlo Raimondi of Milan, Antonio Costa of Venice, Edward Eichens of Berlin, Aloisio Juvara of Naples, Antonio Dalcò, Giuseppe Magnani, and Lodovico Bisola of Parma, and employed them asassistants in his work. Death overtook him in 1854, before it wasfinished, and now the water-colour drawings which are exhibited in theGallery of Parma prove to what extent the achievement fell short ofhis design. Enough, however, was accomplished to place the chiefmasterpieces of Correggio beyond the possibility of utter oblivion. 

To the piety of his pupil Carlo Raimondi, the bearer of a nameillustrious in the annals of engraving, we owe a striking portrait ofToschi. The master is represented on his seat upon the scaffold in thedizzy half-light of the dome. The shadowy forms of saints and angelsare around him. He has raised his eyes from his cartoon to study oneof these. In his right hand is the opera-glass with which hescrutinises the details of distant groups. The upturned face, with itsexpression of contemplative intelligence, is like that of anastronomer accustomed to commerce with things above the sphere ofcommon life, and ready to give account of all that he has gatheredfrom his observation of a world not ours. In truth the world createdby Correggio and interpreted by Toschi is very far removed from thatof actual existence. No painter has infused a more distinctindividuality into his work, realising by imaginative force andpowerful projection an order of beauty peculiar to himself, beforewhich it is impossible to remain quite indifferent. We must eitheradmire the manner of Correggio, or else shrink from it with thedistaste which sensual art is apt to stir in natures of a severe orsimple type. 

What, then, is the Correggiosity of Correggio? In other words, what isthe characteristic which, proceeding from the personality of theartist, is impressed on all his work? The answer to this question, though by no means simple, may perhaps be won by a process of gradualanalysis. The first thing that strikes us in the art of Correggio is, that he has aimed at the realistic representation of pure unrealities. His saints and angels are beings the like of whom we have hardly seenupon the earth. Yet they are displayed before us with all the movementand the vivid truth of nature. Next we feel that what constitutes thesuperhuman, visionary quality of these creatures, is their uniformbeauty of a merely sensuous type. They are all created for pleasure, not for thought or passion or activity or heroism. The uses of theirbrains, their limbs, their every feature, end in enjoyment; innocentand radiant wantonness is the condition of their whole existence. Correggio conceived the universe under the one mood of sensuous joy:his world was bathed in luxurious light; its inhabitants were capableof little beyond a soft voluptuousness. Over the domain of tragedy hehad no sway, and very rarely did he attempt to enter on it: nothing, for example, can be feebler than his endeavour to express anguish inthe distorted features of Madonna, S. John, and the Magdalen, who arebending over the dead body of a Christ extended in the attitude oflanguid repose. In like manner he could not deal with subjects whichdemand a pregnancy of intellectual meaning. He paints the three Fateslike young and joyous Bacchantes, places rose-garlands andthyrsi in their hands instead of the distaff and the thread of humandestinies, and they might figure appropriately upon the panels of abanquet-chamber in Pompeii. In this respect Correggio might be termedthe Rossini of painting. The melodies of the 'Stabat Mater'--_Fac utportem_ or _Quis est homo_--are the exact analogues in music ofCorreggio's voluptuous renderings of grave or mysterious motives. Nor, again, did he possess that severe and lofty art of composition whichsubordinates the fancy to the reason, and which seeks for the highestintellectual beauty in a kind of architectural harmony supreme abovethe melodies of gracefulness in detail. The Florentines and those whoshared their spirit--Michelangelo and Lionardo and Raphael--derivingthis principle of design from the geometrical art of the Middle Ages, converted it to the noblest uses in their vast well-orderedcompositions. But Correggio ignored the laws of scientificconstruction. It was enough for him to produce a splendid andbrilliant effect by the life and movement of his figures, and by theintoxicating beauty of his forms. His type of beauty, too, is by nomeans elevated. Lionardo painted souls whereof the features and thelimbs are but an index. The charm of Michelangelo's ideal is like aflower upon a tree of rugged strength. Raphael aims at the lovelinesswhich cannot be disjoined from goodness. But Correggio is contentedwith bodies 'delicate and desirable. ' His angels are geniidisimprisoned from the perfumed chalices of flowers, houris of anerotic paradise, elemental spirits of nature wantoning in Eden in herprime. To accuse the painter of conscious immorality or of what isstigmatised as sensuality, would be as ridiculous as to class hisseraphic beings among the products of the Christian imagination. Theybelong to the generation of the fauns; like fauns, they combine acertain savage wildness, a dithyrambic ecstasy of inspiration, adelight in rapid movement as they revel amid clouds or flowers, withthe permanent and all-pervading sweetness of the master's style. Wheninfantine or childlike, these celestial sylphs are scarcely to bedistinguished for any noble quality of beauty from Murillo's cherubs, and are far less divine than the choir of children who attend Madonnain Titian's 'Assumption. ' But in their boyhood and their prime ofyouth, they acquire a fulness of sensuous vitality and a radiance thatare peculiar to Correggio. The lily-bearer who helps to support S. Thomas beneath the dome of the cathedral at Parma, the groups ofseraphs who crowd behind the Incoronata of S. Giovanni, and the twowild-eyed open-mouthed S. Johns stationed at each side of thecelestial throne, are among the most splendid instances of theadolescent loveliness conceived by Correggio. Where the painter foundtheir models may be questioned but not answered; for he has made themof a different fashion from the race of mortals: no court of Romanemperor or Turkish sultan, though stocked with the flowers ofBithynian and Circassian youth, have seen their like. Mozart'sCherubino seems to have sat for all of them. At any rate theyincarnate the very spirit of the songs he sings. 

As a consequence of this predilection for sensuous and voluptuousforms, Correggio had no power of imagining grandly or severely. Satisfied with material realism in his treatment even of sublimemysteries, he converts the hosts of heaven into a 'fricassee offrogs, ' according to the old epigram. His apostles, gazing after theVirgin who has left the earth, are thrown into attitudes so violentand so dramatically foreshortened, that seen from below upon thepavement of the cathedral, little of their form is distinguishableexcept legs and arms in vehement commotion. Very different is Titian'sconception of this scene. To express the spiritual meaning, theemotion of Madonna's transit, with all the pomp which colour andsplendid composition can convey, is Titian's sole care; whereasCorreggio appears to have been satisfied with realising the tumult ofheaven rushing to meet earth, and earth straining upwards to ascend toheaven in violent commotion--a very orgasm of frenetic rapture. Theessence of the event is forgotten: its external manifestation alone ispresented to the eye; and only the accessories of beardless angels andcloud-encumbered cherubs are really beautiful amid a surge of limbs inrestless movement. More dignified, because designed with more repose, is the Apocalypse of S. John painted upon the cupola of S. Giovanni. The apostles throned on clouds, with which the dome is filled, gazeupward to one point. Their attitudes are noble; their form is heroic;in their eyes there is the strange ecstatic look by which Correggiointerpreted his sense of supernatural vision: it is a gaze not ofcontemplation or deep thought, but of wild half-savage joy, as ifthese saints also had become the elemental genii of cloud and air, spirits emergent from ether, the salamanders of an empyreanintolerable to mortal sense. The point on which their eyes converge, the culmination of their vision, is the figure of Christ. Here all theweakness of Correggio's method is revealed. He had undertaken torealise by no ideal allegorical suggestion, by no symbolism ofarchitectural grouping, but by actual prosaic measurement, bycorporeal form in subjection to the laws of perspective andforeshortening, things which in their very essence admit of only afigurative revelation. Therefore his Christ, the centre of all thoseearnest eyes, is contracted to a shape in which humanity itself ismean, a sprawling figure which irresistibly reminds one of a frog. Theclouds on which the saints repose are opaque and solid; cherubs incountless multitudes, a swarm of merry children, crawl about uponthese feather-beds of vapour, creep between the legs of the apostles, and play at bopeep behind their shoulders. There is no propriety intheir appearance there. They take no interest in the beatific vision. They play no part in the celestial symphony; nor are they capable ofmore than merely infantine enjoyment. Correggio has sprinkled themlavishly like living flowers about his cloudland, because he could notsustain a grave and solemn strain of music, but was forced by histemperament to overlay the melody with roulades. Gazing at thesefrescoes, the thought came to me that Correggio was like a manlistening to sweetest flute-playing, and translating phrase afterphrase as they passed through his fancy into laughing faces, breezytresses, and rolling mists. Sometimes a grander cadence reached hisear; and then S. Peter with the keys, or S. Augustine of the mightybrow, or the inspired eyes of S. John, took form beneath his pencil. But the light airs returned, and rose and lily faces bloomed again forhim among the clouds. It is not therefore in dignity or sublimity thatCorreggio excels, but in artless grace and melodious tenderness. TheMadonna della Scala clasping her baby with a caress which the littlechild returns, S. Catherine leaning in a rapture of ecstatic love towed the infant Christ, S. Sebastian in the bloom of almost boyishbeauty, are the so-called sacred subjects to which the painter wasadequate, and which he has treated with the voluptuous tenderness wefind in his pictures of Leda and Danae and Io. Could these saints andmartyrs descend from Correggio's canvas, and take flesh, and breathe, and begin to live; of what high action, of what grave passion, of whatexemplary conduct in any walk of life would they be capable? That isthe question which they irresistibly suggest; and we are forced toanswer, None! The moral and religious world did not exist forCorreggio. His art was but a way of seeing carnal beauty in a dreamthat had no true relation to reality. 

Correggio's sensibility to light and colour was exactly on a par withhis feeling for form. He belongs to the poets of chiaroscuro and thepoets of colouring; but in both regions he maintains the individualityso strongly expressed in his choice of purely sensuous beauty. Tintoretto makes use of light and shade for investing his greatcompositions with dramatic intensity. Rembrandt interprets sombre andfantastic moods of the mind by golden gloom and silvery irradiation, translating thought into the language of penumbral mystery. Lionardostudies the laws of light scientifically, so that the proper roundnessand effect of distance should be accurately rendered, and all thesubtleties of nature's smiles be mimicked. Correggio is content withfixing on his canvas the [Greek: anêrithmon gelasma], themany-twinkling laughter of light in motion, rained down through fleecyclouds or trembling foliage, melting into half-shadows, bathing andilluminating every object with a soft caress. There are no tragiccontrasts of splendour sharply defined on blackness, no mysteries ofhalf-felt and pervasive twilight, no studied accuracies of noondayclearness in his work. Light and shadow are woven together on hisfigures like an impalpable Coan gauze, aërial and transparent, enhancing the palpitations of voluptuous movement which he loved. Hiscolouring, in like manner, has none of the superb and mundane pompwhich the Venetians affected; it does not glow or burn or beat thefire of gems into our brain; joyous and wanton, it seems to be exactlysuch a beauty-bloom as sense requires for its satiety. There isnothing in his hues to provoke deep passion or to stimulate theyearnings of the soul: the pure blushes of the dawn and the crimsonpyres of sunset are nowhere in the world that he has painted. But thatchord of jocund colour which may fitly be married to the smiles oflight, the blues which are found in laughing eyes, the pinks thattinge the cheeks of early youth, and the warm yet silvery tones ofhealthy flesh, mingle as in a marvellous pearl-shell on his pictures. Both chiaroscuro and colouring have this supreme purpose in art, toeffect the sense like music, and like music to create a mood in thesoul of the spectator. Now the mood which Correggio stimulates is oneof natural and thoughtless pleasure. To feel his influence, and at thesame moment to be the subject of strong passion, or fierce lust, orheroic resolve, or profound contemplation, or pensive melancholy, isimpossible. Wantonness, innocent because unconscious of sin, immoralbecause incapable of any serious purpose, is the quality whichprevails in all that he has painted. The pantomimes of a Mohammedanparadise might be put upon the stage after patterns supplied by thisleast spiritual of painters. 

It follows from this analysis that the Correggiosity of Correggio, that which sharply distinguished him from all previous artists, wasthe faculty of painting a purely voluptuous dream of beautiful beingsin perpetual movement, beneath the laughter of morning light, in aworld of never-failing April hues. When he attempts to depart from thefairyland of which he was the Prospero, and to match himself with themasters of sublime thought or earnest passion, he proves his weakness. But within his own magic circle he reigns supreme, no other artisthaving blended the witcheries of colouring, chiaroscuro, and faunlikeloveliness of form into a harmony so perfect in its sensuous charm. Bewitched by the strains of the siren, we pardon affectations ofexpression, emptiness of meaning, feebleness of composition, exaggerated and melodramatic attitudes. There is what Goethe called ademonic influence in the art of Correggio: 'In poetry, ' said Goethe toEckermann, 'especially in that which is unconscious, before whichreason and understanding fall short, and which therefore produceseffects so far surpassing all conception, there is always somethingdemonic. ' It is not to be wondered that Correggio, possessed of thisdemonic power in the highest degree, and working to a purely sensuousend, should have exercised a fatal influence over art. His successors, attracted by an intoxicating loveliness which they could not analyse, which had nothing in common with the reason or the understanding, butwas like a glamour cast upon the soul in its most secretsensibilities, threw themselves blindly into the imitation ofCorreggio's faults. His affectation, his want of earnest thought, hisneglect of composition, his sensuous realism, his all-pervadingsweetness, his infantine prettiness, his substitution ofthaumaturgical effects for conscientious labour, admitted only tooeasy imitation, and were but too congenial with the spirit of the lateRenaissance. Cupolas through the length and breadth of Italy began tobe covered with clouds and simpering cherubs in the convulsions ofartificial ecstasy. The attenuated elegance of Parmigiano, theattitudinising of Anselmi's saints and angels, and a general sacrificeof what is solid and enduring to sentimental gewgaws on the part ofall painters who had submitted to the magic of Correggio, proved howeasy it was to go astray with the great master. Meanwhile no one couldapproach him in that which was truly his own--the delineation of atransient moment in the life of sensuous beauty, the painting of asmile on Nature's face, when light and colour tremble in harmony withthe movement of joyous living creatures. Another demonic nature of afar more powerful type contributed his share to the ruin of art inItaly. Michelangelo's constrained attitudes and muscular anatomy wereimitated by painters and sculptors, who thought that the grand stylelay in the presentation of theatrical athletes, but who could notseize the secret whereby the great master made even the bodies of menand women--colossal trunks and writhen limbs--interpret the meaningsof his deep and melancholy soul. 

It is a sad law of progress in art, that when the æsthetic impulse ison the wane, artists should perforce select to follow the weaknessrather than the vigour, of their predecessors. While painting was inthe ascendant, Raphael could take the best of Perugino and discard theworst; in its decadence Parmigiano reproduces the affectations ofCorreggio, and Bernini carries the exaggerations of Michelangelo toabsurdity. All arts describe a parabola. The force which producesthem causes them to rise throughout their growth up to a certainpoint, and then to descend more gradually in a long and slanting lineof regular declension. There is no real break of continuity. The endis the result of simple exhaustion. Thus the last of our Elizabethandramatists, Shirley and Crowne and Killigrew, pushed to its ultimateconclusion the principle inherent in Marlowe, not attempting to breaknew ground, nor imitating the excellences so much as the defects oftheir forerunners. Thus too the Pointed style of architecture inEngland gave birth first to what is called the Decorated, next to thePerpendicular, and finally expired in the Tudor. Each step was a stepof progress--at first for the better--at last for the worse--butlogical, continuous, necessitated. [11]

It is difficult to leave Correggio without at least posing thequestion of the difference between moralised and merely sensual art. Is all art excellent in itself and good in its effect that isbeautiful and earnest? There is no doubt that Correggio's work is in away most beautiful; and it bears unmistakable signs of the masterhaving given himself with single-hearted devotion to the expression ofthat phase of loveliness which he could apprehend. In so far we mustadmit that his art is both excellent and solid. Yet we are unable toconceive that any human being could be made better--stronger forendurance, more fitted for the uses of the world, more sensitive towhat is noble in nature--by its contemplation. At the best Correggiodoes but please us in our lighter moments, and we are apt to feel thatthe pleasure he has given is of an enervating kind. To expect obviousmorality of any artist is confessedly absurd. It is not the artist'sprovince to preach, or even to teach, except by remote suggestion. Yetthe mind of the artist may be highly moralised, and then he takes ranknot merely with the ministers to refined pleasure, but also with theeducators of the world. He may, for example, be penetrated with a justsense of humanity like Shakspere, or with a sublime temperance likeSophocles, instinct with prophetic intuition like Michelangelo, orwith passionate experience like Beethoven. The mere sight of the workof Pheidias is like breathing pure health-giving air. Milton and Dantewere steeped in religious patriotism; Goethe was pervaded withphilosophy, and Balzac with scientific curiosity. Ariosto, Cervantes, and even Boccaccio are masters in the mysteries of common life. In allthese cases the tone of the artist's mind is felt throughout his work:what he paints, or sings, or writes, conveys a lesson while itpleases. On the other hand, depravity in an artist or a poetpercolates through work which has in it nothing positive of evil, anda very miasma of poisonous influence may rise from the apparentlyinnocuous creations of a tainted soul. Now Correggio is moralised inneither way--neither as a good nor as a bad man, neither as an acutethinker nor as a deliberate voluptuary. He is simply sensuous. On hisown ground he is even very fresh and healthy: his delineation ofyouthful maternity, for example, is as true as it is beautiful; andhis sympathy with the gleefulness of children is devoid ofaffectation. We have then only to ask ourselves whether the defect inhim of all thought and feeling which is not at once capable ofgraceful fleshly incarnation, be sufficient to lower him in the scaleof artists. This question must of course be answered according to ourdefinition of the purposes of art. There is no doubt that the mosthighly organised art--that which absorbs the most numerous humanqualities and effects a harmony between the most complex elements--isthe noblest. Therefore the artist who combines moral elevation andpower of thought with a due appreciation of sensual beauty, is moreelevated and more beneficial than one whose domain is simply that ofcarnal loveliness. Correggio, if this be so, must take a comparativelylow rank. Just as we welcome the beautiful athlete for the radiantlife that is in him, but bow before the personality of Sophocles, whose perfect form enshrined a noble and highly educated soul, so wegratefully accept Correggio for his grace, while we approach theconsummate art of Michelangelo with reverent awe. It is necessary inæsthetics as elsewhere to recognise a hierarchy of excellence, thegrades of which are determined by the greater or lesscomprehensiveness of the artist's nature expressed in his work. At thesame time, the calibre of the artist's genius must be estimated; foreminent greatness even of a narrow kind will always command ouradmiration: and the amount of his originality has also to be takeninto account. What is unique has, for that reason alone, a claim onour consideration. Judged in this way, Correggio deserves a place, say, in the sweet planet Venus, above the moon and above Mercury, among the artists who have not advanced beyond the contemplationswhich find their proper outcome in love. Yet, even thus, he aids theculture of humanity. 'We should take care, ' said Goethe, apropos ofByron, to Eckermann, 'not to be always looking for culture in thedecidedly pure and moral. Everything that is great promotescultivation as soon as we are aware of it. '

 * * * * *

_CANOSSA_

Italy is less the land of what is venerable in antiquity, than ofbeauty, by divine right young eternally in spite of age. This is duepartly to her history and art and literature, partly to the temper ofthe races who have made her what she is, and partly to her naturaladvantages. Her oldest architectural remains, the temples of Paestumand Girgenti, or the gates of Perugia and Volterra, are so adapted toItalian landscape and so graceful in their massive strength, that weforget the centuries which have passed over them. We leap as by asingle bound from the times of Roman greatness to the new birth ofhumanity in the fourteenth century, forgetting the many years duringwhich Italy, like the rest of Europe, was buried in what our ancestorscalled Gothic barbarism. The illumination cast upon the classic periodby the literature of Rome and by the memory of her great men is sovivid, that we feel the days of the Republic and the Empire to be nearus; while the Italian Renaissance is so truly a revival of that formersplendour, a resumption of the music interrupted for a season, that itis extremely difficult to form any conception of the five longcenturies which elapsed between the Lombard invasion in 568 and theaccession of Hildebrand to the Pontificate in 1073. So true is it thatnothing lives and has reality for us but what is spiritual, intellectual, self-possessed in personality and consciousness. Whenthe Egyptian priest said to Solon, 'You Greeks are always children, 'he intended a gentle sarcasm, but he implied a compliment; for thequality of imperishable youth belonged to the Hellenic spirit, and hasbecome the heritage of every race which partook of it. And this spiritin no common degree has been shared by the Italians of the earlier andthe later classic epoch. The land is full of monuments pertaining tothose two brilliant periods; and whenever the voice of poet has spokenor the hand of artist has been at work, that spirit, as distinguishedfrom the spirit of mediaevalism, has found expression. 

Yet it must be remembered that during the five centuries abovementioned Italy was given over to Lombards, Franks, and Germans. Feudal institutions, alien to the social and political ideals of theclassic world, took a tolerably firm hold on the country. The Latinelement remained silent, passive, in abeyance, undergoing an importanttransformation. It was in the course of those five hundred years thatthe Italians as a modern people, separable from their Roman ancestors, were formed. At the close of this obscure passage in Italian history, their communes, the foundation of Italy's future independence, and thesource of her peculiar national development, appeared in all thevigour and audacity of youth. At its close the Italian geniuspresented Europe with its greatest triumph of constructive ability, the Papacy. At its close again the series of supreme artisticachievements, starting with the architecture of churches and publicpalaces, passing on to sculpture and painting, and culminating inmusic, which only ended with the temporary extinction of nationalvitality in the seventeenth century, was simultaneously begun in allthe provinces of the peninsula. 

So important were these five centuries of incubation for Italy, and solittle is there left of them to arrest the attention of the student, dazzled as he is by the ever-living glories of Greece, Rome, and theRenaissance, that a visit to the ruins of Canossa is almost a duty. There, in spite of himself, by the very isolation and forlornabandonment of what was once so formidable a seat of feudal despotismand ecclesiastical tyranny, he is forced to confront the obscure butmighty spirit of the middle ages. There, if anywhere, the men of thoseiron-hearted times anterior to the Crusades will acquire distinctnessfor his imagination, when he recalls the three main actors in thedrama enacted on the summit of Canossa's rock in the bitter winter of1077. 

Canossa lies almost due south of Reggio d'Emilia, upon the slopes ofthe Apennines. Starting from Reggio, the carriage-road keeps to theplain for some while in a westerly direction, and then bends awaytowards the mountains. As we approach their spurs, the ground beginsto rise. The rich Lombard tilth of maize and vine gives place toEnglish-looking hedgerows, lined with oaks, and studded with handsomedark tufts of green hellebore. The hills descend in melancholyearth-heaps on the plain, crowned here and there with ruined castles. Four of these mediaeval strongholds, called Bianello, Montevetro, Monteluzzo, and Montezano, give the name of Quattro Castelli to thecommune. The most important of them, Bianello, which, next to Canossa, was the strongest fortress possessed by the Countess Matilda and herancestors, still presents a considerable mass of masonry, roofed andhabitable. The group formed a kind of advance-guard for Canossaagainst attack from Lombardy. After passing Quattro Castelli we enterthe hills, climbing gently upwards between barren slopes of ashy greyearth--the _débris_ of most ancient Apennines--crested at favourablepoints with lonely towers. In truth the whole country bristles withruined forts, making it clear that during the middle ages Canossa wasbut the centre of a great military system, the core and kernel of afortified position which covered an area to be measured by scores ofsquare miles, reaching far into the mountains, and buttressed on theplain. As yet, however, after nearly two hours' driving, Canossa hasnot come in sight. At last a turn in the road discloses an opening inthe valley of the Enza to the left: up this lateral gorge we see firstthe Castle of Rossena on its knoll of solid red rock, flaming in thesunlight; and then, further withdrawn, detached from all surroundingobjects, and reared aloft as though to sweep the sea of waved andbroken hills around it, a sharp horn of hard white stone. That isCanossa--the _alba Canossa_, the _candida petra_ of its rhymingchronicler. There is no mistaking the commanding value of itssituation. At the same time the brilliant whiteness of Canossa'srocky hill, contrasted with the red gleam of Rossena, and outlinedagainst the prevailing dulness of these earthy Apennines, secures apicturesque individuality concordant with its unique history andunrivalled strength. 

There is still a journey of two hours before the castle can bereached: and this may be performed on foot or horseback. The pathwinds upward over broken ground; following the _arête_ of curiouslyjumbled and thwarted hill-slopes; passing beneath the battlements ofRossena, whence the unfortunate Everelina threw herself in order toescape the savage love of her lord and jailor; and then skirting thosehorrid earthen _balze_ which are so common and so unattractive afeature of Apennine scenery. The most hideous _balze_ to be found inthe length and breadth of Italy are probably those of Volterra, fromwhich the citizens themselves recoil with a kind of terror, and whichlure melancholy men by intolerable fascination on to suicide. For evercrumbling, altering with frost and rain, discharging gloomy glaciersof slow-crawling mud, and scarring the hillside with tracts ofbarrenness, these earth-precipices are among the most ruinous anddiscomfortable failures of nature. They have not even so much ofwildness or grandeur as forms, the saving merit of nearly all wastefulthings in the world, and can only be classed with the desolate_ghiare_ of Italian river-beds. 

Such as they are, these _balze_ form an appropriate preface to thegloomy and repellent isolation of Canossa. The rock towers from anarrow platform to the height of rather more than 160 feet from itsbase. The top is fairly level, forming an irregular triangle, of whichthe greatest length is about 260 feet, and the width about 100 feet. Scarcely a vestige of any building can be traced either upon theplatform or the summit, with the exception of a broken wall andwindows supposed to belong to the end of the sixteenth century. Theancient castle, with its triple circuit of walls, enclosing barracksfor the garrison, lodgings for the lord and his retainers, a statelychurch, a sumptuous monastery, storehouses, stables, workshops, andall the various buildings of a fortified stronghold, have utterlydisappeared. The very passage of approach cannot be ascertained; forit is doubtful whether the present irregular path that scales thewestern face of the rock be really the remains of some old staircase, corresponding to that by which Mont S. Michel in Normandy is ascended. One thing is tolerably certain--that the three walls of which we hearso much from the chroniclers, and which played so picturesque a partin the drama of Henry IV. 's penance, surrounded the cliff at its base, and embraced a large acreage of ground. The citadel itself must havebeen but the acropolis or keep of an extensive fortress. 

There has been plenty of time since the year 1255, when the people ofReggio sacked and destroyed Canossa, for Nature to resume herundisputed sway by obliterating the handiwork of men; and at presentNature forms the chief charm of Canossa. Lying one afternoon of May onthe crisp short grass at the edge of a precipice purple with iris infull blossom, I surveyed, from what were once the battlements ofMatilda's castle, a prospect than which there is none morespirit-stirring by reason of its beauty and its manifold associationsin Europe. The lower castle-crowded hills have sunk. Reggio lies atour feet, shut in between the crests of Monte Carboniano and Montedelle Celle. Beyond Reggio stretches Lombardy--the fairest and mostmemorable battlefield of nations, the richest and most highlycultivated garden of civilised industry. Nearly all the Lombard citiesmay be seen, some of them faint like bluish films of vapour, someclear with dome and spire. There is Modena and her Ghirlandina. Carpi, Parma, Mirandola, Verona, Mantua, lie well defined and russet on theflat green map; and there flashes a bend of lordly Po; and there theEuganeans rise like islands, telling us where Padua and Ferrara nestlein the amethystine haze Beyond and above all to the northward sweepthe Alps, tossing their silvery crests up into the cloudless sky fromthe violet mist that girds their flanks and drowns their basements. Monte Adamello and the Ortler, the cleft of the Brenner, and the sharppeaks of the Venetian Alps are all distinctly visible. An eagle flyingstraight from our eyrie might traverse Lombardy and light among thesnow-fields of the Valtelline between sunrise and sundown. Nor is theprospect tame to southward. Here the Apennines roll, billow abovebillow, in majestic desolation, soaring to snow summits in thePellegrino region. As our eye attempts to thread that labyrinth ofhill and vale, we tell ourselves that those roads wind to Tuscany, andyonder stretches Garfagnana, where Ariosto lived and mused inhonourable exile from the world he loved. 

It was by one of the mountain passes that lead from Lucca northwardthat the first founder of Canossa is said to have travelled early inthe tenth century. Sigifredo, if the tradition may be trusted, wasvery wealthy; and with his money he bought lands and signorial rightsat Reggio, bequeathing to his children, when he died about 945, apatrimony which they developed into a petty kingdom. Azzo, his secondson, fortified Canossa, and made it his principal place of residence. When Lothair, King of Italy, died in 950, leaving his beautiful widowto the ill-treatment of his successor, Berenger, Adelaide found aprotector in this Azzo. She had been imprisoned on the Lake of Garda;but managing to escape in man's clothes to Mantua, she thence sentnews of her misfortunes to Canossa. Azzo lost no time in riding withhis knights to her relief, and brought her back in safety to hismountain fastness. It is related that Azzo was afterwards instrumentalin calling Otho into Italy and procuring his marriage with Adelaide, in consequence of which events Italy became a fief of the Empire. Owing to the part he played at this time, the Lord of Canossa wasrecognised as one of the most powerful vassals of the German Emperorin Lombardy. Honours were heaped upon him; and he grew so rich andformidable that Berenger, the titular King of Italy, laid siege to hisfortress of Canossa. The memory of this siege, which lasted for threeyears and a half, is said still to linger in the popular traditions ofthe place. When Azzo died at the end of the tenth century, he left tohis son Tedaldo the title of Count of Reggio and Modena; and thistitle was soon after raised to that of Marquis. The Marches governedas Vicar of the Empire by Tedaldo included Reggio, Modena, Ferrara, Brescia, and probably Mantua. They stretched, in fact, across thenorth of Italy, forming a quadrilateral between the Alps andApennines. Like his father, Tedaldo adhered consistently to theImperial party; and when he died and was buried at Canossa, he in histurn bequeathed to his son Bonifazio a power and jurisdictionincreased by his own abilities. Bonifazio held the state of asovereign at Canossa, adding the duchy of Tuscany to his father'sfiefs, and meeting the allied forces of the Lombard barons in thefield of Coviolo like an independent potentate. His power andsplendour were great enough to rouse the jealousy of the Emperor; butHenry III. Seems to have thought it more prudent to propitiate thisproud vassal, and to secure his kindness, than to attempt hishumiliation. Bonifazio married Beatrice, daughter of Frederick, Dukeof Lorraine--her whose marble sarcophagus in the Campo Santo at Pisais said to have inspired Niccola Pisano with his new style ofsculpture. Their only child, Matilda, was born, probably at Lucca, in1046; and six years after her birth, Bonifazio, who had swayed hissubjects like an iron-handed tyrant, was murdered. To the great Houseof Canossa, the rulers of one-third of Italy, there now remained onlytwo women, Bonifazio's widow Beatrice, and his daughter Matilda. Beatrice married Godfrey, Duke of Lorraine, who was recognised byHenry IV. As her husband and as feudatory of the Empire in the fullplace of Boniface. He died about 1070; and in this year Matilda wasmarried by proxy to his son, Godfrey the Hunchback, whom, however, she did not see till the year 1072. The marriage was not a happy one;and the question has even been disputed among Matilda's biographerswhether it was ever consummated. At any rate it did not last long; forGodfrey was killed at Antwerp in 1076. In this year Matilda also losther mother, Beatrice, who died at Pisa, and was buried in thecathedral. 

By this rapid enumeration of events it will be seen how the power andhonours of the House of Canossa, including Tuscany, Spoleto, and thefairest portions of Lombardy, had devolved upon a single woman of theage of thirty at the moment when the fierce quarrel between Pope andEmperor began in the year 1076. Matilda was destined to play a great, a striking, and a tragic part in the opening drama of Italian history. Her decided character and uncompromising course of action have won forher the name of 'la gran donna d'Italia, ' and have caused her memoryto be blessed or execrated, according as the temporal pretensions andspiritual tyranny of the Papacy may have found supporters or opponentsin posterity. She was reared from childhood in habits of austerity andunquestioning piety. Submission to the Church became for her notmerely a rule of conduct, but a passionate enthusiasm. She identifiedherself with the cause of four successive Popes, protected her idol, the terrible and iron-hearted Hildebrand, in the time of hisadversity; remained faithful to his principles after his death; andhaving served the Holy See with all her force and all that shepossessed through all her lifetime, she bequeathed her vast dominionsto it on her deathbed. Like some of the greatest mediaevalcharacters--like Hildebrand himself--Matilda was so thoroughly of onepiece, that she towers above the mists of ages with the massivegrandeur of an incarnated idea. She is for us the living statue of asingle thought, an undivided impulse, the more than woman born torepresent her age. Nor was it without reason that Dante symbolised inher the love of Holy Church; though students of the 'Purgatory' willhardly recognise the lovely maiden, singing and plucking flowersbeside the stream of Lethe, in the stern and warlike chatelaine ofCanossa. Unfortunately we know but little of Matilda's personalappearance. Her health was not strong; and it is said to have beenweakened, especially in her last illness, by ascetic observances. Yetshe headed her own troops, armed with sword and cuirass, avoidingneither peril nor fatigue in the quarrels of her master Gregory. Up tothe year 1622 two strong suits of mail were preserved at QuattroCastelli, which were said to have been worn by her in battle, andwhich were afterwards sold on the market-place at Reggio. This habitof donning armour does not, however, prove that Matilda wasexceptionally vigorous; for in those savage times she could hardlyhave played the part of heroine without participating personally inthe dangers of warfare. 

No less monumental in the plastic unity of his character was the monkHildebrand, who for twenty years before his elevation to the Papacyhad been the maker of Popes and the creator of the policy of Rome. When he was himself elected in the year 1073, and had assumed the nameof Gregory VII. , he immediately began to put in practice the plans forChurch aggrandisement he had slowly matured during the previousquarter of a century. To free the Church from its subservience to theEmpire, to assert the Pope's right to ratify the election of theEmperor and to exercise the right of jurisdiction over him, to placeecclesiastical appointments in the sole power of the Roman See, and torender the celibacy of the clergy obligatory, were the points he hadresolved to carry. Taken singly and together, these chief aims ofHildebrand's policy had but one object--the magnification of theChurch at the expense both of the people and of secular authorities, and the further separation of the Church from the ties and sympathiesof common life that bound it to humanity. To accuse Hildebrand ofpersonal ambition would be but shallow criticism, though it is clearthat his inflexible and puissant nature found a savage selfishpleasure in trampling upon power and humbling pride at warfare withhis own. Yet his was in no sense an egotistic purpose like that whichmoved the Popes of the Renaissance to dismember Italy for theirbastards. Hildebrand, like Matilda, was himself the creature of agreat idea. These two potent personalities completely understood eachother, and worked towards a single end. Tho mythopoeic fancy mightconceive of them as the male and female manifestations of one dominantfaculty, the spirit of ecclesiastical dominion incarnate in a man andwoman of almost super-human mould. 

Opposed to them, as the third actor in the drama of Canossa, was a manof feebler mould. Henry IV. , King of Italy, but not yet crownedEmperor, had none of his opponents' unity of purpose or monumentaldignity of character. At war with his German feudatories, browbeatenby rebellious sons, unfaithful and cruel to his wife, vacillating inthe measures he adopted to meet his divers difficulties, at one timetormented by his conscience into cowardly submission, and at anothertreasonably neglectful of the most solemn obligations, Henry was nomatch for the stern wills against which he was destined to break inunavailing passion. Early disagreements with Gregory had culminated inhis excommunication. The German nobles abandoned his cause; and Henryfound it expedient to summon a council in Augsburg for the settlementof matters in dispute between the Empire and the Papacy. Gregoryexpressed his willingness to attend this council, and set forth fromRome accompanied by the Countess Matilda in December 1076. He did not, however, travel further than Vercelli, for news here reached him thatHenry was about to enter Italy at the head of a powerful army. Matildahereupon persuaded the Holy Father to place himself in safety amongher strongholds of Canossa. Thither accordingly Gregory retired beforethe ending of that year; and bitter were the sarcasms uttered by theimperial partisans in Italy upon this protection offered by a faircountess to the monk who had been made a Pope. The foul calumnies ofthat bygone age would be unworthy of even so much as this notice, ifwe did not trace in them the ineradicable Italian tendency to cynicalinsinuation--a tendency which has involved the history of theRenaissance Popes in an almost impenetrable mist of lies andexaggerations. Henry was in truth upon his road to Italy, but with avery different attendance from that which Gregory expected. Accompanied by Bertha, his wife, and his boy son Conrad, the Emperorelect left Spires in the condition of a fugitive, crossed Burgundy, spent Christmas at Besançon, and journeyed to the foot of Mont Cenis. It is said that he was followed by a single male servant of meanbirth; and if the tale of his adventures during the passage of theAlps can be credited, history presents fewer spectacles morepicturesque than the straits to which this representative of theCæsars, this supreme chief of feudal civility, this ruler destinedstill to be the leader of mighty armies and the father of a line ofmonarchs, was exposed. Concealing his real name and state, he inducedsome shepherds to lead him and his escort through the thick snows tothe summit of Mont Cenis; and by the help of these men the imperialparty were afterwards let down the snow-slopes on the further side bymeans of ropes. Bertha and her women were sewn up in hides and draggedacross the frozen surface of the winter drifts. It was a yearmemorable for its severity. Heavy snow had fallen in October, whichcontinued ice-bound and unyielding till the following April. 

No sooner had Henry reached Turin, than he set forward again in thedirection of Canossa. The fame of his arrival had preceded him, andhe found that his party was far stronger in Italy than he had venturedto expect. Proximity to the Church of Rome divests its fulminations ofhalf their terrors. The Italian bishops and barons, less superstitiousthan the Germans, and with greater reason to resent the domineeringgraspingness of Gregory, were ready to espouse the Emperor's cause. Henry gathered a formidable force as he marched onward acrossLombardy; and some of the most illustrious prelates and nobles of theSouth were in his suite. A more determined leader than Henry provedhimself to be, might possibly have forced Gregory to someaccommodation, in spite of the strength of Canossa and the Pope'sinvincible obstinacy, by proper use of these supporters. Meanwhile theadherents of the Church were mustered in Matilda's fortress; amongwhom may be mentioned Azzo, the progenitor of Este and Brunswick;Hugh, Abbot of Clugny; and the princely family of Piedmont. 'I ambecome a second Rome, ' exclaims Canossa, in the language of Matilda'srhyming chronicler; 'all honours are mine; I hold at once both Popeand King, the princes of Italy and those of Gaul, those of Rome, andthose from far beyond the Alps. ' The stage was ready; the audience hadassembled; and now the three great actors were about to meet. Immediately upon his arrival at Canossa, Henry sent for his cousin, the Countess Matilda, and besought her to intercede for him withGregory. He was prepared to make any concessions or to undergo anyhumiliations, if only the ban of excommunication might be removed;nor, cowed as he was by his own superstitious conscience, and by thememory of the opposition he had met with from his German vassals, doeshe seem to have once thought of meeting force with force, and ofreturning to his northern kingdom triumphant in the overthrow ofGregory's pride. Matilda undertook to plead his cause before thePontiff. But Gregory was not to be moved so soon to mercy. 'If Henryhas in truth repented, ' he replied, 'let him lay down crown andsceptre, and declare himself unworthy of the name of king. ' The onlypoint conceded to the suppliant was that he should be admitted in thegarb of a penitent within the precincts of the castle. Leaving hisretinue outside the walls, Henry entered the first series of outworks, and was thence conducted to the second, so that between him and thecitadel itself there still remained the third of the surroundingbastions. Here he was bidden to wait the Pope's pleasure; and here, inthe midst of that bitter winter weather, while the fierce winds of theApennines were sweeping sleet upon him in their passage from MontePellegrino to the plain, he knelt barefoot, clothed in sackcloth, fasting from dawn till eve, for three whole days. On the morning ofthe fourth day, judging that Gregory was inexorable, and that his suitwould not be granted, Henry retired to the Chapel of S. Nicholas, which stood within this second precinct. There he called to his aidthe Abbot of Clugny and the Countess, both of whom were his relations, and who, much as they might sympathise with Gregory, could hardly besupposed to look with satisfaction on their royal kinsman's outrage. The Abbot told Henry that nothing in the world could move the Pope;but Matilda, when in turn he fell before her knees and wept, engagedto do for him the utmost. She probably knew that the moment forunbending had arrived, and that her imperious guest could not witheither decency or prudence prolong the outrage offered to the civilchief of Christendom. It was the 25th of January when the Emperorelect was brought, half dead with cold and misery, into the Pope'spresence. There he prostrated himself in the dust, crying aloud forpardon. It is said that Gregory first placed his foot upon Henry'sneck, uttering these words of Scripture: 'Super aspidem et basiliscumambulabis, et conculcabis leonem et draconem, ' and that then he raisedhim from the earth and formally pronounced his pardon. The prelatesand nobles who took part in this scene were compelled to guaranteewith their own oaths the vows of obedience pronounced by Henry; sothat in the very act of reconciliation a new insult was offered tohim. After this Gregory said mass, and permitted Henry to communicate;and at the close of the day a banquet was served, at which the Kingsat down to meat with the Pope and the Countess. 

It is probable that, while Henry's penance was performed in the castlecourts beneath the rock, his reception by the Pope, and all thatsubsequently happened, took place in the citadel itself. But of thiswe have no positive information. Indeed the silence of the chroniclesas to the topography of Canossa is peculiarly unfortunate for loversof the picturesque in historic detail, now that there is nopossibility of tracing the outlines of the ancient building. Had theauthor of the 'Vita Mathildis' (Muratori, vol. V. ) foreseen that hisbeloved Canossa would one day be nothing but a mass of native rock, hewould undoubtedly have been more explicit on these points; and muchthat is vague about an event only paralleled by our Henry II. 'spenance before Becket's shrine at Canterbury, might now be clear. 

Very little remains to be told about Canossa. During the same year, 1077, Matilda made the celebrated donation of her fiefs to HolyChurch. This was accepted by Gregory in the name of S. Peter, and itwas confirmed by a second deed during the pontificate of Urban IV. In1102. Though Matilda subsequently married Guelfo d'Este, son of theDuke of Bavaria, she was speedily divorced from him; nor was there anyheir to a marriage ridiculous by reason of disparity of age, thebridegroom being but eighteen, while the bride was forty-three in theyear of her second nuptials. During one of Henry's descents intoItaly, he made an unsuccessful attack upon Canossa, assailing it atthe head of a considerable force one October morning in 1092. Matilda's biographer informs us that the mists of autumn veiled hisbeloved fortress from the eyes of the beleaguerers. They had not eventhe satisfaction of beholding the unvanquished citadel; and, what wasmore, the banner of the Emperor was seized and dedicated as a trophyin the Church of S. Apollonio. In the following year the Countessopened her gates of Canossa to an illustrious fugitive, Adelaide, thewife of her old foeman, Henry, who had escaped with difficulty fromthe insults and the cruelty of her husband. After Henry's death, hisson, the Emperor Henry V. , paid Matilda a visit in her castle ofBianello, addressed her by the name of mother, and conferred upon herthe vice-regency of Liguria. At the age of sixty-nine she died, in1115, at Bondeno de' Roncori, and was buried, not among her kinsmen atCanossa, but in an abbey of S. Benedict near Mantua. With her expiredthe main line of the noble house she represented; though Canossa, nowmade a fief of the Empire in spite of Matilda's donation, was given toa family which claimed descent from Bonifazio's brother Conrad--ayoung man killed in the battle of Coviolo. This family, in its turn, was extinguished in the year 1570; but a junior branch still exists atVerona. It will be remembered that Michelangelo Buonarroti claimedkinship with the Count of Canossa; and a letter from the Count isextant acknowledging the validity of his pretension. 

As far back as 1255 the people of Reggio destroyed the castle; nor didthe nobles of Canossa distinguish themselves in subsequent historyamong those families who based their despotisms on the _débris_ of theImperial power in Lombardy. It seemed destined that Canossa and allbelonging to it should remain as a mere name and memory of theoutgrown middle ages. Estensi, Carraresi, Visconti, Bentivogli, andGonzaghi belong to a later period of Lombard history, and mark thedawn of the Renaissance. 

As I lay and mused that afternoon of May upon the short grass, croppedby two grey goats, whom a little boy was tending, it occurred to me toask the woman who had served me as guide, whether any legend remainedin the country concerning the Countess Matilda. She had often, probably, been asked this question by other travellers. Therefore shewas more than usually ready with an answer, which, as far as I couldunderstand her dialect, was this. Matilda was a great and potentwitch, whose summons the devil was bound to obey. One day she aspired, alone of all her sex, to say mass; but when the moment came forsacring the elements, a thunderbolt fell from the clear sky, andreduced her to ashes. [12] That the most single-hearted handmaid of theHoly Church, whose life was one long devotion to its ordinances, should survive in this grotesque myth, might serve to point a satireupon the vanity of earthly fame. The legend in its very extravaganceis a fanciful distortion of the truth. 

 * * * * *

_FORNOVO_

In the town of Parma there is one surpassingly strange relic of thepast. The palace of the Farnesi, like many a haunt of upstart tyrannyand beggared pride on these Italian plains, rises misshapen anddisconsolate above the stream that bears the city's name. The squalorof this grey-brown edifice of formless brick, left naked like thepalace of the same Farnesi at Piacenza, has something even horrid init now that only vague memory survives of its former uses. Theprincely _sprezzatura_ of its ancient occupants, careless of theseunfinished courts and unroofed galleries amid the splendour of theirpurfled silks and the glitter of their torchlight pageantry, hasyielded to sullen cynicism--the cynicism of arrested ruin andunreverend age. All that was satisfying to the senses and distractingto the eyesight in their transitory pomp has passed away, leaving asinister and naked shell. Remembrance can but summon up the crimes, the madness, the trivialities of those dead palace-builders. Anatmosphere of evil clings to the dilapidated walls, as though thetainted spirit of the infamous Pier Luigi still possessed the spot, onwhich his toadstool brood of princelings sprouted in the mud of theirmisdeeds. Enclosed in this huge labyrinth of brickwork is the relic ofwhich I spoke. It is the once world-famous Teatro Farnese, raised inthe year 1618 by Ranunzio Farnese for the marriage of Odoardo Farnesewith Margaret of Austria. Giambattista Aleotti, a native ofpageant-loving Ferrara, traced the stately curves and noble orders ofthe galleries, designed the columns that support the raftered roof, marked out the orchestra, arranged the stage, and breathed into thewhole the spirit of Palladio's most heroic neo-Latin style. Vast, built of wood, dishevelled, with broken statues and blurred coats ofarms, with its empty scene, its uncurling frescoes, its hangings allin rags, its cobwebs of two centuries, its dust and mildew anddiscoloured gold--this theatre, a sham in its best days, and now thatugliest of things, a sham unmasked and naked to the light of day, isyet sublime, because of its proportioned harmony, because of its grandRoman manner. The sight and feeling of it fasten upon the mind andabide in the memory like a nightmare, --like one of Piranesi's weirdestand most passion-haunted etchings for the _Carceri_. Idling there atnoon in the twilight of the dust-bedarkened windows, we fill the tiersof those high galleries with ladies, the space below with grooms andpages; the stage is ablaze with torches, and an Italian Masque, suchas our Marlowe dreamed of, fills the scene. But it is impossible todower these fancies with even such life as in healthier, happierruins phantasy may lend to imagination's figments. This theatre islike a maniac's skull, empty of all but unrealities and mockeries ofthings that are. The ghosts we raise here could never have been livingmen and women: _questi sciaurati non fur mai vivi. _ So clinging is thesense of instability that appertains to every fragment of that dry-rottyranny which seized by evil fortune in the sunset of her golden dayon Italy. 

In this theatre I mused one morning after visiting Fornovo; and thethoughts suggested by the battlefield found their proper atmosphere inthe dilapidated place. What, indeed, is the Teatro Farnese but asymbol of those hollow principalities which the despot and thestranger built in Italy after the fatal date of 1494, when nationalenthusiasm and political energy were expiring in a blaze of art, andwhen the Italians as a people had ceased to be; but when the phantomof their former life, surviving in high works of beauty, was stillsuperb by reason of imperishable style! How much in Italy of theRenaissance was, like this plank-built plastered theatre, a glorioussham! The sham was seen through then; and now it stands unmasked: andyet, strange to say, so perfect is its form that we respect the shamand yield our spirits to the incantation of its music. 

The battle of Fornovo, as modern battles go, was a paltry affair; andeven at the time it seemed sufficiently without result. Yet thetrumpets which rang on July 6, 1495, for the onset, sounded the_réveil_ of the modern world; and in the inconclusive termination ofthe struggle of that day, the Italians were already judged andsentenced as a nation. The armies who met that morning representedItaly and France, --Italy, the Sibyl of Renaissance; France, the Sibylof Revolution. At the fall of evening Europe was already lookingnorthward; and the last years of the fifteenth century were openingan act which closed in blood at Paris on the ending of the eighteenth. 

If it were not for thoughts like these, no one, I suppose, would takethe trouble to drive for two hours out of Parma to the little villageof Fornovo--a score of bare grey hovels on the margin of a pebblyriver-bed beneath the Apennines. The fields on either side, as far aseye can see, are beautiful indeed in May sunlight, painted here withflax, like shallow sheets of water reflecting a pale sky, and therewith clover red as blood. Scarce unfolded leaves sparkle likeflamelets of bright green upon the knotted vines, and the young cornis bending all one way beneath a western breeze. But not lessbeautiful than this is the whole broad plain of Lombardy; nor are thenightingales louder here than in the acacia trees around Pavia. As wedrive, the fields become less fertile, and the hills encroach upon thelevel, sending down their spurs upon that waveless plain like bluntrocks jutting out into a tranquil sea. When we reach the bed of theTaro, these hills begin to narrow on either hand, and the road rises. Soon they open out again with gradual curving lines, forming a kind ofamphitheatre filled up from flank to flank with the _ghiara_ or pebblybottom of the Taro. The Taro is not less wasteful than any other ofthe brotherhood of streams that pour from Alp or Apennine to swell thePo. It wanders, an impatient rivulet, through a wilderness ofboulders, uncertain of its aim, shifting its course with the season ofthe year, unless the jaws of some deep-cloven gully hold it tight andshow how insignificant it is. As we advance, the hills approach again;between their skirts there is nothing but the river-bed; and now onrising ground above the stream, at the point of juncture between theCeno and the Taro, we find Fornovo. Beyond the village the valleybroadens out once more, disclosing Apennines capped with winter snow. To the right descends the Ceno. To the left foams the Taro, followingwhose rocky channel we should come at last to Pontremoli and theTyrrhenian sea beside Sarzana. On a May-day of sunshine like thepresent, the Taro is a gentle stream. A waggon drawn by two white oxenhas just entered its channel, guided by a contadino with goat-skinleggings, wielding a long goad. The patient creatures stem the water, which rises to the peasant's thighs and ripples round the creakingwheels. Swaying to and fro, as the shingles shift upon the river-bed, they make their way across; and now they have emerged upon the stones;and now we lose them in a flood of sunlight. 

It was by this pass that Charles VIII. In 1495 returned from Tuscany, when the army of the League was drawn up waiting to intercept andcrush him in the mousetrap of Fornovo. No road remained for Charlesand his troops but the rocky bed of the Taro, running, as I havedescribed it, between the spurs of steep hills. It is true that thevalley of the Baganza leads, from a little higher up among themountains, into Lombardy. But this pass runs straight to Parma; and tofollow it would have brought the French upon the walls of a strongcity. Charles could not do otherwise than descend upon the village ofFornovo, and cut his way thence in the teeth of the Italian army overstream and boulder between the gorges of throttling mountain. Thefailure of the Italians to achieve what here upon the ground appearsso simple, delivered Italy hand-bound to strangers. Had they butsucceeded in arresting Charles and destroying his forces at Fornovo, it is just possible that then--even then, at the eleventh hour--Italymight have gained the sense of national coherence, or at least haveproved herself capable of holding by her leagues the foreigner at bay. As it was, the battle of Fornovo, in spite of Venetian bonfires andMantuan Madonnas of Victory, made her conscious of incompetence andconvicted her of cowardice. After Fornovo, her sons scarcely dared tohold their heads up in the field against invaders; and the battlesfought upon her soil were duels among aliens for the prize of Italy. 

In order to comprehend the battle of Fornovo in its bearings onItalian history, we must go back to the year 1492, and understand theconditions of the various States of Italy at that date. On April 8 inthat year, Lorenzo de' Medici, who had succeeded in maintaining apolitical equilibrium in the peninsula, expired, and was succeeded byhis son Piero, a vain and foolhardy young man, from whom no guidancecould be expected. On July 25, Innocent VIII. Died, and was succeededby the very worst Pope who has ever occupied S. Peter's chair, Roderigo Borgia, Alexander VI. It was felt at once that the old orderof things had somehow ended, and that a new era, the destinies ofwhich as yet remained incalculable, was opening for Italy. The chiefItalian powers, hitherto kept in equipoise by the diplomacy of Lorenzode' Medici, were these--the Duchy of Milan, the Republic of Venice, the Republic of Florence, the Papacy, and the kingdom of Naples. Minor States, such as the Republics of Genoa and Siena, the Duchies ofUrbino and Ferrara, the Marquisate of Mantua, the petty tyrannies ofRomagna, and the wealthy city of Bologna, were sufficiently importantto affect the balance of power, and to produce new combinations. Forthe present purpose it is, however, enough to consider the five greatPowers. 

After the peace of Constance, which freed the Lombard Communes fromImperial interference in the year 1183, Milan, by her geographicalposition, rose rapidly to be the first city of North Italy. Withoutnarrating the changes by which she lost her freedom as a Commune, itis enough to state that, earliest of all Italian cities, Milan passedinto the hands of a single family. The Visconti managed to convertthis flourishing commonwealth, with all its dependencies, into theirprivate property, ruling it exclusively for their own profit, usingits municipal institutions as the machinery of administration, andemploying the taxes which they raised upon its wealth for purelyselfish ends. When the line of the Visconti ended in the year 1447, their tyranny was continued by Francesco Sforza, the son of a poorsoldier of adventure, who had raised himself by his military genius, and had married Bianca, the illegitimate daughter of the lastVisconti. On the death of Francesco Sforza in 1466, he left two sons, Galeazzo Maria and Lodovico, surnamed Il Moro, both of whom weredestined to play a prominent part in history. Galeazzo Maria, dissolute, vicious, and cruel to the core, was murdered by his injuredsubjects in the year 1476. His son, Giovanni Galeazzo, aged eight, would in course of time have succeeded to the Duchy, had it not beenfor the ambition of his uncle Lodovico. Lodovico contrived to namehimself as Regent for his nephew, whom he kept, long after he had comeof age, in a kind of honourable prison. Virtual master in Milan, butwithout a legal title to the throne, unrecognised in his authority bythe Italian powers, and holding it from day to day by craft and fraud, Lodovico at last found his situation untenable; and it was thisdifficulty of an usurper to maintain himself in his despotism which, as we shall see, brought the French into Italy. 

Venice, the neighbour and constant foe of Milan, had become a closeoligarchy by a process of gradual constitutional development, whichthrew her government into the hands of a few nobles. She waspractically ruled by the hereditary members of the Grand Council. Eversince the year 1453, when Constantinople fell beneath the Turk, theVenetians had been more and more straitened in their Orientalcommerce, and were thrown back upon the policy of territorialaggrandisement in Italy, from which they had hitherto refrained asalien to the temperament of the Republic. At the end of the fifteenthcentury Venice therefore became an object of envy and terror to theItalian States. They envied her because she alone was tranquil, wealthy, powerful, and free. They feared her because they had goodreason to suspect her of encroachment; and it was foreseen that if shegot the upper hand in Italy, all Italy would be the property of thefamilies inscribed upon the Golden Book. It was thus alone that theItalians comprehended government. The principle of representationbeing utterly unknown, and the privileged burghers in each city beingregarded as absolute and lawful owners of the city and of everythingbelonging to it, the conquest of a town by a republic implied thepolitical extinction of that town and the disfranchisement of itsinhabitants in favour of the conquerors. 

Florence at this epoch still called itself a Republic; and of allItalian commonwealths it was by far the most democratic. Its history, unlike that of Venice, had been the history of continual and brusquechanges, resulting in the destruction of the old nobility, in theequalisation of the burghers, and in the formation of a newaristocracy of wealth. Prom this class of _bourgeois_ nobles sprangthe Medici, who, by careful manipulation of the State machinery, bythe creation of a powerful party devoted to their interests, byflattery of the people, by corruption, by taxation, and by constantscheming, raised themselves to the first place in the commonwealth, and became its virtual masters. In the year 1492 Lorenzo de' Medici, the most remarkable chief of this despotic family, died, bequeathinghis supremacy in the Republic to a son of marked incompetence. 

Since the Pontificate of Nicholas V. The See of Rome had entered upona new period of existence. The Popes no longer dreaded to reside inRome, but were bent upon making the metropolis of Christendom bothsplendid as a seat of art and learning, and also potent as the capitalof a secular kingdom. Though their fiefs in Romagna and the March werestill held but loosely, though their provinces swarmed with pettydespots who defied the Papal authority, and though the princely Romanhouses of Colonna and Orsini were still strong enough to terrorise theHoly Father in the Vatican, it was now clear that the Papal See mustin the end get the better of its adversaries, and consolidate itselfinto a first-rate Power. The internal spirit of the Papacy at thistime corresponded to its external policy. It was thoroughlysecularised by a series of worldly and vicious pontiffs, who had cleanforgotten what their title, Vicar of Christ, implied. Theyconsistently used their religious prestige to enforce their secularauthority, while by their temporal power they caused their religiousclaims to be respected. Corrupt and shameless, they indulgedthemselves in every vice, openly acknowledged their children, andturned Italy upside down in order to establish favourites and bastardsin the principalities they seized as spoils of war. 

The kingdom of Naples differed from any other state of Italy. Subjectcontinually to foreign rulers since the decay of the Greek Empire, governed in succession by the Normans, the Hohenstauffens, and theHouse of Anjou, it had never enjoyed the real independence, or thefree institutions, of the northern provinces; nor had it beenItalianised in the same sense as the rest of the peninsula. Despotism, which assumed so many forms in Italy, was here neither the tyranny ofa noble house, nor the masked autocracy of a burgher, nor yet theforceful sway of a condottiere. It had a dynastic character, resembling the monarchy of one of the great European nations, butmodified by the peculiar conditions of Italian statecraft. Owing tothis dynastic and monarchical complexion of the Neapolitan kingdom, semi-feudal customs flourished in the south far more than in the northof Italy. The barons were more powerful; and the destinies of theRegno often turned upon their feuds and quarrels with the Crown. Atthe same time the Neapolitan despots shared the uneasy circumstancesof all Italian potentates, owing to the uncertainty of their tenure, both as conquerors and aliens, and also as the nominal vassals of theHoly See. The rights of suzerainty which the Normans had yielded tothe Papacy over their southern conquests, and which the Popes hadarbitrarily exercised in favour of the Angevine princes, proved aconstant source of peril to the rest of Italy by rendering thesuccession to the crown of Naples doubtful. On the extinction of theAngevine line, however, the throne was occupied by a prince who had novalid title but that of the sword to its possession. Alfonso of Aragonconquered Naples in 1442, and neglecting his hereditary dominion, settled in his Italian capital. Possessed with the enthusiasm forliterature which was then the ruling passion of the Italians, and veryliberal to men of learning, Alfonso won for himself the surname ofMagnanimous. On his death, in 1458, he bequeathed his Spanishkingdom, together with Sicily and Sardinia, to his brother, and leftthe fruits of his Italian conquest to his bastard, Ferdinand. ThisFerdinand, whose birth was buried in profound obscurity, was thereigning sovereign in the year 1492. Of a cruel and sombretemperament, traitorous and tyrannical, Ferdinand was hated by hissubjects as much as Alfonso had been loved. He possessed, however, toa remarkable degree, the qualities which at that epoch constituted aconsummate statesman; and though the history of his reign is thehistory of plots and conspiracies, of judicial murders and forcibleassassinations, of famines produced by iniquitous taxation, and ofevery kind of diabolical tyranny, Ferdinand contrived to hold his own, in the teeth of a rebellious baronage or a maddened population. Hispolitical sagacity amounted almost to a prophetic instinct in the lastyears of his life, when he became aware that the old order wasbreaking up in Italy, and had cause to dread that Charles VIII. OfFrance would prove his title to the kingdom of Naples by force ofarms. [13]

Such were the component parts of the Italian body politic, with theaddition of numerous petty principalities and powers, adhering more orless consistently to one or other of the greater States. The wholecomplex machine was bound together by no sense of common interest, animated by no common purpose, amenable to no central authority. Evensuch community of feeling as one spoken language gives, was lacking. And yet Italy distinguished herself clearly from the rest of Europe, not merely as a geographical fact, but also as a people intellectuallyand spiritually one. The rapid rise of humanism had aided in producingthis national self-consciousness. Every State and every city wasabsorbed in the recovery of culture and in the development of art andliterature. Far in advance of the other European nations, the Italiansregarded the rest of the world as barbarous, priding themselves thewhile, in spite of mutual jealousies and hatreds, on their Italiccivilisation. They were enormously wealthy. The resources of the Papaltreasury, the private fortunes of the Florentine bankers, the richesof the Venetian merchants might have purchased all that France orGermany possessed of value. The single Duchy of Milan yielded to itsmasters 700, 000 golden florins of revenue, according to thecomputation of De Comines. In default of a confederative system, theseveral States were held in equilibrium by diplomacy. By far the mostimportant people, next to the despots and the captains of adventure, were ambassadors and orators. War itself had become a matter ofarrangement, bargain, and diplomacy. The game of stratagem was playedby generals who had been friends yesterday and might be friends againto-morrow, with troops who felt no loyalty whatever for the standardsunder which they listed. To avoid slaughter and to achieve the ends ofwarfare by parade and demonstration was the interest of every oneconcerned. Looking back upon Italy of the fifteenth century, takingaccount of her religious deadness and moral corruption, estimating theabsence of political vigour in the republics and the noxious tyrannyof the despots, analysing her lack of national spirit, and comparingher splendid life of cultivated ease with the want of martial energy, we can see but too plainly that contact with a simpler and strongerpeople could not but produce a terrible catastrophe. The Italiansthemselves, however, were far from comprehending this. Centuries ofundisturbed internal intrigue had accustomed them to play the game offorfeits with each other, and nothing warned them that the time wascome at which diplomacy, finesse, and craft would stand them in illstead against rapacious conquerors. 

The storm which began to gather over Italy in the year 1492 had itsfirst beginning in the North. Lodovico Sforza's position in the Duchyof Milan was becoming every day more difficult, when a slight and toall appearances insignificant incident converted his apprehension ofdanger into panic. It was customary for the States of Italy tocongratulate a new Pope on his election by their ambassadors; and thisceremony had now to be performed for Roderigo Borgia. Lodovicoproposed that his envoys should go to Rome together with those ofVenice, Naples, and Florence; but Piero de' Medici, whose vanity madehim wish to send an embassy in his own name, contrived that Lodovico'sproposal should be rejected both by Florence and the King of Naples. So strained was the situation of Italian affairs that Lodovico saw inthis repulse a menace to his own usurped authority. Feeling himselfisolated among the princes of his country, rebuffed by the Medici, andcoldly treated by the King of Naples, he turned in his anxiety toFrance, and advised the young king, Charles VIII. , to make good hisclaim upon the Regno. It was a bold move to bring the foreigner thusinto Italy; and even Lodovico, who prided himself upon his sagacity, could not see how things would end. He thought his situation sohazardous, however, that any change must be for the better. Moreover, a French invasion of Naples would tie the hands of his natural foe, King Ferdinand, whose granddaughter, Isabella of Aragon, had marriedGiovanni Galeazzo Sforza, and was now the rightful Duchess of Milan. When the Florentine ambassador at Milan asked him how he had thecourage to expose Italy to such peril, his reply betrayed the egotismof his policy: 'You talk to me of Italy; but when have I looked Italyin the face? No one ever gave a thought to my affairs. I have, therefore, had to give them such security as I could. '

Charles VIII. Was young, light-brained, romantic, and ruled by_parvenus_, who had an interest in disturbing the old order of themonarchy. He lent a willing ear to Lodovico's invitation, backed asthis was by the eloquence and passion of numerous Italian refugees andexiles. Against the advice of his more prudent counsellors, he taxedall the resources of his kingdom, and concluded treaties ondisadvantageous terms with England, Germany, and Spain, in order thathe might be able to concentrate all his attention upon the Italianexpedition. At the end of the year 1493, it was known that theinvasion was resolved upon. Gentile Becchi, the Florentine envoy atthe Court of France, wrote to Piero de' Medici: 'If the King succeeds, it is all over with Italy--_tutta a bordello. _' The extraordinaryselfishness of the several Italian States at this critical momentdeserves to be noticed. The Venetians, as Paolo Antonio Soderinidescribed them to Piero de' Medici, 'are of opinion that to keepquiet, and to see other potentates of Italy spending and suffering, cannot but be to their advantage. They trust no one, and feel surethey have enough money to be able at any moment to raise sufficienttroops, and so to guide events according to their inclinations. ' Asthe invasion was directed against Naples, Ferdinand of Aragondisplayed the acutest sense of the situation. 'Frenchmen, ' heexclaimed, in what appears like a prophetic passion when contrastedwith the cold indifference of others no less really menaced, 'havenever come into Italy without inflicting ruin; and this invasion, ifrightly considered, cannot but bring universal ruin, although it seemsto menace us alone. ' In his agony Ferdinand applied to Alexander VI. But the Pope looked coldly upon him, because the King of Naples, withrare perspicacity, had predicted that his elevation to the Papacywould prove disastrous to Christendom. Alexander preferred to allyhimself with Venice and Milan. Upon this Ferdinand wrote as follows:'It seems fated that the Popes should leave no peace in Italy. We arecompelled to fight; but the Duke of Bari (_i. E. _ Lodovico Sforza)should think what may ensue from the tumult he is stirring up. He whoraises this wind will not be able to lay the tempest when he likes. Let him look to the past, and he will see how every time that ourinternal quarrels have brought Powers from beyond the Alps into Italy, these have oppressed and lorded over her. '

Terribly verified as these words were destined to be, --and they wereno less prophetic in their political sagacity than Savonarola'sprediction of the Sword and bloody Scourge, --it was now too late toavert the coming ruin. On March 1, 1494, Charles was with his army atLyons. Early in September he had crossed the pass of Mont Genêvre andtaken up his quarters in the town of Asti. There is no need todescribe in detail the holiday march of the French troops throughLombardy, Tuscany, and Rome, until, without having struck a blow ofconsequence, the gates of Naples opened to receive the conqueror uponFebruary 22, 1495. Philippe de Comines, who parted from the King atAsti and passed the winter as his envoy at Venice, has more than oncerecorded his belief that nothing but the direct interposition ofProvidence could have brought so mad an expedition to so successful aconclusion. 'Dieu monstroit conduire l'entreprise, ' No sooner, however, was Charles installed in Naples than the States of Italybegan to combine against him. Lodovico Sforza had availed himself ofthe general confusion consequent upon the first appearance of theFrench, to poison his nephew. He was, therefore, now the titular, aswell as virtual, Lord of Milan. So far, he had achieved what hedesired, and had no further need of Charles. The overtures he now madeto the Venetians and the Pope terminated in a League between thesePowers for the expulsion of the French from Italy. Germany and Spainentered into the same alliance; and De Comines, finding himselftreated with marked coldness by the Signory of Venice, despatched acourier to warn Charles in Naples of the coming danger. After a stayof only fifty days in his new capital, the French King hurriednorthward. Moving quickly through the Papal States and Tuscany, heengaged his troops in the passes of the Apennines near Pontremoli, andon July 5, 1495, took up his quarters in the village of Fornovo. DeComines reckons that his whole fighting force at this time did notexceed 9, 000 men, with fourteen pieces of artillery. Against him atthe opening of the valley was the army of the League, numbering some35, 000 men, of whom three-fourths were supplied by Venice, the rest byLodovico Sforza and the German Emperor. Francesco Gonzaga, Marquis ofMantua, was the general of the Venetian forces; and on him, therefore, fell the real responsibility of the battle. 

De Comines remarks on the imprudence of the allies, who allowedCharles to advance as far as Fornovo, when it was their obvious policyto have established themselves in the village and so have caught theFrench troops in a trap. It was a Sunday when the French marched downupon Fornovo. Before them spread the plain of Lombardy, and beyond itthe white crests of the Alps. 'We were, ' says De Comines, 'in a valleybetween two little mountain flanks, and in that valley ran a riverwhich could easily be forded on foot, except when it is swelled withsudden rains. The whole valley was a bed of gravel and big stones, very difficult for horses, about a quarter of a league in breadth, andon the right bank lodged our enemies. ' Any one who has visited Fornovocan understand the situation of the two armies. Charles occupied thevillage on the right bank of the Taro. On the same bank, extendingdownward toward the plain, lay the host of the allies; and in orderthat Charles should escape them, it was necessary that he should crossthe Taro, just below its junction with the Ceno, and reach Lombardy bymarching in a parallel line with his foes. 

All through the night of Sunday it thundered and rained incessantly;so that on the Monday morning the Taro was considerably swollen. Atseven o'clock the King sent for De Comines, who found him alreadyarmed and mounted on the finest horse he had ever seen. The name ofthis charger was _Savoy_. He was black, one-eyed, and of middlingheight; and to his great courage, as we shall see, Charles owed lifeupon that day. The French army, ready for the march, now took to thegravelly bed of the Taro, passing the river at a distance of about aquarter of a league from the allies. As the French left Fornovo, thelight cavalry of their enemies entered the village and began to attackthe baggage. At the same time the Marquis of Mantua, with the flowerof his men-at-arms, crossed the Taro and harassed the rear of theFrench host; while raids from the right bank to the left wereconstantly being made by sharpshooters and flying squadrons. 'At thismoment, ' says De Comines, 'not a single man of us could have escapedif our ranks had once been broken. ' The French army was divided intothree main bodies. The vanguard consisted of some 350 men-at-arms, 3000 Switzers, 300 archers of the Guard, a few mounted crossbow-men, and the artillery. Next came the Battle, and after this the rearguard. At the time when the Marquis of Mantua made his attack, the Frenchrearguard had not yet crossed the river. Charles quitted the van, puthimself at the head of his chivalry, and charged the Italian horsemen, driving them back, some to the village and others to their camp. DeComines observes, that had the Italian knights been supported in thispassage of arms by the light cavalry of the Venetian force, calledStradiots, the French must have been outnumbered, thrown intoconfusion, and defeated. As it was, these Stradiots were engaged inplundering the baggage of the French; and the Italians, accustomed tobloodless encounters, did not venture, in spite of their immensesuperiority of numbers, to renew the charge. In the pursuit ofGonzaga's horsemen Charles outstripped his staff, and was left almostalone to grapple with a little band of mounted foemen. It was herethat his noble horse, Savoy, saved his person by plunging and chargingtill assistance came up from the French, and enabled the King toregain his van. 

It is incredible, considering the nature of the ground and the numberof the troops engaged, that the allies should not have returned to theattack and have made the passage of the French into the plainimpossible. De Comines, however, assures us that the actual engagementonly lasted a quarter of an hour, and the pursuit of the Italiansthree quarters of an hour. After they had once resolved to fly, theythrew away their lances and betook themselves to Reggio and Parma. Socomplete was their discomfiture, that De Comines gravely blames thewant of military genius and adventure in the French host. If, insteadof advancing along the left bank of the Taro and there taking up hisquarters for the night, Charles had recrossed the stream and pursuedthe army of the allies, he would have had the whole of Lombardy at hisdiscretion. As it was, the French army encamped not far from the sceneof the action in great discomfort and anxiety. De Comines had tobivouac in a vineyard, without even a mantle to wrap round him, havinglent his cloak to the King in the morning; and as it had been pouringall day, the ground could not have afforded very luxurious quarters. The same extraordinary luck which had attended the French in theirwhole expedition, now favoured their retreat; and the samepusillanimity which the allies had shown at Fornovo, prevented themfrom re-forming and engaging with the army of Charles upon the plain. One hour before daybreak on Tuesday morning, the French broke up theircamp and succeeded in clearing the valley. That night they lodged atFiorenzuola, the next at Piacenza, and so on; till on the eighth daythey arrived at Asti without having been so much as incommoded by thearmy of the allies in their rear. 

Although the field of Fornovo was in reality so disgraceful to theItalians, they reckoned it a victory upon the technical pretence thatthe camp and baggage of the French had been seized. Illuminations andrejoicings made the piazza of S. Mark in Venice gay, and Francesco daGonzaga had the glorious Madonna della Vittoria painted for him byMantegna, in commemoration of what ought only to have been rememberedwith shame. 

A fitting conclusion to this sketch, connecting its close with thecommencement, may be found in some remarks upon the manner of warfareto which the Italians of the Renaissance had become accustomed, andwhich proved so futile on the field of Fornovo. During the middleages, and in the days of the Communes, the whole male population ofItaly had fought light-armed on foot. Merchant and artisan left thecounting-house and the workshop, took shield and pike, and salliedforth to attack the barons in their castles, or to meet the Emperor'stroops upon the field. It was with this national militia that thecitizens of Florence freed their _Contado_ of the nobles, and theburghers of Lombardy gained the battle of Legnano. In course of time, by a process of change which it is not very easy to trace, heavilyarmed cavalry began to take the place of infantry in mediæval warfare. Men-at-arms, as they were called, encased from head to foot in iron, and mounted upon chargers no less solidly caparisoned, drove thefoot-soldiers before them at the points of their long lances. Nowherein Italy do they seem to have met with the fierce resistance which thebears of the Swiss Oberland and the bulls of Uri offered to theknights of Burgundy. No Tuscan Arnold von Winkelried clasped a dozenlances to his bosom that the foeman's ranks might thus be broken atthe cost of his own life; nor did it occur to the Italian burghers tomeet the charge of the horsemen with squares protected by bristlingspears. They seem, on the contrary, to have abandoned military servicewith the readiness of men whose energies were already absorbed in theaffairs of peace. To become a practised and efficient man-at-armsrequired long training and a life's devotion. So much time theburghers of the free towns could not spare to military service, whilethe petty nobles were only too glad to devote themselves to sohonourable a calling. Thus it came to pass that a class ofprofessional fighting-men was gradually formed in Italy, whoseservices the burghers and the princes bought, and by whom the wars ofthe peninsula were regularly farmed by contract. Wealth and luxury inthe great cities continued to increase; and as the burghers grew morecomfortable, they were less inclined to take the field in their ownpersons, and more disposed to vote large sums of money for thepurchase of necessary aid. At the same time this system suited thedespots, since it spared them the peril of arming their own subjects, while they taxed them to pay the services of foreign captains. Warthus became a commerce. Romagna, the Marches of Ancona, and otherparts of the Papal dominions, supplied a number of petty nobles whosewhole business in life it was to form companies of trained horsemen, and with these bands to hire themselves out to the republics and thedespots. Gain was the sole purpose of these captains. They sold theirservice to the highest bidder, fighting irrespectively of principle orpatriotism, and passing with the coldest equanimity from the camp ofone master to that of his worst foe. It was impossible that truemilitary spirit should survive this prostitution of the art of war. Aspecies of mock warfare prevailed in Italy. Battles were fought with aview to booty more than victory; prisoners were taken for the sake ofransom; bloodshed was carefully avoided, for the men who fought oneither side in any pitched field had been comrades with their presentfoemen in the last encounter, and who could tell how soon the generalof the one host might not need his rival's troops to recruit his ownranks? Like every genuine institution of the Italian Renaissance, warfare was thus a work of fine art, a masterpiece of intellectualsubtlety; and like the Renaissance itself, this peculiar form ofwarfare was essentially transitional. The cannon and the musket werealready in use; and it only required one blast of gunpowder to turnthe sham-fight of courtly, traitorous, finessing captains of adventureinto something terribly more real. To men like the Marquis of Mantuawar had been a highly profitable game of skill; to men like theMaréchal de Gié it was a murderous horseplay; and this difference theItalians were not slow to perceive. When they cast away their lancesat Fornovo, and fled--in spite of their superior numbers--never toreturn, one fair-seeming sham of the fifteenth century became a visionof the past. 

 * * * * *

_FLORENCE AND THE MEDICI_

 Di Firenze in prima si divisono intra loro i nobili, dipoi i nobili e il popolo, e in ultimo il popolo e la plebe; e molte volte occorse che una di queste parti rimasa superiore, si divise in due. --MACHIAVELLI. 

I

Florence, like all Italian cities, owed her independence to the duelof the Papacy and Empire. The transference of the imperial authoritybeyond the Alps had enabled the burghs of Lombardy and Tuscany toestablish a form of self-government. This government was based uponthe old municipal organisation of duumvirs and decemvirs. It was, infact, nothing more or less than a survival from the ancient Romansystem. The proof of this was, that while vindicating their rights astowns, the free cities never questioned the validity of the imperialtitle. Even after the peace of Constance in 1183, when FrederickBarbarossa acknowledged their autonomy, they received within theirwalls a supreme magistrate, with power of life and death and ultimateappeal in all decisive questions, whose title of Potestà indicatedthat he represented the imperial power--Potestas. It was not by theassertion of any right, so much as by the growth of custom, and by theweakness of the Emperors, that in course of time each city became asovereign State. The theoretical supremacy of the Empire prevented anyother authority from taking the first place in Italy. On the otherhand, the practical inefficiency of the Emperors to play their partencouraged the establishment of numerous minor powers amenable to nocontrolling discipline. 

The free cities derived their strength from industry, and had nothingin common with the nobles of the surrounding country. Broadlyspeaking, the population of the towns included what remained in Italyof the old Roman people. This Roman stock was nowhere stronger than inFlorence and Venice--Florence defended from barbarian incursions byher mountains and marshes, Venice by the isolation of her lagoons. Thenobles, on the contrary, were mostly of foreign origin--Germans, Franks, and Lombards, who had established themselves as feudal lordsin castles apart from the cities. The force which the burghs acquiredas industrial communities was soon turned against these nobles. Thelarger cities, like Milan and Florence, began to make war upon thelords of castles, and to absorb into their own territory the smalltowns and villages around them. Thus in the social economy of theItalians there were two antagonistic elements ready to rangethemselves beneath any banners that should give the form of legitimatewarfare to their mutual hostility. It was the policy of the Church inthe twelfth century to support the cause of the cities, using them asa weapon against the Empire, and stimulating the growing ambition ofthe burghers. In this way Italy came to be divided into the twoworld-famous factions known as Guelf and Ghibelline. The strugglebetween Guelf and Ghibelline was the struggle of the Papacy for thedepression of the Empire, the struggle of the great burghs face toface with feudalism, the struggle of the old Italie stock enclosed incities with the foreign nobles established in fortresses. When theChurch had finally triumphed by the extirpation of the House ofHohenstaufen, this conflict of Guelf and Ghibelline was really ended. Until the reign of Charles V. No Emperor interfered to any purpose inItalian affairs. At the same time the Popes ceased to wield aformidable power. Having won the battle by calling in the French, theysuffered the consequences of this policy by losing their hold on Italyduring the long period of their exile at Avignon. The Italians, leftwithout either Pope or Emperor, were free to pursue their course ofinternal development, and to prosecute their quarrels amongthemselves. But though the names of Guelf and Ghibelline lost theirold significance after the year 1266 (the date of King Manfred'sdeath), these two factions had so divided Italy that they continued toplay a prominent part in her annals. Guelf still meant constitutionalautonomy, meant the burgher as against the noble, meant industry asopposed to feudal lordship. Ghibelline meant the rule of the few overthe many, meant tyranny, meant the interest of the noble as againstthe merchant and the citizen. These broad distinctions must be bornein mind, if we seek to understand how it was that a city like Florencecontinued to be governed by parties, the European force of which hadpassed away. 

II

Florence first rose into importance during the papacy of Innocent III. Up to this date she had been a town of second-rate distinction even inTuscany. Pisa was more powerful by arms and commerce. Lucca was theold seat of the dukes and marquises of Tuscany. But between the years1200 and 1250 Florence assumed the place she was to holdthenceforward, by heading the league of Tuscan cities formed tosupport the Guelf party against the Ghibellines. Formally adopting theGuelf cause, the Florentines made themselves the champions ofmunicipal liberty in Central Italy; and while they declared waragainst the Ghibelline cities, they endeavoured to stamp out the veryname of noble in their State. It is not needful to describe thevarying fortunes of the Guelfs and Ghibellines, the burghers and thenobles, during the thirteenth and the first half of the fourteenthcenturies. Suffice it to say that through all the vicissitudes of thatstormy period the name Guelf became more and more associated withrepublican freedom in Florence. At last, after the final triumph ofthat party in 1253, the Guelfs remained victors in the city. Associating the glory of their independence with Guelf principles, thecitizens of Florence perpetuated within their State a faction that, inits turn, was destined to prove perilous to liberty. 

When it became clear that the republic was to rule itself henceforthuntrammelled by imperial interference, the people divided themselvesinto six districts, and chose for each district two Ancients, whoadministered the government in concert with the Potestà and theCaptain of the People. The Ancients were a relic of the old Romanmunicipal organisation. The Potestà who was invariably a nobleforeigner selected by the people, represented the extinct imperialright, and exercised the power of life and death within the city. TheCaptain of the People, who was also a foreigner, headed the burghersin their military capacity, for at that period the troops were leviedfrom the citizens themselves in twenty companies. The body of thecitizens, or the _popolo_, were ultimately sovereigns in the State. Assembled under the banners of their several companies, they formed a_parlamento_ for delegating their own power to each successivegovernment. Their representatives, again, arranged in two councils, called the Council of the People and the Council of the Commune, underthe presidency of the Captain of the People and the Potestà, ratifiedthe measures which had previously been proposed and carried by theexecutive authority or Signoria. Under this simple State system theFlorentines placed themselves at the head of the Tuscan League, foughtthe battles of the Church, asserted their sovereignty by issuing thegolden florin of the republic, and flourished until 1266. 

III

In that year an important change was effected in the Constitution. The whole population of Florence consisted, on the one hand, of noblesor Grandi, as they were called in Tuscany, and on the other hand ofworking people. The latter, divided into traders and handicraftsmen, were distributed in guilds called Arti; and at that time there wereseven Greater and five Lesser Arti, the most influential of all beingthe Guild of the Wool Merchants. These guilds had their halls formeeting, their colleges of chief officers, their heads, called Consolior Priors, and their flags. In 1266 it was decided that theadministration of the commonwealth should be placed simply and whollyin the hands of the Arti, and the Priors of these industrial companiesbecame the lords or Signory of Florence. No inhabitant of the city whohad not enrolled himself as a craftsman in one of the guilds couldexercise any function of burghership. To be _scioperato_, or withoutindustry, was to be without power, without rank or place of honour inthe State. The revolution which placed the Arts at the head of therepublic had the practical effect of excluding the Grandi altogetherfrom the government. Violent efforts were made by these noblefamilies, potent through their territorial possessions and foreignconnections, and trained from boyhood in the use of arms, to recoverthe place from which the new laws thrust them: but their menacingattitude, instead of intimidating the burghers, roused their anger anddrove them to the passing of still more stringent laws. In 1293, afterthe Ghibellines had been defeated in the great battle of Campaldino, aseries of severe enactments, called the Ordinances of Justice, weredecreed against the unruly Grandi. All civic rights were taken fromthem; the severest penalties were attached to their slightestinfringement of municipal law; their titles to land were limited; theprivilege of living within the city walls was allowed them only undergalling restrictions; and, last not least, a supreme magistrate, namedthe Gonfalonier of Justice, was created for the special purpose ofwatching them and carrying out the penal code against them. Henceforward Florence was governed exclusively by merchants andartisans. The Grandi hastened to enrol themselves in the guilds, exchanging their former titles and dignities for the solid privilegeof burghership. The exact parallel to this industrial constitution fora commonwealth, carrying on wars with emperors and princes, holdinghaughty captains in its pay, and dictating laws to subject cities, cannot, I think, be elsewhere found in history. It is as unique as theFlorence of Dante and Giotto is unique. While the people was guardingitself thus stringently against the Grandi, a separate body wascreated for the special purpose of extirpating the Ghibellines. Apermanent committee of vigilance, called the College or the Captainsof the Guelf Party, was established. It was their function toadminister the forfeited possessions of Ghibelline rebels, to hunt outsuspected citizens, to prosecute them for Ghibellinism, to judge them, and to punish them as traitors to the commonwealth. This body, like alittle State within the State, proved formidable to the republicitself through the unlimited and undefined sway it exercised overburghers whom it chose to tax with treason. In course of time itbecame the oligarchical element within the Florentine democracy, andthreatened to change the free constitution of the city into agovernment conducted by a few powerful families. 

There is no need to dwell in detail on the internal difficulties ofFlorence during the first half of the fourteenth century. Two maincircumstances, however, require to be briefly noticed. These are (i)the contest of the Blacks and Whites, so famous through the partplayed in it by Dante; and (ii) the tyranny of the Duke[1] of Athens, Walter de Brienne. The feuds of the Blacks and Whites broke up thecity into factions, and produced such anarchy that at last it wasfound necessary to place the republic under the protection of foreignpotentates. Charles of Valois was first chosen, and after him the Dukeof Athens, who took up his residence in the city. Entrusted withdictatorial authority, he used his power to form a military despotism. Though his reign of violence lasted rather less than a year, it boreimportant fruits; for the tyrant, seeking to support himself upon thefavour of the common people, gave political power to the Lesser Artsat the expense of the Greater, and confused the old State-system byenlarging the democracy. The net result of these events for Florencewas, first, that the city became habituated to rancorous party-strife, involving exiles and proscriptions; and, secondly, that it lost itsprimitive social hierarchy of classes. 

IV

After the Guelfs had conquered the Ghibellines, and the people hadabsorbed the Grandi in their guilds, the next chapter in the troubledhistory of Florence was the division of the Popolo against itself. Civil strife now declared itself as a conflict between labour andcapital. The members of the Lesser Arts, craftsmen who plied tradessubordinate to those of the Greater Arts, rose up against their socialand political superiors, demanding a larger share in the government, amore equal distribution of profits, higher wages, and privileges thatshould place them on an absolute equality with the wealthy merchants. It was in the year 1378 that the proletariate broke out intorebellion. Previous events had prepared the way for this revolt. Firstof all, the republic had been democratised through the destruction ofthe Grandi and through the popular policy pursued to gain his own endsby the Duke of Athens. Secondly, society had been shaken to its veryfoundation by the great plague of 1348. Both Boccaccio and MatteoVillani draw lively pictures of the relaxed morality and loss of orderconsequent upon this terrible disaster; nor had thirty years sufficedto restore their relative position to grades and ranks confounded byan overwhelming calamity. We may therefore reckon the great plague of1348 among the causes which produced the anarchy of 1378. Rising in amass to claim their privileges, the artisans ejected the Signory fromthe Public Palace, and for awhile Florence was at the mercy of themob. It is worthy of notice that the Medici, whose name is scarcelyknown before this epoch, now came for one moment to the front. Salvestro de' Medici was Gonfalonier of Justice at the time when thetumult first broke out. He followed the faction of the handicraftsmen, and became the hero of the day. I cannot discover that he did morethan extend a sort of passive protection to their cause. Yet there isno doubt that the attachment of the working classes to the House ofMedici dates from this period. The rebellion of 1378 is known inFlorentine history as the Tumult of the Ciompi. The name Ciompistrictly means the Wool-Carders. One set of operatives in the city, and that the largest, gave its title to the whole body of thelabourers. For some months these craftsmen governed the republic, appointing their own Signory and passing laws in their own interest;but, as is usual, the proletariate found itself incapable of sustainedgovernment. The ambition and discontent of the Ciompi foamedthemselves away, and industrious working men began to see that tradewas languishing and credit on the wane. By their own act at last theyrestored the government to the Priors of the Greater Arti. Still themovement had not been without grave consequences. It completed thelevelling of classes, which had been steadily advancing from the firstin Florence. After the Ciompi riot there was no longer not only anydistinction between noble and burgher, but the distinction betweengreater and lesser guilds was practically swept away. The classes, parties, and degrees in the republic were so broken up, ground down, and mingled, that thenceforth the true source of power in the Statewas wealth combined with personal ability. In other words, the properpolitical conditions had been formed for unscrupulous adventurers. Florence had become a democracy without social organisation, whichmight fall a prey to oligarchs or despots. What remained of deeplyrooted feuds or factions--animosities against the Grandi, hatred forthe Ghibellines, jealousy of labour and capital--offered so manypoints of leverage for stirring the passions of the people and forcovering personal ambition with a cloak of public zeal. The time wascome for the Albizzi to attempt an oligarchy, and for the Medici tobegin the enslavement of the State. 

V

The Constitution of Florence offered many points of weakness to theattacks of such intriguers. In the first place it was in its originnot a political but an industrial organisation--a simple group ofguilds invested with the sovereign authority. Its two most powerfulengines, the Gonfalonier of Justice and the Guelf College, had beenformed, not with a view to the preservation of the government, butwith the purpose of quelling the nobles and excluding a detestedfaction. It had no permanent head, like the Doge of Venice; no fixedsenate like the Venetian Grand Council; its chief magistrates, theSignory, were elected for short periods of two months, and their modeof election was open to the gravest criticism. Supposed to be chosenby lot, they were really selected from lists drawn up by the factionsin power from time to time. These factions contrived to exclude thenames of all but their adherents from the bags, or _borse_, in whichthe burghers eligible for election had to be inscribed. Furthermore, it was not possible for this shifting Signory to conduct affairsrequiring sustained effort and secret deliberation; therefore recoursewas being continually had to dictatorial Commissions. The people, summoned in parliament upon the Great Square, were asked to conferplenipotentiary authority upon a committee called _Balia_, whoproceeded to do what they chose in the State, and who retained powerafter the emergency for which they were created passed away. The sameinstability in the supreme magistracy led to the appointment ofspecial commissioners for war, and special councils, or _Pratiche_, for the management of each department. Such supplementary commissionsnot only proved the weakness of the central authority, but they werealways liable to be made the instruments of party warfare. The GuelfCollege was another and a different source of danger to the State. Notacting under the control of the Signory, but using its own initiative, this powerful body could proscribe and punish burghers on the meresuspicion of Ghibellinism. Though the Ghibelline faction had become anempty name, the Guelf College excluded from the franchise all andevery whom they chose on any pretext to admonish. Under this mildphrase, _to admonish_, was concealed a cruel exercise of tyranny--itmeant to warn a man that he was suspected of treason, and that he hadbetter relinquish the exercise of his burghership. By free use of thisengine of Admonition, the Guelf College rendered their enemiesvoiceless in the State, and were able to pack the Signory and thecouncils with their own creatures. Another important defect in theFlorentine Constitution was the method of imposing taxes. This wasdone by no regular system. The party in power made what estimate itchose of a man's capacity to bear taxation, and called upon him forextraordinary loans. In this way citizens were frequently driven intobankruptcy and exile; and since to be a debtor to the State deprived aburgher of his civic rights, severe taxation was one of the best waysof silencing and neutralising a dissentient. 

I have enumerated these several causes of weakness in the FlorentineState-system, partly because they show how irregularly theConstitution had been formed by the patching and extension of a simpleindustrial machine to suit the needs of a great commonwealth; partlybecause it was through these defects that the democracy mergedgradually into a despotism. The art of the Medici consisted in ascientific comprehension of these very imperfections, a methodic useof them for their own purposes, and a steady opposition to anyattempts made to substitute a stricter system. The Florentines haddetermined to be an industrial community, governing themselves on theco-operative principle, dividing profits, sharing losses, and exposingtheir magistrates to rigid scrutiny. All this in theory was excellent. Had they remained an unambitious and peaceful commonwealth, engaged inthe wool and silk trade, it might have answered. Modern Europe mighthave admired the model of a communistic and commercial democracy. Butwhen they engaged in aggressive wars, and sought to enslavesister-cities like Pisa and Lucca, it was soon found that their simpletrading constitution would not serve. They had to piece it out withsubordinate machinery, cumbrous, difficult to manage, ill-adapted tothe original structure. Each limb of this subordinate machinery, moreover, was a _point d'appui_ for insidious and self-seeking partyleaders. 

Florence, in the middle of the fourteenth century, was a vast beehiveof industry. Distinctions of rank among burghers, qualified to voteand hold office, were theoretically unknown. Highly educated men, ofmore than princely wealth, spent their time in shops andcounting-houses, and trained their sons to follow trades. Militaryservice at this period was abandoned by the citizens; they preferredto pay mercenary troops for the conduct of their wars. Nor was there, as in Venice, any outlet for their energies upon the seas. Florencehad no navy, no great port--she only kept a small fleet for theprotection of her commerce. Thus the vigour of the commonwealth wasconcentrated on itself; while the influence of the citizens, throughtheir affiliated trading-houses, correspondents, and agents, extendedlike a network over Europe. In a community of this kind it was naturalthat wealth--rank and titles being absent--should alone conferdistinction. Accordingly we find that out of the very bosom of thepeople a new plutocratic aristocracy begins to rise. The Grandi areno more; but certain families achieve distinction by their riches, their numbers, their high spirit, and their ancient place of honour inthe State. These nobles of the purse obtained the name of _PopolaniNobili_; and it was they who now began to play at high stakes for thesupreme power. In all the subsequent vicissitudes of Florence everychange takes place by intrigue and by clever manipulation of thepolitical machine. Recourse is rarely had to violence of any kind, andthe leaders of revolutions are men of the yard-measure, never of thesword. The despotism to which the republic eventually succumbed was noless commercial than the democracy had been. Florence in the days ofher slavery remained a _Popolo_. 

VI

The opening of the second half of the fourteenth century had beensignalised by the feuds of two great houses, both risen from thepeople. These were the Albizzi and the Ricci. At this epoch there hadbeen a formal closing of the lists of burghers;--henceforth no newfamilies who might settle in the city could claim the franchise, votein the assemblies, or hold magistracies. The Guelf College used theirold engine of admonition to persecute _novi homines_, whom theydreaded as opponents. At the head of this formidable organisation theAlbizzi placed themselves, and worked it with such skill that theysucceeded in driving the Ricci out of all participation in thegovernment. The tumult of the Ciompi formed but an episode in theircareer toward oligarchy; indeed, that revolution only rendered thepolitical material of the Florentine republic more plastic in thehands of intriguers, by removing the last vestiges of classdistinctions and by confusing the old parties of the State. 

When the Florentines in 1387 engaged in their long duel with GianGaleazzo Visconti, the difficulty of conducting this war without somepermanent central authority still further confirmed the power of therising oligarchs. The Albizzi became daily more autocratic, until in1393 their chief, Maso degli Albizzi, a man of strong will and prudentpolicy, was chosen Gonfalonier of Justice. Assuming the sway of adictator he revised the list of burghers capable of holding office, struck out the private opponents of his house, and excluded all namesbut those of powerful families who were well affected towards anaristocratic government. The great house of the Alberti were exiled ina body, declared rebels, and deprived of their possessions, for noreason except that they seemed dangerous to the Albizzi. It was invain that the people murmured against these arbitrary acts. The newrulers were omnipotent in the Signory, which they packed with theirown men, in the great guilds, and in the Guelf College. All themachinery invented by the industrial community for its self-managementand self-defence was controlled and manipulated by a close body ofaristocrats, with the Albizzi at their head. It seemed as thoughFlorence, without any visible alteration in her forms of government, was rapidly becoming an oligarchy even less open than the Venetianrepublic. Meanwhile the affairs of the State were most flourishing. The strong-handed masters of the city not only held the Duke of Milanin check, and prevented him from turning Italy into a kingdom; theyfurthermore acquired the cities of Pisa, Livorno, Arezzo, Montepulciano, and Cortona, for Florence, making her the mistress ofall Tuscany, with the exception of Siena, Lucca, and Volterra. Masodegli Albizzi was the ruling spirit of the commonwealth, spending theenormous sum of 11, 500, 000 golden florins on war, raising sumptuousedifices, protecting the arts, and acting in general like a powerfuland irresponsible prince. 

In spite of public prosperity there were signs, however, that thisrule of a few families could not last. Their government was onlymaintained by continual revision of the lists of burghers, byelimination of the disaffected, and by unremitting personal industry. They introduced no new machinery into the Constitution whereby thepeople might be deprived of its titular sovereignty, or their owndictatorship might be continued with a semblance of legality. Again, they neglected to win over the new nobles (_nobili popolani_) in abody to their cause; and thus they were surrounded by rivals ready tospring upon them when a false step should be made. The Albizzioligarchy was a masterpiece of art, without any force to sustain itbut the craft and energy of its constructors. It had not grown up, like the Venetian oligarchy, by the gradual assimilation to itself ofall the vigour in the State. It was bound, sooner or later, to yieldto the renascent impulse of democracy inherent in Florentineinstitutions. 

VII

Maso degli Albizzi died in 1417. He was succeeded in the government byhis old friend, Niccolo da Uzzano, a man of great eloquence andwisdom, whose single word swayed the councils of the people as helisted. Together with him acted Maso's son, Rinaldo, a youth of evenmore brilliant talents than his father, frank, noble, andhigh-spirited, but far less cautious. 

The oligarchy, which these two men undertook to manage, hadaccumulated against itself the discontent of overtaxed, disfranchised, jealous burghers. The times, too, were bad. Pursuing the policy ofMaso, the Albizzi engaged the city in a tedious and unsuccessful warwith Filippo Maria Visconti, which cost 350, 000 golden florins, andbrought no credit. In order to meet extraordinary expenses they raisednew public loans, thereby depreciating the value of the old Florentinefunds. "What was worse, they imposed forced subsidies with grievousinequality upon the burghers, passing over their friends andadherents, and burdening their opponents with more than could beborne. This imprudent financial policy began the ruin of the Albizzi. It caused a clamour in the city for a new system of more justtaxation, which was too powerful to be resisted. The voice of thepeople made itself loudly heard; and with the people on this occasionsided Giovanni de' Medici. This was in 1427. 

It is here that the Medici appear upon that memorable scene where inthe future they are to play the first part. Giovanni de' Medici didnot belong to the same branch of his family as the Salvestro whofavoured the people at the time of the Ciompi Tumult. But he adoptedthe same popular policy. To his sons Cosimo and Lorenzo he bequeathedon his deathbed the rule that they should invariably adhere to thecause of the multitude, found their influence on that, and avoid thearts of factious and ambitious leaders. In his own life he had pursuedthis course of conduct, acquiring a reputation for civic moderationand impartiality that endeared him to the people and stood hischildren in good stead. Early in his youth Giovanni found himselfalmost destitute by reason of the imposts charged upon him by theoligarchs. He possessed, however, the genius for money-making to arare degree, and passed his manhood as a banker, amassing the largestfortune of any private citizen in Italy. In his old age he devotedhimself to the organisation of his colossal trading business, andabstained, as far as possible, from political intrigues. Men observedthat they rarely met him in the Public Palace or on the Great Square. 

Cosimo de' Medici was thirty years old when his father Giovanni died, in 1429. During his youth he had devoted all his time and energy tobusiness, mastering the complicated affairs of Giovanni'sbanking-house, and travelling far and wide through Europe to extendits connections. This education made him a consummate financier; andthose who knew him best were convinced that his ambition was set ongreat things. However quietly he might begin, it was clear that heintended to match himself, as a leader of the plebeians, against theAlbizzi. The foundations he prepared for future action were equallycharacteristic of the man, of Florence, and of the age. Commanding theenormous capital of the Medicean bank he contrived, at any sacrificeof temporary convenience, to lend money to the State for war expenses, engrossing in his own hands a large portion of the public debt ofFlorence. At the same time his agencies in various European capitalsenabled him to keep his own wealth floating far beyond the reach offoes within the city. A few years of this system ended in so completea confusion between Cosimo's trade and the finances of Florence thatthe bankruptcy of the Medici, however caused, would have compromisedthe credit of the State and the fortunes of the fund-holders. Cosimo, in a word, made himself necessary to Florence by the wise use of hisriches. Furthermore, he kept his eye upon the list of burghers, lending money to needy citizens, putting good things in the way ofstruggling traders, building up the fortunes of men who were disposedto favour his party in the State, ruining his opponents by thelegitimate process of commercial competition, and, when occasionoffered, introducing new voters into the Florentine Council by payingoff the debts of those who were disqualified by poverty from using thefranchise. While his capital was continually increasing he livedfrugally, and employed his wealth solely for the consolidation of hispolitical influence. By these arts Cosimo became formidable to theoligarchs and beloved by the people. His supporters were numerous, andheld together by the bonds of immediate necessity or personalcupidity. The plebeians and the merchants were all on his side. TheGrandi and the Ammoniti, excluded from the State by the practices ofthe Albizzi, had more to hope from the Medicean party than from thefew families who still contrived to hold the reins of government. Itwas clear that a conflict to the death must soon commence between theoligarchy and this new faction. 

VIII

At last, in 1433, war was declared. The first blow was struck byRinaldo degli Albizzi, who put himself in the wrong by attacking acitizen indispensable to the people at large, and guilty of nounconstitutional act. On September 7th of that year, a year decisivefor the future destinies of Florence, he summoned Cosimo to the PublicPalace, which he had previously occupied with troops at his command. There he declared him a rebel to the State, and had him imprisoned ina little square room in the central tower. The tocsin was sounded; thepeople were assembled in parliament upon the piazza. The Albizzi heldthe main streets with armed men, and forced the Florentines to placeplenipotentiary power for the administration of the commonwealth atthis crisis in the hands of a Balia, or committee selected bythemselves. It was always thus that acts of high tyranny were effectedin Florence. A show of legality was secured by gaining the compulsorysanction of the people, driven by soldiery into the public square, andhastily ordered to recognise the authority of their oppressors. 

The bill of indictment against the Medici accused them of sedition inthe year 1378--that is, in the year of the Ciompi Tumult--and oftreasonable practice during the whole course of the Albizziadministration. It also strove to fix upon them the odium of theunsuccessful war against the town of Lucca. As soon as the Albizzi hadunmasked their batteries, Lorenzo de' Medici managed to escape fromthe city, and took with him his brother Cosimo's children to Venice. Cosimo remained shut up within the little room called Barberia inArnolfo's tower. From that high eagle's nest the sight can rangeValdarno far and wide. Florence with her towers and domes lies below;and the blue peaks of Carrara close a prospect westward thanwhich, with its villa-jewelled slopes and fertile gardens, there isnought more beautiful upon the face of earth. The prisoner can havepaid but little heed to this fair landscape. He heard the frequentringing of the great bell that called the Florentines to council, thetramp of armed men on the piazza, the coming and going of the burghersin the palace halls beneath. On all sides lurked anxiety and fear ofdeath. Each mouthful he tasted might be poisoned. For many days hepartook of only bread and water, till his gaoler restored hisconfidence by sharing all his meals. In this peril he abodetwenty-four days. The Albizzi, in concert with the Balia they hadformed, were consulting what they might venture to do with him. Somevoted for his execution. Others feared the popular favour, and thoughtthat if they killed Cosimo this act would ruin their own power. Thenobler natures among them determined to proceed by constitutionalmeasures. At last, upon September 29th, it was settled that Cosimoshould be exiled to Padua for ten years. The Medici were declaredGrandi, by way of excluding them from political rights. But theirproperty remained untouched; and on October 3rd, Cosimo was released. 

On the same day Cosimo took his departure. His journey northwardresembled a triumphant progress. He left Florence a simple burgher; heentered Venice a powerful prince. Though the Albizzi seemed to havegained the day, they had really cut away the ground beneath theirfeet. They committed the fatal mistake of doing both too much and toolittle--too much because they declared war against an innocent man, and roused the sympathies of the whole people in his behalf; toolittle, because they had not the nerve to complete their act bykilling him outright and extirpating his party. Machiavelli, in one ofhis profoundest and most cynical critiques, remarks that few men knowhow to be thoroughly bad with honour to themselves. Their will isevil; but the grain of good in them--some fear of public opinion, some repugnance to committing a signal crime--paralyses their arm atthe moment when it ought to have been raised to strike. He instancesGian Paolo Baglioni's omission to murder Julius II. , when that Popeplaced himself within his clutches at Perugia. He might also haveinstanced Rinaldo degli Albizzi's refusal to push things toextremities by murdering Cosimo. It was the combination of despoticviolence in the exile of Cosimo with constitutional moderation in thepreservation of his life, that betrayed the weakness of the oligarchsand restored confidence to the Medicean party. 

IX

In the course of the year 1434 this party began to hold up its head. Powerful as the Albizzi were, they only retained the government byartifice; and now they had done a deed which put at nought theirformer arts and intrigues. A Signory favourable to the Medici cameinto office, and on September 26th, 1434, Rinaldo in his turn wassummoned to the palace and declared a rebel. He strove to raise theforces of his party, and entered the piazza at the head of eighthundred men. The menacing attitude of the people, however, maderesistance perilous. Rinaldo disbanded his troops, and placed himselfunder the protection of Pope Eugenius IV. , who was then resident inFlorence. This act of submission proved that Rinaldo had not thecourage or the cruelty to try the chance of civil war. Whatever hismotives may have been, he lost his hold upon the State beyondrecovery. On September 29th, a new parliament was summoned; on October2nd, Cosimo was recalled from exile and the Albizzi were banished. Theintercession of the Pope procured for them nothing but the liberty toleave Florence unmolested. Einaldo turned his back upon the city hehad governed, never to set foot in it again. On October 6th, Cosimo, having passed through Padua, Ferrara, and Modena like a conqueror, reentered the town amid the plaudits of the people, and took up hisdwelling as an honoured guest in the Palace of the Republic. Thesubsequent history of Florence is the history of his family. In afteryears the Medici loved to remember this return of Cosimo. Histriumphal reception was painted in fresco on the walls of their villaat Cajano under the transparent allegory of Cicero's entrance intoRome. 

X

By their brief exile the Medici had gained the credit of injuredinnocence, the fame of martyrdom in the popular cause. Their foes hadstruck the first blow, and in striking at them had seemed to aimagainst the liberties of the republic. The mere failure of theiradversaries to hold the power they had acquired, handed over thispower to the Medici; and the reprisals which the Medici began to takehad the show of justice, not of personal hatred, or petty vengeance. Cosimo was a true Florentine. He disliked violence, because he knewthat blood spilt cries for blood. His passions, too, were cool andtemperate. No gust of anger, no intoxication of success, destroyed hisbalance. His one object, the consolidation of power for his family onthe basis of popular favour, was kept steadily in view; and he woulddo nothing that might compromise that end. Yet he was neither generousnor merciful. We therefore find that from the first moment of hisreturn to Florence he instituted a system of pitiless and unforgivingpersecution against his old opponents. The Albizzi were banished, rootand branch, with all their followers, consigned to lonely and often tounwholesome stations through the length and breadth of Italy. If theybroke the bonds assigned them, they were forthwith declared traitorsand their property was confiscated. After a long series of years, bymerely keeping in force the first sentence pronounced upon them, Cosimo had the cruel satisfaction of seeing the whole of that proudoligarchy die out by slow degrees in the insufferable tedium ofsolitude and exile. Even the high-souled Palla degli Strozzi, who hadstriven to remain neutral, and whose wealth and talents were devotedto the revival of classical studies, was proscribed because to Cosimohe seemed too powerful. Separated from his children, he died inbanishment at Padua. In this way the return of the Medici involved theloss to Florence of some noble citizens, who might perchance havechecked the Medicean tyranny if they had stayed to guide the State. The plebeians, raised to wealth and influence by Cosimo before hisexile, now took the lead in the republic. He used these men ascatspaws, rarely putting himself forward or allowing his own name toappear, but pulling the wires of government in privacy by means ofintermediate agents. The Medicean party was called at first _Puccini_from a certain Puccio, whose name was better known in caucus orcommittee than that of his real master. 

To rule through these creatures of his own making taxed all theingenuity of Cosimo; but his profound and subtle intellect was suitedto the task, and he found unlimited pleasure in the exercise of hisconsummate craft. We have already seen to what extent he used hisriches for the acquisition of political influence. Now that he hadcome to power, he continued the same method, packing the Signory andthe Councils with men whom he could hold by debt between his thumb andfinger. His command of the public moneys enabled him to wink atpeculation in State offices; it was part of his system to bindmagistrates and secretaries to his interest by their consciousness ofguilt condoned but not forgotten. Not a few, moreover, owed theirliving to the appointments he procured for them. While he thuscontrolled the wheel-work of the commonwealth by means of organisedcorruption, he borrowed the arts of his old enemies to oppressdissentient citizens. If a man took an independent line in voting, and refused allegiance to the Medicean party, he was marked out forpersecution. No violence was used; but he found himself hampered inhis commerce--money, plentiful for others, became scarce for him; hiscompetitors in trade were subsidised to undersell him. And while theavenues of industry were closed, his fortune was taxed above itsvalue, until he had to sell at a loss in order to discharge his publicobligations. In the first twenty years of the Medicean rule, seventyfamilies had to pay 4, 875, 000 golden florins of extraordinary imposts, fixed by arbitrary assessment. 

The more patriotic members of his party looked with dread and loathingon this system of corruption and exclusion. To their remonstrancesCosimo replied in four memorable sayings: 'Better the State spoiledthan the State not ours. ' 'Governments cannot be carried on withpaternosters. ' 'An ell of scarlet makes a burgher. ' 'I aim at finiteends. ' These maxims represent the whole man, --first, in his egotism, eager to gain Florence for his family, at any risk of her ruin;secondly, in his cynical acceptance of base means to selfish ends;thirdly, in his bourgeois belief that money makes a man, and fineclothes suffice for a citizen; fourthly, in his worldly ambition benton positive success. It was, in fact, his policy to reduce Florence tothe condition of a rotten borough: nor did this policy fail. Onenotable sign of the influence he exercised was the change which nowcame over the foreign relations of the republic. Up to the date of hisdictatorship Florence had uniformly fought the battle of freedom inItaly. It was the chief merit of the Albizzi oligarchy that theycontinued the traditions of the mediæval State, and by their vigorousaction checked the growth of the Visconti. Though they engrossed thegovernment they never forgot that they were first of all thingsFlorentines, and only in the second place men who owed their power andinfluence to office. In a word, they acted like patriotic Tories, likerepublican patricians. Therefore they would not ally themselves withtyrants or countenance the enslavement of free cities by armeddespots. Their subjugation of the Tuscan burghs to Florence was itselfpart of a grand republican policy. Cosimo changed all this. When theVisconti dynasty ended by the death of Filippo Maria in 1447, therewas a chance of restoring the independence of Lombardy. Milan ineffect declared herself a republic, and by the aid of Florence shemight at this moment have maintained her liberty. Cosimo, however, entered into treaty with Francesco Sforza, supplied him with money, guaranteed him against Florentine interference, and saw withsatisfaction how he reduced the duchy to his military tyranny. TheMedici were conscious that they, selfishly, had most to gain bysupporting despots who in time of need might help them to confirmtheir own authority. With the same end in view, when the legitimateline of the Bentivogli was extinguished, Cosimo hunted out a bastardpretender of that family, presented him to the chiefs of theBentivogli faction, and had him placed upon the seat of his supposedancestors at Bologna. This young man, a certain Santi da Cascese, presumed to be the son of Ercole de' Bentivogli, was an artisan in awool factory when Cosimo set eyes upon him. At first Santi refused thedangerous honour of governing a proud republic; but the intrigues ofCosimo prevailed, and the obscure craftsman ended his days a powerfulprince. 

By the arts I have attempted to describe, Cosimo in the course of hislong life absorbed the forces of the republic into himself. While heshunned the external signs of despotic power he made himself themaster of the State. His complexion was of a pale olive; his statureshort; abstemious and simple in his habits, affable in conversation, sparing of speech, he knew how to combine that burgher-like civilityfor which the Romans praised Augustus, with the reality of a despotismall the more difficult to combat because it seemed nowhere and waseverywhere. When he died, at the age of seventy-five, in 1464, thepeople whom he had enslaved, but whom he had neither injured norinsulted, honoured him with the title of _Pater Patriæ_. This wasinscribed upon his tomb in S. Lorenzo. He left to posterity the fameof a great and generous patron, [14] the infamy of a cynical, self-seeking, bourgeois tyrant. Such combinations of contradictoryqualities were common enough at the time of the Renaissance. Did notMachiavelli spend his days in tavern-brawls and low amours, his nightsamong the mighty spirits of the dead, with whom, when he had changedhis country suit of homespun for the habit of the Court, he foundhimself an honoured equal?

XI

Cosimo had shown consummate skill by governing Florence through aparty created and raised to influence by himself. The jealousy ofthese adherents formed the chief difficulty with which his son Pierohad to contend. Unless the Medici could manage to kick down the ladderwhereby they had risen, they ran the risk of losing all. As on aformer occasion, so now they profited by the mistakes of theirantagonists. Three chief men of their own party, Diotisalvi Neroni, Agnolo Acciaiuoli, and Luca Pitti, determined to shake off the yoke oftheir masters, and to repay the Medici for what they owed by leadingthem to ruin. Niccolo Soderini, a patriot, indignant at the slowenslavement of his country, joined them. At first they strove toundermine the credit of the Medici with the Florentines by inducingPiero to call in the moneys placed at interest by his father in thehands of private citizens. This act was unpopular; but it did notsuffice to move a revolution. To proceed by constitutional measuresagainst the Medici was judged impolitic. Therefore the conspiratorsdecided to take, if possible, Piero's life. The plot failed, chieflyowing to the coolness and the cunning of the young Lorenzo, Piero'seldest son. Public sympathy was strongly excited against theaggressors. Neroni, Acciaiuoli, and Soderini were exiled. Pitti wasallowed to stay, dishonoured, powerless, and penniless, in Florence. Meanwhile, the failure of their foes had only served to strengthen theposition of the Medici. The ladder had saved them the trouble ofkicking it down. 

The congratulations addressed on this occasion to Piero and Lorenzo bythe ruling powers of Italy show that the Medici were already regardedas princes outside Florence. Lorenzo and Giuliano, the two sons ofPiero, travelled abroad to the Courts of Milan and Ferrara with thestyle and state of more than simple citizens. At home they occupiedthe first place on all occasions of public ceremony, receiving royalvisitors on terms of equality, and performing the hospitalities of therepublic like men who had been born to represent its dignities. Lorenzo's marriage to Clarice Orsini, of the noble Roman house, wasanother sign that the Medici were advancing on the way towarddespotism. Cosimo had avoided foreign alliances for his children. Hisdescendants now judged themselves firmly planted enough to risk theodium of a princely match for the sake of the support outside the citythey might win. 

XII

Piero de' Medici died in December 1469. His son Lorenzo was thenbarely twenty-two years of age. The chiefs of the Medicean party, all-powerful in the State, held a council, in which they resolved toplace him in the same position as his father and grandfather. Thisresolve seems to have been formed after mature deliberation, on theground that the existing conditions of Italian politics rendered itimpossible to conduct the government without a presidential head. Florence, though still a democracy, required a permanent chief totreat on an equality with the princes of the leading cities. Here wemay note the prudence of Cosimo's foreign policy. When he helped toestablish despots in Milan and Bologna he was rendering the presidencyof his own family in Florence necessary. 

Lorenzo, having received this invitation, called attention to hisyouth and inexperience. Yet he did not refuse it; and, after agraceful display of diffidence, he accepted the charge, entering thusupon that famous political career, in the course of which he not onlyestablished and maintained a balance of power in Italy, with Florencefor the central city, but also contrived to remodel the government ofthe republic in the interest of his own family and to strengthen theMedici by relations with the Papal See. 

The extraordinary versatility of this man's intellectual and socialgifts, his participation in all the literary and philosophicalinterests of his century, his large and liberal patronage of art, andthe gaiety with which he joined the people of Florence in theirpastimes--Mayday games and Carnival festivities--strengthened his holdupon the city in an age devoted to culture and refined pleasure. Whatever was most brilliant in the spirit of the Italian Benaissanceseemed to be incarnate in Lorenzo. Not merely as a patron and adilettante, but as a poet and a critic, a philosopher and scholar, heproved himself adequate to the varied intellectual ambitions of hiscountry. Penetrated with the passion for erudition which distinguishedFlorence in the fifteenth century, familiar with her painters and hersculptors, deeply read in the works of her great poets, he conceivedthe ideal of infusing the spirit of antique civility into modern life, and of effecting for society what the artists were performing in theirown sphere. To preserve the native character of the Florentine genius, while he added the grace of classic form, was the aim to which histastes and instincts led him. At the same time, while he made himselfthe master of Florentine revels and the Augustus of Renaissanceliterature, he took care that beneath his carnival masks andball-dress should be concealed the chains which he was forging for therepublic. 

What he lacked, with so much mental brilliancy, was moral greatness. The age he lived in was an age of selfish despots, treacherousgenerals, godless priests. It was an age of intellectual vigour andartistic creativeness; but it was also an age of mean ambition, sordidpolicy, and vitiated principles. Lorenzo remained true in all respectsto the genius of this age: true to its enthusiasm for antique culture, true to its passion for art, true to its refined love of pleasure; buttrue also to its petty political intrigues, to its cynicalselfishness, to its lack of heroism. For Florence he looked no higherand saw no further than Cosimo had done. If culture was his pastime, the enslavement of the city by bribery and corruption was the hardwork of his manhood. As is the case with much Renaissance art, hislife was worth more for its decorative detail than for itsconstructive design. In richness, versatility, variety, andexquisiteness of execution, it left little to be desired; yet, viewedat a distance, and as a whole, it does not inspire us with a sense ofarchitectonic majesty. 

XIII

Lorenzo's chief difficulties arose from the necessity under which, like Cosimo, he laboured of governing the city through its oldinstitutions by means of a party. To keep the members of this party ingood temper, and to gain their approval for the alterations heeffected in the State machinery of Florence, was the problem of hislife. The successful solution of this problem was easier now, aftertwo generations of the Medicean ascendency, than it had been at first. Meanwhile the people were maintained in good humour by public shows, ease, plenty, and a general laxity of discipline. The splendour ofLorenzo's foreign alliances and the consideration he received from allthe Courts of Italy contributed in no small measure to his popularityand security at home. By using his authority over Florence to inspirerespect abroad, and by using his foreign credit to impose upon theburghers, Lorenzo displayed the tact of a true Italian diplomatist. His genius for statecraft, as then understood, was indeed of a rareorder, equally adapted to the conduct of a complicated foreign policyand to the control of a suspicious and variable Commonwealth. In onepoint alone he was inferior to his grandfather. He neglected commerce, and allowed his banking business to fall into disorder so hopelessthat in course of time he ceased to be solvent. Meanwhile his personalexpenses, both as a prince in his own palace, and as therepresentative of majesty in Florence, continually increased. Thebankruptcy of the Medici, it had long been foreseen, would involve thepublic finances in serious confusion. And now, in order to retrievehis fortunes, Lorenzo was not only obliged to repudiate his debts tothe exchequer, but had also to gain complete disposal of the Statepurse. It was this necessity that drove him to effect theconstitutional revolution of 1480, by which he substituted a PrivyCouncil of seventy members for the old Councils of the State, absorbing the chief functions of the commonwealth into this singlebody, whom he practically nominated at pleasure. The same want ofmoney led to the great scandal of his reign--the plundering of theMonte delle Doti, or State Insurance Office Fund for securing dowersto the children of its creditors. 

XIV

While tracing the salient points of Lorenzo de' Medici'sadministration I have omitted to mention the important events whichfollowed shortly after his accession to power in 1469. What happenedbetween that date and 1480 was not only decisive for the futurefortunes of the Casa Medici, but it was also eminently characteristicof the perils and the difficulties which beset Italian despots. Theyear 1471 was signalised by a visit by the Duke Galeazzo Maria Sforzaof Milan, and his wife Bona of Savoy, to the Medici in Florence. Theycame attended by their whole Court--body guards on horse and foot, ushers, pages, falconers, grooms, kennel-varlets, and huntsmen. Omitting the mere baggage service, their train counted two thousandhorses. To mention this incident would be superfluous, had not soacute an observer as Machiavelli marked it out as a turning-point inFlorentine history. Now, for the first time, the democraticcommonwealth saw its streets filled with a mob of courtiers. Masques, balls, and tournaments succeeded each other with magnificent variety;and all the arts of Florence were pressed into the service of thesefestivals. Machiavelli says that the burghers lost the last remnant oftheir old austerity of manners, and became, like the degenerateRomans, ready to obey the masters who provided them with brilliantspectacles. They gazed with admiration on the pomp of Italianprinces, their dissolute and godless living, their luxury and prodigalexpenditure; and when the Medici affected similar habits in the nextgeneration, the people had no courage to resist the invasion of theirpleasant vices. 

In the same year, 1471, Volterra was reconquered for the Florentinesby Frederick of Urbino. The honours of this victory, disgraced by abrutal sack of the conquered city, in violation of its articles ofcapitulation, were reserved for Lorenzo, who returned in triumph toFlorence. More than ever he assumed the prince, and in his personundertook to represent the State. 

In the same year, 1471, Francesco della Rovere was raised to thePapacy with the memorable name of Sixtus IV. Sixtus was a man ofviolent temper and fierce passions, restless and impatientlyambitious, bent on the aggrandisement of the beautiful and wantonyouths, his nephews. Of these the most aspiring was Girolamo Riario, for whom Sixtus bought the town of Imola from Taddeo Manfredi, inorder that he might possess the title of count and the nucleus of atyranny in the Romagna. This purchase thwarted the plans of Lorenzo, who wished to secure the same advantages for Florence. Smarting withthe sense of disappointment, he forbade the Roman banker, FrancescoPazzi, to guarantee the purchase-money. By this act Lorenzo made twomortal foes--the Pope and Francesco Pazzi. Francesco was a thin, pale, atrabilious fanatic, all nerve and passion, with a monomaniacintensity of purpose, and a will inflamed and guided by imagination--aman formed by nature for conspiracy, such a man, in fact, as Shaksperedrew in Cassius. Maddened by Lorenzo's prohibition, he conceived thenotion of overthrowing the Medici in Florence by a violent blow. Girolamo Riario entered into his views. So did Francesco Salviati, Archbishop of Pisa, who had private reasons for hostility. These menfound no difficulty in winning over Sixtus to their plot; nor is itpossible to purge the Pope of participation in what followed. I neednot describe by what means Francesco drew the other members of hisfamily into the scheme, and how he secured the assistance of armedcut-throats. Suffice it to say that the chief conspirators, with theexception of the Count Girolamo, betook themselves to Florence, andthere, after the failure of other attempts, decided to murder Lorenzoand his brother Giuliano in the cathedral on Sunday, April 26th, 1478. The moment when the priest at the high altar finished the mass, wasfixed for the assassination. Everything was ready. The conspirators, by Judas kisses and embracements, had discovered that the young menwore no protective armour under their silken doublets. Pacing theaisle behind the choir, they feared no treason. And now the lives ofboth might easily have been secured, if at the last moment the courageof the hired assassins had not failed them. Murder, they said, waswell enough; but they could not bring themselves to stab men beforethe newly consecrated body of Christ. In this extremity a priest wasfound who, 'being accustomed to churches, ' had no scruples. He andanother reprobate were told off to Lorenzo. Francesco de' Pazzihimself undertook Giuliano. The moment for attack arrived. Francescoplunged his dagger into the heart of Giuliano. Then, not satisfiedwith this death-blow, he struck again, and in his heat of passionwounded his own thigh. Lorenzo escaped with a flesh-wound from theponiard of the priest, and rushed into the sacristy, where his friendPoliziano shut and held the brazen door. The plot had failed; forGiuliano, of the two brothers, was the one whom the conspirators wouldthe more willingly have spared. The whole church was in an uproar. Thecity rose in tumult. Rage and horror took possession of the people. They flew to the Palazzo Pubblico and to the houses of the Pazzi, hunted the conspirators from place to place, hung the archbishop bythe neck from the palace windows, and, as they found fresh victimsfor their fury, strung them one by one in a ghastly row at his sideabove the Square. About one hundred in all were killed. None who hadjoined in the plot escaped; for Lorenzo had long arms, and one man, who fled to Constantinople, was delivered over to his agents by theSultan. Out of the whole Pazzi family only Guglielmo, the husband ofBianca de' Medici, was spared. When the tumult was over, Andrea delCastagno painted the portraits of the traitors head-downwards upon thewalls of the Bargello Palace, in order that all men might know whatfate awaited the foes of the Medici and of the State of Florence. [15]Meanwhile a bastard son of Giuliano's was received into the Mediceanhousehold, to perpetuate his lineage. This child, named Giulio, wasdestined to be famous in the annals of Italy and Florence under thetitle of Pope Clement VII. 

XV

As is usual when such plots miss their mark, the passions excitedredounded to the profit of the injured party. The commonwealth feltthat the blow struck at Lorenzo had been aimed at their majesty. Sixtus, on the other hand, could not contain his rage at the failureof so ably planned a _coup de main_. Ignoring that he had sanctionedthe treason, that a priest had put his hand to the dagger, that theimpious deed had been attempted in a church before the very Sacramentof Christ, whose vicar on earth he was, the Pope now excommunicatedthe republic. The reason he alleged was, that the Florentines haddared to hang an archbishop. 

Thus began a war to the death between Sixtus and Florence. The Popeinflamed the whole of Italy, and carried on a ruinous campaign inTuscany. It seemed as though the republic might lose her subjectcities, always ready to revolt when danger threatened the sovereignState. Lorenzo's position became critical. Sixtus made no secret ofthe hatred he bore him personally, declaring that he fought less withFlorence than with the Medici. To support the odium of this long warand this heavy interdict alone, was more than he could do. His alliesforsook him. Naples was enlisted on the Pope's side. Milan and theother States of Lombardy were occupied with their own affairs, andheld aloof. In this extremity he saw that nothing but a bold stepcould save him. The league formed by Sixtus must be broken up at anyrisk, and, if possible, by his own ability. On December 6th, 1479, Lorenzo left Florence, unarmed and unattended, took ship at Leghorn, and proceeded to the court of the enemy, King Ferdinand, at Naples. Ferdinand was a cruel and treacherous sovereign, who had murdered hisguest, Jacopo Piccinino, at a banquet given in his honour. ButFerdinand was the son of Alfonso, who, by address and eloquence, hadgained a kingdom from his foe and jailor, Filippo Maria Visconti. Lorenzo calculated that he too, following Alfonso's policy, mightprove to Ferdinand how little there was to gain from an alliance withRome, how much Naples and Florence, firmly united together for offenceand defence, might effect in Italy. 

Only a student of those perilous times can appreciate the courage andthe genius, the audacity combined with diplomatic penetration, displayed by Lorenzo at this crisis. He calmly walked into the lion'sden, trusting he could tame the lion and teach it, and all in a fewdays. Nor did his expectation fail. Though Lorenzo was rather uglythan handsome, with a dark skin, heavy brows, powerful jaws, and nosesharp in the bridge and broad at the nostrils, without grace ofcarriage or melody of voice, he possessed what makes up for personaldefects--the winning charm of eloquence in conversation, a subtle wit, profound knowledge of men, and tact allied to sympathy, which placedhim always at the centre of the situation. Ferdinand received himkindly. The Neapolitan nobles admired his courage and were fascinatedby his social talents. On March 1st, 1480, he left Naples again, having won over the King by his arguments. When he reached Florence hewas able to declare that he brought home a treaty of peace andalliance signed by the most powerful foe of the republic. The successof this bold enterprise endeared Lorenzo more than ever to hiscountrymen. In the same year they concluded a treaty with Sixtus, whowas forced against his will to lay down arms by the capture of Otrantoand the extreme peril of Turkish invasion. After the year 1480 Lorenzoremained sole master in Florence, the arbiter and peacemaker of therest of Italy. 

XVI

The conjuration of the Pazzi was only one in a long series of similarconspiracies. Italian despots gained their power by violence andwielded it with craft. Violence and craft were therefore used againstthem. When the study of the classics had penetrated the nation withantique ideas of heroism, tyrannicide became a virtue. Princes weremurdered with frightful frequency. Thus Gian Maria Visconti was put todeath at Milan in 1412; Galeazzo Maria Sforza in 1484; the Chiarelliof Fabriano were massacred in 1435; the Baglioni of Perugia in 1500;Girolamo Gentile planned the assassination of Galeazzo Sforza at Genoain 1476; Niccolo d'Este conspired against his uncle Ercole in 1476;Stefano Porcari attempted the life of Nicholas V. At Rome in 1453;Lodovico Sforza narrowly escaped a violent death in 1453. I mightmultiply these instances beyond satiety. As it is, I have selectedbut a few examples falling, all but one, within the second half of thefifteenth century. Nearly all these attempts upon the lives of princeswere made in church during the celebration of sacred offices. Therewas no superfluity of naughtiness, no wilful sacrilege, in this choiceof an occasion. It only testified to the continual suspicion andguarded watchfulness maintained by tyrants. To strike at them exceptin church was almost impossible. Meanwhile the fate of thetyrannicides was uniform. Successful or not, they perished. Yet sogrievous was the pressure of Italian despotism, so glorious was theideal of Greek and Roman heroism, so passionate the temper of thepeople, that to kill a prince at any cost to self appeared the crownof manliness. This bloodshed exercised a delirious fascination: pureand base, personal and patriotic motives combined to add intensity offixed and fiery purpose to the murderous impulse. Those then who, likethe Medici, aspired to tyranny and sought to found a dynasty ofprinces, entered the arena against a host of unknown and unseengladiators. 

XVII

On his deathbed, in 1492, Lorenzo lay between two men--AngeloPoliziano and Girolamo Savonarola. Poliziano incarnated the genial, radiant, godless spirit of fifteenth-century humanism. Savonarolarepresented the conscience of Italy, self-convicted, amid all hergreatness, of crimes that called for punishment. It is said that whenLorenzo asked the monk for absolution, Savonarola bade him firstrestore freedom to Florence. Lorenzo, turned his face to the wall andwas silent. How indeed could he make this city in a moment free, aftersixty years of slow and systematic corruption? Savonarola left him, and he died unshriven. This legend is doubtful, though it rests onexcellent if somewhat partial authority. It has, at any rate, thevalue of a mythus, since it epitomises the attitude assumed by thegreat preacher to the prince. Florence enslaved, the soul of Lorenzocannot lay its burden down, but must go with all its sins upon it tothe throne of God. 

The year 1492 was a memorable year for Italy. In this year Lorenzo'sdeath removed the keystone of the arch that had sustained the fabricof Italian federation. In this year Roderigo Borgia was elected Pope. In this year Columbus discovered America; Vasco de Gama soon afteropened a new way to the Indies, and thus the commerce of the worldpassed from Italy to other nations. In this year the conquest ofGranada gave unity to the Spanish nation. In this year France, throughthe lifelong craft of Louis XI. , was for the first time united under ayoung hot-headed sovereign. On every side of the political horizonstorms threatened. It was clear that a new chapter of European historyhad been opened. Then Savonarola raised his voice, and cried that thecrimes of Italy, the abominations of the Church, would speedily bepunished. Events led rapidly to the fulfilment of this prophecy. Lorenzo's successor, Piero de' Medici, was a vain, irresolute, andhasty princeling, fond of display, proud of his skill in fencing andfootball-playing, with too much of the Orsini blood in his hot veins, with too little of the Medicean craft in his weak head. The Italiandespots felt they could not trust Piero, and this want of confidencewas probably the first motive that impelled Lodovico Sforza to callCharles VIII. Into Italy in 1494. 

It will not be necessary to dwell upon this invasion of the French, except in so far as it affected Florence. Charles passed rapidlythrough Lombardy, engaged his army in the passes of the Apennines, anddebouched upon the coast where the Magra divided Tuscany from Liguria. Here the fortresses of Sarzana and Pietra Santa, between the marblebulwark of Carrara and the Tuscan sea, stopped his further progress. The keys were held by the Florentines. To force these strong positionsand to pass beyond them seemed impossible. It might have beenimpossible if Piero de' Medici had possessed a firmer will. As it was, he rode off to the French camp, delivered up the forts to Charles, bound the King by no engagements, and returned not otherwise thanproud of his folly to Florence. A terrible reception awaited him. TheFlorentines, in their fury, had risen and sacked the Medicean palace. It was as much as Piero, with his brothers, could do to escape beyondthe hills to Venice. The despotism of the Medici, so carefully builtup, so artfully sustained and strengthened, was overthrown in a singleday. 

XVIII

Before considering what happened in Florence after the expulsion ofthe Medici, it will be well to pause a moment and review the state inwhich Lorenzo had left his family. Piero, his eldest son, recognisedas chief of the republic after his father's death, was married toAlfonsina Orsini, and was in his twenty-second year. Giovanni, hissecond son, a youth of seventeen, had just been made cardinal. Thishonour, of vast importance for the Casa Medici in the future, he owedto his sister Maddalena's marriage to Franceschetto Cybo, son ofInnocent VIII. The third of Lorenzo's sons, named Giuliano, was a boyof thirteen. Giulio, the bastard son of the elder Giuliano, wasfourteen. These four princes formed the efficient strength of theMedici, the hope of the house; and for each of them, with theexception of Piero, who died in exile, and of whom no more notice needbe taken, a brilliant destiny was still in store. In the year 1495, however, they now wandered, homeless and helpless, through the citiesof Italy, each of which was shaken to its foundations by the Frenchinvasion. 

XIX

Florence, left without the Medici, deprived of Pisa and other subjectcities by the passage of the French army, with no leader but the monkSavonarola, now sought to reconstitute her liberties. During thedomination of the Albizzi and the Medici the old order of thecommonwealth had been completely broken up. The Arti had lost theirprimitive importance. The distinctions between the Grandi and thePopolani had practically passed away. In a democracy that hassubmitted to a lengthened course of tyranny, such extinction of itsold life is inevitable. Yet the passion for liberty was stillpowerful; and the busy brains of the Florentines were stored withexperience gained from their previous vicissitudes, from \ the studyof antique history, and from the observation of existing constitutionsin the towns of Italy. They now determined to reorganise the Stateupon the model of the Venetian republic. The Signory was to remain, with its old institution of Priors, Gonfalonier, and College, electedfor brief periods. These magistrates were to take the initiative indebate, to propose measures, and to consider plans of action. The realpower of the State, for voting supplies and ratifying the measures ofthe Signory, was vested in a senate of one thousand members, calledthe Grand Council, from whom a smaller body of forty, acting asintermediates between the Council and the Signory, were elected. It issaid that the plan of this constitution originated with Savonarola;nor is there any doubt that he used all his influence in the pulpit ofthe Duomo to render it acceptable to the people. Whoever may have beenresponsible for its formation, the new government was carried in1495, and a large hall for the assembly of the Grand Council wasopened in the Public Palace. 

Savonarola, meanwhile, had become the ruling spirit of Florence. Hegained his great power as a preacher: he used it like a monk. Themotive principle of his action was the passion for reform. To bringthe Church back to its pristine state of purity, without altering itsdoctrine or suggesting any new form of creed; to purge Italy ofungodly customs; to overthrow the tyrants who encouraged evil living, and to place the power of the State in the hands of sober citizens:these were his objects. Though he set himself in bold opposition tothe reigning Pope, he had no desire to destroy the spiritual supremacyof S. Peter's see. Though he burned with an enthusiastic zeal forliberty, and displayed rare genius for administration, he had noambition to rule Florence like a dictator. Savonarola was neither areformer in the northern sense of the word, nor yet a politicaldemagogue. His sole wish was to see purity of manners and freedom ofself-government re-established. With this end in view he bade theFlorentines elect Christ as their supreme chief; and they did so. Forthe same end he abstained from appearing in the State Councils, andleft the Constitution to work by its own laws. His personal influencehe reserved for the pulpit; and here he was omnipotent. The peoplebelieved in him as a prophet. They turned to him as the man who knewwhat he wanted--as the voice of liberty, the soul of the new régime, the genius who could breathe into the commonwealth a breath of freshvitality. When, therefore, Savonarola preached a reform of manners, hewas at once obeyed. Strict laws were passed enforcing sobriety, condemning trades of pleasure, reducing the gay customs of Florence topuritanical austerity. 

Great stress has been laid upon this reaction of the monk-led populaceagainst the vices of the past. Yet the historian is bound to pronouncethat the reform effected by Savonarola was rather picturesque thanvital. Like all violent revivals of pietism, it produced a no lessviolent reaction. The parties within the city who resented theinterference of a preaching friar, joined with the Pope in Rome, whohated a contumacious schismatic in Savonarola. Assailed by these twoforces at the same moment, and driven upon perilous ground by his ownfebrile enthusiasm, Savonarola succumbed. He was imprisoned, tortured, and burned upon the public square in 1498. 

What Savonarola really achieved for Florence was not a permanentreform of morality, but a resuscitation of the spirit of freedom. Hisfollowers, called in contempt _I Piagnoni_, or the Weepers, formed thepath of the commonwealth in future; and the memory of their martyrserved as a common bond of sympathy to unite them in times of trial. It was a necessary consequence of the peculiar part he played that thecity was henceforth divided into factions representing mutuallyantagonistic principles. These factions were not created bySavonarola; but his extraordinary influence accentuated, as it were, the humours that lay dormant in the State. Families favourable to theMedici took the name of _Palleschi_. Men who chafed againstpuritanical reform, and who were eager for any government that shouldsecure them their old licence, were known as _Compagnacci_. Meanwhilethe oligarchs, who disliked a democratic Constitution, and thought itpossible to found an aristocracy without the intervention of theMedici, came to be known as _Gli Ottimati_. Florence held withinitself, from this epoch forward to the final extinction of liberty, four great parties: the _Piagnoni_, passionate for political freedomand austerity of life; the _Palleschi_, favourable to the Mediceancause, and regretful of Lorenzo's pleasant rule; the _Compagnacci_, intolerant of the reformed republic, neither hostile nor loyal to theMedici, but desirous of personal licence; the _Ottimati_, astute andselfish, watching their own advantage, ever-mindful to form a narrowgovernment of privileged families, disinclined to the Medici, exceptwhen they thought the Medici might be employed as instruments in theirintrigues. 

XX

During the short period of Savonarola's ascendency, Florence was inform at least a Theocracy, without any titular head but Christ; and aslong as the enthusiasm inspired by the monk lasted, as long as hispersonal influence endured, the Constitution of the Grand Councilworked well. After his death it was found that the machinery was toocumbrous. While adopting the Venetian form of government, theFlorentines had omitted one essential element--the Doge. By referringmeasures of immediate necessity to the Grand Council, the republiclost precious time. Dangerous publicity, moreover, was incurred; andso large a body often came to no firm resolution. There was nopermanent authority in the State; no security that what had beendeliberated would be carried out with energy; no titular chief, whocould transact affairs with foreign potentates and their ambassadors. Accordingly, in 1502, it was decreed that the Gonfalonier should holdoffice for life--should be in fact a Doge. To this important post ofpermanent president Piero Soderini was appointed; and in his handswere placed the chief affairs of the republic. 

At this point Florence, after all her vicissitudes, had won her way tosomething really similar to the Venetian Constitution. Yet thesimilarity existed more in form than in fact. The government ofburghers in a Grand Council, with a Senate of forty, and a Gonfalonierfor life, had not grown up gradually and absorbed into itself thevital forces of the commonwealth. It was a creation of inventiveintelligence, not of national development, in Florence. It had againstit the jealousy of the Ottimati, who felt themselves overshadowed bythe Gonfalonier; the hatred of the Palleschi, who yearned for theMedici; the discontent of the working classes, who thought thepresence of a Court in Florence would improve trade; last, but notleast, the disaffection of the Compagnacci, who felt they could notflourish to their heart's content in a free commonwealth. Moreover, though the name of liberty was on every lip, though the Florentinestalked, wrote, and speculated more about constitutional independencethan they had ever done, the true energy of free institutions hadpassed from the city. The corrupt government of Cosimo and Lorenzobore its natural fruit now. Egotistic ambition and avarice supplantedpatriotism and industry. It is necessary to comprehend thesecircumstances, in order that the next revolution may be clearlyunderstood. 

XXI

During the ten years which elapsed between 1502 and 1512, PieroSoderini administered Florence with an outward show of greatprosperity. He regained Pisa, and maintained an honourable foreignpolicy in the midst of the wars stirred up by the League of Cambray. Meanwhile the young princes of the House of Medici had grown tomanhood in exile. The Cardinal Giovanni was thirty-seven in 1512. Hisbrother Giuliano was thirty-three. Both of these men were betterfitted than their brother Piero to fight the battles of the family. Giovanni, in particular, had inherited no small portion of theMedicean craft. During the troubled reign of Julius II. He kept veryquiet, cementing his connections with powerful men in Rome, but makingno effort to regain his hold on Florence. Now the moment for strikinga decisive blow had come. After the battle of Ravenna in 1512, theFrench were driven out of Italy, and the Sforzas returned to Milan;the Spanish troops, under the Viceroy Cardona, remained masters of thecountry. Following the camp of these Spaniards, Giovanni de' Medicientered Tuscany in August, and caused the restoration of the Medicito be announced in Florence. The people, assembled by Soderini, resolved to resist to the uttermost. No foreign army should force themto receive the masters whom they had expelled. Yet their couragefailed on August 29th, when news reached them of the capture and thesack of Prato. Prato is a sunny little city a few miles distant fromthe walls of Florence, famous for the beauty of its women, therichness of its gardens, and the grace of its buildings. Into this gemof cities the savage soldiery of Spain marched in the bright autumnalweather, and turned the paradise into a hell. It is even nowimpossible to read of what they did in Prato without shuddering. [16]Cruelty and lust, sordid greed for gold, and cold delight inbloodshed, could go no further. Giovanni de' Medici, by nature mildand voluptuous, averse to violence of all kinds, had to smileapproval, while the Spanish Viceroy knocked thus with mailed hand forhim at the door of Florence. The Florentines were paralysed withterror. They deposed Soderini and received the Medici. Giovanni andGiuliano entered their devastated palace in the Via Larga, abolishedthe Grand Council, and dealt with the republic as they listed. 

XXII

There was no longer any medium in Florence possible between eithertyranny or some such government as the Medici had now destroyed. TheState was too rotten to recover even the modified despotism ofLorenzo's days. Each transformation had impaired some portion of itsframework, broken down some of its traditions, and sowed new seeds ofegotism in citizens who saw all things round them change butself-advantage. Therefore Giovanni and Giuliano felt themselves securein flattering the popular vanity by an empty parade of the oldinstitutions. They restored the Signory and the Gonfalonier, electedfor intervals of two months by officers appointed for this purpose bythe Medici. Florence had the show of a free government. But the Medicimanaged all things; and soldiers, commanded by their creature, PaoloVettori, held the Palace and the Public Square. The tyranny thusestablished was less secure, inasmuch as it openly rested uponviolence, than Lorenzo's power had been; nor were there signs wantingthat the burghers could ill brook their servitude. The conspiracy ofPietro Paolo Boscoli and Agostino Capponi proved that the Mediceanbrothers ran daily risk of life. Indeed, it is not likely that theywould have succeeded in maintaining their authority--for they werepoor and ill-supported by friends outside the city--except for onemost lucky circumstance: that was the election of Giovanni de' Medicito the Papacy in 1513. 

The creation of Leo X. Spread satisfaction throughout Italy. Politicians trusted that he would display some portion of his father'sability, and restore peace to the nation. Men of arts and lettersexpected everything from a Medicean Pope, who had already acquired thereputation of polite culture and open-handed generosity. They at anyrate were not deceived. Leo's first words on taking his place in theVatican were addressed to his brother Giuliano: 'Let us enjoy thePapacy, now that God has given it to us;' and his notion of enjoymentwas to surround himself with court-poets, jesters, and musicians, toadorn his Roman palaces with frescoes, to collect statues andinscriptions, to listen to Latin speeches, and to pass judgment uponscholarly compositions. Any one and every one who gave him sensual orintellectual pleasure, found his purse always open. He lived in theutmost magnificence, and made Rome the Paris of the Renaissance forbrilliance, immorality, and self-indulgent ease. The politicians hadless reason to be satisfied. Instead of uniting the Italians andkeeping the great Powers of Europe in check, Leo carried on a seriesof disastrous petty wars, chiefly with the purpose of establishing theMedici as princes. He squandered the revenues of the Church, and leftenormous debts behind him--an exchequer ruined and a foreign policy soconfused that peace for Italy could only be obtained by servitude. 

Florence shared in the general rejoicing which greeted Leo's accessionto the Papacy. He was the first Florentine citizen who had receivedthe tiara, and the popular vanity was flattered by this honour to therepublic. Political theorists, meanwhile, began to speculate whatgreatness Florence, in combination with Rome, might rise to. The Popewas young; he ruled a large territory, reduced to order by his warlikepredecessors. It seemed as though the republic, swayed by him, mightmake herself the first city in Italy, and restore the glories of herGuelf ascendency upon the platform of Renaissance statecraft. Therewas now no overt opposition to the Medici in Florence. How to governthe city from Rome, and how to advance the fortunes of his brotherGiuliano and his nephew Lorenzo (Piero's son, a young man oftwenty-one), occupied the Pope's most serious attention. For LorenzoLeo obtained the Duchy of Urbino and the hand of a French princess. Giuliano was named Gonfalonier of the Church. He also received theFrench title of Duke of Nemours and the hand of Filiberta, Princess ofSavoy. Leo entertained a further project of acquiring the crown ofSouthern Italy for his brother, and thus of uniting Rome, Florence, and Naples under the headship of his house. Nor were the Mediceaninterests neglected in the Church. Giulio, the Pope's bastard cousin, was made cardinal. He remained in Rome, acting as vice-chancellor anddoing the hard work of the Papal Government for the pleasure-lovingpontiff. 

To Lorenzo, Duke of Urbino, the titular head of the family, wascommitted the government of Florence. During their exile, wanderingfrom court to court in Italy, the Medici had forgotten what it was tobe burghers, and had acquired the manners of princes. Leo aloneretained enough of caution to warn his nephew that the Florentinesmust still be treated as free people. He confirmed the constitution ofthe Signory and the Privy Council of seventy established by hisfather, bidding Lorenzo, while he ruled this sham republic, to avoidthe outer signs of tyranny. The young duke at first behaved withmoderation, but he could not cast aside his habits of a great lord. Florence now for the first time saw a regular court established in hermidst, with a prince, who, though he bore a foreign title, was in facther master. The joyous days of Lorenzo the Magnificent returned. Masquerades and triumphs filled the public squares. Two clubs ofpleasure, called the Diamond and the Branch--badges adopted by theMedici to signify their firmness in disaster and their power ofself-recovery--were formed to lead the revels. The best sculptors andpainters devoted their genius to the invention of costumes and cars. The city affected to believe that the age of gold had come again. 

XXIII

Fortune had been very favourable to the Medici. They had returned asprinces to Florence. Giovanni was Pope. Giuliano was Gonfalonier ofthe Church. Giulio was Cardinal and Archbishop of Florence. Lorenzoruled the city like a sovereign. But this prosperity was no less briefthan it was brilliant. A few years sufficed to sweep off all thechiefs of the great house. Giuliano died in 1516, leaving only abastard son Ippolito. Lorenzo died in 1519, leaving a bastard sonAlessandro, and a daughter, six days old, who lived to be the Queen ofFrance. Leo died in 1521. There remained now no legitimate maledescendants from the stock of Cosimo. The honours and pretensions ofthe Medici devolved upon three bastards--on the Cardinal Giulio, andthe two boys, Alessandro and Ippolito. Of these, Alessandro was amulatto, his mother having been a Moorish slave in the Palace ofUrbino; and whether his father was Giulio, or Giuliano, or a basegroom, was not known for certain. To such extremities were the Medicireduced. In order to keep their house alive, they were obliged toadopt this foundling. It is true that the younger branch of thefamily, descended from Lorenzo, the brother of Cosimo, stillflourished. At this epoch it was represented by Giovanni, the greatgeneral known as the Invincible, whose bust so strikingly resemblesthat of Napoleon. But between this line of the Medici and the elderbranch there had never been true cordiality. The Cardinal mistrustedGiovanni. It may, moreover, be added, that Giovanni was himself doomedto death in the year 1526. 

Giulio de' Medici was left in 1521 to administer the State of Florencesingle-handed. He was archbishop, and he resided in the city, holdingit with the grasp of an absolute ruler. Yet he felt his positioninsecure. The republic had no longer any forms of self-government; norwas there a magistracy to whom the despot could delegate his power inhis absence. Giulio's ambition was fixed upon the Papal crown. Thebastards he was rearing were but children. Florence had therefore tobe furnished with some political machinery that should work of itself. The Cardinal did not wish to give freedom to the city, but clockwork. He was in the perilous situation of having to rule a commonwealthwithout life, without elasticity, without capacity of self-movement, yet full of such material as, left alone, might ferment, and breed arevolution. In this perplexity, he had recourse to advisers. The mostexperienced politicians, philosophical theorists, practicaldiplomatists, and students of antique history were requested tofurnish him with plans for a new constitution, just as you ask anarchitect to give you the plan of a new house. This was the field-dayof the doctrinaires. Now was seen how much political sagacity theFlorentines had gained while they were losing liberty. We possessthese several drafts of constitutions. Some recommend tyranny; someincline to aristocracy, or what Italians called _Governo Stretto_;some to democracy, or _Governo Largo_; some to an eclectic compound ofthe other forms, or _Governo Misto_. More consummate masterpieces ofconstructive ingenuity can hardly be imagined. What is omitted in all, is just what no doctrinaire, no nostrum can communicate--the breath oflife, the principle of organic growth. Things had come, indeed, to amelancholy pass for Florence when her tyrant, in order to confirm hishold upon her, had to devise these springs and irons to support hertottering limbs. 

XXIV

While the archbishop and the doctors were debating, a plot washatching in the Rucellai Gardens. It was here that the FlorentineAcademy now held their meetings. For this society Machiavelli wrotehis 'Treatise on the Art of War, ' and his 'Discourses upon Livy. ' Theformer was an exposition of Machiavelli's scheme for creating anational militia, as the only safeguard for Italy, exposed at thisperiod to the invasions of great foreign armies. The latter is one ofthe three or four masterpieces produced by the Florentine school ofcritical historians. Stimulated by the daring speculations ofMachiavelli, and fired to enthusiasm by their study of antiquity, theyounger academicians formed a conspiracy for murdering Giulio de'Medici, and restoring the republic on a Roman model. An interceptedletter betrayed their plans. Two of the conspirators were taken andbeheaded. Others escaped. But the discovery of this conjuration put astop to Giulio's scheme of reforming the State. Henceforth he ruledFlorence like a despot, mild in manners, cautious in the exercise ofarbitrary power, but firm in his autocracy. The Condottiere. Alessandro Vitelli, with a company of soldiers, was taken into servicefor the protection of his person and the intimidation of the citizens. 

In 1523, the Pope, Adrian VI. , expired after a short papacy, fromwhich he gained no honour and Italy no profit. Giulio hurried to Rome, and, by the clever use of his large influence, caused himself to beelected with the title of Clement VII. In Florence he left SilvioPasserini, Cardinal of Cortona, as his vicegerent and the guardian ofthe two boys Alessandro and Ippolito. The discipline of many years hadaccustomed the Florentines to a government of priests. Still theburghers, mindful of their ancient liberties, were galled by the yokeof a Cortonese, sprung up from one of their subject cities; nor couldthey bear the bastards who were being reared to rule them. Foreignersthrew it in their teeth that Florence, the city glorious of art andfreedom, was become a stable for mules--_stalla da muli_, in theexpressive language of popular sarcasm. Bastardy, it may be said inpassing, carried with it small dishonour among the Italians. TheEstensi were all illegitimate; the Aragonese house in Naples sprangfrom Alfonso's natural son; and children of Popes ranked among theprinces. Yet the uncertainty of Alessandro's birth and the basecondition of his mother made the prospect of this tyrant peculiarlyodious; while the primacy of a foreign cardinal in the midst ofcitizens whose spirit was still unbroken, embittered the cup ofhumiliation. The Casa Medici held its authority by a slender thread, and depended more upon the disunion of the burghers than on any powerof its own. It could always reckon on the favour of the lowerpopulace, who gained profit and amusement from the presence of acourt. The Ottimati again hoped more from a weak despotism than from acommonwealth, where their privileges would have been merged in themass of the Grand Council. Thus the sympathies of the plebeians andthe selfishness of the rich patricians prevented the republic fromasserting itself. On this meagre basis of personal cupidity the Medicisustained themselves. What made the situation still more delicate, andat the same time protracted the feeble rule of Clement, was thatneither the Florentines nor the Medici had any army. Face to face witha potentate so considerable as the Pope, a free State could not beestablished without military force. On the other hand, the Medici, supported by a mere handful of mercenaries, had no power to resist apopular rising if any external event should inspire the middle classeswith a hope of liberty. 

XXV

Clement assumed the tiara at a moment of great difficulty. Leo hadruined the finance of Rome. France and Spain were still contending forthe possession of Italy. While acting as Vice-Chancellor, Giulio de'Medici had seemed to hold the reins with a firm grasp, and menexpected that he would prove a powerful Pope; but in those days he hadLeo to help him; and Leo, though indolent, was an abler man than hiscousin. He planned, and Giulio executed. Obliged to act now forhimself, Clement revealed the weakness of his nature. That weaknesswas irresolution, craft without wisdom, diplomacy without knowledge ofmen. He raised the storm, and showed himself incapable of guiding it. This is not the place to tell by what a series of crooked schemes andcross purposes he brought upon himself the ruin of the Church andRome, to relate his disagreement with the Emperor, or to describeagain the sack of the Eternal City by the rabble of the Constable deBourbon's army. That wreck of Rome in 1527 was the closing scene ofthe Italian Renaissance--the last of the Apocalyptic tragediesforetold by Savonarola--the death of the old age. 

When the Florentines knew what was happening in Rome, they rose andforced the Cardinal Passerini to depart with the Medicean bastardsfrom the city. The youth demanded arms for the defence of the town, and they received them. The whole male population was enrolled in amilitia. The Grand Council was reformed, and the republic was restoredupon the basis of 1495. Niccolo Capponi was elected Gonfalonier. Thename of Christ was again registered as chief of the commonwealth--tosuch an extent did the memory of Savonarola still sway the popularimagination. The new State hastened to form an alliance with France, and Malatesta Baglioni was chosen as military Commander-in-Chief. Meanwhile the city armed itself for siege--Michel Angelo Buonarrotiand Francesco da San Gallo undertaking the construction of new fortsand ramparts. These measures were adopted with sudden decision, because it was soon known that Clement had made peace with theEmperor, and that the army which had sacked Rome was going to bemarched on Florence. 

XXVI

In the month of August 1529 the Prince of Orange assembled his forcesat Terni, and thence advanced by easy stages into Tuscany. As heapproached, the Florentines laid waste their suburbs, and threw downtheir wreath of towers, in order that the enemy might have noharbourage or points of vantage for attack. Their troops wereconcentrated within the city, where a new Gonfalonier, FrancescoCarducci, furiously opposed to the Medici, and attached to thePiagnoni party, now ruled. On September 4th the Prince of Orangeappeared before the walls, and opened the memorable siege. It lastedeight months, at the end of which time, betrayed by their generals, divided among themselves, and worn out with delays, the Florentinescapitulated. Florence was paid as compensation for the insult offeredto the pontiff in the sack of Rome. 

The long yoke of the Medici had undermined the character of theFlorentines. This, their last glorious struggle for liberty, was but aflash in the pan--a final flare-up of the dying lamp. The city was notsatisfied with slavery; but it had no capacity for united action. TheOttimati were egotistic and jealous of the people. The Palleschidesired to restore the Medici at any price--some of them franklywishing for a principality, others trusting that the oldquasi-republican government might still be reinstated. The RedRepublicans, styled Libertini and Arrabbiati, clung together in blindhatred of the Medicean party; but they had no further policy to guidethem. The Piagnoni, or Frateschi, stuck to the memory of Savonarola, and believed that angels would descend to guard the battlements whenhuman help had failed. These enthusiasts still formed the true nerveof the nation--the class that might have saved the State, if salvationhad been possible. Even as it was, the energy of their fanaticismprolonged the siege until resistance seemed no longer physicallypossible. The hero developed by the crisis was Francesco Ferrucci, aplebeian who had passed his youth in manual labour, and who nowdisplayed rare military genius. He fell fighting outside the walls ofFlorence. Had he commanded the troops from the beginning, and remainedinside the city, it is just possible that the fate of the war mighthave been less disastrous. As it was, Malatesta Baglioni, theCommander-in-Chief, turned out an arrant scoundrel. He held secretcorrespondence with Clement and the Prince of Orange. It was he whofinally sold Florence to her foes, 'putting on his head, ' as the Dogeof Venice said before the Senate, 'the cap of the biggest traitor uponrecord. '

XXVII

What remains of Florentine history may be briefly told. Clement, nowthe undisputed arbiter of power and honour in the city, choseAlessandro de' Medici to be prince. Alessandro was created Duke ofCività di Penna, and married to a natural daughter of Charles V. Ippolito was made a cardinal. Ippolito would have preferred a secularto a priestly kingdom; nor did he conceal his jealousy for his cousin. Therefore Alessandro had him poisoned. Alessandro in his turn wasmurdered by his kinsman, Lorenzino de' Medici. Lorenzino paid theusual penalty of tyrannicide some years later. When Alessandro waskilled in 1539, Clement had himself been dead five years. Thus thewhole posterity of Cosimo de' Medici, with the exception of Catherine, Queen of France, was utterly extinguished. But the Medici had struckroot so firmly in the State, and had so remodelled it upon the type oftyranny, that the Florentines were no longer able to do without them. The chiefs of the Ottimati selected Cosimo, the representative ofGiovanni the Invincible, for their prince, and thus the line of theelder Lorenzo came at last to power. This Cosimo was a boy ofeighteen, fond of field-sports, and unused to party intrigues. WhenFrancesco Guicciardini offered him a privy purse of one hundred andtwenty thousand ducats annually, together with the presidency ofFlorence, this wily politician hoped that he would rule the Statethrough Cosimo, and realise at last that dream of the Ottimati, a_Governo Stretto_ or _di Pochi_. He was notably mistaken in hiscalculations. The first days of Cosimo's administration showed thathe possessed the craft of his family and the vigour of his immediateprogenitors, and that he meant to be sole master in Florence. He itwas who obtained the title of Grand Duke of Tuscany from the Pope--atitle confirmed by the Emperor, fortified by Austrian alliances, andtransmitted through his heirs to the present century. 

XXVIII

In this sketch of Florentine history, I have purposely omitted alldetails that did not bear upon the constitutional history of therepublic, or on the growth of the Medici as despots; because I wantedto present a picture of the process whereby that family contrived tofasten itself upon the freest and most cultivated State in Italy. Thissuccess the Medici owed mainly to their own obstinacy, and to theweakness of republican institutions in Florence. Their power wasfounded upon wealth in the first instance, and upon the ingenuity withwhich they turned the favour of the proletariate to use. It wasconfirmed by the mistakes and failures of their enemies, by Rinaldodegli Albizzi's attack on Cosimo, by the conspiracy of Neroni andPitti against Piero, and by Francesco de' Pazzi's attempt toassassinate Lorenzo. It was still further strengthened by the Mediceansympathy for arts and letters--a sympathy which placed both Cosimo andLorenzo at the head of the Renaissance movement, and made them worthyto represent Florence, the city of genius, in the fifteenth century. While thus founding and cementing their dynastic influence upon thebasis of a widespread popularity, the Medici employed persistentcunning in the enfeeblement of the Republic. It was their policy notto plant themselves by force or acts of overt tyranny, but to corruptambitious citizens, to secure the patronage of public officers, and torender the spontaneous working of the State machinery impossible. Bypursuing this policy over a long series of years they made the revivalof liberty in 1494, and again in 1527, ineffectual. While exiled fromFlorence, they never lost the hope of returning as masters, so long asthe passions they had excited, and they alone could gratify, remainedin full activity. These passions were avarice and egotism, the greedof the grasping Ottimati, the jealousy of the nobles, theself-indulgence of the proletariate. Yet it is probable they mighthave failed to recover Florence, on one or other of these twooccasions, but for the accident which placed Giovanni de' Medici onthe Papal chair, and enabled him to put Giulio in the way of the samedignity. From the accession of Leo in 1513 to the year 1527 the Mediciruled Florence from Rome, and brought the power of the Church into theservice of their despotism. After that date they were still furtheraided by the imperial policy of Charles V. , who chose to govern Italythrough subject princes, bound to himself by domestic alliances andpowerful interests. One of these was Cosimo, the first Grand Duke ofTuscany. 

 * * * * *

_THE DEBT OF ENGLISH TO ITALIAN LITERATURE_

To an Englishman one of the chief interests of the study of Italianliterature is derived from the fact that, between England and Italy, an almost uninterrupted current of intellectual intercourse has beenmaintained throughout the last five centuries. The English have never, indeed, at any time been slavish imitators of the Italians; but Italyhas formed the dreamland of the English fancy, inspiring poets withtheir most delightful thoughts, supplying them with subjects, andimplanting in their minds that sentiment of Southern beauty which, engrafted on our more passionately imaginative Northern nature, hasborne rich fruit in the works of Chaucer, Spenser, Marlowe, Shakspere, Milton, and the poets of this century. 

It is not strange that Italy should thus in matters of culture havebeen the guide and mistress of England. Italy, of all the Europeannations, was the first to produce high art and literature in the dawnof modern civilisation. Italy was the first to display refinement indomestic life, polish of manners, civilities of intercourse. In Italythe commerce of courts first developed a society of men and women, educated by the same traditions of humanistic culture. In Italy theprinciples of government were first discussed and reduced to theory. In Italy the zeal for the classics took its origin; and scholarship, to which we owe our mental training, was at first the possession ofnone almost but Italians. It therefore followed that during the age ofthe Renaissance any man of taste or genius, who desired to share thenewly discovered privileges of learning, had to seek Italy. Every onewho wished to be initiated into the secrets of science or philosophy, had to converse with Italians in person or through books. Every onewho was eager to polish his native language, and to render it theproper vehicle of poetic thought, had to consult the masterpieces ofItalian literature. To Italians the courtier, the diplomatist, theartist, the student of statecraft and of military tactics, thepolitical theorist, the merchant, the man of laws, the man of arms, and the churchman turned for precedents and precepts. The nations ofthe North, still torpid and somnolent in their semi-barbarism, neededthe magnetic touch of Italy before they could awake to intellectuallife. Nor was this all. Long before the thirst for culture possessedthe English mind, Italy had appropriated and assimilated all thatLatin literature contained of strong or splendid to arouse the thoughtand fancy of the modern world; Greek, too, was rapidly becoming thepossession of the scholars of Florence and Rome; so that English menof letters found the spirit of the ancients infused into a modernliterature; models of correct and elegant composition existed for themin a language easy, harmonious, and not dissimilar in usage to theirown. 

The importance of this service, rendered by Italians to the rest ofEurope, cannot be exaggerated. By exploring, digesting, andreproducing the classics, Italy made the labour of scholarshipcomparatively light for the Northern nations, and extended to us theprivilege of culture without the peril of losing originality in theenthusiasm for erudition. Our great poets could handle lightly, andyet profitably, those masterpieces of Greece and Rome, beneath theweight of which, when first discovered, the genius of the Italians hadwavered. To the originality of Shakspere an accession of wealthwithout weakness was brought by the perusal of Italian works, in whichthe spirit of the antique was seen as in a modern mirror. Then, inaddition to this benefit of instruction, Italy gave to England a giftof pure beauty, the influence of which, in refining our nationaltaste, harmonising the roughness of our manners and our language, andstimulating our imagination, has been incalculable. It was a notunfrequent custom for young men of ability to study at the Italianuniversities, or at least to undertake a journey to the principalItalian cities. From their sojourn in that land of loveliness andintellectual life they returned with their Northern brains mostpowerfully stimulated. To produce, by masterpieces of the imagination, some work of style that should remain as a memento of that gloriouscountry, and should vie on English soil with the art of Italy, wastheir generous ambition. Consequently the substance of the storiesversified by our poets, the forms of our metres, and the cadences ofour prose periods reveal a close attention to Italian originals. 

This debt of England to Italy in the matter of our literature beganwith Chaucer. Truly original and national as was the framework of the'Canterbury Tales, ' we can hardly doubt but that Chaucer wasdetermined in the form adopted for his poem by the example ofBoccaccio. The subject-matter, also, of many of his tales was takenfrom Boccaccio's prose or verse. For example, the story of PatientGrizzel is founded upon one of the legends of the 'Decameron, ' whilethe Knight's Tale is almost translated from the 'Teseide' ofBoccaccio, and Troilus and Creseide is derived from the 'Filostrato'of the same author. The Franklin's Tale and the Reeve's Taleare also based either on stories of Boccaccio or else on French'Fabliaux, ' to which Chaucer, as well as Boccaccio, had access. I donot wish to lay too much stress upon Chaucer's direct obligations toBoccaccio, because it is incontestable that the French 'Fabliaux, 'which supplied them both with subjects, were the common property ofthe mediæval nations. But his indirect debt in all that concernselegant handling of material, and in the fusion of the romantic withthe classic spirit, which forms the chief charm of such tales as thePalamon and Arcite, can hardly be exaggerated. Lastly, the seven-linedstanza, called _rime royal_, which Chaucer used with so much effect innarrative poetry, was probably borrowed from the earlier Florentine'Ballata, ' the last line rhyming with its predecessor beingsubstituted for the recurrent refrain. Indeed, the stanza itself, asused by our earliest poets, may be found in Guido Cavalcanti's'Ballatetta, ' beginning, _Posso degli occhi miei_. 

Between Chaucer and Surrey the Muse of England fell asleep; but whenin the latter half of the reign of Henry VIII. She awoke again, it wasas a conscious pupil of the Italian that she attempted new strains andessayed fresh metres. 'In the latter end of Henry VIII. 's reign, ' saysPuttenham, 'sprang up a new company of courtly makers, of whom Sir T. Wyatt the elder, and Henry Earl of Surrey, were the two chieftains, who, having travelled into Italy, and there tasted the sweet andstately measures and style of the Italian poesy, as novices newlycrept out of the schools of Dante, Ariosto, and Petrarch, they greatlypolished our rude and homely manner of vulgar poesy, from that it hadbeen before, and for that cause may justly be said the first reformersof our English metre and style. ' The chief point in which Surreyimitated his 'master, Francis Petrarcha, ' was in the use of thesonnet. He introduced this elaborate form of poetry into ourliterature; and how it has thriven with us, the masterpieces ofSpenser, Shakspere, Milton, Wordsworth, Keats, Rossetti attest. Aspractised by Dante and Petrarch, the sonnet is a poem of fourteenlines, divided into two quatrains and two triplets, so arranged thatthe two quatrains repeat one pair of rhymes, while the two tripletsrepeat another pair. Thus an Italian sonnet of the strictest form iscomposed upon four rhymes, interlaced with great art. But muchdivergence from this rigid scheme of rhyming was admitted even byPetrarch, who not unfrequently divided the six final lines of thesonnet into three couplets, interwoven in such a way that the two lastlines never rhymed. [17]

It has been necessary to say thus much about the structure of theItalian sonnet, in order to make clear the task which lay beforeSurrey and Wyatt, when they sought to transplant it into English. Surrey did not adhere to the strict fashion of Petrarch: his sonnetsconsist either of three regular quatrains concluded with a couplet, or else of twelve lines rhyming alternately and concluded with acouplet. Wyatt attempted to follow the order and interlacement of theItalian rhymes more closely, but he too concluded his sonnet with acouplet. This introduction of the final couplet was a violation of theItalian rule, which may be fairly considered as prejudicial to theharmony of the whole structure, and which has insensibly caused theEnglish sonnet to terminate in an epigram. The famous sonnet of Surreyon his love, Geraldine, is an excellent example of the metricalstructure as adapted to the supposed necessities of English rhyming, and as afterwards adhered to by Shakspere in his long series oflove-poems. Surrey, while adopting the form of the sonnet, kept quiteclear of the Petrarchist's mannerism. His language is simple anddirect: there is no subtilising upon far-fetched conceits, nowire-drawing of exquisite sentimentalism, although he celebrates inthis, as in his other sonnets, a lady for whom he appears to haveentertained no more than a Platonic or imaginary passion. Surrey was agreat experimentalist in metre. Besides the sonnet, he introduced intoEngland blank verse, which he borrowed from the Italian _versisciolti_, fixing that decasyllable iambic rhythm for Englishversification in which our greatest poetical triumphs have beenachieved. 

Before quitting the subject of the sonnet it would, however, be wellto mention the changes which were wrought in its structure by earlypoets desirous of emulating the Italians. Shakspere, as alreadyhinted, adhered to the simple form introduced by Surrey: his stanzasinvariably consist of three separate quatrains followed by a couplet. But Sir Philip Sidney, whose familiarity with Italian literature wasintimate, and who had resided long in Italy, perceived that without agreater complexity and interweaving of rhymes the beauty of the poemwas considerably impaired. He therefore combined the rhymes of the twoquatrains, as the Italians had done, leaving himself free to followthe Italian fashion in the conclusion, or else to wind up afterEnglish usage with a couplet. Spenser and Drummond follow the rule ofSidney; Drayton and Daniel, that of Surrey and Shakspere. It was notuntil Milton that an English poet preserved the form of the Italiansonnet in its strictness; but, after Milton, the greatestsonnet-writers--Wordsworth, Keats, and Rossetti--have aimed atproducing stanzas as regular as those of Petrarch. 

The great age of our literature--the age of Elizabeth--was essentiallyone of Italian influence. In Italy the Renaissance had reached itsheight: England, feeling the new life which had been infused into artsand letters, turned instinctively to Italy, and adopted her canons oftaste. 'Euphues' has a distinct connection with the Italian discoursesof polite culture. Sidney's 'Arcadia' is a copy of what Boccaccio hadattempted in his classical romances, and Sanazzaro in hispastorals. [18] Spenser approached the subject of the 'Faery Queen'with his head full of Ariosto and the romantic poets of Italy. Hissonnets are Italian; his odes embody the Platonic philosophy of theItalians. [19] The extent of Spenser's deference to the Italians inmatters of poetic art may be gathered from this passage in thededication to Sir Walter Raleigh of the 'Faery Queen:'

 I have followed all the antique poets historical: first Homer, who in the persons of Agamemnon and Ulysses hath ensampled a good governor and a virtuous man, the one in his Ilias, the other in his Odysseis; then Virgil, whose like intention was to do in the person of Æneas; after him Ariosto comprised them both in his Orlando; and lately Tasso dissevered them again, and formed both parts in two persons, namely, that part which they in Philosophy call Ethice, or virtues of a private man, coloured in his Rinaldo, the other named Politico in his Goffredo. 

From this it is clear that, to the mind of Spenser, both Ariosto andTasso were authorities of hardly less gravity than Homer and Virgil. Raleigh, in the splendid sonnet with which he responds to thisdedication, enhances the fame of Spenser by affecting to believe thatthe great Italian, Petrarch, will be jealous of him in the grave. Tosuch an extent were the thoughts of the English poets occupied withtheir Italian masters in the art of song. 

It was at this time, again, that English literature was enriched bytranslations of Ariosto and Tasso--the one from the pen of Sir JohnHarrington, the other from that of Fairfax. Both were produced in themetre of the original--the octave stanza, which, however, did not atthat period take root in England. At the same period the works of manyof the Italian novelists, especially Bandello and Cinthio andBoccaccio, were translated into English; Painter's 'Palace ofPleasure' being a treasure-house of Italian works of fiction. ThomasHoby translated Castiglione's 'Courtier' in 1561. As a proof of theextent to which Italian books were read in England at the end of thesixteenth century, we may take a stray sentence from a letter ofHarvey, in which he disparages the works of Robert Greene:--'EvenGuicciardine's silver histories and Ariosto's golden cantos grow outof request: and the Countess of Pembroke's "Arcadia" is not greenenough for queasy stomachs; but they must have seen Greene's"Arcadia, " and I believe most eagerly longed for Greene's "FaeryQueen. "'

Still more may be gathered on the same topic from the indignantprotest uttered by Roger Ascham in his 'Schoolmaster' (pp. 78-91, date1570) against the prevalence of Italian customs, the habit of Italiantravel, and the reading of Italian books translated into English. Selections of Italian stories rendered into English were extremelypopular; and Greene's tales, which had such vogue that Nash says ofthem, 'glad was that printer that might be so blest to pay him dearfor the very dregs of his wit, ' were all modelled on the Italian. Theeducation of a young man of good family was not thought completeunless he had spent some time in Italy, studied its literature, admired its arts, and caught at least some tincture of its manners. Our rude ancestors brought back with them from these journeys manySouthern vices, together with the culture they had gone to seek. Thecontrast between the plain dealing of the North and the refinedMachiavellism of the South, between Protestant earnestness in religionand Popish scepticism, between the homely virtues of England and thecourtly libertinism of Venice or Florence, blunted the moral sense, while it stimulated the intellectual activity of the Englishtravellers, and too often communicated a fatal shock to theirprinciples. _Inglese Italianato è un diavolo incarnato_ passed into aproverb: we find it on the lips of Parker, of Howell, of Sidney, ofGreene, and of Ascham; while Italy itself was styled by severemoralists the court of Circe. In James Howell's 'Instructions forforreine travell' we find this pregnant sentence: 'And being now inItaly, that great limbique of working braines, he must be verycircumspect in his carriage, for she is able to turne a Saint into adevill, and deprave the best natures, if one will abandon himselfe, and become a prey to dissolut courses and wantonesse. ' Italy, intruth, had already become corrupt, and the fruit of her contact withthe nations of the North was seen in the lives of such scholars asRobert Greene, who confessed that he returned from his travelsinstructed 'in all the villanies under the sun. ' Many of the scandalsof the Court of James might be ascribed to this aping of Southernmanners. 

Yet, together with the evil of depraved morality, the advantage ofimproved culture was imported from Italy into England; and theconstitution of the English genius was young and healthy enough topurge off the mischief, while it assimilated what was beneficial. Thisis very manifest in the history of our drama, which, taking italtogether, is at the same time the purest and the most varied thatexists in literature; while it may be affirmed without exaggerationthat one of the main impulses to free dramatic composition in Englandwas communicated by the attraction everything Italian possessed forthe English fancy. It was in the drama that the English displayed therichness and the splendour of the Renaissance, which had blazed sogorgeously and at times so balefully below the Alps. The Italy of theRenaissance fascinated our dramatists with a strange wild glamour--thecontrast of external pageant and internal tragedy, the alternations ofradiance and gloom, the terrible examples of bloodshed, treason, andheroism emergent from ghastly crimes. Our drama began with atranslation of Ariosto's 'Suppositi' and ended with Davenant's 'JustItalian. ' In the very dawn of tragic composition Greene versified aportion of the 'Orlando Furioso, ' and Marlowe devoted one of his mostbrilliant studies to the villanies of a Maltese Jew. Of Shakspere'splays five are incontestably Italian: several of the rest arefurnished with Italian names to suit the popular taste. Ben Jonsonlaid the scene of his most subtle comedy of manners, 'Volpone, ' inVenice, and sketched the first cast of 'Every Man in his Humour' forItalian characters. Tourneur, Ford, and Webster were so dazzled by thetragic lustre of the wickedness of Italy that their finest dramas, without exception, are minute and carefully studied psychologicalanalyses of great Italian tales of crime. The same, in a less degree, is true of Middleton and Dekker. Massinger makes a story of the Sforzafamily the subject of one of his best plays. Beaumont and Fletcherdraw the subjects of comedies and tragedies alike from the Italiannovelists. Fletcher in his 'Faithful Shepherdess' transfers thepastoral style of Tasso and Guarini to the North. So close is theconnection between our tragedy and Italian novels that Marston andFord think fit to introduce passages of Italian dialogue into theplays of 'Giovanni and Annabella' and 'Antonio and Mellida. ' But thebest proof of the extent to which Italian life and literature hadinfluenced our dramatists, may be easily obtained by taking downHalliwell's 'Dictionary of Old Plays, ' and noticing that about everythird drama has an Italian title. Meanwhile the poems composed by thechief dramatists--Shakspere's 'Venus and Adonis, ' Marlowe's 'Hero andLeander, ' Marston's 'Pygmalion, ' and Beaumont's 'Hermaphrodite'--areall of them conceived in the Italian style, by men who had eitherstudied Southern literature, or had submitted to its powerful æstheticinfluences. The Masques, moreover, of Jonson, of Lyly, of Fletcher, and of Chapman are exact reproductions upon the English court theatresof such festival pageants as were presented to the Medici at Florenceor to the Este family at Ferrara. [20] Throughout our drama theinfluence of Italy, direct or indirect, either as supplying ourplaywrights with subjects or as stimulating their imagination, maythus be traced. Yet the Elizabethan drama is in the highest senseoriginal. As a work of art pregnant with deepest wisdom, andsplendidly illustrative of the age which gave it birth, it fartranscends anything that Italy produced in the same department. Ourpoets have a more masculine judgment, more fiery fancy, noblersentiment, than the Italians of any age but that of Dante. What Italygave, was the impulse toward creation, not patterns to beimitated--the excitement of the imagination by a spectacle of so muchgrandeur, not rules and precepts for production--the keen sense oftragic beauty, not any tradition of accomplished art. 

The Elizabethan period of our literature was, in fact, the periodduring which we derived most from the Italian nation. 

The study of the Italian language went hand in hand with the study ofGreek and Latin, so that the three together contributed to form theEnglish taste. Between us and the ancient world stood the genius ofItaly as an interpreter. Nor was this connection broken until far oninto the reign of Charles II. What Milton owed to Italy is clear notonly from his Italian sonnets, but also from the frequent mention ofDante and Petrarch in his prose works, from his allusions to Boiardoand Ariosto in the 'Paradise Lost, ' and from the hints which heprobably derived from Pulci, Tasso and Andreini. It would, indeed, beeasy throughout his works to trace a continuous vein of Italianinfluence in detail. But, more than this, Milton's poetical taste ingeneral seems to have been formed and ripened by familiarity with theharmonies of the Italian language. In his Tractate on Educationaddressed to Mr. Hartlib, he recommends that boys should be instructedin the Italian pronunciation of vowel sounds, in order to givesonorousness and dignity to elocution. This slight indication suppliesus with a key to the method of melodious structure employed by Miltonin his blank verse. Those who have carefully studied the harmonies ofthe 'Paradise Lost, ' know how all-important are the assonances of thevowel sounds of _o_ and _a_ in its most musical passages. It is justthis attention to the liquid and sonorous recurrences of open vowelsthat we should expect from a poet who proposed to assimilate hisdiction to that of the Italians. 

After the age of Milton the connection between Italy and England isinterrupted. In the seventeenth century Italy herself had sunk intocomparative stupor, and her literature was trivial. France not onlyswayed the political destinies of Europe, but also took the lead inintellectual culture. Consequently, our poets turned from Italy toFrance, and the French spirit pervaded English literature throughoutthe period of the Restoration and the reigns of William and Queen Anne. Yet during this prolonged reaction against the earlier movement ofEnglish literature, as manifested in Elizabethanism, the influence ofItaly was not wholly extinct. Dryden's 'Tales from Boccaccio' are noinsignificant contribution to our poetry, and his 'Palamon andArcite, ' through Chaucer, returns to the same source. But when, at thebeginning of this century, the Elizabethan tradition was revived, thenthe Italian influence reappeared more vigorous than ever. The metre of'Don Juan, ' first practised by Frere and then adopted by Lord Byron, is Pulci's octave stanza; the manner is that of Berni, Folengo, andthe Abbé Casti, fused and heightened by the brilliance of Byron'sgenius into a new form. The subject of Shelley's strongest work of artis Beatrice Cenci. Rogers's poem is styled 'Italy. ' Byron's dramas arechiefly Italian. Leigh Hunt repeats the tale of Francesca da Rimini. Keats versifies Boccaccio's 'Isabella. ' Passing to contemporary poets, Rossetti has acclimatised in English the metres and the manner of theearliest Italian lyrists. Swinburne dedicates his noblest song to thespirit of liberty in Italy. Even George Eliot and Tennyson have eachof them turned stories of Boccaccio into verse. The best of Mrs. Browning's poems, 'Casa Guidi Windows' and 'Aurora Leigh, ' are steepedin Italian thought and Italian imagery. Browning's longest poem is atale of Italian crime; his finest studies in the 'Men and Women' areportraits of Italian character of the Renaissance period. But there ismore than any mere enumeration of poets and their work can set forth, in the connection between Italy and England. That connection, so faras the poetical imagination is concerned, is vital. As poets in thetruest sense of the word, we English live and breathe through sympathywith the Italians. The magnetic touch which is required to inflame theimagination of the North, is derived from Italy. The nightingales ofEnglish song who make our oak and beech copses resonant in spring withpurest melody, are migratory birds, who have charged their souls inthe South with the spirit of beauty, and who return to warble nativewood-notes in a tongue which is their own. 

What has hitherto been said about the debt of the English poets toItaly, may seem to imply that our literature can be regarded as tosome extent a parasite on that of the Italians. Against such aconclusion no protest too energetic could be uttered. What we havederived directly from the Italian poets are, first, somemetres--especially the sonnet and the octave stanza, though the latterhas never taken firm root in England. 'Terza rima, ' attempted byShelley, Byron, Morris, and Mrs. Browning, has not yet becomeacclimatised. Blank verse, although originally remodelled by Surreyupon the _versi sciolti_ of the Italians, has departed widely fromItalian precedent, first by its decasyllabic structure, whereasItalian verse consists of hendecasyllables; and, secondly, by itsgreater force, plasticity, and freedom. The Spenserian stanza, again, is a new and original metre peculiar to our literature; though it ispossible that but for the complex structures of Italian lyric verse, it might not have been fashioned for the 'Faery Queen. ' Lastly, theso-called heroic couplet is native to England; at any rate, it is inno way related to Italian metre. Therefore the only true Italianexotic adopted without modification into our literature is the sonnet. 

In the next place, we owe to the Italians the subject-matter of manyof our most famous dramas and our most delightful tales in verse. Butthe English treatment of these histories and fables has been uniformlyindependent and original. Comparing Shakspere's 'Romeo and Juliet'with Bandello's tale, Webster's 'Duchess of Malfy' with the versiongiven from the Italian in Painter's 'Palace of Pleasure, ' andChaucer's Knight's Tale with the 'Teseide' of Boccaccio, we perceiveat once that the English poets have used their Italian models merelyas outlines to be filled in with freedom, as the canvas to beembroidered with a tapestry of vivid groups. Nothing is more manifestthan the superiority of the English genius over the Italian in alldramatic qualities of intense passion, profound analysis, and livingportrayal of character in action. The mere rough detail of Shakspere's'Othello' is to be found in Cinthio's Collection of Novelle; but letan unprejudiced reader peruse the original, and he will be no moredeeply affected by it than by any touching story of treachery, jealousy, and hapless innocence. The wily subtleties of Iago, thesoldierly frankness of Cassio, the turbulent and volcanic passions ofOthello, the charm of Desdemona, and the whole tissue of vividincidents which make 'Othello' one of the most tremendous extanttragedies of characters in combat, are Shakspere's, and onlyShakspere's. This instance, indeed, enables us exactly to indicatewhat the English owed to Italy and what was essentially their own. From that Southern land of Circe about which they dreamed, and whichnow and then they visited, came to their imaginations aspirit-stirring breath of inspiration. It was to them the country ofmarvels, of mysterious crimes, of luxurious gardens and splendidskies, where love was more passionate and life more picturesque, andhate more bloody and treachery more black, than in our Northernclimes. Italy was a spacious grove of wizardry, which mighty poets, onthe quest of fanciful adventure, trod with fascinated senses andquickened pulses. But the strong brain which converted what they heardand read and saw of that charmed land into the stuff of golden romanceor sable tragedy, was their own. 

English literature has been defined a literature of genius. 

Our greatest work in art has been achieved not so much by inspiration, subordinate to sentiments of exquisite good taste or guided byobservance of classical models, as by audacious sallies of pureinventive power. This is true as a judgment of that constellationwhich we call our drama, of the meteor Byron, of Milton and Dryden, who are the Jupiter and Mars of our poetic system, and of the starswhich stud our literary firmament under the names of Shelley, Keats, Wordsworth, Chatterton, Scott, Coleridge, Clough, Blake, Browning, Swinburne, Tennyson. There are only a very few of the English poets, Pope and Gray, for example, in whom the free instincts of genius arekept systematically in check by the laws of the reflectiveunderstanding. Now Italian literature is in this respect all unlikeour own. It began, indeed, with Dante, as a literature pre-eminentlyof genius; but the spirit of scholarship assumed the sway as early asthe days of Petrarch and Boccaccio, and after them Italian has beenconsistently a literature of taste. By this I mean that even thegreatest Italian poets have sought to render their style correct, haveendeavoured to subordinate their inspiration to what they consideredthe rules of sound criticism, and have paid serious attention to theirmanner as independent of the matter they wished to express. Thepassion for antiquity, so early developed in Italy, delivered thelater Italian poets bound hand and foot into the hands of Horace. Poliziano was content to reproduce the classic authors in a mosaicwork of exquisite translations. Tasso was essentially a man of talent, producing work of chastened beauty by diligent attention to the ruleand method of his art. Even Ariosto submitted the liberty of his swiftspirit to canons of prescribed elegance. While our English poets haveconceived and executed without regard for the opinion of the learnedand without obedience to the usages of language--Shakspere, forexample, producing tragedies which set Aristotle at defiance, andMilton engrafting Latinisms on the native idiom--the Italian poetsthought and wrote with the fear of Academies before their eyes, andstudied before all things to maintain the purity of the Tuscan tongue. The consequence is that the Italian and English literatures areeminent for very different excellences. All that is forcible in thedramatic presentation of life and character and action, all that isaudacious in imagination and capricious in fancy, whatever strengthstyle can gain from the sallies of original and untrammelledeloquence, whatever beauty is derived from spontaneity and nativegrace, belong in abundant richness to the English. On the other hand, the Italian poets present us with masterpieces of correct and studieddiction, with carefully elaborated machinery, and with a stylemaintained at a uniform level of dignified correctness. The weaknessof the English proceeds from inequality and extravagance; it is theweakness of self-confident vigour, intolerant of rule, rejoicing inits own exuberant resources. The weakness of the Italian is due totimidity and moderation; it is the weakness that springs not so muchfrom a lack of native strength as from the over-anxious expenditure ofstrength upon the attainment of finish, polish, and correctness. Hencethe two nations have everything to learn from one another. ModernItalian poets may seek by contact with Shakspere and Milton to gain afreedom from the trammels imposed upon them by the slavish followersof Petrarch; while the attentive perusal of Tasso should berecommended to all English people who have no ready access to themasterpieces of Greek and Latin literature. 

Another point of view may be gained by noticing the pre-dominant toneof the two literatures. Whenever English poetry is really great, itapproximates to the tragic and the stately; whereas the Italians arepeculiarly felicitous in the smooth and pleasant style, which combinespathos with amusement, and which does not trespass beyond the regionof beauty into the domain of sublimity or terror. Italian poetry isanalogous to Italian painting and Italian music: it bathes the soul ina plenitude of charms, investing even the most solemn subjects withloveliness. Rembrandt and Albert Dürer depict the tragedies of theSacred History with a serious and awful reality: Italian painters, with a few rare but illustrious exceptions, shrink from approachingthem from any point of view but that of harmonious melancholy. Even sothe English poets stir the soul to its very depths by their profoundand earnest delineations of the stern and bitter truths of the world:Italian poets environ all things with the golden haze of an artisticharmony; so that the soul is agitated by no pain at strife with thepersuasions of pure beauty. 

 * * * * *

_POPULAR SONGS OF TUSCANY_

It is a noticeable fact about the popular songs of Tuscany that theyare almost exclusively devoted to love. The Italians in general haveno ballad literature resembling that of our Border or that of Spain. The tragic histories of their noble families, the great deeds of theirnational heroes, and the sufferings of their country during centuriesof warfare, have left but few traces in their rustic poetry. It istrue that some districts are less utterly barren than others in theserecords of the past. The Sicilian people's poetry, for example, preserves a memory of the famous Vespers; and one or two terriblestories of domestic tragedy, like the tale of Rosmunda in 'La DonnaLombarda, ' the romance of the Baronessa di Carini, and the so-calledCaso di Sciacca, may still be heard upon the lips of the people. Butthese exceptions are insignificant in comparison with the vast mass ofsongs which deal with love; and I cannot find that Tuscany, where thelanguage of this minstrelsy is purest, and where the artisticinstincts of the race are strongest, has anything at all approachingto our ballads. [21] Though the Tuscan contadini are always singing, itrarely happens that

 The plaintive numbers flow For old, unhappy, far-off things, And battles long ago. 

On the contrary, we may be sure, when we hear their voices ringingthrough the olive-groves or macchi, that they are chanting

 Some more humble lay, Familiar matter of to-day, -- Some natural sorrow, loss, or pain, That has been, and may be again;

or else, since their melodies are by no means uniformly sad, someditty of the joyousness of springtime or the ecstasy of love. 

This defect of anything corresponding to our ballads of 'Chevy Chase, 'or 'Sir Patrick Spens, ' or 'Gil Morrice, ' in a poetry which is stillso vital with the life of past centuries, is all the more remarkablebecause Italian history is distinguished above that of other nationsby tragic episodes peculiarly suited to poetic treatment. Many ofthese received commemoration in the fourteenth century from Dante;others were embodied in the _novelle_ of Boccaccio and Cinthio andBandello, whence they passed into the dramas of Shakspere, Webster, Ford, and their contemporaries. But scarcely an echo can be tracedthrough all the volumes of the recently collected popular songs. Wemust seek for an explanation of this fact partly in the conditions ofItalian life, and partly in the nature of the Italian imagination. Nowhere in Italy do we observe that intimate connection between thepeople at large and the great nobles which generates the sympathy ofclanship. Politics in most parts of the peninsula fell at a veryearly period into the hands either of irresponsible princes, who ruledlike despots, or else of burghers, who administered the state withinthe walls of their Palazzo Pubblico. The people remained passivespectators of contemporary history. The loyalty of subjects to theirsovereign which animates the Spanish ballads, the loyalty of retainersto their chief which gives life to the tragic ballads of the Border, did not exist in Italy. Country-folk felt no interest in the doings ofVisconti or Medici or Malatesti sufficient to arouse the enthusiasm oflocal bards or to call forth the celebration of their princelytragedies in verse. Amid the miseries of foreign wars and homeoppression, it seemed better to demand from verse and song somemitigation of the woes of life, some expression of personal emotion, than to record the disasters which to us at a distance appear poeticin their grandeur. 

These conditions of popular life, although unfavourable to theproduction of ballad poetry, would not, however, have been sufficientby themselves to check its growth, if the Italians had been stronglyimpelled to literature of this type by their nature. The real reasonwhy their _Volkslieder_ are amorous and personal is to be found in thequality of their imagination. The Italian genius is not creativelyimaginative in the highest sense. The Italians have never, either inthe ancient or the modern age, produced a great drama or a nationalepic, the 'Æneid' and the 'Divine Comedy' being obviously of differentspecies from the 'Iliad' or the 'Nibelungen Lied. ' Modern Italians, again, are distinguished from the French, the Germans, and the Englishin being the conscious inheritors of an older, august, and strictlyclassical civilisation. The great memories of Rome weigh down theirfaculties of invention. It would also seem as though they shrank intheir poetry from the representation of what is tragic andspirit-stirring. They incline to what is cheerful, brilliant, orpathetic. The dramatic element in human life, external to thepersonality of the poet, which exercised so strong a fascination overour ballad-bards and playwrights, has but little attraction for theItalian. When he sings, he seeks to express his own individualemotions--his love, his joy, his jealousy, his anger, his despair. Thelanguage which he uses is at the same time direct in its intensity, and hyperbolical in its display of fancy; but it lacks thoseimaginative touches which exalt the poetry of personal passion into asublimer region. Again, the Italians are deficient in a sense of thesupernatural. The wraiths that cannot rest because their love is stillunsatisfied, the voices which cry by night over field and fell, thewater-spirits and forest fairies, the second-sight of coming woes, thepresentiment of death, the warnings and the charms and spells, whichfill the popular poetry of all Northern nations, are absent in Italiansongs. In the whole of Tigri's collection I only remember one mentionof a ghost. It is not that the Italians are deficient in superstitionsof all kinds. Every one has heard of their belief in the evil eye, forinstance. But they do not connect this kind of fetichism with theirpoetry; and even their greatest poets, with the exception of Dante, have shown no capacity or no inclination for enhancing the imaginativeeffect of their creations by an appeal to the instinct of mysteriousawe. 

The truth is that the Italians as a race are distinguished as much bya firm grasp upon the practical realities of existence as by powerfulemotions. They have but little of that dreamy _Schwärmerei_ with whichthe people of the North are largely gifted. The true sphere of theirgenius is painting. What appeals to the imagination through the eyes, they have expressed far better than any other modern nation. Buttheir poetry, like their music, is deficient in tragic sublimity andin the higher qualities of imaginative creation. 

It may seem paradoxical to say this of the nation which producedDante. But we must remember not to judge races by single andexceptional men of genius. Petrarch, the Troubadour of exquisiteemotions, Boccaccio, who touches all the keys of life so lightly, Ariosto, with the smile of everlasting April on his lips, and Tasso, excellent alone when he confines himself to pathos or the picturesque, are no exceptions to what I have just said. Yet these poets pursuedtheir art with conscious purpose. The tragic splendour of Greece, themajesty of Rome, were not unknown to them. Far more is it true thatpopular poetry in Italy, proceeding from the hearts of uncultivatedpeasants and expressing the national character in its simplicity, displays none of the stuff from which the greatest works of art inverse, epics and dramas, can be wrought. But within its own sphere ofpersonal emotion, this popular poetry is exquisitely melodious, inexhaustibly rich, unique in modern literature for the directexpression which it has given to every shade of passion. 

Signor Tigri's collection, [22] to which I shall confine my attentionin this paper, consists of eleven hundred and eighty-five _rispetti_, with the addition of four hundred and sixty-one _stornelli_. Rispetto, it may be said in passing, is the name commonly given throughout Italyto short poems, varying from six to twelve lines, constructed on theprinciple of the octave stanza. That is to say, the first part of therispetto consists of four or six lines with alternate rhymes, whileone or more couplets, called the _ripresa_, complete the poem. [23]The stornello, or ritournelle, never exceeds three lines, and owesits name to the return which it makes at the end of the last line tothe rhyme given by the emphatic word of the first. Browning, in hispoem of 'Fra Lippo Lippi, ' has accustomed English ears to one commonspecies of the stornello, [24] which sets out with the name of aflower, and rhymes with it, as thus:

 Fior di narciso. Prigionero d'amore mi son reso, Nel rimirare il tuo leggiadro viso. 

The divisions of those two sorts of songs, to which Tigri gives nameslike The Beauty of Women, The Beauty of Men, Falling in Love, Serenades, Happy Love, Unhappy Love, Parting, Absence, Letters, Returnto Home, Anger and Jealousy, Promises, Entreaties and Reproaches, Indifference, Treachery and Abandonment, prove with what fulness thevarious phases of the tender passion are treated. Through the wholefifteen hundred the one theme of Love is never relinquished. Only twopersons, 'I' and 'thou, ' appear upon the scene; yet so fresh and sovarious are the moods of feeling, that one can read them from first tolast without too much satiety. 

To seek for the authors of these ditties would be useless. Some ofthem may be as old as the fourteenth century; others may have beenmade yesterday. Some are the native product of the Tuscan mountainvillages, especially of the regions round Pistoja and Siena, where onthe spurs of the Apennines the purest Italian is vernacular. Some, again, are importations from other provinces, especially from Sicilyand Naples, caught up by the peasants of Tuscany and adapted to theirtaste and style; for nothing travels faster than a _Volkslied_. Bornsome morning in a noisy street of Naples, or on the solitary slopes ofRadicofani, before the week is out, a hundred voices are repeating it. Waggoners and pedlars carry it across the hills to distant towns. Itfloats with the fishermen from bay to bay, and marches with theconscript to his barrack in a far-off province. Who was the first togive it shape and form? No one asks, and no one cares. A student wellacquainted with the habits of the people in these matters says, 'Ifthey knew the author of a ditty, they would not learn it, far less ifthey discovered that it was a scholar's. ' If the cadence takes theirear, they consecrate the song at once by placing it upon the honouredlist of 'ancient lays. ' Passing from lip to lip and from district todistrict, it receives additions and alterations, and becomes theproperty of a score of provinces. Meanwhile the poet from whose soulit blossomed that first morning like a flower, remains contented withobscurity. The wind has carried from his lips the thistledown of song, and sown it on a hundred hills and meadows, far and wide. After suchwise is the birth of all truly popular compositions. Who knows, forinstance, the veritable author of many of those mighty German choralswhich sprang into being at the period of the Reformation? The firstinspiration was given, probably, to a single mind; but the melody, asit has reached us, is the product of a thousand. This accounts for thevariations which in different dialects and districts the same songpresents. Meanwhile, it is sometimes possible to trace the authorshipof a ballad with marked local character to an improvisatore famous inhis village, or to one of those professional rhymesters whom thecountry-folk employ in the composition of love-letters to theirsweethearts at a distance. [25] Tommaseo, in the preface to his 'CantiPopolari, ' mentions in particular a Beatrice di Pian degli Ontani, whose poetry was famous through the mountains of Pistoja; and Tigrirecords by name a little girl called Cherubina, who made rispetti bythe dozen as she watched her sheep upon the hills. One of the songs inhis collection (p. 181) contains a direct reference to the villageletter-writer:--

 Salutatemi, bella, lo scrivano; Non lo conosco e non so chi si sia. A me mi pare un poeta sovrano, Tanto gli è sperto nella poesia. [26]

While I am writing thus about the production and dissemination ofthese love-songs, I cannot help remembering three days and nightswhich I once spent at sea between Genoa and Palermo, in the company ofsome conscripts who were going to join their regiment in Sicily. Theywere lads from the Milanese and Liguria, and they spent a greatportion of their time in composing and singing poetry. One of them hada fine baritone voice; and when the sun had set, his comrades gatheredround him and begged him to sing to them 'Con quella patetica tuavoce. ' Then followed hours of singing, the low monotonous melodies ofhis ditties harmonising wonderfully with the tranquillity of night, soclear and calm that the sky and all its stars were mirrored on thesea, through which we moved as if in a dream. Sometimes the songsprovoked conversation, which, as is usual in Italy, turned mostly upon'le bellezze delle donne. ' I remember that once an animated discussionabout the relative merits of blondes and brunettes nearly ended in aquarrel, when the youngest of the whole band, a boy of aboutseventeen, put a stop to the dispute by theatrically raising his eyesand arms to heaven and crying, 'Tu sei innamorato d' una grande Dianacacciatrice nera, ed io d' una bella Venere bionda. ' Though they werebut village lads, they supported their several opinions with argumentsnot unworthy of Firenzuola, and showed the greatest delicacy offeeling in the treatment of a subject which could scarcely have failedto reveal any latent coarseness. 

The purity of all the Italian love-songs collected by Tigri is veryremarkable. [27] Although the passion expressed in them is Oriental inits vehemence, not a word falls which could offend a virgin's ear. Theone desire of lovers is lifelong union in marriage. The _damo_--for soa sweetheart is termed in Tuscany--trembles until he has gained theapproval of his future mother-in-law, and forbids the girl he iscourting to leave her house to talk to him at night:--

 Dice che tu tì affacci alia finestra; Ma non tì dice che tu vada fuora, Perchè, la notte, è cosa disonesta. 

All the language of his love is respectful. _Signore_, or master of mysoul, _madonna, anima mia, dolce mio ben, nobil persona, _ are theterms of adoration with which he approaches his mistress. Theelevation of feeling and perfect breeding which Manzoni has so welldelineated in the loves of Renzo and Lucia are traditional amongItalian country-folk. They are conscious that true gentleness is nomatter of birth or fortune:--

 E tu non mi lasciar per poverezza, Chè povertà non guasta gentilezza. [28]

This in itself constitutes an important element of culture, andexplains to some extent the high romantic qualities of theirimpassioned poetry. The beauty of their land reveals still more. 'Ofortunatos nimium sua si bona norint!' Virgil's exclamation is as truenow as it was when he sang the labours of Italian country-folk somenineteen centuries ago. To a traveller from the north there is apathos even in the contrast between the country in which thesechildren of a happier climate toil, and those bleak, winter-beatenfields where our own peasants pass their lives. The cold nights andwarm days of Tuscan springtime are like a Swiss summer. They make richpasture and a hardy race of men. Tracts of corn and oats and ryealternate with patches of flax in full flower, with meadows yellowwith buttercups or pink with ragged robin; the young vines, runningfrom bough to bough of elm and mulberry, are just coming into leaf. The poplars are fresh with bright green foliage. On the verge of thisblooming plain stand ancient cities ringed with hills, some rising tosnowy Apennines, some covered with white convents and sparkling withvillas. Cypresses shoot, black and spirelike, amid grey clouds ofolive-boughs upon the slopes; and above, where vegetation borders onthe barren rock, are masses of ilex and arbutus interspersed withchestnut-trees not yet in leaf. Men and women are everywhere at work, ploughing with great white oxen, or tilling the soil with spades sixfeet in length--Sabellian ligones. The songs of nightingales amongacacia-trees, and the sharp scream of swallows wheeling in air, minglewith the monotonous chant that always rises from the country-people attheir toil. Here and there on points of vantage, where the hill-slopessink into the plain, cluster white villages with flower-likecampanili. It is there that the veglia, or evening rendezvous oflovers, the serenades and balls and feste, of which one hears so muchin the popular minstrelsy, take place. Of course it would not bedifficult to paint the darker shades of this picture. Autumn comes, when the contadini of Lucca and Siena and Pistoja go forth to work inthe unwholesome marshes of the Maremma, or of Corsica and Sardinia. Dismal superstitions and hereditary hatreds cast their blight over alife externally so fair. The bad government of centuries has pervertedin many ways the instincts of a people naturally mild and cheerful andpeace-loving. But as far as nature can make men happy, thesehusbandmen are surely to be reckoned fortunate, and in their songs wefind little to remind us of what is otherwise than sunny in their lot. 

A translator of these _Volkslieder_ has to contend with difficultiesof no ordinary kind. The freshness of their phrases, the spontaneityof their sentiments, and the melody of their unstudied cadences, areinimitable. So again is the peculiar effect of their frequenttransitions from the most fanciful imagery to the language of prose. No mere student can hope to rival, far less to reproduce, in a foreigntongue, the charm of verse which sprang untaught from the hearts ofsimple folk, which lives unwritten on the lips of lovers, and whichshould never be dissociated from singing. [29] There are, besides, peculiarities in the very structure of the popular rispetto. Theconstant repetition of the same phrase with slight variations, especially in the closing lines of the _ripresa_ of the Tuscanrispetto, gives an antique force and flavour to these ditties, likethat which we appreciate in our own ballads, but which may easily, inthe translation, degenerate into weakness and insipidity. The Tuscanrhymester, again, allows himself the utmost licence. It is usual tofind mere assonances like _bene_ and _piacere, oro_ and _volo, ala_and _alata_, in the place of rhymes; while such remote resemblances ofsound as _colli_ and _poggi_, _lascia_ and _piazza_, are far fromuncommon. To match these rhymes by joining 'home' and 'alone, ' 'time'and 'shine, ' &c, would of course be a matter of no difficulty; but ithas seemed to me on the whole best to preserve, with some exceptions, such accuracy as the English ear requires. I fear, however, that, after all, these wild-flowers of song, transplanted to another climateand placed in a hothouse, will appear but pale and hectic by the sideof their robuster brethren of the Tuscan hills. 

In the following serenade many of the peculiarities whichI have just noticed occur. I have also adhered to the irregularity ofrhyme which may be usually observed about the middle of the poem (p. 103):--

 Sleeping or waking, thou sweet face, Lift up thy fair and tender brow: List to thy love in this still place; He calls thee to thy window now: But bids thee not the house to quit, Since in the night this were not meet. Come to thy window, stay within; I stand without, and sing and sing: Come to thy window, stay at home; I stand without, and make my moan. 

Here is a serenade of a more impassioned character (p. 99):--

 I come to visit thee, my beauteous queen, Thee and the house where thou art harboured: All the long way upon my knees, my queen, I kiss the earth where'er thy footsteps tread. I kiss the earth, and gaze upon the wall, Whereby thou goest, maid imperial! I kiss the earth, and gaze upon the house, Whereby thou farest, queen most beauteous!

In the next the lover, who has passed the whole night beneath hissweetheart's window, takes leave at the break of day. The feeling ofthe half-hour before dawn, when the sound of bells rises to meet thegrowing light, and both form a prelude to the glare and noise of day, is expressed with much unconscious poetry (p. 105):--

 I see the dawn e'en now begin to peer: Therefore I take my leave, and cease to sing, See how the windows open far and near, And hear the bells of morning, how they ring! Through heaven and earth the sounds of ringing swell; Therefore, bright jasmine flower, sweet maid, farewell! Through heaven and Rome the sound of ringing goes; Farewell, bright jasmine flower, sweet maiden rose!The next is more quaint (p. 99):--

 I come by night, I come, my soul aflame; I come in this fair hour of your sweet sleep; And should I wake you up, it were a shame. I cannot sleep, and lo! I break your sleep. To wake you were a shame from your deep rest; Love never sleeps, nor they whom Love hath blest. 

A very great many rispetti are simple panegyrics of the beloved, tofind similitude for whose beauty heaven and earth are ransacked. Thecompliment of the first line in the following song is perfect (p. 23):--

 Beauty was born with you, fair maid: The sun and moon inclined to you; On you the snow her whiteness laid The rose her rich and radiant hue: Saint Magdalen her hair unbound, And Cupid taught you how to wound-- How to wound hearts Dan Cupid taught: Your beauty drives me love-distraught. 

The lady in the next was December's child (p. 25):--

 O beauty, born in winter's night, Born in the month of spotless snow: Your face is like a rose so bright; Your mother may be proud of you! She may be proud, lady of love, Such sunlight shines her house above: She may be proud, lady of heaven, Such sunlight to her home is given. 

The sea wind is the source of beauty to another (p. 16):--

 Nay, marvel not you are so fair; For you beside the sea were born: The sea-waves keep you fresh and fair, Like roses on their leafy thorn. If roses grow on the rose-bush, Your roses through midwinter blush; If roses bloom on the rose-bed, Your face can show both white and red. 

The eyes of a fourth are compared, after quite a new and originalfashion, to stars (p. 210):--

 The moon hath risen her plaint to lay Before the face of Love Divine. Saying in heaven she will not stay, Since you have stolen what made her shine: Aloud she wails with sorrow wan, -- She told her stars and two are gone: They are not there; you have them now; They are the eyes in your bright brow. 

Nor are girls less ready to praise their lovers, but that they do notdwell so much on physical perfection. Here is a pleasant greeting (p. 124):--

 O welcome, welcome, lily white, Thou fairest youth of all the valley! When I'm with you, my soul is light; I chase away dull melancholy. I chase all sadness from my heart: Then welcome, dearest that thou art! I chase all sadness from my side: Then welcome, O my love, my pride! I chase all sadness far away: Then welcome, welcome, love, to-day!

The image of a lily is very prettily treated in the next (p 79):--

 I planted a lily yestreen at my window; I set it yestreen, and to-day it sprang up: When I opened the latch and leaned out of my window, It shadowed my face with its beautiful cup. O lily, my lily, how tall you are grown! Remember how dearly I loved you, my own. O lily, my lily, you'll grow to the sky! Remember I love you for ever and aye. 

The same thought of love growing like a flower receives another turn(p. 69):--

 On yonder hill I saw a flower; And, could it thence be hither borne, I'd plant it here within my bower, And water it both eve and morn. Small water wants the stem so straight; 'Tis a love-lily stout as fate. Small water wants the root so strong: 'Tis a love-lily lasting long. Small water wants the flower so sheen: 'Tis a love-lily ever green. 

Envious tongues have told a girl that her complexion is not good. Shereplies, with imagery like that of Virgil's 'Alba ligustra cadunt, vaccinia nigra leguntur' (p. 31):--

 Think it no grief that I am brown, For all brunettes are born to reign: White is the snow, yet trodden down; Black pepper kings need not disdain: White snow lies mounded on the vales Black pepper's weighed in brazen scales. 

Another song runs on the same subject (p. 38):--

 The whole world tells me that I'm brown, The brown earth gives us goodly corn: The clove-pink too, however brown, Yet proudly in the hand 'tis borne. They say my love is black, but he Shines like an angel-form to me: They say my love is dark as night; To me he seems a shape of light. 

The freshness of the following spring song recalls the ballads of theVal de Vire in Normandy (p. 85):--

 It was the morning of the first of May, Into the close I went to pluck a flower; And there I found a bird of woodland gay, Who whiled with songs of love the silent hour. O bird, who fliest from fair Florence, how Dear love begins, I prithee teach me now!-- Love it begins with music and with song, And ends with sorrow and with sighs ere long. 

Love at first sight is described (p. 79):--

 The very moment that we met, That moment love began to beat: One glance of love we gave, and swore Never to part for evermore; We swore together, sighing deep, Never to part till Death's long sleep. 

Here too is a memory of the first days of love (p. 79):--

 If I remember, it was May When love began between us two: The roses in the close were gay, The cherries blackened on the bough. O cherries black and pears so green! Of maidens fair you are the queen. Fruit of black cherry and sweet pear! Of sweethearts you're the queen, I swear. 

The troth is plighted with such promises as these (p. 230):--

 Or ere I leave you, love divine, Dead tongues shall stir and utter speech, And running rivers flow with wine, And fishes swim upon the beach; Or ere I leave or shun you, these Lemons shall grow on orange-trees. 

The girl confesses her love after this fashion (p. 86):--

 Passing across the billowy sea, I let, alas, my poor heart fall; I bade the sailors bring it me; They said they had not seen it fall. I asked the sailors, one and two; They said that I had given it you. I asked the sailors, two and three; They said that I had given it thee. It is not uncommon to speak of love as a sea. Here is a curious playupon this image (p. 227):--

 Ho, Cupid! Sailor Cupid, ho! Lend me awhile that bark of thine; For on the billows I will go, To find my love who once was mine: And if I find her, she shall wear A chain around her neck so fair, Around her neck a glittering bond, Four stars, a lily, a diamond. 

It is also possible that the same thought may occur in the second lineof the next ditty (p. 120):--

 Beneath the earth I'll make a way To pass the sea and come to you. People will think I'm gone away; But, dear, I shall be seeing you. People will say that I am dead; But we'll pluck roses white and red: People will think I'm lost for aye; But we'll pluck roses, you and I. 

All the little daily incidents are beautified by love. Here is alover who thanks the mason for making his window so close upon theroad that he can see his sweetheart as she passes (p. 118):--

 Blest be the mason's hand who built This house of mine by the roadside, And made my window low and wide For me to watch my love go by. And if I knew when she went by, My window should be fairly gilt; And if I knew what time she went, My window should be flower-besprent. 

Here is a conceit which reminds one of the pretty epistle ofPhilostratus, in which the footsteps of the beloved are called_[Greek: erêreismena philêmpta]_ (p. 117):--

 What time I see you passing by; I sit and count the steps you take: You take the steps; I sit and sigh: Step after step, my sighs awake. Tell me, dear love, which more abound, My sighs or your steps on the ground? Tell me, dear love, which are the most, Your light steps or the sighs they cost?

A girl complains that she cannot see her lover's house (p. 117):-

 I lean upon the lattice, and look forth To see the house where my lover dwells. There grows an envious tree that spoils my mirth: Cursed be the man who set it on these hills! But when those jealous boughs are all unclad, I then shall see the cottage of my lad: When once that tree is rooted from the hills, I'll see the house wherein my lover dwells. 

In the same mood a girl who has just parted from her sweetheart isangry with the hill beyond which he is travelling (p. 167):--

 I see and see, yet see not what I would: I see the leaves atremble on the tree: I saw my love where on the hill he stood, Yet see him not drop downward to the lea. O traitor hill, what will you do? I ask him, live or dead, from you. O traitor hill, what shall it be? I ask him, live or dead, from thee. 

All the songs of love in absence are very quaint. Here is one whichcalls our nursery rhymes to mind (p. 119):--

I would I were a bird so free, That I had wings to fly away:Unto that window I would flee, Where stands my love and grinds all day. Grind, miller, grind; the water's deep!I cannot grind; love makes me weep. Grind, miller, grind; the waters flow!I cannot grind; love wastes me so. 

The next begins after the same fashion, but breaks into a very showerof benedictions (p. 118):--

 Would God I were a swallow free, That I had wings to fly away: Upon the miller's door I'd be, Where stands my love and grinds all day: Upon the door, upon the sill, Where stays my love;--God bless him still! God bless my love, and blessed be His house, and bless my house for me; Yea, blest be both, and ever blest My lover's house, and all the rest!

The girl alone at home in her garden sees a wood-dove flying by andcalls to it (p. 179):--

 O dove, who fliest far to yonder hill, Dear dove, who in the rock hast made thy nest, Let me a feather from thy pinion pull, For I will write to him who loves me best. And when I've written it and made it clear, I'll give thee back thy feather, dove so dear: And when I've written it and sealed it, then I'll give thee back thy feather love-laden. 

A swallow is asked to lend the same kind service (p. 179):--

 O swallow, swallow, flying through the air, Turn, turn, I prithee, from thy flight above! Give me one feather from thy wing so fair, For I will write a letter to my love. When I have written it and made it clear, I'll give thee back thy feather, swallow dear; When I have written it on paper white, I'll make, I swear, thy missing feather right; When once 'tis written on fair leaves of gold, I'll give thee back thy wing and flight so bold. 

Long before Tennyson's song in the 'Princess, ' it would seem thatswallows were favourite messengers of love. In the next song which Itranslate, the repetition of one thought with delicate variation isfull of character (p. 178):--

 O swallow, flying over hill and plain, If thou shouldst find my love, oh bid him come! And tell him, on these mountains I remain Even as a lamb who cannot find her home: And tell him, I am left all, all alone, Even as a tree whose flowers are overblown: And tell him, I am left without a mate Even as a tree whose boughs are desolate: And tell him, I am left uncomforted Even as the grass upon the meadows dead. 

The following is spoken by a girl who has been watching the lads ofthe village returning from their autumn service in the plain, andwhose damo comes the last of all (p. 240):--

 O dear my love, you come too late! What found you by the way to do? I saw your comrades pass the gate, But yet not you, dear heart, not you! If but a little more you'd stayed, With sighs you would have found me dead; If but a while you'd keep me crying, With sighs you would have found me dying. 

The _amantium irae_ find a place too in these rustic ditties. A girlexplains to her sweetheart (p. 240):--

 'Twas told me and vouchsafed for true, Your kin are wroth as wroth can be; For loving me they swear at you, They swear at you because of me; Your father, mother, all your folk, Because you love me, chafe and choke! Then set your kith and kin at ease; Set them at ease and let me die: Set the whole clan of them at ease; Set them at ease and see me die!

Another suspects that her damo has paid his suit to a rival (p. 200):--

 On Sunday morning well I knew Where gaily dressed you turned your feet; And there were many saw it too, And came to tell me through the street: And when they spoke, I smiled, ah me! But in my room wept privately; And when they spoke, I sang for pride, But in my room alone I sighed. 

Then come reconciliations (p. 223):--

 Let us make peace, my love, my bliss! For cruel strife can last no more. If you say nay, yet I say yes: 'Twixt me and you there is no war. Princes and mighty lords make peace; And so may lovers twain, I wis: Princes and soldiers sign a truce; And so may two sweethearts like us: Princes and potentates agree; And so may friends like you and me. 

There is much character about the following, which is spoken by thedamo (p. 223):--

 As yonder mountain height I trod, I chanced to think of your dear name; I knelt with clasped hands on the sod, And thought of my neglect with shame: I knelt upon the stone, and swore Our love should bloom as heretofore. 

Sometimes the language of affection takes a more imaginative tone, asin the following (p. 232):--

 Dearest, what time you mount to heaven above, I'll meet you holding in my hand my heart: You to your breast shall clasp me full of love, And I will lead you to our Lord apart. 

 Our Lord, when he our love so true hath known, Shall make of our two hearts one heart alone; One heart shall make of our two hearts, to rest In heaven amid the splendours of the blest. 

This was the woman's. Here is the man's (p. 113):--

 If I were master of all loveliness, I'd make thee still more lovely than thou art: If I were master of all wealthiness, Much gold and silver should be thine, sweetheart: If I were master of the house of hell, I'd bar the brazen gates in thy sweet face; Or ruled the place where purging spirits dwell, I'd free thee from that punishment apace. Were I in paradise and thou shouldst come, I'd stand aside, my love, to make thee room; Were I in paradise, well seated there, I'd quit my place to give it thee, my fair!

Sometimes, but very rarely, weird images are sought to clothe passion, as in the following (p. 136):--

 Down into hell I went and thence returned: Ah me! alas! the people that were there! I found a room where many candles burned, And saw within my love that languished there. When as she saw me, she was glad of cheer, And at the last she said: Sweet soul of mine; Dost thou recall the time long past, so dear, When thou didst say to me, Sweet soul of mine? Now kiss me on the mouth, my dearest, here; Kiss me that I for once may cease to pine! So sweet, ah me, is thy dear mouth, so dear, That of thy mercy prithee sweeten mine! Now, love, that thou hast kissed me, now, I say, Look not to leave this place again for aye. 

Or again in this (p. 232):--

 Methinks I hear, I hear a voice that cries: Beyond the hill it floats upon the air. It is my lover come to bid me rise, If I am fain forthwith toward heaven to fare. But I have answered him, and said him No! I've given my paradise, my heaven, for you: Till we together go to paradise, I'll stay on earth and love your beauteous eyes. 

But it is not with such remote and eerie thoughts that the rustic museof Italy can deal successfully. Far better is the followinghalf-playful description of love-sadness (p. 71):--

 Ah me, alas! who know not how to sigh! Of sighs I now full well have learned the art: Sighing at table when to eat I try, Sighing within my little room apart, Sighing when jests and laughter round me fly, Sighing with her and her who know my heart: I sigh at first, and then I go on sighing; 'Tis for your eyes that I am ever sighing: I sigh at first, and sigh the whole year through; And 'tis your eyes that keep me sighing so. 

The next two rispetti, delicious in their naïveté, might seem to havebeen extracted from the libretto of an opera, but that they lack thesympathising chorus, who should have stood at hand, ready to chime inwith 'he, ' 'she, ' and 'they, ' to the 'I, ' 'you, ' and 'we' of thelovers (p. 123):--

 Ah, when will dawn that glorious day When you will softly mount my stair? My kin shall bring you on the way; I shall be first to greet you there. Ah, when will dawn that day of bliss When we before the priest say Yes?

 Ah, when will dawn that blissful day When I shall softly mount your stair, Your brothers meet me on the way, And one by one I greet them there? When comes the day, my staff, my strength, To call your mother mine at length? When will the day come, love of mine, I shall be yours and you be mine?

Hitherto the songs have told only of happy love, or of love returned. Some of the best, however, are unhappy. Here is one, for instance, steeped in gloom (p. 142):--

 They have this custom in fair Naples town; They never mourn a man when he is dead: The mother weeps when she has reared a son To be a serf and slave by love misled; The mother weeps when she a son hath born To be the serf and slave of galley scorn; The mother weeps when she a son gives suck To be the serf and slave of city luck. 

The following contains a fine wild image, wrought out with strangepassion in detail (p. 300):--

 I'll spread a table brave for revelry, And to the feast will bid sad lovers all. For meat I'll give them my heart's misery; For drink I'll give these briny tears that fall. Sorrows and sighs shall be the varletry, To serve the lovers at this festival: The table shall be death, black death profound; Weep, stones, and utter sighs, ye walls around! The table shall be death, yea, sacred death; Weep, stones, and sigh as one that sorroweth!

Nor is the next a whit less in the vein of mad Jeronimo (p. 304):--

 High up, high up, a house I'll rear, High up, high up, on yonder height; At every window set a snare, With treason, to betray the night; With treason, to betray the stars, Since I'm betrayed by my false feres; With treason, to betray the day, Since Love betrayed me, well away!

The vengeance of an Italian reveals itself in the energetic song whichI quote next (p. 303):--

 I have a sword; 'twould cut a brazen bell, Tough steel 'twould cut, if there were any need: I've had it tempered in the streams of hell By masters mighty in the mystic rede: I've had it tempered by the light of stars; Then let him come whose skin is stout as Mars; I've had it tempered to a trenchant blade; Then let him come who stole from me my maid. 

More mild, but brimful of the bitterness of a soul to whom the wholeworld has become but ashes in the death of love, is the followinglament (p. 143):--

 Call me the lovely Golden Locks no more, But call me Sad Maid of the golden hair. If there be wretched women, sure I think I too may rank among the most forlorn. I fling a palm into the sea; 'twill sink: Others throw lead, and it is lightly borne. What have I done, dear Lord, the world to cross? Gold in my hand forthwith is turned to dross. How have I made, dear Lord, dame Fortune wroth? Gold in my hand forthwith is turned to froth. What have I done, dear Lord, to fret the folk? Gold in my hand forthwith is turned to smoke. 

Here is pathos (p. 172):--

 The wood-dove who hath lost her mate, She lives a dolorous life, I ween; She seeks a stream and bathes in it, And drinks that water foul and green: With other birds she will not mate, Nor haunt, I wis, the flowery treen; She bathes her wings and strikes her breast; Her mate is lost: oh, sore unrest!

And here is fanciful despair (p. 168):--

 I'll build a house of sobs and sighs, With tears the lime I'll slack; And there I'll dwell with weeping eyes Until my love come back: And there I'll stay with eyes that burn Until I see my love return. 

The house of love has been deserted, and the lover comes to moanbeneath its silent eaves (p. 171):--

 Dark house and window desolate! Where is the sun which shone so fair? 'Twas here we danced and laughed at fate: Now the stones weep; I see them there. They weep, and feel a grievous chill: Dark house and widowed window-sill!

And what can be more piteous than this prayer? (p. 809):--

 Love, if you love me, delve a tomb, And lay me there the earth beneath; After a year, come see my bones, And make them dice to play therewith. But when you're tired of that game, Then throw those dice into the flame; But when you're tired of gaming free, Then throw those dice into the sea. 

The simpler expression of sorrow to the death is, as usual, moreimpressive. A girl speaks thus within sight of the grave (p. 808):--

 Yes, I shall die: what wilt thou gain? The cross before my bier will go; And thou wilt hear the bells complain, The _Misereres_ loud and low. Midmost the church thou'lt see me lie With folded hands and frozen eye; Then say at last, I do repent!-- Nought else remains when fires are spent. 

Here is a rustic Oenone (p. 307):--

 Fell death, that fliest fraught with woe! Thy gloomy snares the world ensphere: Where no man calls, thou lov'st to go; But when we call, thou wilt not hear. Fell death, false death of treachery, Thou makest all content but me. 

Another is less reproachful, but scarcely less sad (p. 308):--

 Strew me with blossoms when I die, Nor lay me 'neath the earth below; Beyond those walls, there let me lie, Where oftentimes we used to go. There lay me to the wind and rain; Dying for you, I feel no pain: There lay me to the sun above; Dying for you, I die of love. 

Yet another of these pitiful love-wailings displays much poetry ofexpression (p. 271):--

 I dug the sea, and delved the barren sand: I wrote with dust and gave it to the wind: Of melting snow, false Love, was made thy band, Which suddenly the day's bright beams unbind. Now am I ware, and know my own mistake-- How false are all the promises you make; Now am I ware, and know the fact, ah me! That who confides in you, deceived will be. 

It would scarcely be well to pause upon these very doleful ditties. Take, then, the following little serenade, in which the lover on hisway to visit his mistress has unconsciously fallen on the same thoughtas Bion (p. 85):--

 Yestreen I went my love to greet, By yonder village path below: Night in a coppice found my feet; I called the moon her light to show-- O moon, who needs no flame to fire thy face, Look forth and lend me light a little space!

Enough has been quoted to illustrate the character of the Tuscanpopular poetry. These village rispetti bear the same relation to thecanzoniere of Petrarch as the 'savage drupe' to the 'suave plum. ' Theyare, as it were, the wild stock of that highly artificial flower ofart. Herein lies, perhaps, their chief importance. As in our balladliterature we may discern the stuff of the Elizabethan dramaundeveloped, so in the Tuscan people's songs we can trace the crudeform of that poetic instinct which produced the sonnets to Laura. Itis also very probable that some such rustic minstrelsy preceded theIdylls of Theocritus and the Bucolics of Virgil; for coincidences ofthought and imagery, which can scarcely be referred to any consciousstudy of the ancients, are not a few. Popular poetry has this greatvalue for the student of literature: it enables him to trace thoseforms of fancy and of feeling which are native to the people, andwhich must ultimately determine the character of national art, howevermuch that may be modified by culture. 

 * * * * *

_POPULAR ITALIAN POETRY OF THE RENAISSANCE_

The semi-popular poetry of the Italians in the fifteenth centuryformed an important branch of their national literature, andflourished independently of the courtly and scholastic studies whichgave a special character to the golden age of the revival. While thelatter tended to separate the people from the cultivated classes, theformer established a new link of connection between them, differentindeed from that which existed when smiths and carters repeated theCanzoni of Dante by heart in the fourteenth century, but stillsufficiently real to exercise a weighty influence over the nationaldevelopment. Scholars like Angelo Poliziano, princes like Lorenzo de'Medici, men of letters like Feo Belcari and Benivieni, borrowed fromthe people forms of poetry, which they handled with refined taste, andappropriated to the uses of polite literature. The most important ofthese forms, native to the people but assimilated by the learnedclasses, were the Miracle Play or 'Sacra Rappresentazione;' the'Ballata' or lyric to be sung while dancing; the 'CantoCarnascialesco' or Carnival Chorus; the 'Rispetto' or shortlove-ditty; the 'Lauda' or hymn; the 'Maggio' or May-song; and the'Madrigale' or little part-song. 

At Florence, where even under the despotism of the Medici a show ofrepublican life still lingered, all classes joined in the amusementsof carnival and spring time; and this poetry of the dance, thepageant, and the villa flourished side by side with the more seriousefforts of the humanistic muse. It is not my purpose in this place toinquire into the origins of each lyrical type, to discuss thealterations they may have undergone at the hands of educatedversifiers, or to define their several characteristics; but only tooffer translations of such as seem to me best suited to represent thegenius of the people and the age. 

In the composition of the poetry in question, Angelo Poliziano wasindubitably the most successful. This giant of learning, who filledthe lecture-rooms of Florence with students of all nations, and whosecritical and rhetorical labours marked an epoch in the history ofscholarship, was by temperament a poet, and a poet of the people. Nothing was easier for him than to throw aside his professor's mantle, and to improvise 'Ballate' for the girls to sing as they danced their'Carola' upon the Piazza di Santa Trinità in summer evenings. Thepeculiarity of this lyric is that it starts with a couplet, which alsoserves as refrain, supplying the rhyme to each successive stanza. Thestanza itself is identical with our rime royal, if we count thecouplet in the place of the seventh line. The form is in itself sograceful and is so beautifully treated by Poliziano that I cannotcontent myself with fewer than four of his _Ballate_. [30] The first iswritten on the world-old theme of 'Gather ye rosebuds while ye may. '

 I went a roaming, maidens, one bright day, In a green garden in mid month of May. 

 Violets and lilies grew on every side Mid the green grass, and young flowers wonderful, Golden and white and red and azure-eyed; Toward which I stretched my hands, eager to pull Plenty to make my fair curls beautiful, To crown my rippling curls with garlands gay. 

 I went a roaming, maidens, one bright day, In a green garden in mid month of May. 

 But when my lap was full of flowers I spied Roses at last, roses of every hue; Therefore I ran to pluck their ruddy pride, Because their perfume was so sweet and true That all my soul went forth with pleasure new, With yearning and desire too soft to say. 

 I went a roaming, maidens, one bright day, In a green garden in mid month of May. 

 I gazed and gazed. Hard task it were to tell How lovely were the roses in that hour: One was but peeping from her verdant shell, And some were faded, some were scarce in flower: Then Love said: Go, pluck from the blooming bower Those that thou seest ripe upon the spray. 

 I went a roaming, maidens, one bright day, In a green garden in mid month of May. 

 For when the full rose quits her tender sheath, When she is sweetest and most fair to see, Then is the time to place her in thy wreath, Before her beauty and her freshness flee. Gather ye therefore roses with great glee, Sweet girls, or ere their perfume pass away. 

 I went a roaming, maidens, one bright day, In a green garden in mid month of May. 

The next Ballata is less simple, but is composed with the sameintention. It may here be parenthetically mentioned that the courtlypoet, when he applied himself to this species of composition, inventeda certain rusticity of incident, scarcely in keeping with the spiritof his art. It was in fact a conventional feature of this species ofverse that the scene should be laid in the country, where the burgher, on a visit to his villa, is supposed to meet with a rustic beauty whocaptivates his eyes and heart. Guido Cavalcanti, in his celebratedBallata, 'In un boschetto trovai pastorella, ' struck the keynote ofthis music, which, it may be reasonably conjectured, was imported intoItaly through Provençal literature from the pastorals of NorthernFrance. The lady so quaintly imaged by a bird in the following Ballataof Poliziano is supposed to have been Monna Ippolita Leoncina ofPrato, white-throated, golden-haired, and dressed in crimson silk. 

 I found myself one day all, all alone, For pastime in a field with blossoms strewn. 

 I do not think the world a field could show With herbs of perfume so surpassing rare; But when I passed beyond the green hedge-row, A thousand flowers around me flourished fair, White, pied and crimson, in the summer air; Among the which I heard a sweet bird's tone. 

 I found myself one day all, all alone, For pastime in a field with blossoms strewn. 

 Her song it was so tender and so clear That all the world listened with love; then I With stealthy feet a-tiptoe drawing near, Her golden head and golden wings could spy, Her plumes that flashed like rubies 'neath the sky, Her crystal beak and throat and bosom's zone. 

 I found myself one day all, all alone, For pastime in a field with blossoms strewn. 

 Fain would I snare her, smit with mighty love; But arrow-like she soared, and through the air Fled to her nest upon the boughs above; Wherefore to follow her is all my care, For haply I might lure her by some snare Forth from the woodland wild where she is flown. 

 I found myself one day all, all alone, For pastime in a field with blossoms strewn. 

 Yea, I might spread some net or woven wile; But since of singing she doth take such pleasure, Without or other art or other guile I seek to win her with a tuneful measure; Therefore in singing spend I all my leisure, To make by singing this sweet bird my own. 

 I found myself one day all, all alone, For pastime in a field with blossoms strewn. 

The same lady is more directly celebrated in the next Ballata, wherePoliziano calls her by her name, Ippolita. I have taken the liberty ofsubstituting Myrrha for this somewhat unmanageable word. 

 He who knows not what thing is Paradise, Let him look fixedly on Myrrha's eyes. 

 From Myrrha's eyes there flieth, girt with fire, An angel of our lord, a laughing boy, Who lights in frozen hearts a flaming pyre, And with such sweetness doth the soul destroy, That while it dies, it murmurs forth its joy; Oh blessed am I to dwell in Paradise!

 He who knows not what thing is Paradise, Let him look fixedly on Myrrha's eyes. 

 From Myrrha's eyes a virtue still doth move, So swift and with so fierce and strong a flight, That it is like the lightning of high Jove, Riving of iron and adamant the might; Nathless the wound doth carry such delight That he who suffers dwells in Paradise. 

 He who knows not what thing is Paradise, Let him look fixedly on Myrrha's eyes. 

 From Myrrha's eyes a lovely messenger Of joy so grave, so virtuous, doth flee, That all proud souls are bound to bend to her; So sweet her countenance, it turns the key Of hard hearts locked in cold security: Forth flies the prisoned soul to Paradise. 

 He who knows not what thing is Paradise, Let him look fixedly on Myrrha's eyes. 

 In Myrrha's eyes beauty doth make her throne, And sweetly smile and sweetly speak her mind: Such grace in her fair eyes a man hath known As in the whole wide world he scarce may find: Yet if she slay him with a glance too kind, He lives again beneath her gazing eyes. 

 He who knows not what thing is Paradise, Let him look fixedly on Myrrha's eyes. 

The fourth Ballata sets forth the fifteenth-century Italian code oflove, the code of the Novelle, very different in its avowed laxityfrom the high ideal of the trecentisti poets. 

 I ask no pardon if I follow Love; Since every gentle heart is thrall thereof. 

 From those who feel the fire I feel, what use Is there in asking pardon? These are so Gentle, kind-hearted, tender, piteous, That they will have compassion, well I know. From such as never felt that honeyed woe, I seek no pardon: nought they know of Love. 

 I ask no pardon if I follow Love; Since every gentle heart is thrall thereof. 

 Honour, pure love, and perfect gentleness, Weighed in the scales of equity refined, Are but one thing: beauty is nought or less, Placed in a dame of proud and scornful mind. Who can rebuke me then if I am kind So far as honesty comports and Love?

 I ask no pardon if I follow Love; Since every gentle heart is thrall thereof. 

 Let him rebuke me whose hard heart of stone Ne'er felt of Love the summer in his vein! I pray to Love that who hath never known Love's power, may ne'er be blessed with Love's great gain; But he who serves our lord with might and main, May dwell for ever in the fire of Love!

 I ask no pardon if I follow Love; Since every gentle heart is thrall thereof. 

 Let him rebuke me without cause who will; For if he be not gentle, I fear nought: My heart obedient to the same love still Hath little heed of light words envy-fraught: So long as life remains, it is my thought To keep the laws of this so gentle Love. 

 I ask no pardon if I follow Love; Since every gentle heart is thrall thereof. 

This Ballata is put into a woman's mouth. Another, ascribed to Lorenzode' Medici, expresses the sadness of a man who has lost the favour ofhis lady. It illustrates the well-known use of the word _Signore_ formistress in Florentine poetry. 

 How can I sing light-souled and fancy-free, When my loved lord no longer smiles on me?

 Dances and songs and merry wakes I leave To lovers fair, more fortunate and gay; Since to my heart so many sorrows cleave That only doleful tears are mine for aye: Who hath heart's ease, may carol, dance, and play While I am fain to weep continually. 

 How can I sing light-souled and fancy-free, When my loved lord no longer smiles on me?

 I too had heart's ease once, for so Love willed, When my lord loved me with love strong and great: But envious fortune my life's music stilled, And turned to sadness all my gleeful state. Ah me! Death surely were less desolate Than thus to live and love-neglected be!

 How can I sing light-souled and fancy-free, When my loved lord no longer smiles on me?

 One only comfort soothes my heart's despair, And mid this sorrow lends my soul some cheer; Unto my lord I ever yielded fair Service of faith untainted pure and clear; If then I die thus guiltless, on my bier It may be she will shed one tear for me. 

 How can I sing light-souled and fancy-free, When my loved lord no longer smiles on me?

The Florentine _Rispetto_ was written for the most part in octavestanzas, detached or continuous. The octave stanza in Italianliterature was an emphatically popular form; and it is still largelyused in many parts of the peninsula for the lyrical expression ofemotion. [31] Poliziano did no more than treat it with his ownfacility, sacrificing the unstudied raciness of his popular models toliterary elegance. 

Here are a few of these detached stanzas or _Rispetti Spicciolati_:--

 Upon that day when first I saw thy face, I vowed with loyal love to worship thee. Move, and I move; stay, and I keep my place: Whate'er thou dost, will I do equally. 

 In joy of thine I find most perfect grace, And in thy sadness dwells my misery: Laugh, and I laugh; weep, and I too will weep. Thus Love commands, whose laws I loving keep. 

 Nay, be not over-proud of thy great grace, Lady! for brief time is thy thief and mine. White will he turn those golden curls, that lace Thy forehead and thy neck so marble-fine. Lo! while the flower still flourisheth apace, Pluck it: for beauty but awhile doth shine. Fair is the rose at dawn; but long ere night Her freshness fades, her pride hath vanished quite. 

 Fire, fire! Ho, water! for my heart's afire! Ho, neighbours! help me, or by God I die! See, with his standard, that great lord, Desire! He sets my heart aflame: in vain I cry. Too late, alas! The flames mount high and higher. Alack, good friends! I faint, I fail, I die. Ho! water, neighbours mine! no more delay I My heart's a cinder if you do but stay. 

 Lo, may I prove to Christ a renegade, And, dog-like, die in pagan Barbary; Nor may God's mercy on my soul be laid, If ere for aught I shall abandon thee: Before all-seeing God this prayer be made-- When I desert thee, may death feed on me: Now if thy hard heart scorn these vows, be sure That without faith none may abide secure. 

 I ask not, Love, for any other pain To make thy cruel foe and mine repent, Only that thou shouldst yield her to the strain Of these my arms, alone, for chastisement; Then would I clasp her so with might and main, That she should learn to pity and relent, And, in revenge for scorn and proud despite, A thousand times I'd kiss her forehead white. 

 Not always do fierce tempests vex the sea, Nor always clinging clouds offend the sky; Cold snows before the sunbeams haste to flee, Disclosing flowers that 'neath their whiteness lie; The saints each one doth wait his day to see, And time makes all things change; so, therefore, I Ween that 'tis wise to wait my turn, and say, That who subdues himself, deserves to sway. 

It will be observed that the tone of these poems is not passionate norelevated. Love, as understood in Florence of the fifteenth century, was neither; nor was Poliziano the man to have revived Platonicmysteries or chivalrous enthusiasms. When the octave stanzas, writtenwith this amorous intention, were strung together into a continuouspoem, this form of verse took the title of _Rispetto Gontinuato_. Inthe collection of Poliziano's poems there are several examples of thelong Rispetto, carelessly enough composed, as may be gathered from therecurrence of the same stanzas in several poems. All repeat the oldarguments, the old enticements to a less than lawful love. The onewhich I have chosen for translation, styled _Serenata ovvero Letterain Istrambotti_, might be selected as an epitome of Florentineconvention in the matter of love-making. 

 O thou of fairest fairs the first and queen, Most courteous, kind, and honourable dame, Thine ear unto thy servant's singing lean, Who loves thee more than health, or wealth, or fame; For thou his shining planet still hast been, And day and night he calls on thy fair name: First wishing thee all good the world can give, Next praying in thy gentle thoughts to live. 

 He humbly prayeth that thou shouldst be kind To think upon his pure and perfect faith, And that such mercy in thy heart and mind Should reign, as so much beauty argueth: A thousand, thousand hints, or he were blind, Of thy great courtesy he reckoneth: Wherefore thy loyal subject now doth sue Such guerdon only as shall prove them true. 

 He knows himself unmeet for love from thee, Unmeet for merely gazing on thine eyes; Seeing thy comely squires so plenteous be, That there is none but 'neath thy beauty sighs: Yet since thou seekest fame and bravery, Nor carest aught for gauds that others prize, And since he strives to honour thee alway, He still hath hope to gain thy heart one day. 

 Virtue that dwells untold, unknown, unseen, Still findeth none to love or value it; Wherefore his faith, that hath so perfect been, Not being known, can profit him no whit: He would find pity in thine eyes, I ween, If thou shouldst deign to make some proof of it; The rest may flatter, gape, and stand agaze; Him only faith above the crowd doth raise. 

 Suppose that he might meet thee once alone, Face unto face, without or jealousy, Or doubt or fear from false misgiving grown, And tell his tale of grievous pain to thee, Sure from thy breast he'd draw full many a moan. And make thy fair eyes weep right plenteously: Yea, if he had but skill his heart to show, He scarce could fail to win thee by its woe. 

 Now art thou in thy beauty's blooming hour; Thy youth is yet in pure perfection's prime: Make it thy pride to yield thy fragile flower, Or look to find it paled by envious time: For none to stay the flight of years hath power, And who culls roses caught by frosty rime? Give therefore to thy lover, give, for they Too late repent who act not while they may. 

 Time flies: and lo! thou let'st it idly fly: There is not in the world a thing more dear; And if thou wait to see sweet May pass by, Where find'st thou roses in the later year? He never can, who lets occasion die: Now that thou canst, stay not for doubt or fear; But by the forelock take the flying hour, Ere change begins, and clouds above thee lower. 

 Too long 'twixt yea and nay he hath been wrung; Whether he sleep or wake he little knows, Or free or in the bands of bondage strung: Nay, lady, strike, and let thy lover loose! What joy hast thou to keep a captive hung? Kill him at once, or cut the cruel noose: No more, I prithee, stay; but take thy part: Either relax the bow, or speed the dart. 

 Thou feedest him on words and windiness, On smiles, and signs, and bladders light as air; Saying, thou fain wouldst comfort his distress, But dar'st not, canst not: nay, dear lady fair, All things are possible beneath the stress Of will, that flames above the soul's despair! Dally no longer: up, set to thy hand; Or see his love unclothed and naked stand. 

 For he hath sworn, and by this oath will bide, E'en though his life be lost in the endeavour, To leave no way, nor art, nor wile untried, Until he pluck the fruit he sighs for ever: And, though he still would spare thy honest pride, The knot that binds him he must loose or sever; Thou too, O lady, shouldst make sharp thy knife, If thou art fain to end this amorous strife. 

 Lo! if thou lingerest still in dubious dread, Lest thou shouldst lose fair fame of honesty, Here hast thou need of wile and warihead, To test thy lover's strength in screening thee; Indulge him, if thou find him well bestead, Knowing that smothered love flames outwardly: Therefore, seek means, search out some privy way; Keep not the steed too long at idle play. 

 Or if thou heedest what those friars teach, I cannot fail, lady, to call thee fool: Well may they blame our private sins and preach; But ill their acts match with their spoken rule; The same pitch clings to all men, one and each. There, I have spoken: set the world to school With this true proverb, too, be well acquainted The devil's ne'er so black as he is painted. 

 Nor did our good Lord give such grace to thee That thou shouldst keep it buried in thy breast, But to reward thy servant's constancy, Whose love and loyal faith thou hast repressed: Think it no sin to be some trifle free, Because thou livest at a lord's behest; For if he take enough to feed his fill, To cast the rest away were surely ill. 

 They find most favour in the sight of heaven Who to the poor and hungry are most kind; A hundred-fold shall thus to thee be given By God, who loves the free and generous mind; Thrice strike thy breast, with pure contrition riven, Crying: I sinned; my sin hath made me blind!-- He wants not much: enough if he be able To pick up crumbs that fall beneath thy table. 

 Wherefore, O lady, break the ice at length; Make thou, too, trial of love's fruits and flowers: When in thine arms thou feel'st thy lover's strength, Thou wilt repent of all these wasted hours; Husbands, they know not love, its breadth and length, Seeing their hearts are not on fire like ours: Things longed for give most pleasure; this I tell thee: If still thou doubtest let the proof compel thee. 

 What I have spoken is pure gospel sooth; I have told all my mind, withholding nought: And well, I ween, thou canst unhusk the truth, And through the riddle read the hidden thought: Perchance if heaven still smile upon my youth, Some good effect for me may yet be wrought: Then fare thee well; too many words offend: She who is wise is quick to comprehend. 

The levity of these love-declarations and the fluency of their vowsshow them to be 'false as dicers' oaths, ' mere verses of the moment, made to please a facile mistress. One long poem, which cannot bestyled a Rispetto, but is rather a Canzone of the legitimate type, stands out with distinctness from the rest of Poliziano's love-verses. It was written by him for Giuliano de' Medici, in praise of the fairSimonetta. The following version attempts to repeat its metricaleffects in some measure:--

 My task it is, since thus Love wills, who strains And forces all the world beneath his sway, In lowly verse to say The great delight that in my bosom reigns. For if perchance I took but little pains To tell some part of all the joy I find, I might be deem'd unkind By one who knew my heart's deep happiness. He feels but little bliss who hides his bliss; Small joy hath he whose joy is never sung; And he who curbs his tongue Through cowardice, knows but of love the name. Wherefore to succour and augment the fame Of that pure, virtuous, wise, and lovely may, Who like the star of day Shines mid the stars, or like the rising sun, Forth from my burning heart the words shall run. Far, far be envy, far be jealous fear, With discord dark and drear, And all the choir that is of love the foe. -- The season had returned when soft winds blow, The season friendly to young lovers coy, Which bids them clothe their joy In divers garbs and many a masked disguise. Then I to track the game 'neath April skies Went forth in raiment strange apparellèd, And by kind fate was led Unto the spot where stayed my soul's desire. The beauteous nymph who feeds my soul with fire, I found in gentle, pure, and prudent mood, In graceful attitude, Loving and courteous, holy, wise, benign. So sweet, so tender was her face divine, So gladsome, that in those celestial eyes Shone perfect paradise, Yea, all the good that we poor mortals crave. Around her was a band so nobly brave Of beauteous dames, that as I gazed at these Methought heaven's goddesses That day for once had deigned to visit earth. But she who gives my soul sorrow and mirth, Seemed Pallas in her gait, and in her face Venus; for every grace And beauty of the world in her combined. Merely to think, far more to tell my mind Of that most wondrous sight, confoundeth me, For mid the maidens she Who most resembled her was found most rare. Call ye another first among the fair; Not first, but sole before my lady set: Lily and violet And all the flowers below the rose must bow. Down from her royal head and lustrous brow The golden curls fell sportively unpent, While through the choir she went With feet well lessoned to the rhythmic sound. Her eyes, though scarcely raised above the ground, Sent me by stealth a ray divinely fair; But still her jealous hair Broke the bright beam, and veiled her from my gaze. She, born and nursed in heaven for angels' praise, No sooner saw this wrong, than back she drew, With hand of purest hue, Her truant curls with kind and gentle mien. Then from her eyes a soul so fiery keen, So sweet a soul of love she cast on mine, That scarce can I divine How then I 'scaped from burning utterly. These are the first fair signs of love to be, That bound my heart with adamant, and these The matchless courtesies Which, dreamlike, still before mine eyes must hover. This is the honeyed food she gave her lover, To make him, so it pleased her, half-divine; Nectar is not so fine, Nor ambrosy, the fabled feast of Jove. Then, yielding proofs more clear and strong of love, As though to show the faith within her heart, She moved, with subtle art, Her feet accordant to the amorous air. But while I gaze and pray to God that ne'er Might cease that happy dance angelical, O harsh, unkind recall! Back to the banquet was she beckonèd. She, with her face at first with pallor spread, Then tinted with a blush of coral dye, 'The ball is best!' did cry, Gentle in tone and smiling as she spake. But from her eyes celestial forth did break Favour at parting; and I well could see Young love confusedly Enclosed within the furtive fervent gaze, Heating his arrows at their beauteous rays, For war with Pallas and with Dian cold. Fairer than mortal mould, She moved majestic with celestial gait; And with her hand her robe in royal state Raised, as she went with pride ineffable. Of me I cannot tell, Whether alive or dead I there was left. Nay, dead, methinks! since I of thee was reft, Light of my life! and yet, perchance, alive-- Such virtue to revive My lingering soul possessed thy beauteous face, But if that powerful charm of thy great grace Could then thy loyal lover so sustain, Why comes there not again More often or more soon the sweet delight? Twice hath the wandering moon with borrowed light Stored from her brother's rays her crescent horn, Nor yet hath fortune borne Me on the way to so much bliss again. Earth smiles anew; fair spring renews her reign: The grass and every shrub once more is green; The amorous birds begin, From winter loosed, to fill the field with song. See how in loving pairs the cattle throng; The bull, the ram, their amorous jousts enjoy: Thou maiden, I a boy, Shall we prove traitors to love's law for aye? Shall we these years that are so fair let fly? Wilt thou not put thy flower of youth to use? Or with thy beauty choose To make him blest who loves thee best of all? Haply I am some hind who guards the stall, Or of vile lineage, or with years outworn, Poor, or a cripple born, Or faint of spirit that you spurn me so? Nay, but my race is noble and doth grow With honour to our land, with pomp and power; My youth is yet in flower, And it may chance some maiden sighs for me. My lot it is to deal right royally With all the goods that fortune spreads around, For still they more abound, Shaken from her full lap, the more I waste. My strength is such as whoso tries shall taste; Circled with friends, with favours crowned am I: Yet though I rank so high Among the blest, as men may reckon bliss, Still without thee, my hope, my happiness, It seems a sad, and bitter thing to live! Then stint me not, but give That joy which holds all joys enclosed in one. Let me pluck fruits at last, not flowers alone!

With much that is frigid, artificial, and tedious in thisold-fashioned love-song, there is a curious monotony of sweetnesswhich commends it to our ears; and he who reads it may remember theprofile portrait of Simonetta from the hand of Piero della Francescain the Pitti Palace at Florence. 

It is worth comparing Poliziano's treatment of popular or semi-popularverse-forms with his imitations of Petrarch's manner. For this purposeI have chosen a _Canzone_, clearly written in competition with thecelebrated 'Chiare, fresche e dolci acque, ' of Laura's lover. Whileclosely modelled upon Petrarch's form and similar in motive, thisCanzone preserves Poliziano's special qualities of fluency andemptiness of content. 

 Hills, valleys, caves and fells, With flowers and leaves and herbage spread; Green meadows; shadowy groves where light is low; Lawns watered with the rills That cruel Love hath made me shed, Cast from these cloudy eyes so dark with woe; Thou stream that still dost know What fell pangs pierce my heart, So dost thou murmur back my moan; Lone bird that chauntest tone for tone, While in our descant drear Love sings his part: Nymphs, woodland wanderers, wind and air; List to the sound out-poured from my despair! Seven times and once more seven The roseate dawn her beauteous brow Enwreathed with orient jewels hath displayed; Cynthia once more in heaven Hath orbed her horns with silver now; While in sea waves her brother's light was laid; Since this high mountain glade Felt the white footsteps fall Of that proud lady, who to spring Converts whatever woodland thing She may o'ershadow, touch, or heed at all. Here bloom the flowers, the grasses spring From her bright eyes, and drink what mine must bring. Yea, nourished with my tears Is every little leaf I see, And the stream rolls therewith a prouder wave. Ah me! through what long years Will she withhold her face from me, Which stills the stormy skies howe'er they rave? Speak! or in grove or cave If one hath seen her stray, Plucking amid those grasses green Wreaths for her royal brows serene, Flowers white and blue and red and golden gay! Nay, prithee, speak, if pity dwell Among these woods, within this leafy dell! O Love! 'twas here we saw, Beneath the new-fledged leaves that spring From this old beech, her fair form lowly laid:-- The thought renews my awe! How sweetly did her tresses fling Waves of wreathed gold unto the winds that strayed Fire, frost within me played, While I beheld the bloom Of laughing flowers--O day of bliss!-- Around those tresses meet and kiss, And roses in her lap of Love the home! Her grace, her port divinely fair, Describe it, Love! myself I do not dare. In mute intent surprise I gazed, as when a hind is seen To dote upon its image in a rill; Drinking those love-lit eyes, Those hands, that face, those words serene, That song which with delight the heaven did fill, That smile which thralls me still, Which melteth stones unkind, Which in this woodland wilderness Tames every beast and stills the stress Of hurrying waters. Would that I could find Her footprints upon field or grove! I should not then be envious of Jove. Thou cool stream rippling by, Where oft it pleased her to dip Her naked foot, how blest art thou! Ye branching trees on high, That spread your gnarled roots on the lip Of yonder hanging rock to drink heaven's dew! She often leaned on you, She who is my life's bliss! Thou ancient beech with moss o'ergrown, How do I envy thee thy throne, Found worthy to receive such happiness! Ye winds, how blissful must ye be, Since ye have borne to heaven her harmony! The winds that music bore, And wafted it to God on high, That Paradise might have the joy thereof. Flowers here she plucked, and wore Wild roses from the thorn hard by: This air she lightened with her look of love: This running stream above, She bent her face!--Ah me! Where am I? What sweet makes me swoon? What calm is in the kiss of noon? Who brought me here? Who speaks? What melody? Whence came pure peace into my soul? What joy hath rapt me from my own control?

Poliziano's refrain is always: 'Gather ye rosebuds while ye may. It isspring-time now and youth. Winter and old age are coming!' A _Maggio_, or May-day song, describing the games, dances, and jousting matches ofthe Florentine lads upon the morning of the first of May, expressesthis facile philosophy of life with a quaintness that recalls Herrick. It will be noticed that the Maggio is built, so far as rhymes go, onthe same system as Poliziano's Ballata. It has considerable historicalinterest, for the opening couplet is said to be Guido Cavalcanti's, while the whole poem is claimed by Roscoe for Lorenzo de' Medici, andby Carducci with better reason for Poliziano. 

 Welcome in the May And the woodland garland gay!

 Welcome in the jocund spring Which bids all men lovers be! Maidens, up with carolling, With your sweethearts stout and free, With roses and with blossoms ye Who deck yourselves this first of May!

 Up, and forth into the pure Meadows, mid the trees and flowers! Every beauty is secure With so many bachelors: Beasts and birds amid the bowers Burn with love this first of May. 

 Maidens, who are young and fair, Be not harsh, I counsel you; For your youth cannot repair Her prime of spring, as meadows do: None be proud, but all be true To men who love, this first of May. 

 Dance and carol every one Of our band so bright and gay! See your sweethearts how they run Through the jousts for you to-day! She who saith her lover nay, Will deflower the sweets of May, Lads in love take sword and shield To make pretty girls their prize: Yield ye, merry maidens, yield To your lovers' vows and sighs: Give his heart back ere it dies: Wage not war this first of May. 

 He who steals another's heart, Let him give his own heart too: Who's the robber? 'Tis the smart Little cherub Cupid, who Homage comes to pay with you, Damsels, to the first of May. 

 Love comes smiling; round his head Lilies white and roses meet: 'Tis for you his flight is sped. Fair one, haste our king to greet: Who will fling him blossoms sweet Soonest on this first of May?

 Welcome, stranger! welcome, king! Love, what hast thou to command? That each girl with wreaths should ring Her lover's hair with loving hand, That girls small and great should band In Love's ranks this first of May. 

The _Canto Carnascialesco_, for the final development if not for theinvention of which all credit must be given to Lorenzo de' Medici, does not greatly differ from the Maggio in structure. It admitted, however, of great varieties, and was generally more complex in itsinterweaving of rhymes. Yet the essential principle of an exordiumwhich should also serve for a refrain, was rarely, if ever, departedfrom. Two specimens of the Carnival Song will serve to bring intoclose contrast two very different aspects of Florentine history. Theearlier was composed by Lorenzo de' Medici at the height of his powerand in the summer of Italian independence. It was sung by masquersattired in classical costume, to represent Bacchus and his crew. 

 Fair is youth and void of sorrow; But it hourly flies away. -- Youths and maids, enjoy to-day; Nought ye know about to-morrow. 

 This is Bacchus and the bright Ariadne, lovers true! They, in flying time's despite, Each with each find pleasure new; These their Nymphs, and all their crew Keep perpetual holiday. -- Youths and maids, enjoy to-day; Nought ye know about to-morrow. 

 These blithe Satyrs, wanton-eyed, Of the Nymphs are paramours: Through the caves and forests wide They have snared them mid the flowers; Warmed with Bacchus, in his bowers, Now they dance and leap alway. -- Youths and maids, enjoy to-day; Nought ye know about to-morrow. 

 These fair Nymphs, they are not loth To entice their lovers' wiles. None but thankless folk and rough Can resist when Love beguiles. Now enlaced, with wreathèd smiles, All together dance and play. -- Youths and maids, enjoy to-day; Nought ye know about to-morrow. 

 See this load behind them plodding On the ass! Silenus he, Old and drunken, merry, nodding, Full of years and jollity; Though he goes so swayingly, Yet he laughs and quaffs alway. -- Youths and maids, enjoy to-day; Nought ye know about to-morrow. 

 Midas treads a wearier measure: All he touches turns to gold: If there be no taste of pleasure, What's the use of wealth untold? What's the joy his fingers hold, When he's forced to thirst for aye?-- Youths and maids, enjoy to-day; Nought ye know about to-morrow. 

 Listen well to what we're saying; Of to-morrow have no care! Young and old together playing, Boys and girls, be blithe as air! Every sorry thought forswear! Keep perpetual holiday. --- Youths and maids, enjoy to-day; Nought ye know about to-morrow. 

 Ladies and gay lovers young! Long live Bacchus, live Desire! Dance and play; let songs be sung; Let sweet love your bosoms fire; In the future come what may!--- Youths and maids, enjoy to-day! Nought ye know about to-morrow. 

 Fair is youth and void of sorrow; But it hourly flies away. 

The next, composed by Antonio Alamanni, after Lorenzo's death and theominous passage of Charles VIII. , was sung by masquers habited asskeletons. The car they rode on, was a Car of Death designed by Pierodi Cosimo, and their music was purposely gloomy. If in the jovial daysof the Medici the streets of Florence had rung to the thoughtlessrefrain, 'Nought ye know about to-morrow, ' they now re-echoed with acry of 'Penitence;' for times had strangely altered, and the heedlesspast had brought forth a doleful present. The last stanza ofAlamanni's chorus is a somewhat clumsy attempt to adapt the too realmoral of his subject to the customary mood of the Carnival. 

 Sorrow, tears, and penitence Are our doom of pain for aye; This dead concourse riding by Hath no cry but penitence!

 E'en as you are, once were we: You shall be as now we are: We are dead men, as you see: We shall see you dead men, where Nought avails to take great care, After sins, of penitence. 

 We too in the Carnival Sang our love-songs through the town; Thus from sin to sin we all Headlong, heedless, tumbled down:-- Now we cry, the world around, Penitence! oh, Penitence!

 Senseless, blind, and stubborn fools! Time steals all things as he rides: Honours, glories, states, and schools, Pass away, and nought abides; Till the tomb our carcase hides, And compels this penitence. 

 This sharp scythe you see us bear, Brings the world at length to woe: But from life to life we fare; And that life is joy or woe: All heaven's bliss on him doth flow Who on earth does penitence. 

 Living here, we all must die; Dying, every soul shall live: For the King of kings on high This fixed ordinance doth give: Lo, you all are fugitive! Penitence! Cry Penitence!

 Torment great and grievous dole Hath the thankless heart mid you; But the man of piteous soul Finds much honour in our crew: Love for loving is the due That prevents this penitence. 

 Sorrow, tears, and penitence Are our doom of pain for aye: This dead concourse riding by Hath no cry but Penitence!

One song for dancing, composed less upon the type of the Ballata thanon that of the Carnival Song, may here be introduced, not only inillustration of the varied forms assumed by this style of poetry, butalso because it is highly characteristic of Tuscan town-life. Thispoem in the vulgar style has been ascribed to Lorenzo de' Medici, butprobably without due reason. It describes the manners and customs offemale street gossips. 

 Since you beg with such a grace, How can I refuse a song, Wholesome, honest, void of wrong, On the follies of the place?

 Courteously on you I call; Listen well to what I sing: For my roundelay to all May perchance instruction bring, And of life good lessoning. -- When in company you meet, Or sit spinning, all the street Clamours like a market-place. 

 Thirty of you there may be; Twenty-nine are sure to buzz, And the single silent she Racks her brains about her coz:-- Mrs. Buzz and Mrs. Huzz, Mind your work, my ditty saith; Do not gossip till your breath Fails and leaves you black of face!

 Governments go out and in:-- You the truth must needs discover. Is a girl about to win A brave husband in her lover?-- Straight you set to talk him over: 'Is he wealthy?' 'Does his coat Fit?' 'And has he got a vote?' 'Who's his father?' 'What's his race?'

 Out of window one head pokes; Twenty others do the same:-- Chatter, clatter!--creaks and croaks All the year the same old game!-- 'See my spinning!' cries one dame, 'Five long ells of cloth, I trow!' Cries another, 'Mine must go, Drat it, to the bleaching base!'

 'Devil take the fowl!' says one: 'Mine are all bewitched, I guess; Cocks and hens with vermin run, Mangy, filthy, featherless. ' Says another: 'I confess Every hair I drop, I keep-- Plague upon it, in a heap Falling off to my disgrace!'

 If you see a fellow walk Up or down the street and back, How you nod and wink and talk, Hurry-skurry, cluck and clack!-- 'What, I wonder, does he lack Here about?'--'There's something wrong!' Till the poor man's made a song For the female populace. 

 It were well you gave no thought To such idle company; Shun these gossips, care for nought But the business that you ply. You who chatter, you who cry, Heed my words; be wise, I pray: Fewer, shorter stories say: Bide at home, and mind your place. 

 Since you beg with such a grace, How can I refuse a song, Wholesome, honest, void of wrong, On the follies of the place?

The _Madrigale_, intended to be sung in parts, was another species ofpopular poetry cultivated by the greatest of Italian writers. Withoutseeking examples from such men as Petrarch, Michelangelo, or Tasso, who used it as a purely literary form, I will content myself with afew Madrigals by anonymous composers, more truly popular in style, andmore immediately intended for music. [32] The similarity both of mannerand matter, between these little poems and the Ballate, is obvious. There is the same affectation of rusticity in both. 

 _Cogliendo per un prato. _

 Plucking white lilies in a field I saw Fair women, laden with young Love's delight: Some sang, some danced; but all were fresh and bright. Then by the margin of a fount they leaned, And of those flowers made garlands for their hair-- Wreaths for their golden tresses quaint and rare. Forth from the field I passed, and gazed upon Their loveliness, and lost my heart to one. 

 _Togliendo l' una all' altra. _

 One from the other borrowing leaves and flowers, I saw fair maidens 'neath the summer trees, Weaving bright garlands with low love-ditties. Mid that sweet sisterhood the loveliest Turned her soft eyes to me, and whispered, 'Take!' Love-lost I stood, and not a word I spake. My heart she read, and her fair garland gave: Therefore I am her servant to the grave. 

 _Appress' un fiume chiaro_. 

 Hard by a crystal stream Girls and maids were dancing round A lilac with fair blossoms crowned. Mid these I spied out one So tender-sweet, so love-laden, She stole my heart with singing then: Love in her face so lovely-kind And eyes and hands my soul did bind. 

 _Di riva in riva_. 

 From lawn to lea Love led me down the valley, Seeking my hawk, where 'neath a pleasant hill I spied fair maidens bathing in a rill. Lina was there all loveliness excelling; The pleasure of her beauty made me sad, And yet at sight of her my soul was glad. Downward I cast mine eyes with modest seeming, And all a tremble from the fountain fled: For each was naked as her maidenhead. Thence singing fared I through a flowery plain, Where bye and bye I found my hawk again!

 _Nel chiaro fiume_. 

 Down a fair streamlet crystal-clear and pleasant I went a fishing all alone one day, And spied three maidens bathing there at play. Of love they told each other honeyed stories, While with white hands they smote the stream, to wet Their sunbright hair in the pure rivulet. Gazing I crouched among thick flowering leafage, Till one who spied a rustling branch on high, Turned to her comrades with a sudden cry, And 'Go! Nay, prithee go!' she called to me: 'To stay were surely but scant courtesy. '

 _Quel sole che nutrica. _

 The sun which makes a lily bloom, Leans down at times on her to gaze-- Fairer, he deems, than his fair rays: Then, having looked a little while, He turns and tells the saints in bliss How marvellous her beauty is. Thus up in heaven with flute and string Thy loveliness the angels sing. 

 _Di novo è giunt'. _

 Lo: here hath come an errant knight On a barbed charger clothed in mail: His archers scatter iron hail. At brow and breast his mace he aims; Who therefore hath not arms of proof, Let him live locked by door and roof; Until Dame Summer on a day That grisly knight return to slay. 

Poliziano's treatment of the octave stanza for Rispetti wascomparatively popular. But in his poem of 'La Giostra, ' written tocommemorate the victory of Giuliano de' Medici in a tournament and tocelebrate his mistress, he gave a new and richer form to the metrewhich Boccaccio had already used for epic verse. The slight anduninteresting framework of this poem, which opened a new sphere forItalian literature, and prepared the way for Ariosto's golden cantos, might be compared to one of those wire baskets which children steep inalum water, and incrust with crystals, sparkling, artificial, beautiful with colours not their own. The mind of Poliziano held, asit were, in solution all the images and thoughts of antiquity, all theriches of his native literature. In that vast reservoir of poems andmythologies and phrases, so patiently accumulated, so tenaciouslypreserved, so thoroughly assimilated, he plunged the trivial subjecthe had chosen, and triumphantly presented to the world the _spoliaopima_ of scholarship and taste. What mattered it that the theme wasslight? The art was perfect, the result splendid. One canto of 125stanzas describes the youth of Giuliano, who sought to pass his lifeamong the woods, a hunter dead to love, but who was doomed to beensnared by Cupid. The chase, the beauty of Simonetta, the palace ofVenus, these are the three subjects of a book as long as the firstIliad. The second canto begins with dreams and prophecies of glory tobe won by Giuliano in the tournament. But it stops abruptly. Thetragic catastrophe of the Pazzi Conjuration cut short Poliziano'spanegyric by the murder of his hero. Meanwhile the poet had achievedhis purpose. His torso presented to Italy a model of style, a piece ofwritten art adequate to the great painting of the Renaissance period, a double star of poetry which blent the splendours of the ancient andthe modern world. To render into worthy English the harmonies ofPoliziano is a difficult task. Yet this must be attempted if anEnglish reader is to gain any notion of the scope and substance of theItalian poet's art. In the first part of the poem we are placed, as itwere, at the mid point between the 'Hippolytus' of Euripides andShakspere's 'Venus and Adonis. ' The cold hunter Giuliano is to seeSimonetta, and seeing, is to love her. This is how he first discoversthe triumphant beauty:[33]

 White is the maid, and white the robe around her, With buds and roses and thin grasses pied; Enwreathèd folds of golden tresses crowned her, Shadowing her forehead fair with modest pride:

 The wild wood smiled; the thicket where he found her, To ease his anguish, bloomed on every side: Serene she sits, with gesture queenly mild, And with her brow tempers the tempests wild. 

After three stanzas of this sort, in which the poet's style is moreapparent than the object he describes, occurs this charming picture:--

 Reclined he found her on the swarded grass In jocund mood; and garlands she had made Of every flower that in the meadow was, Or on her robe of many hues displayed; But when she saw the youth before her pass, Raising her timid head awhile she stayed; Then with her white hand gathered up her dress, And stood, lap-full of flowers, in loveliness. 

 Then through the dewy field with footstep slow The lingering maid began to take her way, Leaving her lover in great fear and woe, For now he longs for nought but her alway: The wretch, who cannot bear that she should go, Strives with a whispered prayer her feet to stay; And thus at last, all trembling, all afire, In humble wise he breathes his soul's desire:

 'Whoe'er thou art, maid among maidens queen, Goddess, or nymph--nay, goddess seems most clear-- If goddess, sure my Dian I have seen; If mortal, let thy proper self appear! Beyond terrestrial beauty is thy mien; I have no merit that I should be here! What grace of heaven, what lucky star benign Yields me the sight of beauty so divine?'

A conversation ensues, after which Giuliano departs utterly lovesick, and Cupid takes wing exultingly for Cyprus, where his mother's palacestands. In the following picture of the house of Venus, who shall sayhow much of Ariosto's Alcina and Tasso's Armida is contained? Cupidarrives, and the family of Love is filled with joy at Giuliano'sconquest. From the plan of the poem it is clear that its beauties arechiefly those of detail. They are, however, very great. How perfect, for example, is the richness combined with delicacy of the followingdescription of a country life:--

BOOK I. STANZAS 17-21. 

 How far more safe it is, how far more fair, To chase the flying deer along the lea; Through ancient woods to track their hidden lair, Far from the town, with long-drawn subtlety: To scan the vales, the hills, the limpid air, The grass and flowers, clear ice, and streams so free; To hear the birds wake from their winter trance, The wind-stirred leaves and murmuring waters dance. 

 How sweet it were to watch the young goats hung From toppling crags, cropping the tender shoot, While in thick pleachèd shade the shepherd sung His uncouth rural lay and woke his flute; To mark, mid dewy grass, red apples flung, And every bough thick set with ripening fruit, The butting rams, kine lowing o'er the lea, And cornfields waving like the windy sea. 

 Lo! how the rugged master of the herd Before his flock unbars the wattled cote; Then with his rod and many a rustic word He rules their going: or 'tis sweet to note The delver, when his toothèd rake hath stirred The stubborn clod, his hoe the glebe hath smote; Barefoot the country girl, with loosened zone, Spins, while she keeps her geese 'neath yonder stone. 

 After such happy wise, in ancient years, Dwelt the old nations in the age of gold; Nor had the fount been stirred of mothers' tears For sons in war's fell labour stark and cold; Nor trusted they to ships the wild wind steers, Nor yet had oxen groaning ploughed the wold; Their houses were huge oaks, whose trunks had store Of honey, and whose boughs thick acorns bore. 

 Nor yet, in that glad time, the accursèd thirst Of cruel gold had fallen on this fair earth: Joyous in liberty they lived at first; Unploughed the fields sent forth their teeming birth; Till fortune, envious of such concord, burst The bond of law, and pity banned and worth; Within their breasts sprang luxury and that rage Which men call love in our degenerate age. 

We need not be reminded that these stanzas are almost a cento fromVirgil, Hesiod, and Ovid. The merits of the translator, adapter, andcombiner, who knew so well how to cull their beauties and adorn themwith a perfect dress of modern diction, are so eminent that we cannotdeny him the title of a great poet. It is always in picture-paintingmore than in dramatic presentation that Poliziano excels. Here is abasrelief of Venus rising from the Ocean foam:--

STANZAS 99-107. 

 In Thetis' lap, upon the vexed Egean, The seed deific from Olympus sown, Beneath dim stars and cycling empyrean Drifts like white foam across the salt waves blown; Thence, born at last by movements hymenean, Rises a maid more fair than man hath known; Upon her shell the wanton breezes waft her; She nears the shore, while heaven looks down with laughter

 Seeing the carved work you would cry that real Were shell and sea, and real the winds that blow; The lightning of the goddess' eyes you feel, The smiling heavens, the elemental glow: White-vested Hours across the smooth sands steal, With loosened curls that to the breezes flow; Like, yet unlike, are all their beauteous faces, E'en as befits a choir of sister Graces. 

 Well might you swear that on those waves were riding The goddess with her right hand on her hair, And with the other the sweet apple hiding; And that beneath her feet, divinely fair, Fresh flowers sprang forth, the barren sands dividing; Then that, with glad smiles and enticements rare, The three nymphs round their queen, embosoming her, Threw the starred mantle soft as gossamer. 

 The one, with hands above her head upraised, Upon her dewy tresses fits a wreath, With ruddy gold and orient gems emblazed; The second hangs pure pearls her ears beneath; The third round shoulders white and breast hath placed Such wealth of gleaming carcanets as sheathe Their own fair bosoms, when the Graces sing Among the gods with dance and carolling. 

 Thence might you see them rising toward the spheres, Seated upon a cloud of silvery white; The trembling of the cloven air appears Wrought in the stone, and heaven serenely bright; The gods drink in with open eyes and ears Her beauty, and desire her bed's delight; Each seems to marvel with a mute amaze-- Their brows and foreheads wrinkle as they gaze. 

The next quotation shows Venus in the lap of Mars, and Visited byCupid:--

 STANZAS 122--124. 

 Stretched on a couch, outside the coverlid, Love found her, scarce unloosed from Mars' embrace; He, lying back within her bosom, fed His eager eyes on nought but her fair face;

 Roses above them like a cloud were shed, To reinforce them in the amorous chace; While Venus, quick with longings unsuppressed, A thousand times his eyes and forehead kissed. 

 Above, around, young Loves on every side Played naked, darting birdlike to and fro; And one, whose plumes a thousand colours dyed, Fanned the shed roses as they lay arow; One filled his quiver with fresh flowers, and hied To pour them on the couch that lay below; Another, poised upon his pinions, through The falling shower soared shaking rosy dew:

 For, as he quivered with his tremulous wing, The wandering roses in their drift were stayed;-- Thus none was weary of glad gambolling; Till Cupid came, with dazzling plumes displayed, Breathless; and round his mother's neck did fling His languid arms, and with his winnowing made Her heart burn:--very glad and bright of face, But, with his flight, too tired to speak apace. 

These pictures have in them the very glow of Italian painting. Sometimes we seem to see a quaint design of Piero di Cosimo, withbright tints and multitudinous small figures in a spacious landscape. Sometimes it is the languid grace of Botticelli, whose soul becamepossessed of classic inspiration as it were in dreams, and who haspainted the birth of Venus almost exactly as Poliziano imagined it. Again, we seize the broader beauties of the Venetian masters, or thevehemence of Giulio Romano's pencil. To the last class belong the twonext extracts:--

 STANZAS 104--107. 

 In the last square the great artificer Had wrought himself crowned with Love's perfect palm; Black from his forge and rough, he runs to her, Leaving all labour for her bosom's calm: Lips joined to lips with deep love-longing stir, Fire in his heart, and in his spirit balm; Far fiercer flames through breast and marrow fly Than those which heat his forge in Sicily. 

 Jove, on the other side, becomes a bull, Goodly and white, at Love's behest, and rears His neck beneath his rich freight beautiful: She turns toward the shore that disappears, With frightened gesture; and the wonderful Gold curls about her bosom and her ears Float in the wind; her veil waves, backward borne; This hand still clasps his back, and that his horn. 

 With naked feet close-tucked beneath her dress, She seems to fear the sea that dares not rise: So, imaged in a shape of drear distress, In vain unto her comrades sweet she cries; They left amid the meadow-flowers, no less For lost Europa wail with weeping eyes: Europa, sounds the shore, bring back our bliss But the bull swims and turns her feet to kiss. 

 Here Jove is made a swan, a golden shower, Or seems a serpent, or a shepherd-swain, To work his amorous will in secret hour; Here, like an eagle, soars he o'er the plain, Love-led, and bears his Ganymede, the flower Of beauty, mid celestial peers to reign; The boy with cypress hath his fair locks crowned, Naked, with ivy wreathed his waist around. 

 STANZAS 110--112. 

 Lo! here again fair Ariadne lies, And to the deaf winds of false Theseus plains. And of the air and slumber's treacheries; Trembling with fear even as a reed that strain. And quivers by the mere 'neath breezy skies: Her very speechless attitude complains-- No beast there is so cruel as thou art, No beast less loyal to my broken heart. 

 Throned on a car, with ivy crowned and vine, Rides Bacchus, by two champing tigers driven: Around him on the sand deep-soaked with brine Satyrs and Bacchantes rush; the skies are riven With shouts and laughter; Fauns quaff bubbling wine From horns and cymbals; Nymphs, to madness driven, Trip, skip, and stumble; mixed in wild enlacements, Laughing they roll or meet for glad embracements. 

 Upon his ass Silenus, never sated, With thick, black veins, wherethrough the must is soaking, Nods his dull forehead with deep sleep belated; His eyes are wine-inflamed, and red, and smoking: Bold Mænads goad the ass so sorely weighted, With stinging thyrsi; he sways feebly poking The mane with bloated fingers; Fauns behind him, E'en as he falls, upon the crupper bind him. 

We almost seem to be looking at the frescoes in some Trasteverinepalace, or at the canvas of one of the sensual Genoese painters. Thedescription of the garden of Venus has the charm of somewhatartificial elegance, the exotic grace of style, which attracts us inthe earlier Renaissance work:--

 The leafy tresses of that timeless garden Nor fragile brine nor fresh snow dares to whiten; Frore winter never comes the rills to harden, Nor winds the tender shrubs and herbs to frighten; Glad Spring is always here, a laughing warden; Nor do the seasons wane, but ever brighten; Here to the breeze young May, her curls unbinding, With thousand flowers her wreath is ever winding. 

Indeed it may be said with truth that Poliziano's most eminent facultyas a descriptive poet corresponded exactly to the genius of thepainters of his day. To produce pictures radiant with Renaissancecolouring, and vigorous with Renaissance passion, was the function ofhis art, not to express profound thought or dramatic situations. Thisremark might be extended with justice to Ariosto, and Tasso, andBoiardo. The great narrative poets of the Renaissance in Italy werenot dramatists; nor were their poems epics: their forte lay in theinexhaustible variety and beauty of their pictures. 

Of Poliziano's plagiarism--if this be the right word to apply to theprocess of assimilation and selection, by means of which thepoet-scholar of Florence taught the Italians how to use the riches ofthe ancient languages and their own literature--here are somespecimens. In stanza 42 of the 'Giostra' he says of Simonetta:--

 E 'n lei discerne un non so che divino. 

Dante has the line:--

 Vostri risplende un non so che divino. 

In the 44th he speaks about the birds:--

 E canta ogni augelletto in suo latino. 

This comes from Cavalcanti's:--

 E cantinne gli augelli. Ciascuno in suo latino. 

Stanza 45 is taken bodily from Claudian, Dante, and Cavalcanti. Itwould seem as though Poliziano wished to show that the classic andmedieval literature of Italy was all one, and that a poet of theRenaissance could carry on the continuous tradition in his own style. A, line in stanza 54 seems perfectly original:--

 E già dall'alte ville il fumo esala. 

It comes straight from Virgil:--

 Et jam summa pocul villarum culmina fumant. 

In the next stanza the line--

 Tal che 'l ciel tutto rasserenò d'intorno, is Petrarch's. So in the 56th, is the phrase 'il dolce andarceleste. ' In stanza 57--

 Par che 'l cor del petto se gli schianti, belongs to Boccaccio. In stanza 60 the first line:--

 La notte che le cose ci nasconde, together with its rhyme, 'sotto le amate fronde, ' is borrowed from the23rd canto of the 'Paradiso. ' In the second line, 'Stellato ammanto'is Claudian's 'stellantes sinus' applied to the heaven. When we reachthe garden of Venus we find whole passages translated from Claudian's'Marriage of Honorius, ' and from the 'Metamorphoses' of Ovid. 

Poliziano's second poem of importance, which indeed may historicallybe said to take precedence of 'La Giostra, ' was the so-called tragedyof 'Orfeo. ' The English version of this lyrical drama must be reservedfor a separate study: yet it belongs to the subject of this, inasmuchas the 'Orfeo' is a classical legend treated in a form alreadyfamiliar to the Italian people. Nearly all the popular kinds of poetryof which specimens have been translated in this chapter, will be foundcombined in its six short scenes. 

 * * * * *

_ORFEO_

The 'Orfeo' of Messer Angelo Poliziano ranks amongst the mostimportant poems of the fifteenth century. It was composed at Mantua inthe short space of two days, on the occasion of Cardinal FrancescoGonzaga's visit to his native town in 1472. But, though so hastily puttogether, the 'Orfeo' marks an epoch in the evolution of Italianpoetry. It is the earliest example of a secular drama, containingwithin the compass of its brief scenes the germ of the opera, thetragedy, and the pastoral play. In form it does not greatly differfrom the 'Sacre Rappresentazioni' of the fifteenth century, as thosemiracle plays were handled by popular poets of the earlierRenaissance. But while the traditional octave stanza is used for themain movement of the piece, Poliziano has introduced episodes of_terza rima_, madrigals, a carnival song, a _ballata_, and, above all, choral passages which have in them the future melodrama of the musicalItalian stage. The lyrical treatment of the fable, its capacity forbrilliant and varied scenic effects, its combination of singing withaction, and the whole artistic keeping of the piece, which neverpasses into genuine tragedy, but stays within the limits of romanticpathos, distinguish the 'Orfeo' as a typical production of Italiangenius. Thus, though little better than an improvisation, it combinesthe many forms of verse developed by the Tuscans at the close of theMiddle Ages, and fixes the limits beyond which their dramatic poets, with a few exceptions, were not destined to advance. Nor was thechoice of the fable without significance. Quitting the Bible storiesand the Legends of Saints, which supplied the mediaeval playwrightwith material, Poliziano selects a classic story: and this story mightpass for an allegory of Italy, whose intellectual development thescholar-poet ruled. Orpheus is the power of poetry and art, softeningstubborn nature, civilising men, and prevailing over Hades for aseason. He is the right hero of humanism, the genius of theRenaissance, the tutelary god of Italy, who thought she could resistthe laws of fate by verse and elegant accomplishments. To press thiskind of allegory is unwise; for at a certain moment it breaks in ourhands. And yet in Eurydice the fancy might discover Freedom, the truespouse of poetry and art; Orfeo's last resolve too vividly depicts thevice of the Renaissance; and the Mænads are those barbarous armiesdestined to lay waste the plains of Italy, inebriate with wine andblood, obeying a new lord of life on whom the poet's harp exerts nocharm. But a truce to this spinning of pedantic cobwebs. Let Mercuryappear, and let the play begin. 

_THE FABLE OF ORPHEUS_

 MERCURY _announces the show_. 

 Ho, silence! Listen! There was once a hind, Son of Apollo, Aristaeus hight, Who loved with so untamed and fierce a mind Eurydice, the wife of Orpheus wight, That chasing her one day with will unkind He wrought her cruel death in love's despite; For, as she fled toward the mere hard by, A serpent stung her, and she had to die. 

 Now Orpheus, singing, brought her back from hell, But could not keep the law the fates ordain: Poor wretch, he backward turned and broke the spell; So that once more from him his love was ta'en. Therefore he would no more with women dwell, And in the end by women he was slain. 

 _Enter_ A SHEPHERD, _who says_--

 Nay, listen, friends! Fair auspices are given, Since Mercury to earth hath come from heaven. 

 SCENE I

 MOPSUS, _an old shepherd_. 

 Say, hast thou seen a calf of mine, all white Save for a spot of black upon her front, Two feet, one flank, and one knee ruddy-bright?

 ARISTAEUS, _a young shepherd_. 

 Friend Mopsus, to the margin of this fount No herds have come to drink since break of day; Yet may'st thou hear them low on yonder mount. Go, Thyrsis, search the upland lawn, I pray! Thou Mopsus shalt with me the while abide; For I would have thee listen to my lay. 

 _[Exit_ THYRSIS. 

 'Twas yester morn where trees yon cavern hide, I saw a nymph more fair than Dian, who Had a young lusty lover at her side: But when that more than woman met my view, The heart within my bosom leapt outright, And straight the madness of wild Love I knew. Since then, dear Mopsus, I have no delight; But weep and weep: of food and drink I tire, And without slumber pass the weary night. 

 MOPSUS. 

 Friend Aristaeus, if this amorous fire Thou dost not seek to quench as best may be, Thy peace of soul will vanish in desire. Thou know'st that love is no new thing to me: I've proved how love grown old brings bitter pain: Cure it at once, or hope no remedy; For if thou find thee in Love's cruel chain, Thy bees, thy blossoms will be out of mind, Thy fields, thy vines, thy flocks, thy cotes, thy grain

 ARISTAEUS. 

 Mopsus, thou speakest to the deaf and blind: Waste not on me these wingèd words, I pray, Lest they be scattered to the inconstant wind, I love, and cannot wish to say love nay; Nor seek to cure so charming a disease: They praise Love best who most against him say. Yet if thou fain wouldst give my heart some ease, Forth from thy wallet take thy pipe, and we Will sing awhile beneath the leafy trees; For well my nymph is pleased with melody. 

 THE SONG. 

 Listen, ye wild woods, to my roundelay; Since the fair nymph will hear not, though I pray. 

 The lovely nymph is deaf to my lament, Nor heeds the music of this rustic reed; Wherefore my flocks and herds are ill content, Nor bathe their hoof where grows the water weed, Nor touch the tender herbage on the mead; So sad, because their shepherd grieves, are they. 

 Listen, ye wild woods, to my roundelay; Since the fair nymph will hear not, though I pray. 

 The herds are sorry for their master's moan; The nymph heeds not her lover though he die, The lovely nymph, whose heart is made of stone-- Nay steel, nay adamant! She still doth fly Far, far before me, when she sees me nigh, Even as a lamb flies fern the wolf away. 

 Listen, ye wild woods, to my roundelay; Since the fair nymph will hear not, though I pray. 

 Nay, tell her, pipe of mine, how swift doth flee Beauty together with our years amain; Tell her how time destroys all rarity, Nor youth once lost can be renewed again; Tell her to use the gifts that yet remain: Roses and violets blossom not alway. 

 Listen, ye wild woods, to my roundelay; Since the fair nymph will hear not, though I pray. 

 Carry, ye winds, these sweet words to her ears, Unto the ears of my loved nymph, and tell How many tears I shed, what bitter tears! Beg her to pity one who loves so well: Say that my life is frail and mutable, And melts like rime before the rising day. 

 Listen, ye wild woods, to my roundelay; Since the fair nymph will hear not, though I pray. 

 MOPSUS. 

 Less sweet, methinks the voice of waters falling From cliffs that echo back their murmurous song; Less sweet the summer sound of breezes calling Through pine-tree tops sonorous all day long; Than are thy rhymes, the soul of grief enthralling, Thy rhymes o'er field and forest borne along: If she but hear them, at thy feet she'll fawn. -- Lo, Thyrsis, hurrying homeward from the lawn!

 [_Re-enters_ THYRSIS. 

 ARISTAEUS. 

 What of the calf? Say, hast thou seen her now?

 THYRSIS, _the cowherd_. 

 I have, and I'd as lief her throat were cut! She almost ripped my bowels up, I vow, Running amuck with horns well set to butt: Nathless I've locked her in the stall below: She's blown with grass, I tell you, saucy slut!

 ARISTAEUS. 

 Now, prithee, let me hear what made you stay So long upon the upland lawns away?

 THYRSIS. 

 Walking, I spied a gentle maiden there, Who plucked wild flowers upon the mountain side: I scarcely think that Venus is more fair, Of sweeter grace, most modest in her pride: She speaks, she sings, with voice so soft and rare, That listening streams would backward roll their tide: Her face is snow and roses; gold her head; All, all alone she goes, white-raimented, ARISTAEUS. 

 Stay, Mopsus! I must follow: for 'tis she Of whom I lately spoke. So, friend, farewell!

 MOPSUS. 

 Hold, Aristaeus, lest for her or thee Thy boldness be the cause of mischief fell!

 ARISTAEUS. 

 Nay, death this day must be my destiny, Unless I try my fate and break the spell. Stay therefore, Mopsus, by the fountain stay! I'll follow her, meanwhile, yon mountain way. 

 [_Exit_ ARISTAEUS. 

 MOPSUS. 

 Thyrsis, what thinkest thou of thy loved lord? See'st thou that all his senses are distraught? Couldst thou not speak some seasonable word, Tell him what shame this idle love hath wrought?

 THYRSIS. 

 Free speech and servitude but ill accord, Friend Mopsus, and the hind is folly-fraught Who rates his lord! He's wiser far than I. To tend these kine is all my mastery. 

 SCENE II

 ARISTAEUS, _in pursuit of_ EURYDICE. 

 Flee not from me, maiden! Lo, I am thy friend! Dearer far than life I hold thee. List, thou beauty-laden, To these prayers attend: Flee not, let my arms enfold thee! Neither wolf nor bear will grasp thee: That I am thy friend I've told thee: Stay thy course then; let me clasp thee!-- Since thou'rt deaf and wilt not heed me, Since thou'rt still before me flying, While I follow panting, dying, Lend me wings, Love, wings to speed me!

 [_Exit_ ARISTAEUS, _pursuing_ EURYDICE. 

 SCENE III

 A DRYAD. 

 Sad news of lamentation and of pain, Dear sisters, hath my voice to bear to you: I scarcely dare to raise the dolorous strain. Eurydice by yonder stream lies low; The flowers are fading round her stricken head, And the complaining waters weep their woe. The stranger soul from that fair house hath fled; And she, like privet pale, or white May-bloom Untimely plucked, lies on the meadow, dead. Hear then the cause of her disastrous doom! A snake stole forth and stung her suddenly. I am so burdened with this weight of gloom That, lo, I bid you all come weep with me!

 CHORUS OF DRYADS. 

 Let the wide air with our complaint resound! For all heaven's light is spent. Let rivers break their bound, Swollen with tears outpoured from our lament!

 Fell death hath ta'en their splendour from the skies: The stars are sunk in gloom. Stern death hath plucked the bloom Of nymphs:--Eurydice down-trodden lies. Weep, Love! The woodland cries. Weep, groves and founts; Ye craggy mounts; you leafy dell, Beneath whose boughs she fell, Bend every branch in time with this sad sound. 

 Let the wide air with our complaint resound!

 Ah, fortune pitiless! Ah, cruel snake! Ah, luckless doom of woes! Like a cropped summer rose, Or lily cut, she withers on the brake. Her face, which once did make Our age so bright With beauty's light, is faint and pale; And the clear lamp doth fail, Which shed pure splendour all the world around

 Let the wide air with our complaint resound!

 Who e'er will sing so sweetly, now she's gone? Her gentle voice to hear, The wild winds dared not stir; And now they breathe but sorrow, moan for moan: So many joys are flown, Such jocund days Doth Death erase with her sweet eyes! Bid earth's lament arise, And make our dirge through heaven and sea rebound!

 Let the wide air with our complaint resound!

 A DRYAD. 

 'Tis surely Orpheus, who hath reached the hill, With harp in hand, glad-eyed and light of heart! He thinks that his dear love is living still. My news will stab him with a sudden smart: An unforeseen and unexpected blow Wounds worst and stings the bosom's tenderest part. Death hath disjoined the truest love, I know, That nature yet to this low world revealed, And quenched the flame in its most charming glow. Go, sisters, hasten ye to yonder field, Where on the sward lies slain Eurydice; Strew her with flowers and grasses! I must yield This man the measure of his misery. 

 [_Exeunt_ DRYADS. _Enter_ ORPHEUS, _singing_. 

 ORPHEUS. 

 _Musa, triumphales titulos et gesta canamus Herculis, et forti monstra subacta manu; Ut timidae malri pressos ostenderit angues, Intrepidusque fero riserit ore puer. _

 A DRYAD. 

 Orpheus, I bring thee bitter news. Alas! Thy nymph who was so beautiful, is slain! flying from Aristaeus o'er the grass, What time she reached yon stream that threads the plain, A snake which lurked mid flowers where she did pass, Pierced her fair foot with his envenomed bane: So fierce, so potent was the sting, that she Died in mid course. Ah, woe that this should be!

 [ORPHEUS _turns to go in silence. _

 MNESILLUS, _the satyr_. 

 Mark ye how sunk in woe The poor wretch forth doth pass, And may not answer, for his grief, one word? On some lone shore, unheard, Far, far away, he'll go, And pour his heart forth to the winds, alas! I'll follow and observe if he Moves with his moan the hills to sympathy. 

 [_Follows_ ORPHEUS. 

 ORPHEUS. 

 Let us lament, O lyre disconsolate! Our wonted music is in tune no more. Lament we while the heavens revolve, and let The nightingale be conquered on Love's shore! O heaven, O earth, O sea, O cruel fate! How shall I bear a pang so passing sore? Eurydice, my love! O life of mine! On earth I will no more without thee pine! I will go down unto the doors of Hell, And see if mercy may be found below: Perchance we shall reverse fate's spoken spell With tearful songs and words of honeyed woe: Perchance will Death be pitiful; for well With singing have we turned the streams that flow; Moved stones, together hind and tiger drawn, And made trees dance upon the forest lawn. 

 [_Passes from sight on his way to Hades. _

 MNESILLUS. 

 The staff of Fate is strong And will not lightly bend, Nor yet the stubborn gates of steely Hell. Nay, I can see full well His life will not be long: Those downward feet no more will earthward wend. What marvel if they lose the light, Who make blind Love their guide by day and night!

 SCENE IV

 ORPHEUS, _at the gate of Hell. _

 Pity, nay pity for a lover's moan! Ye Powers of Hell, let pity reign in you! To your dark regions led me Love alone: Downward upon his wings of light I flew. Hush, Cerberus! Howl not by Pluto's throne! For when you hear my tale of misery, you, Nor you alone, but all who here abide In this blind world, will weep by Lethe's tide. There is no need, ye Furies, thus to rage; To dart those snakes that in your tresses twine: Knew ye the cause of this my pilgrimage, Ye would lie down and join your moans with mine. Let this poor wretch but pass, who war doth wage With heaven, the elements, the powers divine! I beg for pity or for death. No more! But open, ope Hell's adamantine door!

 [ORPHEUS _enters Hell. _

 PLUTO. 

 What man is he who with his golden lyre Hath moved the gates that never move, While the dead folk repeat his dirge of love? The rolling stone no more doth tire Swart Sisyphus on yonder hill; And Tantalus with water slakes his fire; The groans of mangled Tityos are still; Ixion's wheel forgets to fly; The Danaids their urns can fill: I hear no more the tortured spirits cry; But all find rest in that sweet harmony. 

 PROSERPINE. 

 Dear consort, since, compelled by love of thee, I left the light of heaven serene, And came to reign in hell, a sombre queen; The charm of tenderest sympathy Hath never yet had power to turn My stubborn heart, or draw forth tears from me. Now with desire for yon sweet voice I yearn; Nor is there aught so dear As that delight. Nay, be not stern To this one prayer! Relax thy brows severe, And rest awhile with me that song to hear!

 [ORPHEUS _stands before the throne. _

 ORPHEUS. 

 Ye rulers of the people lost in gloom, Who see no more the jocund light of day! Ye who inherit all things that the womb Of Nature and the elements display! Hear ye the grief that draws me to the tomb! Love, cruel Love, hath led me on this way: Not to chain Cerberus I hither come, But to bring back my mistress to her home. A serpent hidden among flowers and leaves Stole my fair mistress--nay, my heart--from me: Wherefore my wounded life for ever grieves, Nor can I stand against this agony. Still, if some fragrance lingers yet and cleaves Of your famed love unto your memory, If of that ancient rape you think at all, Give back Eurydice!--On you I call. All things ere long unto this bourne descend: All mortal lives to you return at last: Whate'er the moon hath circled, in the end Must fade and perish in your empire vast: Some sooner and some later hither wend; Yet all upon this pathway shall have passed: This of our footsteps is the final goal; And then we dwell for aye in your control. Therefore the nymph I love is left for you When nature leads her deathward in due time: But now you've cropped the tendrils as they grew, The grapes unripe, while yet the sap did climb: Who reaps the young blades wet with April dew, Nor waits till summer hath o'erpassed her prime? Give back, give back my hope one little day!-- Not for a gift, but for a loan I pray. I pray not to you by the waves forlorn Of marshy Styx or dismal Acheron, By Chaos where the mighty world was born, Or by the sounding flames of Phlegethon; But by the fruit which charmed thee on that morn When thou didst leave our world for this dread throne! O queen! if thou reject this pleading breath, I will no more return, but ask for death!

 PROSERPINE. 

 Husband, I never guessed That in our realm oppressed Pity could find a home to dwell: But now I know that mercy teems in Hell. I see Death weep; her breast Is shaken by those tears that faultless fell. Let then thy laws severe for him be swayed By love, by song, by the just prayers he prayed!

 PLUTO. 

 She's thine, but at this price: Bend not on her thine eyes, Till mid the souls that live she stay. See that thou turn not back upon the way! Check all fond thoughts that rise! Else will thy love be torn from thee away. I am well pleased that song so rare as thine The might of my dread sceptre should incline. 

 SCENE V

 ORPHEUS, _sings. _

 _Ite tritumphales circum mea tempora lauri. Vicimus Eurydicen: reddita vita mihi est, Haec mea praecipue victoria digna coronâ. Oredimus? an lateri juncta puella meo?_

 EURYDICE. 

 All me! Thy love too great Hath lost not thee alone! I am torn from thee by strong Fate. No more I am thine own. In vain I stretch these arms. Back, back to Hell I'm drawn, I'm drawn. My Orpheus, fare thee well!

 [EURYDICE _disappears. _

 ORPHEUS. 

 Who hath laid laws on Love? Will pity not be given For one short look so full thereof? Since I am robbed of heaven, Since all my joy so great is turned to pain, I will go back and plead with Death again!

 [TISIPHONE _blocks his way. _

 TISIPHONE. 

 Nay, seek not back to turn! Vain is thy weeping, all thy words are vain. Eurydice may not complain Of aught but thee--albeit her grief is great. Vain are thy verses 'gainst the voice of Fate! How vain thy song! For Death is stern! Try not the backward path: thy feet refrain! The laws of the abyss are fixed and firm remain. 

 SCENE VI

 ORPHEUS. 

 What sorrow-laden song shall e'er be found To match the burden of my matchless woe? How shall I make the fount of tears abound, To weep apace with grief's unmeasured flow? Salt tears I'll waste upon the barren ground, So long as life delays me here below; And since my fate hath wrought me wrong so sore, I swear I'll never love a woman more! Henceforth I'll pluck the buds of opening spring, The bloom of youth when life is loveliest, Ere years have spoiled the beauty which they bring: This love, I swear, is sweetest, softest, best! Of female charms let no one speak or sing; Since she is slain who ruled within my breast. He who would seek my converse, let him see That ne'er he talk of woman's love to me! How pitiful is he who changes mind For woman! for her love laments or grieves! Who suffers her in chains his will to bind, Or trusts her words lighter than withered leaves, Her loving looks more treacherous than the wind! A thousand times she veers; to nothing cleaves: Follows who flies; from him who follows, flees; And comes and goes like waves on stormy seas! High Jove confirms the truth of what I said, Who, caught and bound in love's delightful snare, Enjoys in heaven his own bright Ganymed: Phoebus on earth had Hyacinth the fair: Hercules, conqueror of the world, was led Captive to Hylas by this love so rare. -- Advice for husbands! Seek divorce, and fly Far, far away from female company!

 [_Enter a_ MAENAD _leading a train of_ BACCHANTES. 

 A MAENAD. 

 Ho! Sisters! Up! Alive! See him who doth our sex deride! Hunt him to death, the slave! Thou snatch the thyrsus! Thou this oak-tree rive! Cast down this doeskin and that hide! We'll wreak our fury on the knave! Yea, he shall feel our wrath, the knave! He shall yield up his hide Riven as woodmen fir-trees rive! No power his life can save; Since women he hath dared deride! Ho! To him, sisters! Ho! Alive!

 [ORPHEUS _is chased off the scene and slain: the_ MAENADS _then return. _

 A MAENAD. 

 Ho! Bacchus! Ho! I yield thee thanks for this! Through all the woodland we the wretch have borne: So that each root is slaked with blood of his: Yea, limb from limb his body have we torn Through the wild forest with a fearful bliss: His gore hath bathed the earth by ash and thorn!-- Go then! thy blame on lawful wedlock fling! Ho! Bacchus! take the victim that we bring!

 CHORUS OF MAENADS. 

 Bacchus! we all must follow thee! Bacchus! Bacchus! Ohé! Ohé!

 With ivy coronals, bunch and berry, Crown we our heads to worship thee! Thou hast bidden us to make merry Day and night with jollity! Drink then! Bacchus is here! Drink free, And hand ye the drinking-cup to me! Bacchus! we all must follow thee! Bacchus! Bacchus! Ohé! Ohé!

 See, I have emptied my horn already: Stretch hither your beaker to me, I pray: Are the hills and the lawns where we roam unsteady? Or is it my brain that reels away? Let every one run to and fro through the hay, As ye see me run! Ho! after me! Bacchus! we all must follow thee! Bacchus! Bacchus! Ohé! Ohé!

 Methinks I am dropping in swoon or slumber: Am I drunken or sober, yes or no? What are these weights my feet encumber? You too are tipsy, well I know! Let every one do as ye see me do, Let every one drink and quaff like me! Bacchus! we all must follow thee! Bacchus! Bacchus! Ohé! Ohé!

 Cry Bacchus! Cry Bacchus! Be blithe and merry, Tossing wine down your throats away! Let sleep then come and our gladness bury: Drink you, and you, and you, while ye may! Dancing is over for me to-day. Let every one cry aloud Evohé! Bacchus! we all must follow thee! Bacchus! Bacchus! Ohé! Ohé!

Though an English translation can do little toward rendering thefacile graces of Poliziano's style, that 'roseate fluency' for whichit has been praised by his Italian admirers, the main qualities of the'Orfeo' as a composition may be traced in this rough copy. Of dramaticpower, of that mastery over the deeper springs of human nature whichdistinguished the first effort of the English muse in Marlowe'splays, there is but little. A certain adaptation of the language tothe characters, as in the rudeness of Thyrsis when contrasted with therustic elegance of Aristæus, a touch of simple feeling in Eurydice'slyrical outcry of farewell, a discrimination between the tendersympathy of Proserpine and Pluto's stern relenting, a spiritedpresentation of the Bacchanalian _furore_ in the Mænads, an attempt tomodel the Satyr Mnesillus as apart from human nature and yetsympathetic to its anguish, these points constitute the chief dramaticfeatures of the melodrama. Orpheus himself is a purely lyricalpersonage. Of character, he can scarcely be said to have anythingmarked; and his part rises to its height precisely in that passagewhere the lyrist has to be displayed. Before the gates of Hades andthe throne of Proserpine he sings, and his singing is the rightoutpouring of a poet's soul; each octave resumes the theme of the laststanza with a swell of utterance, a crescendo of intonation thatrecalls the passionate and unpremeditated descant of a bird upon theboughs alone. To this true quality of music is added thepersuasiveness of pleading. That the violin melody of his incomparablesong is lost, must be reckoned a great misfortune. We have good reasonto believe that the part of Orpheus was taken by Messer BaccioUgolini, singing to the viol. Here too it may be mentioned that a_tondo_ in monochrome, painted by Signorelli among the arabesques atOrvieto, shows Orpheus at the throne of Plato, habited as a poet withthe laurel crown and playing on a violin of antique form. It would beinteresting to know whether a rumour of the Mantuan pageant hadreached the ears of the Cortonese painter. 

If the whole of the 'Orfeo' had been conceived and executed with thesame artistic feeling as the chief act, it would have been a reallyfine poem independently of its historical interest. But we have onlyto turn the page and read the lament uttered for the loss of Eurydice, in order to perceive Poliziano's incapacity for dealing with his heroin a situation of greater difficulty. The pathos which might have madeus sympathise with Orpheus in his misery, the passion, approaching tomadness, which might have justified his misogyny, are absent. It isdifficult not to feel that in this climax of his anguish he was a poorcreature, and that the Mænads served him right. Nothing illustratesthe defect of real dramatic imagination better than this failure todignify the catastrophe. Gifted with a fine lyrical inspiration, Poliziano seems to have already felt the Bacchic chorus which forms sobrilliant a termination to his play, and to have forgotten his dutyto the unfortunate Orpheus, whose sorrow for Eurydice is stultifiedand made unmeaning by the prosaic expression of a base resolve. It mayindeed be said in general that the 'Orfeo' is a good poem only wherethe situation is not so much dramatic as lyrical, and that its finestpassage--the scene in Hades--was fortunately for its author one inwhich the dramatic motive had to be lyrically expressed. In thisrespect, as in many others, the 'Orfeo' combines the faults and meritsof the Italian attempts at melo-tragedy. To break a butterfly upon thewheel is, however, no fit function of criticism: and probably no onewould have smiled more than the author of this improvisation, at thethought of its being gravely dissected just four hundred years afterthe occasion it was meant to serve had long been given over tooblivion. 

_NOTE_

Poliziano's 'Orfeo' was dedicated to Messer Carlo Canale, the husbandof that famous Vannozza who bore Lucrezia and Cesare Borgia toAlexander VI. As first published in 1494, and as republished from timeto time up to the year 1776, it carried the title of 'La Favola diOrfeo, ' and was not divided into acts. Frequent stage-directionssufficed, as in the case of Florentine 'Sacre Rappresentazioni, ' forthe indication of the scenes. In this earliest redaction of the'Orfeo' the chorus of the Dryads, the part of Mnesillus, the lyricalspeeches of Proserpine and Pluto, and the first lyric of the Mænadsare either omitted or represented by passages in _ottava rima_. In theyear 1776 the Padre Ireneo Affò printed at Venice a new version of'Orfeo, Tragedia di Messer Angelo Poliziano, ' collated by him from twoMSS. This play is divided into five acts, severally entitled'Pastoricus, ' 'Nymphas Habet, ' 'Heroïcus, ' 'Necromanticus, ' and'Bacchanalis. ' The stage-directions are given partly in Latin, partlyin Italian; and instead of the 'Announcement of the Feast' by Mercury, a prologue consisting of two octave stanzas is appended. A LatinSapphic ode in praise of the Cardinal Gonzaga, which was interpolatedin the first version, is omitted, and certain changes are made in thelast soliloquy of Orpheus. There is little doubt, I think, that thesecond version, first given to the press by the Padre Affò, wasPoliziano's own recension of his earlier composition. I have thereforefollowed it in the main, except that I have not thought it necessaryto observe the somewhat pedantic division into acts, and havepreferred to use the original 'Announcement of the Feast, ' whichproves the integral connection between this ancient secular play andthe Florentine Mystery or 'Sacra Rappresentazione. ' The last soliloquyof Orpheus, again, has been freely translated by me from both versionsfor reasons which will be obvious to students of the original. I haveyet to make a remark upon one detail of my translation. In line 390(part of the first lyric of the Mænads) the Italian gives us:--

 Spezzata come il fabbro il cribro spezza. 

This means literally: 'Riven as a blacksmith rives a sieve orboulter. ' Now sieves are made in Tuscany of a plate of iron, piercedwith holes; and the image would therefore be familiar to an Italian. Ihave, however, preferred to translate thus:--

 Riven as woodmen fir-trees rive, instead of giving:--

 Riven as blacksmiths boulters rive, because I thought that the second and faithful version would beunintelligible as well as unpoetical for English readers. 

 * * * * *

_EIGHT SONNETS OF PETRARCH_

ON THE PAPAL COURT AT AVIGNON

 Fountain of woe! Harbour of endless ire! Thou school of errors, haunt of heresies! Once Rome, now Babylon, the world's disease, That maddenest men with fears and fell desire! O forge of fraud! O prison dark and dire, Where dies the good, where evil breeds increase! Thou living Hell! Wonders will never cease If Christ rise not to purge thy sins with fire. Founded in chaste and humble poverty, Against thy founders thou dost raise thy horn, Thou shameless harlot! And whence flows this pride? Even from foul and loathed adultery, The wage of lewdness. Constantine, return! Not so: the felon world its fate must bide. 

 * * * * *

TO STEFANO COLONNA

WRITTEN FROM VAUCLUSE

 Glorius Colonna, thou on whose high head Rest all our hopes and the great Latin name, Whom from the narrow path of truth and fame The wrath of Jove turned not with stormful dread: Here are no palace-courts, no stage to tread; But pines and oaks the shadowy valleys fill Between the green fields and the neighbouring hill, Where musing oft I climb by fancy led. These lift from earth to heaven our soaring soul, While the sweet nightingale, that in thick bowers Through darkness pours her wail of tuneful woe, Doth bend our charmed breast to love's control; But thou alone hast marred this bliss of ours, Since from our side, dear lord, thou needs must go. 

IN VITA DI MADONNA LAURA. XI

ON LEAVING AVIGNON

 Backward at every weary step and slow These limbs I turn which with great pain I bear; Then take I comfort from the fragrant air That breathes from thee, and sighing onward go. But when I think how joy is turned to woe, Remembering my short life and whence I fare, I stay my feet for anguish and despair, And cast my tearful eyes on earth below. At times amid the storm of misery This doubt assails me: how frail limbs and poor Can severed from their spirit hope to live. Then answers Love: Hast thou no memory How I to lovers this great guerdon give, Free from all human bondage to endure?

 * * * * *

IN VITA DI MADONNA LAURA. XII

THOUGHTS IN ABSENCE

 The wrinkled sire with hair like winter snow Leaves the beloved spot where he hath passed his years, Leaves wife and children, dumb with bitter tears, To see their father's tottering steps and slow. Dragging his aged limbs with weary woe, In these last days of life he nothing fears, But with stout heart his fainting spirit cheers, And spent and wayworn forward still doth go; Then comes to Rome, following his heart's desire, To gaze upon the portraiture of Him Whom yet he hopes in heaven above to see: Thus I, alas! my seeking spirit tire, Lady, to find in other features dim The longed for, loved, true lineaments of thee. 

IN VITA DI MADONNA LAURA. LII

OH THAT I HAD WINGS LIKE A DOVE!

 I am so tired beneath the ancient load Of my misdeeds and custom's tyranny, That much I fear to fail upon the road And yield my soul unto mine enemy. 'Tis true a friend from whom all splendour flowed, To save me came with matchless courtesy: Then flew far up from sight to heaven's abode, So that I strive in vain his face to see. Yet still his voice reverberates here below: Oh ye who labour, lo! the path is here; Come unto me if none your going stay! What grace, what love, what fate surpassing fear Shall give me wings like dove's wings soft as snow, That I may rest and raise me from the clay?

 * * * * *

IN MORTE DI MADONNA LAURA. XXIV

 The eyes whereof I sang my fervid song, The arms, the hands, the feet, the face benign, Which severed me from what was rightly mine, And made me sole and strange amid the throng, The crispèd curls of pure gold beautiful, And those angelic smiles which once did shine Imparadising earth with joy divine, Are now a little dust--dumb, deaf, and dull. And yet I live! wherefore I weep and wail, Left alone without the light I loved so long, Storm-tossed upon a bark that hath no sail. Then let me here give o'er my amorous song; The fountains of old inspiration fail, And nought but woe my dolorous chords prolong. 

IN MORTE DI MADONNA LAURA. XXXIV

 In thought I raised me to the place where she Whom still on earth I seek and find not, shines; There 'mid the souls whom the third sphere confines, More fair I found her and less proud to me. She took my hand and said: Here shalt thou be With me ensphered, unless desires mislead; Lo! I am she who made thy bosom bleed, Whose day ere eve was ended utterly: My bliss no mortal heart can understand; Thee only do I lack, and that which thou So loved, now left on earth, my beauteous veil. Ah! wherefore did she cease and loose my hand? For at the sound of that celestial tale I all but stayed in paradise till now. 

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IN MORTE DI MADONNA LAURA. LXXIV

 The flower of angels and the spirits blest, Burghers of heaven, on that first day when she Who is my lady died, around her pressed Fulfilled with wonder and with piety. What light is this? What beauty manifest? Marvelling they cried: for such supremacy Of splendour in this age to our high rest Hath never soared from earth's obscurity. She, glad to have exchanged her spirit's place, Consorts with those whose virtues most exceed; At times the while she backward turns her face To see me follow--seems to wait and plead: Therefore toward heaven my will and soul I raise, Because I hear her praying me to speed. 

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 FOOTNOTES:

 [Footnote 1: We may compare with Venice what is known about the ancient Hellenic city of Sybaris. Sybaris and Ravenna were the Greek and Roman Venice of antiquity. ]

 [Footnote 2: His first wife was a daughter of the great general of the Venetians against Francesco Sforza. Whether Sigismondo murdered her, as Sansovino seems to imply in his _Famiglie Illustri_, or whether he only repudiated her after her father's execution on the Piazza di San Marco, admits of doubt. About the question of Sigismondo's marriage with Isotta there is also some uncertainty. At any rate she had been some time his mistress before she became his wife. ]

 [Footnote 3: For the place occupied in the evolution of Italian scholarship by this Greek sage, see my 'Revival of Learning, ' _Renaissance in Italy_, part 2. ]

 [Footnote 4: The account of this church given by Æneas Sylvius Piccolomini (Pii Secondi, Comment. , ii. 92) deserves quotation: 'Ædificavit tamen nobile templum Arimini in honorem divi Francisci, verum ita gentilibus operibus implevit, ut non tam Christianorum quam infidelium dæmones adorantium templum esse videatur. ']

 [Footnote 5: Almost all the facts of Alberti's life are to be found in the Latin biography included in Muratori. It has been conjectured, and not without plausibility, by the last editor of Alberti's complete works, Bonucci, that this Latin life was penned by Alberti himself. ]

 [Footnote 6: There is in reality no doubt or problem about this Saint Clair. She was born in 1275, and joined the Augustinian Sisterhood, dying young, in 1308, as Abbess of her convent. Continual and impassioned meditation on the Passion of our Lord impressed her heart with the signs of His suffering which have been described above. I owe this note to the kindness of an anonymous correspondent, whom I here thank. ]

 [Footnote 7: The balance of probability leans against Isabella in this affair. At the licentious court of the Medici she lived with unpardonable freedom. Troilo Orsini was himself assassinated in Paris by Bracciano's orders a few years afterwards. ]

 [Footnote 8: I have amplified and corrected this chronicle by the light of Professor Gnoli's monograph, _Vittoria Accoramboni_, published by Le Monnier at Florence in 1870. ]

 [Footnote 9: In dealing with Webster's tragedy, I have adhered to his use and spelling of names. ]

 [Footnote 10: The fresco of the Coronation of the Virgin upon the semi-dome of S. Giovanni is the work of a copyist, Cesare Aretusi. But part of the original fresco, which was removed in 1684, exists in a good state of preservation at the end of the long gallery of the library. ]

 [Footnote 11: See the chapter on Euripides in my _Studies of Greek Poets_, First Series, for a further development of this view of artistic evolution. ]

 [Footnote 12: I find that this story is common in the country round Canossa. It is mentioned by Professor A. Ferretti in his monograph entitled _Canossa, Studi e Ricerche_, Reggio, 1876, a work to which I am indebted, and which will repay careful study. ]

 [Footnote 13: Charles claimed under the will of René of Anjou, who in turn claimed under the will of Joan II. ]

 [Footnote 14: For an estimate of Cosimo's services to art and literature, his collection of libraries, his great buildings, his generosity to scholars, and his promotion of Greek studies, I may refer to my _Renaissance in Italy_: 'The Revival of Learning, ' chap. Iv. ]

 [Footnote 15: Giottino had painted the Duke of Athens, in like manner, on the same walls. ]

 [Footnote 16: See _Archivio Storico_. ]

 [Footnote 17: The order of rhymes runs thus: _a, b, b, a, a, b, b, a, c, d, c, d, c, d_; or in the terzets, _c, d, e, c, d, e_, or _c, d, e, d, c, e_, and so forth. ]

 [Footnote 18: It has extraordinary interest for the student of our literary development, inasmuch as it is full of experiments in metres, which have never thriven on English soil. Not to mention the attempt to write in asclepiads and other classical rhythms, we might point to Sidney's _terza rima_, poems with _sdrucciolo_ or treble rhymes. This peculiar and painful form he borrowed from Ariosto and Sanazzaro; but even in Italian it cannot be handled without sacrifice of variety, without impeding the metrical movement and marring the sense. ]

 [Footnote 19: The stately structure of the _Prothalamion_ and _Epithalamion_ is a rebuilding of the Italian Canzone. His Eclogues, with their allegories, repeat the manner of Petrarch's minor Latin poems. ]

 [Footnote 20: Marlowe makes Gaveston talk of 'Italian masques. ' At the same time, in the prologue to _Tamburlaine_, he shows that he was conscious of the new and nobler direction followed by the drama in England. ]

 [Footnote 21: This sentence requires some qualification. In his _Poesia Popolare Italiana_, 1878, Professor d'Ancona prints a Pisan, a Venetian, and two Lombard versions of our Border ballad 'Where hae ye been, Lord Randal, my son, ' so close in general type and minor details to the English, German, Swedish, and Finnish versions of this Volkslied as to suggest a very ancient community of origin. It remains as yet, however, an isolated fact in the history of Italian popular poetry. ]

 [Footnote 22: _Canti Popolari Toscani_, raccolti e annotati da Giuseppe Tigri. Volume unico. Firenze: G. Barbèra, 1869. ]

 [Footnote 23: This is a description of the Tuscan rispetto. In Sicily the stanza generally consists of eight lines rhyming alternately throughout, while in the North of Italy it is normally a simple quatrain. The same poetical material assumes in Northern, Central, and Southern Italy these diverge but associated forms. ]

 [Footnote 24: This song, called Ciure (Sicilian for _fiore_) in Sicily, is said by Signor Pitré to be in disrepute there. He once asked an old dame of Palermo to repeat him some of these ditties. Her answer was, 'You must get them from light women; I do not know any. They sing them in bad houses and prisons, where, God be praised, I have never been. ' In Tuscany there does not appear to be so marked a distinction between the flower song and the rispetto. ]

 [Footnote 25: Much light has lately been thrown on the popular poetry of Italy; and it appears that contemporary improvisatori trust more to their richly stocked memories and to their power of recombination than to original or novel inspiration. It is in Sicily that the vein of truly creative lyric utterance is said to flow most freely and most copiously at the present time. ]

 [Footnote 26: 'Remember me, fair one, to the scrivener. I do not know him or who he is, but he seems to me a sovereign poet, so cunning is he in his use of verse. ']

 [Footnote 27: It must be remarked that Tigri draws a strong contrast in this respect between the songs of the mountain districts which he has printed and those of the towns, and that Pitrè, in his edition of Sicilian _Volkslieder_, expressly alludes to the coarseness of a whole class which he had omitted. The MSS. Of Sicilian and Tuscan songs, dating from the fifteenth century and earlier, yield a fair proportion of decidedly obscene compositions. Yet the fact stated above is integrally correct. When acclimatised in the large towns, the rustic Muse not unfrequently assumes a garb of grossness. At home, among the fields and on the mountains, she remains chaste and romantic. ]

 [Footnote 28: In a rispetto, of which I subjoin a translation, sung by a poor lad to a mistress of higher rank, love itself is pleaded as the sign of a gentle soul:--

 My state is poor: I am not meet To court so nobly born a love; For poverty hath tied my feet, Trying to climb too far above. Yet am I gentle, loving thee; Nor need thou shun my poverty. 

 [Footnote 29: When the Cherubina, of whom mention has been made above, was asked by Signor Tigri to dictate some of her rispetti, she answered, 'O signore! ne dico tanti quando li canto! . . . Ma ora . . . Bisognerebbe averli tutti in visione; se no, proprio non vengono. ']

 [Footnote 30: I need hardly guard myself against being supposed to mean that the form of _Ballata_ in question was the only one of its kind in Italy. ]

 [Footnote 31: See my _Sketches in Italy and Greece_, p. 114. ]

 [Footnote 32: The originals will be found in Carducci's _Studi Letterari_, p. 273 _et seq. _ I have preserved their rhyming structure. ]

 [Footnote 33: Stanza XLIII. All references are made to Carducci's excellent edition, _Le Stanze, l'Orfeo e le Rime di Messer Angelo Ambrogini Poliziano. _ Firenze: G. Barbéra. 1863. ]