Memoirs of the Dukes of Urbino, Volume 2 (of 3) / Illustrating the Arms, Arts, and Literature of Italy, from 1440 To 1630.

Of the social position of Italian women in this century[*50] we may gather many particulars from Ludovico Dolce's Instituto delle Donne: for although, like most writers on similar themes, he represents them "not as they are, but as they ought to be," still, knowing the then received standard of female perfection, we can form a pretty accurate estimate of their actual qualities. His views as to education are exceedingly orthodox. The Holy Scriptures, with the commentaries of the fathers, Ambrose, Augustin, and Jerome, ought to be day and night before a girl, and suffice for her religious and moral discipline. She should be familiar with her own language and with Latin, but Greek is an unnecessary burden. For mental occupation, Plato, Seneca, and such other philosophers as supply sound moral training are excellent, as well as Cicero for bright examples and wholesome counsels. History being the teacher of life, all classical historians are commended, but the Latin poets are vetoed as unfit for honest women, except most of Virgil and a few selections from Horace. Many modern Latin writers are commended, especially the Christeida of Sannazaro and Vida, but all such prurient productions in Italian as Boccaccio's novels are to be shunned like venomous reptiles. On the other hand, the poetry of Petrarch and Dante is extolled beyond measure, the former as embodying with singular beauty an instance of the purest and most honourable love, the latter as an admirable portraiture of all Christian philosophy. Yet such literary occupations should never intrude upon more important matters, such as prayer, nor upon the domestic duties of married women.

It is unnecessary to follow our author into abstract qualities and common-place graces, but the emphasis with which certain things are decried affords a fair presumption of their prevalence. Thus, excessive luxury of dress, and, above all, painting the face and tinging the hair, are attacked as impious attempts to improve upon God's own handiwork. In like manner, the assiduity with which modesty and purity of mind and person are inculcated confirms what we otherwise know of the unbridled licentiousness then widely diffused over society. Gaming of every sort is scouted; music and dancing are set down as matters of indifference.

In regard to marriage, the selection of a husband is left as matter of course to the parents, since a girl is necessarily too ignorant of the world to choose judiciously for herself; a reason resulting from the education and social circumstances of young women in Italy, which sufficiently accounts for this apparent solecism continuing in the present day. A prolix exposition of the principles which ought to guide fathers in their discharge of this delicate duty may be summed up in the very pertinent remark, that few prudent damsels would rather weep in brocaded silks than smile in homely stuffs.

But it is time to return from this digression to the Lady Emilia Pia, who merits more special notice in a sketch of the Montefeltrian court. She was sister of Giberto Pio, Lord of Carpi in Lombardy, and wife of Antonio, natural brother of Duke Guidobaldo. After losing her husband in the flower of youth, she remained at Urbino, and became one of its prime ornaments, not only by her personal attractions, but by a variety of more lasting qualities. The part she sustains in the conversation of the Cortegiano amply evinces the charm which attached to her winning manners, as well as the ready tact wherewith she played off an extent of knowledge and graceful accomplishment rare even in that age of female genius. She was at all times ready and willing to lead or second the learned or sportive pastimes by which the gay circle gave zest to their intercourse and polish to their wit, and thus was of infinite use to the Duchess, whose acquirements were of a less sparkling quality, and of whom she was the inseparable companion. Still more singular and proportionately admired were the decorum that marked her conduct in circumstances of singular difficulty and the virtue which maintained a spotless reputation amid temptations and lapses regarded as venial in the habits of a lax age. Her death occurred about 1530,[*51] and an appropriate posthumous tribute was paid to such graces and virtues in this medallion bearing her portrait, with the Latin motto, "To her chaste ashes," on the reverse. Even the luscious verses in which Bembo and Castiglione sang the seductions of the Feltrian court assumed a loftier tone in their tribute to her heart of adamant, which, "pious by name[52] and cruel by nature," and spurning the designs of Venus upon its wild freedom, would impart its own severity generally to the slaves of the goddess. Yet it was under the guidance of this able mistress of the revels, that joy and merriment supplanted rigorous etiquette in the palace of Urbino, where frankness was restrained from excess by the Duchess' example, and where all were free to promote the common entertainment as their wit or fancy might suggest. Among the sports of these after-supper hours, Castiglione enumerates questions and answers, playful arguments seasoned with smart rejoinders, the invention of allegories and devices, repartees, mottoes, and puns, varied by music and dancing.

Such was the mode of life described in the Cortegiano, with ample details, which we shall attempt slightly to sketch. The scene is laid in the evenings immediately succeeding the visit of Julius II. The usual circle being assembled in her drawing-room, the Duchess desired Lady Emilia to set some game a-going.[*53] She proposed that every person in turn should name a new amusement, and that the one most generally approved should be adopted.[54] This fancy was sanctioned by her mistress, who delegated to her full authority to enforce it upon all the gentlemen, but exempted the ladies from competition. The courtiers so called upon thus acquitted themselves of their task. Gaspar Pallavicino suggested that each should state the peculiar excellence and special defect which he would prefer finding in the lady of his love. Cesare Gonzaga, assuming that all had some undeveloped tendency to folly, desired that every one should state on what subject he would rather play the fool. Fra Serafino sneeringly proposed that they should successively say why most women hate rats and like snakes. The Unico Aretino, whose turn came next, thought that the party might try one by one to guess at the occult meaning of an ornament, in the form of an S, worn by the Duchess on her forehead. The flattery with which this odd suggestion was spiced, gave a clue to the Lady Emilia, who exclaimed that, none but himself being competent, he ought to solve the mystery; on which, after a pause of apparent abstraction, he recited a sonnet on that conceit, giving an air of impromptu to what was, in fact, a studied composition clumsily introduced. Ottaviano Fregoso wished to know on what point each would be most willing to undergo a lover's quarrel. Bembo, refining on this idea, was of opinion that the question ought to be whether the cause of quarrel had best originate with oneself or with one's sweetheart—whether it was most vexatious to give or receive the offence. Federigo Fregoso, premising his conviction that nowhere else in Italy were there found such excellent ingredients of a court, from the sovereign downwards, proposed that one chosen from the party should state the qualities and conditions required to form A PERFECT COURTIER, it being allowed to the others to object and redargue in the manner of a scholastic disputation.

This idea being approved by the Duchess and her deputy, the latter called upon Count Ludovico Canossa to begin the theme. Its discussion (our observations upon which must be reserved for a future portion of these pages) is represented by Castiglione as having been prolonged during successive evenings; Federigo Fregoso, Giuliano the Magnificent, Cesare Gonzaga, Ottaviano Fregoso, and Pietro Bembo, following the cue with which Canossa had opened. At the close of the fourth sitting, an argument on love was interrupted by daylight. "Throwing open the eastern windows of the palace, they saw the summit of Monte Catri already tipped with rosy tints of the radiant Aurora, and all the stars vanished except Venus, the mild pilot of the sky, who steers along the limits of night and day. From these far-off peaks there seemed to breathe a gentle breeze, that tempered the air with bracing freshness, and, from the rustling groves of the adjacent hills, began to awaken sweet notes of wandering birds." The same golden sun continues to dawn upon Urbino, but, ere many months had passed, the bright galaxy of satellites that circled round Duke Guidobaldo was scattered, for their guiding star had gone to another sphere.

During fifteen years his fine form and robust constitution had been wasted by gout, for such was the name given to a disease hereditary in his family. Physiologists may decide upon the accuracy of this term, and say why, in an age of incessant exposure to severe exercise under all weather, and when luxuries of the table were little known or appreciated, the ravages of that malady should have been more virulent than in our days of comparative indulgence and effeminacy.[55] At first he struggled against the symptoms, continuing his athletic sports; but in a few years he was reduced to a gentle pace on horseback, or to a litter. At length, about the time of which we are now speaking, his intervals of ease rarely extended to a month, during which he was carried about in a chair; but, when under a fit, was confined to bed in great agony. Yet, ever tended by his wife, his fortitude never forsook him, and his mind, gathering strength in the decay of nature, sought occupation in the converse of those able men who made his palace their home, or, in the moments of most acute suffering, fell back for distraction upon the vast stores of his prodigious memory, whiling away long hours of agony by repeating passages from his favourite authors. The palliations of medicine lost their effects; his enfeebled frame became more and more sensitive to acute pain; in his emaciated figure few could recognise the manly beauty of his youthful person; life had prematurely become to him an irksome burden.

There occurred in Italy at this period a very unnatural change of the seasons. On the 7th of April, 1505, snow fell at Urbino to the depth of a foot, and scarcity prevailed, followed in June by a murrain among cattle. From September, 1506, until January, 1508, it is said that no rain or snow fell, except during a few days of violent torrents in April. The fountains failed, the springs became exhausted, the rivers dried up, grain was hand-ground for want of water. The crops were scarcely worth reaping, the pastures were scorched, and the fruitless vines shrivelled under an ardent sun.[56]

On the other hand, December was turned into July; the orchards bore a second crop of apples, pears, plums, and mulberries, from which were prepared substitutes for wine, then worth a ducat the soma; strawberries and blackberries ripened in the wood-lands, and luxuriant roses were distilled in vast quantities at Christmas. With the new year things underwent a sudden revolution, and January set in with unwonted rigour. The delicacy of the Duke's now reduced frame rendered him peculiarly sensitive to the atmospheric phenomena. The long drought had especially affected all gouty patients, and the severe weather so aggravated his sufferings that, on the 1st of February, he was, by his own desire, removed in a litter to Fossombrone. That town is situated on the north side of the Metauro, lying well to the sun, and little above the sea level, from which it is distant about fifteen miles, and has thus the most genial spring climate in the duchy. At first the change was in all respects beneficial, and revived the hopes of an attached circle who had accompanied the Duchess. But in April winter returned, and with it a relapse into the worst symptoms, which soon carried him off. Although his great sufferings were borne with extraordinary fortitude, he looked forward to death as an enviable release; and when his last hour approached, he regarded it with calm resignation. To his chaplain he confessed, as one whose worldly account was closed; and he acquitted himself of those testamentary duties to his church and to the poor, which his creed considers saving works; directing at the same time the disposal of his body. Then calling to his bedside (where the Duchess and Amelia were in unwearied attendance) his nephew the Lord Prefect, Castiglione, Ottaviano Fregoso, and other dear friends, he addressed to them words of consolation. Their hopes for his recovery he mildly reproved, adapting to himself the lines of Virgil:—

To the Duchess and to his nephew were chiefly addressed his parting injunctions, the object of which was to recommend them to each other's affection and confidence, to comfort them under their approaching bereavement, and to counsel implicit obedience on the part of Francesco Maria towards his uncle the Pope. It seems enough to allude thus generally to his closing scene, for the accounts which we have from Castiglione and Federigo Fregoso, one a spectator, the other a dear friend, who quickly reached the spot, are unfortunately disguised in Ciceronianisms, necessarily inappropriate to a Christian death-bed, and in which the spirit of his words has probably evaporated.[58] We may, however, trust that

for we have seen him neither indifferent nor neglectful of the observances dictated by his Church, and, ere the vital spark fled, he received its rites and besought the prayers of the bystanders. His passage from mortality was peaceful, and death, which he considered desirable, spread like a gentle slumber over his stiffening limbs and composed features. At midnight of the 11th of April his spirit was released from its shattered tenement.[*59] Over the agonised and uncontrolled lamentations of the Duchess we draw a veil; the description of such scenes must ever degenerate into common-place generalities. She felt and suffered as was natural to the best wives prematurely severed from the most attached of husbands.

Since the Duke's departure to Fossombrone, his state had been administered by the Duchess and Francesco Maria. The former, alive to the duties committed to her, wrote thus to the priors of Urbino, when the danger became imminent.

Upon hearing from Ludovico Canossa that the Duke's illness approached a fatal termination, Julius had, on the 13th, instructed Federigo Fregoso to repair to Fossombrone with his own physician, Archangelo of Siena, and, after administering such aid and consolation as the case might require, to take fit measures for insuring the quiet succession of Francesco Maria della Rovere in the dukedom, and for the interim administration of affairs by the Duchess. But, ere they arrived, mourning had succeeded to suspense, and their sympathies were demanded for the widowed Duchess, who had passed two days since her bereavement in utter despair, refusing food and sleep. So entirely, indeed, were the functions of life suspended, that for some time it was feared the vital spark had followed its better half, and it was very long ere her ghastly and spectral form gradually resumed the aspect of an existence in which all interest was for her gone by, and which, but for the representations of her friends, she would have wished to quit.[*60]

The body was borne on shoulders to Urbino during the following night, surrounded by multitudes carrying torches, their numbers swollen, as they advanced, by influx of the country population through which the funeral cortège passed. Castiglione, who accompanied it, describes the night as one of mysterious dread, in which the wailing of the people ever and anon was broken upon by piercing shrieks echoed from the mountains, and repeated by the distant howling of alarmed watch-dogs. The inhabitants of the capital issued forth to meet the melancholy procession, headed by their clergy, the monastic orders, and the confraternities. In the great hall of the palace the Duke lay in state, during two days, upon a magnificent catafalque with its usual but incongruous decorations of sable velvet, gold damask, and blazing lights. His dress is minutely described by the anonymous diarist as consisting of a doublet of black damask over crimson hose, a black velvet hat over a skull-cap of black taffetas fringed with gold, and black velvet slippers; to which was added the mantle of the Garter, in dark Alexandrine velvet, with a hood of crimson velvet, lined with white silk damask.

But, with that strange blending of opposite feelings which marks the visits of death to regal halls, the mourners were soon summoned from this vision of departed greatness to contribute far other honours to its living representative. One day having been devoted to lament the general loss, the Lord Prefect, Francesco Maria, repaired, with the principal authorities, to the cathedral, and, after solemn mass, published the will, by which his uncle named him heir and successor to his states and dignities, nominating his widow to the regency during the nonage of his heir, and leaving her Castel Durante, with a provision of 14,000 ducats, besides her own dowry of 18,000. During the afternoon succeeding the proclamation of Francesco Maria, he visited the Duchess, who was "transfixed with grief." He was accompanied by a small deputation of citizens, to offer their duty and condolence, and receive her tearful thanks for the happy accomplishment of her husband's testamentary intentions, with entreaties that they would transfer to his successor the loyal affection they had borne to their late sovereign. About four o'clock a funeral service was performed in the great hall, from whence, at eight, the body was conducted by an again mournful host, to remain for the night in the church of Sta. Chiara. Next day it was transported, during continual rain, to the Zoccolantine church, in the groves around which he had been surprised by the first aggression of Cesare Borgia. In its small nave his remains were entombed opposite those of his father; and over both there were subsequently placed two modest monuments in black and white marble, surmounted by busts of the Dukes. The inscription to Guidobaldo is to this effect: "To Guidobaldo, son of Federigo, third Duke of Urbino, who, emulating even in minority his father's fame, maintained his authority with manly energy and success. In youth he triumphed over adverse fortune. Vigorous in mind, although enfeebled by disease, he cultivated letters instead of arms; he protected men of general eminence instead of mere military adventurers; and he ameliorated the commonwealth by the arts of peace, until his court became a model to all others. He died in the year of God MDVIII., of his age XXXVI."

The solemn obsequies befitting sovereign personages, including six hundred masses, were performed on the 2nd of May in the cathedral, which was hung and carpeted with black, and illuminated with five hundred wax-lights. In the nave was an immense cenotaph, decorated with representations of the most important events of the Duke's life, his standards and insignia, with suitable legends, and on the bier, in place of the body, lay his robes of the Garter. The function was attended by the court, five bishops, the clerical dignitaries, with deputies from all parts of the duchy, and most of the Italian states, as well as the principal inhabitants. Before the elevation of the host, a funeral oration was recited by his former preceptor Odasio, in which the wonted wordiness of such compositions is redeemed by a certain fire of eloquence, mellowed by occasional touches of fine sentiment, rendering it the best part of Bembo's compilation regarding Guidobaldo. Its excellence, and the vast concourse of spectators, estimated at ten thousand, contributed to make this the most notable ceremony of the sort then remembered in Italy. On the following day, the oaths of allegiance to the new Duke were taken, and his predecessor was consigned over to history.

The character of the last Montefeltrian Duke need scarcely be told to those who have followed this sketch of his life. Gifted by nature with talents of a very high order, he cultivated them in early youth with an application rare indeed in his exalted rank, and a success which his marvellous memory tended alike to facilitate and to render permanent. In times singularly productive of military heroes and men of letters, he emulated the celebrity of both, and, had health permitted him a prolonged and active career, he might, in the ever-recurring battle-fields of Italy, have equalled the renown left by his father and earned by his successor.

When disabled from the profession of arms, he fell back with fresh zest upon his youthful studies, and drew around him men whose converse harmonised with these tastes. To say that his learning was unequalled among the princes of his day is no mean compliment. His palace became the asylum of letters and arts, over which he gracefully presided. Aldus Manutius, in dedicating to him editions of Thucydides and Xenophon, addressed him in Greek, of which he was so perfect a master as to converse in it with ease. To the latter of these historians the Duke was very partial, calling him the siren of Attica. Among his other favourite classics, Castiglione names Lucian, Demosthenes, and Plutarch; Livy, Tacitus, Quintus Curtius, Pliny, and the Orations of Cicero. Most of these he knew intimately, and recited entire passages without reference to the book. But besides these selected authors, he is said to have made himself acquainted with almost every branch of human knowledge then explored. Nor were religious studies omitted. The history, rites, and dogmas of the Church are mentioned among the topics familiar to his versatile genius; St. Chrysostom and St. Basil were among his chosen books. To enumerate all the contemporary authors who shared his patronage might be irksome, but we shall introduce one letter addressed by him to Paolo Cortesio.

The great endowments he thus admirably developed were united with a disposition represented as nearly perfect, at all events as exempted from the failings most perilous to princes. The bad passions which opportunity and indulgence have, in all ages, rendered peculiarly fatal to those whose will is law, were almost strangers to his breast. Prone to no vicious indulgences, he was ever kind and considerate, as well as just and clement. He may, in short, be regarded as that rarest of all characters, an unselfish despot,—despot as regarded the possession of absolute power, but not so in its use. The nobility had nothing to dread from his jealousy or his licentiousness; the citizens were spared oppressive imposts; the poor looked up to him as a sympathising protector. In short, we may pronounce him a magnanimous, a most accomplished, and, so far as erring man is permitted to judge, a blameless prince.

Nor was the impression left upon the public mind by the glories of Urbino under Guidobaldo of a transient character. Mocenigo, Venetian envoy at the court of his grand-nephew, thus speaks of him above sixty years after his death:—"Disabled by broken health from active pursuits, he fell upon the project of forming a most brilliant court, filled with eminent men of every profession; and by rendering himself generally popular, with the co-operation of his Duchess, who emulated him in welcoming and entertaining persons of talent, he brought around him a greater number of fine spirits than any sovereign had hitherto been able to attract, and, indeed, gave to all other princes in the world the model and example of an admirably regulated court."

The circumstances of her wedded life had not been such as to render new ties distasteful to a lady of thirty-seven, described by Bembo as still elegant in figure and dress, beautifully regular in features, and with eyes and countenance of singularly winning expression. The compliment paid to her character, in that author's sketch of the Urbino sovereigns, bears upon it a stamp of truthful earnestness rarely found in his rhetorical periods.[62]

An anonymous and now lost complimentary poem, written about 1512, and formerly in the library of S. Salvadore at Bologna, celebrated Elisabetta's charitable aid in the establishment of a monte di pietà,[63] at Fabriano, and alluded to her prudent government of the state in the Duke's absence. The terms of affection with which she regarded her husband's adopted heir underwent no change after her bereavement; and his marriage to her niece Leonora Gonzaga strengthened the tie. We shall find her making great personal exertions to modify the measures of Leo X. against Francesco Maria; and she shared his confiscation and exile, which she could not avert. She lived, however, to return with him to the house she had twice been compelled to relinquish, and saw his dynasty securely established in the state which had owned her as its mistress.

Her trials were closed on the 28th of January, 1526, by an easy death. She left the residue of her property to Duchess Leonora, after payment of numerous pious bequests to various churches, with liberal legacies to her household; and she was interred by the side of her beloved husband in the church of S. Bernardino.

BOOK FOURTH

OF LITERATURE AND ART UNDER THE
DUKES DI MONTEFELTRO AT URBINO

CHAPTER XXIII

WHEN writing upon Italy of the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries, a prominent place must be allotted to letters and arts. At Urbino in particular, their progress was then great, their influence proverbial; and our next eight chapters will contain notices of them which would have interrupted the continuity of our previous narrative.

The reigns of Dukes Federigo and Guidobaldo I. extended over a period which general consent has regarded as the most brilliant in Italian history, and which we have repeatedly named its golden age. High expectations are naturally entertained of literature, arts, and general refinement in a cycle of such pretension. We look for a rapid advance of thought in paths of learning and science whence during long centuries it had been excluded. We anticipate a widely disseminated zeal for classic writers, an eager rivalry to outstrip them in branches of speculative knowledge, which they especially cultivated. We imagine the imitative arts revived under the influence of new and more exquisite standards. And we reckon upon the diffusion of a taste and capacity for enjoying those things among classes hitherto excluded from such intellectual enjoyments. In each of these expectations the student of literary history will be gratified; yet there are several sorts of composition which, if separately examined, offer disappointing results, and scarcely a single work written during the fifteenth century has maintained universal popularity. The explanation is easy. This age was one of unprecedented intellectual activity, when men's minds were devoted to the acquisition of knowledge which they had laboriously to hunt out, and doubtingly to decipher. They had to cut for themselves tracks through an unexplored region, without grammars or commentaries to serve them as guides and landmarks. The toilsome habits thus formed were forthwith exercised for the benefit of subsequent investigators, and were applied to smoothing the path which they had themselves penetrated. Thus was it that the first successful scholars became grammarians and commentators. Surrounded by ample stores of intelligence, they had no occasion to cultivate new germs of thought. Their first object was to secure and render accessible the treasures which antiquity had unfolded to them; their next, to elaborate them in varied forms, to reproduce them in the manner most congenial to their intellectual wants. Thus they became more industrious than original, laborious rather than creative. Again, those who, on entering the garden of knowledge, thought of its fruits rather than of its approaches, instead of seeking the reward of their toils among the fair mazes of poetry and belles lettres, aimed at more arduous rewards, and climbed the loftiest and most slippery branches in search of golden apples. The harvest of scholastic philosophy which they thus gathered in may seem scarcely worthy of the fatigues given to its acquisition; but from the seeds so obtained, cultivated and matured as they have been by many after labourers, a copious and healthful store of intellectual food has been secured for subsequent generations. The work performed by these pioneers of learning and truth was, however, more calculated to crush than to inspire that more elastic fancy which preferred the flowery mead to the tree of knowledge. The spirit of the age was ponderous and prosaic, and the few who attempted to rise above its denser atmosphere into poetic regions were clogged by the trammels of a dead language, and by obsolete associations which they dared not shake off. The fifteenth century was consequently rich in scholars, copious in pedants, but poor in genius, and barren of strong thinkers.

These circumstances necessarily detract from the popular interest of Italian literary history at this important period, all influential to its after destinies, and we mention them in the conviction that general readers must feel disappointed with this portion of our work. The vast mass of materials then created now reposes in the principal storehouses of learning, much of it unpublished, and but a small part rendered accessible in recent editions. As it would be an unprofitable task to labour upon these materials for merely critical purposes, we have for the most part satisfied ourselves with an examination of the authors immediately connected with Urbino; nor shall we be tempted much beyond that narrow limit, by the facility of borrowing from those copious and intelligent writers who have successfully investigated the intellectual progress of Italy.

The revival of civilisation, and its handmaid arts, is a problem so inexplicable on the ordinary principles which regulate human progress,[64]—its causes were so complex, and many of them so remote, and singly so little striking,—that it were, perhaps, vain to hope for a satisfactory explanation of the phenomenon. It may be, that the ever revolving cycle of human affairs had brought round a period predestined to intellectual development, or that mind, awakening from the slumber of centuries, possessed the energies of renewed youth. But in a season of universal and sudden progress it is difficult to distinguish between cause and effect,—to decide whether mind aroused liberty, or if freedom was the nurse of intelligence.

The feeble hold which the popes retained over their temporal power during their residence at Avignon, and during the great schism, promoted the independence of the ecclesiastical cities, many of which then passed under the dominion of domestic tyrants, or assumed the privileges of self-government. In either case the result was favourable to an expansion of the human mind. The sway of the seigneurs, being based on no such aristocratic machinery as supported the fabric of feudalism, threw fewer obstructions in the way of individual merit. The popular communities could only exist by a diffusion of political and legislative capacity, and the commercial enterprises to which they in general devoted their energies increased at once the demand for public spirit and its production. Even those intestine revolutions to which democracies were especially subject contributed largely to the same end; for, although in such convulsions the dregs of the populace often rise to the surface, talent, when backed by energy and daring, there finds extraordinary opportunities for display. Indeed, the multiplication of commonwealths, under whatever form of government, tended, in a country situated as the Italian Peninsula then was, to the development of intellect. Defended by the Alps and the sea from invasion, their physical and intellectual advantages constituted an influence which supplied the want of union and nationality. They thus could safely pursue their individual aims, and even indulge in rivalry and contests which, though perilous to a less favoured people, were for them incentives to a praiseworthy and patriotic exertion. Whilst the separate existence of these petty states was calculated to promote both political science and mental culture, it rendered the one subservient to the advantage of the other, and, in the multitude of official and diplomatic employments, literary men found at once useful occupation and honourable independence. Nor was this result limited to one form of government. If the tempest-tossed democracy of Florence shone the brightest star in the Italian galaxy, the stern oligarchy of Venice shed an almost equal lustre in some branches of letters and art; and, on the other hand, the not less popular institutions of Pisa, Siena, and Lucca emitted but feeble and irregular coruscations. So also in the despotic states, whilst literature was ever cherished under the ducal dynasty of Urbino, and whilst it was favoured at intervals by the Sforza and Malatesta, the d'Este and Gonzaga, and by the Aragonese sovereigns of Naples, its genial influence was unknown in some other petty courts. Again, if we turn to the papal throne, we shall find the accomplished Nicolas, Pius, Sixtus, Julius, and Leo, sitting alternately with the Bœotian Calixtus, Paul, Innocent, and Alexander. From an impartial review of Italian mediæval history it appears that democratic institutions were by no means indispensable to the expansion of genius, since the progress of letters and arts was upon the whole nearly equal in the republics and the seigneuries, under the tyranny of a condottiere or the domination of a faction.[*65]

But, before entering upon the proper subject of this chapter, it may be well briefly to consider the influence which the petty princes of Italy exercised upon the revival and cultivation of letters and arts. The dominion of these chiefs, though hereditary in name, was in general maintained, as it had been gained, by the sword. To them, as to the savage, arms were an instinctive pursuit, warfare a primary occupation. For their frequent intervals of truce (and in no other sense was peace known to them), their circumscribed sovereignty gave little occupation. Domestic polity was still an undeveloped science, and their leisure fell to be spent upon intellectual objects, or in grovelling debaucheries. The number who preferred the nobler alternative is very remarkable, when compared with the like class in other parts of Europe. During the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries literature was cultivated and art was encouraged by a large proportion of the sovereigns and feudatories of Italy, when the bravest condottieri were often their most liberal patrons. Such were the impetuous Sigismondo Pandolfo Malatesta, the gallant Francesco Sforza, the treacherous Ludovico il Moro; whilst the Gonzaga of Mantua, and the d'Este of Ferrara, but most especially the ducal houses of Urbino, extended, during successive generations, an enlightened and almost regal protection to genius of every shade. Nothing akin to this is to be found in the republics. Siena, Pisa, and Lucca produced many great artists, but literature found in them neither a cradle nor an asylum. The commercial communities of Venice and Genoa belonged to an entirely different category of circumstances; and Florence, though an exception to our remark, owed its pre-eminence not less perhaps to the patronage of the Medici than to an unparalleled prevalence of talent and public spirit among its citizens.

In times when the popular will, if not the source of power, was its best support, it became the interest of the dominant prince or party so to use authority as to please and flatter the masses; to cloak their own usurpations by throwing a lustre around their administration, and to preserve the confidence of their subjects by institutions calculated to promote the national glory. In this way individual talent might be stimulated, and public civilisation might advance, even whilst freedom was on the decline; and, as the means commanded by the seigneurs were ample, they could patronise genius, and surround their courts with literary retainers, who in democratic communities were left to their own resources. Thus the Sforza and the d'Este, even the savage Malatesta of Rimini, befriended genius, which found no haven in the republics of Genoa and Lucca, and, the fashion having once been established among their princely houses, letters were cultivated by not a few of these soldiers of fortune, but more especially by the ladies of their families.

These unquestionable facts are met by an allegation that the fountains of princely patronage were so tainted, their streams so generally corrupt, as to blight the fruits which they seemed to foster, and that their influence thus from a blessing became a curse. Let us examine a little the grounds for this assertion, for surely it is not by such sweeping and prejudiced denunciations that we shall arrive at truth. As to the ornamental arts, there cannot be a doubt that these received, throughout Italy, from governments of every form, as well as from numberless corporations and individuals, a hearty encouragement which might well shame our degenerate age. Yet the ducal palace at Urbino, the Palazzo del T at Mantua, the tombs of the Scaligers, and the medallions of Malatesta, yield the palm to no republican works of the same class. It was by Cosimo and Lorenzo de' Medici, and by Duke Federigo di Montefeltro, that the undeveloped energies of new-born science, and the long neglected classics of Greece and Rome were nursed and tended through their years of infancy, which storms of faction, in most of the free states, condemned to neglect. The enlightened liberality of these princes, and of Malatesta Novello, founded libraries for the preservation of works composed under their own beneficent encouragement, as well as of manuscripts collected by them from all quarters at immense cost, and this when no republic but Venice aspired to such literary distinctions. Nor were the troubled waters of democratic strife safe for the poet's gay bark and light canvas. Even Dante, though made of sternest stuff, sought shelter in a courtly harbour from the hurricanes of Florentine faction. It is true that, in many compositions of minstrels trained in princely halls, the themes are ephemeral and the epithets overstrained, savouring, to a purer taste and more severe idiom, of unworthy subserviency; nor is the other polite literature, emanating from the same atmosphere, exempt from similar blemishes. But allowance must be made for the seducing fecundity of the language in superlatives, more redolent of dulcet sounds than of definite signification, a quality which has ever tempted Italian mediocrity to assume the borrowed plumes of poesy, and to conceal its native barrenness under magniloquent but flimsy common-places. The well earned gratitude of authors is fittingly paid in compliments, eulogies, or dedications, and as such coin is at the unlimited command of the debtor, and useful only to the receiver, its over-issue is fairly excusable. This results from principles inherent in human nature, and it matters little whether the obligations have been incurred from sovereigns or from subjects, under an autocrat or a democracy. Even among ourselves, in times when talent had more to hope from private patronage than from extended popularity, a similar currency was scarcely less in vogue, and it was only the poverty of our idiom that kept its circulation within bounds. Hence, were the independence of the best English writers of a century or two ago to be estimated from their dedicatory addresses, or their occasional odes, a condemnation as unreasonable as sweeping would go forth against names long inscribed in our temple of fame. This argument might easily be extended; but enough has been said to show that more was done for the support of letters under princely than under popular institutions, and that the adulatory epithets natural to the language, and inherent in the usages of Italy, are no certain index of base subserviency.

But, on the other hand, independent sovereignty, irrespective of political forms, was of primary importance to the encouragement of mental cultivation. The separation of Italy into a multitude of petty states converted almost every town into a capital, which its rulers and its citizens took equal pride in decorating. The patriotism thus generated was intense in proportion to the narrow field on which it was exercised, and an expenditure, restrained by severe sumptuary restrictions, found scope on monuments honourable to the public. Thus there ensued, between hostile communities and emulous factions, a rivalry in arts as in arms, whereby public institutions prospered, and individual genius was encouraged. Fanes, whose glories seem to defy the waste of time, were thus raised for the devotional requirements of the people; palaces grew up the bulwark of their liberties; citadels were fortified to rivet their chains; and even when the ultimate results were fatal to freedom, the talent and activity thus stimulated were sure to eventuate in industrial progress, as well as in the restoration of letters and the improvement of art.

The human mind, when aroused from its long and leaden slumbers, at first instinctively leaned for support upon such vestiges of ancient learning as had survived the wreck of ages. To excavate and examine these was the laborious task assumed by early students, in which Petrarch and Boccaccio sedulously joined. But, justly appreciating them as materials on which to found a new fabric, rather than as the substitutes for original thought, "the all-Etruscan three" happily combined enthusiasm for classic models with the power to rival them in a language simultaneously matured by themselves for the daring undertaking. The fifteenth century arrived; it was an epoch of reaction; one of other tendencies and tastes, when genius, as Ginguené has happily observed, was superseded by erudition. Entering the path which Petrarch had partially explored, its pioneers neglected the better portion of his example. They spent their energies in rummaging obscure recesses of monastic libraries, and wasted time and learning in transcribing, collating, and annotating the various manuscripts which thus fell within their grasp. In exhuming and renovating these monuments of a long-buried literature, they were forgetful of the fact that their dealings were with dead corpses; and whilst submitting the recovered fragments to philological analysis, they perversely sought to embody their own souls in these decayed members. As such materials were incapable of being reanimated, or even remodelled into more apt forms, this unnatural union was seldom effected without violence to the sentiment. Even the ablest writers devoted themselves to the arid task of scholia and translations, composing in the dead tongues such original works as they attempted. The result was a monstrous metempsychosis, whereby thought, enchained in uncongenial bodies, lost its due influence, and appeared in, at best, an unseemly masquerade. Hence the language of the century was Latin, its manner pedantic, its spirit coldly artificial.

But whilst the historian of that age laments the shackles thus imposed upon its literature, it were unjust to withhold from it the merit of preserving those treasures of ancient history and philosophy, eloquence and poetry, which, under happier auspices and more judicious treatment, have elevated thought, enlarged intellect, and enriched the style of later times. Although unable to refine the true metal from its dross, the pedants of "fourteen hundred" were miners who discovered the precious ore, and ascertained its component ingredients. The fashionable ardour for collecting early MSS. of ancient authors was very generally accompanied with untiring perseverance in mastering their intricacies. Philology and grammar thus grew into sciences, and their professors held the keys of human erudition. Deep ought to be our gratitude for the contingent of classical literature rescued from a rapid destruction by such arduous and self-denying labours; and a history of these discoveries, and of the zeal and enterprise volunteered by the early commentators and publishers of the ancient authors, would form an interesting monument of undaunted and generally successful diligence. Yet, in a comprehensive view of the results springing from these new tendencies, it is impossible to blind ourselves to the evils that emanated from them. From the nerve, grandeur, and elegance of Greek and Roman writers, there was much to learn with advantage; but their influence was directly antagonist to the highest sentiments of a Christian, and, in the main, a devotional people. When tried by such a test, their philosophy was hollow, their heroism selfish, their refinement corrupted. Nor was it only by reproducing the themes and the philosophy of distant ages that classicism clogged the elasticity of reviving literature. By inculcating extinct languages as the only means fitted for expressing their ideas, Italian literati checked the progress of their vernacular tongue,—that best bulwark of nationality,—and at the same time impeded the free expansion of thought, which, thus conducted into artificial channels, could but stagnate or freeze. The mind, habituated to find in literature a restraint, came to regard natural feeling as a solecism, living images as incongruous anomalies, warmth of sentiment as a blemish sedulously to be avoided. Under such false training, knowledge received the impress of a languid conventionality; and even those who condescended to write in Italian, chilled their compositions with the pedantry of antique idioms. The classic style thus introduced had many inherent defects. Borrowed plumage is seldom becoming, and servile imitations are always bad. Besides, the ancient type had been originally modelled by a people, and in an age, little sympathetic with those for whom it was now reproduced, and whose sentiments were cramped equally by the conventionalisms of an obsolete manner, or by the adoption of a dead tongue. Hence is it that the fifteenth century, so signalised by the diffusion of knowledge, and the advance of the fine arts, has bequeathed to us fewer eminent writers than those which immediately preceded and followed it, and that during its course Italian literature was unquestionably retrograde.

This is especially true of poetry, in an age of erudition when learning was essentially prosaic. The collation of manuscripts, the construction of grammars, the mastering of idioms, the revived subtleties of Greek dialectics, were ponderous studies with which the taste for literature of a lighter and more elastic tendency could ill assimilate. The chords whence Dante had evoked majestic notes, that seemed to swell from higher spheres, lay silent and unstrung; the lyre of Petrarch was left in feebler hands.

Nor was this the only evil resulting from an excess of the classical mania. Languages in which Christianity had not been naturalised were ill adapted for the expression of revealed truth; and the new scholarship, discarding the barbarisms of monastic Latin, imported into theological as well as profane compositions, the phrases of a pagan age. To find the personages of the Trinity, or even the hagiology of Rome, familiarly discussed under mythological names, is to us merely absurd and revolting;[*66] but when men, already imbued with classical predilections, were accustomed to mix up in words the objects of their worship with the demigods of their admiration, the natural consequence was a confusion of ideas nowise favourable to the maintenance of their faith or the purity of their morals.

A not less prejudicial element emanated from the revived philosophies of Greece, which now arrested attention and divided the speculations of learned men. That derived from Aristotle, and known to Europe through the sages of Arabia, had long occupied the cloisters, where alone mind was then exercised, or its operations studied. The rival system of Plato came directly from its native soil; and was first publicly taught in Italy early in the fifteenth century, by Gemistus Plato,[*67] of Constantinople. It attracted the notice of Cosimo Pater Patriæ, who after having Marsilio Ficino, son of his physician, grounded in its mysteries by Greeks of learning, placed him at the head of an academy in Florence, instituted by himself for the dissemination of its doctrines. From thence these radiated, absorbing the attention of literary men, and enlisting many converts from the Stagirite faith. Aristotle and Plato became the watchwords of contending sects,[*68] and the usual jarring results of such logomachy were not long wanting. The merits of a question, at first exaggerated by its respective zealots, were lost sight of in the torrent of abuse which gradually superseded argument, and inflamed every evil passion. Far overleaping the legitimate limits or literary warfare, disputant logicians advanced from replies to libels, from words to blows, and, after exhausting the armoury of invective, had recourse to the dagger. But on a subject so painful we are not called to enter. Backed by the authority of Nicholas V., the zeal of Cardinal Bessarion, and the example of the Medici, the sublime and imaginative speculations of Platonism for a time prevailed over the more material system of the Stagirite, and Florence became their head-quarters. The human mind, unaided by revelation, has never invented any system so abstractly beautiful, so pure in its morals, so elevating in its conceptions, so harmonious in its conclusions. Its lofty ethics rank next to the doctrines of inspiration, for it taught that happiness is the natural result of virtue, and that the mischiefs entailed by the passions are ill repaid by their transient pleasures. Yet, though thus intrinsically calculated to ennoble and refine the heart of fallen man, the Platonic theories indirectly led to lamentable results, both to the religion and the morality of the age. The divine revelation was by them virtually superseded, and paganism, from an affectation, became a conviction, or, at the least, a prevailing fashion, warping the manners and phrases, the faith and spirit of the age. Men lived for the present world by the light of human reason, until they forgot or denied a future existence, and a holier wisdom. The first blow struck at this practical heathenism came from Paul II., a Venetian, who was behind the age in its knowledge, as well as in its extravagances, and who relentlessly persecuted what he had not the capacity to redargue. Mind was, however, no longer to be silenced by papal bulls, or trammelled by penal fetters: it regarded the use of such weapons as proof that the spiritual armoury contained none more serviceable, and learned to demur to an ecclesiastical despotism it already loathed. Succeeding pontiffs disavowed the policy of Paul: but the old respect for the papacy was shaken; doubts arrayed themselves against dogmas, cavilling superseded blind faith, until the dissolute example set by the courts of Innocent, Alexander, and Leo, converted scepticism into infidelity, apathy into open aggression. It is impossible to contemplate the great talents, the unwearied application, absorbed by these rival systems of philosophy, without a sigh that they should have been wasted on inquiries so purely speculative; yet, it cannot be denied that the controversy prepared weapons that have since done good service in many a better cause; that it developed mental energies, and matured intellectual discipline, from which the world continues largely to benefit.

Although the revival of letters had been advancing during several generations ere the chiefs of Montefeltro sought other laurels than those of the battle-field, it was reserved for these princes to contribute no mean aids towards their full development in that golden harvest which the fifteenth century saw gathered in. Indeed, the concurrent testimony of all writers has claimed for the sovereigns of Urbino a foremost place among the friends of literature. In the words of the general motto of this work, which well condense the prevailing opinion, "it is notorious beyond question even of the malignant, that the house of Montefeltro and della Rovere has for a long time past been that which [most] shed a lustre upon Italy by letters, arms, and every sort of rare worth, and that the court of Urbino may be termed a Pegasean spring, in the language of historic truth rather than of poetic hyperbole." It was to the successive reigns of Dukes Federigo and Guidobaldo I. that such expressions were generally applied, and to them our attention will now be directed; but in a future portion of this work we shall endeavour to maintain for their della Rovere successors a similar reputation.

Were we to estimate the celebrities of Urbino by the encomiums of their partial countrymen, and measure their claims upon mundane immortality by the standard set up by Baldi Lazzari, Grossi, Cimarelli, and Olivieri, it would become our indispensable duty to add at least a volume to the present work. But these authors were deeply imbued with that peculiarly Italian patriotism which, narrowing its sympathies within the limits of a township or a petty state, enshrined provincial mediocrity in a temple of fame modelled upon a scale of national splendour. Believing that the dignity of their little fatherland depended upon the notices of its existence which they could worm out of antique memorials, however doubtful in authority, and upon the number of notable names they could connect with its localities, they tasked themselves to this investigation with industry worthy of a nobler and more useful object. Many folio volumes, ponderous in their contents as in their material, were the result; but they preserve only laborious trifling, a harvest of wordy conclusions gleaned from a soil barren of tangible facts, dissertations which may be summed up in the axiom ex nihilo nihil fit, "nothing comes of nought." Like those of the northern senachies, their themes were often legendary or invented, and it would have been scarcely a loss to literature had these productions been equally fugitive. Should the worthies mentioned in the following chapters seem scarcely to maintain the literary renown of Urbino, our readers ought in justice to remember that scarcely a tithe has found place in our pages of those whom zealous eulogists have placed upon the roll of Italian literati, but

CHAPTER XXIV