Since our English colonization of America did not take place until the seventeenth century--Jamestown, 1607; Plymouth, 1620--it is ordinarily presumed, in English-speaking countries at least, that there is little or nothing worth while talking about in American history during Columbus' Century, ending as it does in 1550. As a matter of fact, however, though America was discovered only in 1492, there is an extremely interesting and significant chapter of American history between 1500 and 1550. This is, of course, all in the Spanish-American countries. It has unfortunately been the custom to think of the Spanish colonies as backward in all that relates to education and culture, but the history of even this half century here in America, when some magnificent progress was made, the landmarks of which still remain, is quite enough to show how far from the realities of things as they were some of our fondly cherished historic impressions are. There is not a single phase of civilization that did not receive diligent attention very early in the history of Spanish America, and the results achieved were such as to represent enduring progress in the intellectual life. In education, in printing and the distribution of books, in art and architecture, in the training of the Indians in the arts and crafts as well as in the principles of self-government, and even in science, though this department of human accomplishment is usually not supposed to be seriously taken at this time, there are many significant early American achievements.
It is only in comparatively recent years that in English-speaking countries there has come anything like a proper recognition of the work done by the Spaniards in America in the early days of the history of this continent. It has been the custom to think that, while the English colonists came {276} to make a home here, the main purpose of the Spaniards in America was to exploit the inhabitants and the country and to do just as little as possible for either, provided only the members of the Spanish expeditions made money enough to enable them to live in comfort at home in Spain after a few years of stay here in America. Mr. Sidney Lee, the distinguished editor of the English Biographical Dictionary and an authority on Shakespeare and the Elizabethan period, as well as the sixteenth century generally, in a series of articles which appeared in Scribner's for 1907 on "The Call of the West," contradicted most of these notions that are so prevalent with regard to the contrasted attitude of the English colonists and the Spanish colonizers during the early history of the continent. He said, for instance, not hesitating properly to characterize the principal reason for this historical deception:
STRADAN (JAN VAN DER STRAET), NIELLO,
IVORY COLUMBUS ON HIS FIRST VOYAGE
"Especially has theological bias justified neglect or facilitated
misconception of Spain's role in the sixteenth century drama of
American history. Spain's initial adventures in the {277} New World
are often consciously or unconsciously overlooked or underrated in
order that she may figure on the stage of history as the benighted
champion of a false and obsolete faith, which was vanquished under
divine protecting providence by English defenders of the true
religion. Many are the hostile critics who have painted sixteenth
century Spain as the avaricious accumulator of American gold and
silver, to which she had no right, as the monopolist of American
trade, of which she robbed others, as the oppressor and exterminator
of the weak and innocent aborigines of the new continent who
deplored her presence among them. Cruelty in all its hideous forms
is, indeed, commonly set forth as Spain's only instrument of rule in
her sixteenth century empire. On the other hand, the English
adventurer has been credited by the same pens with a touching
humanity, with the purest religious aspirations, with a romantic
courage which was always at the disposal of the oppressed native.
"No such picture is recognized when we apply the touchstone of the
oral traditions, printed books, maps and manuscripts concerning
America which circulated in Shakespeare's England. There a
predilection for romantic adventure is found to sway the Spaniards
in even greater degree than it swayed the Elizabethan. Religious
zeal is seen to inspirit the Spaniards more constantly and
conspicuously than it stimulated his English contemporary. The
motives of each nation are barely distinguishable one from another.
Neither deserves to be credited with any monopoly of virtue or vice.
Above all, the study of contemporary authorities brings into a
dazzling light which illumes every corner of the picture the
commanding facts of the Spaniard's priority as explorer, as
scientific navigator, as conqueror, as settler." (Italics ours.)
In education particularly the Spaniards accomplished much for which they have been given almost no credit in English-speaking countries until the last few years. As a matter of fact, as the President of a great Eastern university said at a public dinner not long since, "We have only just discovered Spanish America." The lamented Professor Bourne of Yale, who wrote the third volume of "The American Nation" [Footnote 24] {278} on Spain in America, was one of the earliest American students of history to realize how much of injustice had been done by the ordinarily accepted notions of Spanish-American history that are common in English-speaking countries. In his chapter on "The Transmission of European Culture," which is a vindication of Spanish-American intellectual achievements, Professor Bourne proceeds to institute comparisons between what was done in Spanish and in English America in the early centuries for education and intellectual development, and constantly to the disadvantage of the English-speaking countries. He said:
[Footnote 24: Harpers, New York.]
"Not all the institutions of learning founded in Mexico in the sixteenth century can be enumerated here, but it is not too much to say that in number, range of studies and standards of attainments by the officers they surpassed anything existing in English America until the nineteenth century. (Italics ours.) Mexican scholars made distinguished achievements in some branches of science, particularly medicine and surgery, but pre-eminently linguistics, history and anthropology. Dictionaries and grammars of the native languages and histories of the Mexican institutions are an imposing proof of their scholarly devotion and intellectual activity. Conspicuous are Toribio de Motolinia's 'Historia de las Indias de Nueva España,' Duran's 'Historia de las Indias de Nueva España,' but most important of all Sahagun's great work on Mexican life and religion." Most of these works were written after the close of Columbus' Century, but the ground had been prepared for them and some of the actual accumulation of facts for them begun in our period. They followed as a natural development out of the scholarly interests already displayed in the first half of the sixteenth century.
Perhaps the most interesting feature of Spanish-American development of education is the fact that its first landmark is a school for the education of Indians. Not a few of the Spaniards who came to Mexico in the first half of the sixteenth century had enjoyed the advantage of a university education. As their children grew up they felt like sending them back to Spain for university education, and many were {279} so sent. The need for the education of the Indians was recognized early, however, and in 1535 the College of Santa Cruz in Tlaltelolco, the quarter of the City of Mexico reserved for the Indians, was founded under the patronage of Bishop Zumarata. Among the faculty were, as might be expected, graduates not only of Salamanca, the great Spanish university of the time, but also of the University of Paris, which was at this period the leading university of the world. It is interesting to realize that these professors did not consider that they were fulfilling their whole duty by teaching alone, but also devoted themselves faithfully to what many have come to look upon apparently as a modern development of university life, the duty of investigating and writing. This is the real index of the vitality of a university and the sincerity of its professors. Among the teachers of Santa Cruz were such eminent scholars as Bernardino de Sahagun, the founder of American anthropology, and Juan de Torquemada, himself a graduate of a Mexican college, whose "Monarquia Indiana" is a great storehouse of facts concerning Mexico before the coming of the whites, containing many precious details with regard to Mexican antiquity.
Just as Columbus' Century was closing, arrangements were made for the organization of two universities in Spanish America--the one in Mexico City and the other in Lima, Peru. They received their royal charters the same year, 1551, but besides the granting of their charters a definite amount of the Spanish revenues was set aside by the Crown as a government contribution to their support. It seems worth while to note that such encouragement on the part of the English Government for an institution of learning in the American colonies a full century, or even two, later than this would have been quite out of the question. Whatever the English colonists did for education they had to do for themselves. There was no aid and not even sympathy with their efforts. English universities for several centuries refused to recognize American universities as on a par with them, and rightly, for their standards were too low, though it is an extremely interesting commentary on the educational situation in America, and especially on the usually accepted {280} notions as to the relative significance of Spanish and English education here, that both the University of Lima and of Mexico came to be recognized during the sixteenth century as sister institutions of learning not only by Salamanca and the other Spanish universities, at this time among the best institutions of learning in Europe, but also by the other university of Europe, whose prestige was the highest, that of Paris. There was a certain interchange of professors among them, though this was not formally organized, and graduates of Salamanca and Paris taught at both Mexico and Lima. Students from these American universities were accorded their American ratings and allowed to proceed with their work on an equality with European university men, a privilege scarcely accorded to English-American university students even yet.
The scholars of the Old World were quite well aware that the New Learning was penetrating into the Western Hemisphere and were proud to think that the humanities were being cultivated beyond the Western ocean. Before the end of Columbus' Century, Marcantonio Flaminio, whom Sandys in his "Harvard Lectures on the Revival of Learning" calls the purest of the Latin poets of the age, a man who was a great friend of Vittoria Colonna, in sending to Cardinal Alessandro Farnese a volume of Latin poems by the scholars of Northern Italy, assures the Cardinal that France and Spain and Germany and distant Brittany would do honor to those Latin muses, and that even the New World would share in admiration for them. As he puts it: "Those on whom the light of dawn arises when the skies of Italy are wrapped in darkness will devote their nights and days to the study of the Latin poets of Italy."
The newly created Universities of Mexico and Lima developed during the half century following Columbus' Century into full-fledged institutions of learning amply deserving the name university. Lectures in medicine were delivered in {281} Mexico in 1578, and a full medical faculty was organized before the close of the century. Our first school of medicine in English America did not come into existence for fully two centuries later. More than half a century before this, however, special care had been exercised by the Spanish authorities to prevent the exploitation of the Spanish colonists or the Indians by pretenders to knowledge in medicine. As early as 1527 strict medical regulations were drawn up by the municipal council of the City of Mexico, granting the license to practise medicine only to those who showed the possession of a university degree in medicine. Even earlier than this arrangements had been made for the regular training of barber surgeons, so that injuries and wounds of various kinds might be treated promptly as well as properly, so that even the poorer classes might have the benefit of some regular training in those whose ministrations they could afford to pay for. A pure-drug ordinance, regulating the practice of the apothecaries, was issued as early as 1529. It was practically only in our own time that similar regulations were adopted in this country.
Standards in university teaching were well maintained. Post-graduate work was literally post-graduate work, and students might take up the study of medicine or of law or of divinity only after having made proper preliminary studies in the undergraduate departments of the university. The Spanish-American universities received a charter not only from the Spanish crown, but also from the Pope. The formal title of the University of Mexico was the Pontifical University of the city. The Papal charter was sought because it was the only way to secure an international value for academic degrees, for the Papacy was the international authority of the time. Papal charters for the universities, however, were granted only on condition that standards should be maintained. There are any number of these Papal university charters extant which emphasize this necessity. On the establishment of a new university the professors had to be graduates of well-recognized, authoritative universities, in which the examinations were held in oath-bound secrecy, in order {282} to assure as far as possible absolute fairness and the maintenance of standards. The course of studies and the length of time for them had to be arranged in accordance with the standards of older universities.
TITLE PAGE OF LETTER OF COLUMBUS (BASEL, 1494)
PAGE FROM THE LETTER OF COLUMBUS (BASEL, 1494)
The Spanish-American universities had the advantage of being closely in touch with the European universities, and as a consequence had taken their traditions direct from them. Papal university charters, as a rule, required explicitly that there should be three years of university work before medicine or other graduate work might be taken up, and then four years of medicine before the degree of doctor would be granted. Even after this, according to the Italian laws of the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries, the practice of medicine must not be begun by the graduate until he had spent a year in practice with an experienced physician. This is the year of hospital work that we are now trying to introduce into the medical schools as a requirement and which is taken, but voluntarily, by most of those who are seriously interested in their professional studies. The preliminary requirements, that is, such formal academic preparation for the study of medicine as makes it possible for a young man to take up the subject and properly benefit by it, have only become obligatory by law in very recent years here in America, and that to a very limited degree.
The letter written to the Municipal Council of his native city, Seville, by Dr. Chanca, who accompanied Columbus on his second expedition, shows the thoroughly scientific interest and the acute powers of observation of the Spanish physicians of this time. This is unquestionably the first written document about the flora, the fauna, the ethnology and the anthropology of America. Dr. Fernandez de Ybarra published in the Journal of the American Medical Association, September 29, 1906, some abstracts from this letter which show that these expressions are justified by its contents and are not mere enthusiastic terms for rather commonplace observations. Chanca described in detail woods of various kinds, fruit, spices, plants such as cotton, the birds and animals, and above all the customs, appearance and mode of living of the inhabitants. He gives in detail their slave-making and cannibalistic tendencies. There was nothing that escaped Chanca's observation. He found turpentine, tar, nutmegs, ginger, aloes, though he noted that the aloes were not the same kind as those in Spain (Barbadoes aloes are still {285} considered inferior), cinnamon, cloves, mastic and many other things. He notes the food of the inhabitants, their mode of working, the absence of iron, yet the well-made implements, the presence of gold in many places, describes the climate of the country and gives important details with regard to its meteorology.
Dr. Chanca had been the physician to their majesties, and he gave up not only this position, but a large and lucrative practice in order to become the physician of the colonies. It is principally through him that we have any account of Columbus' second voyage. This second voyage was, of course, very different from the first and carried a thousand five hundred persons, among them many of the nobility who had recently been in the wars with the Moors and who were looking for new conquests in America. They were restless and hard to manage, negligent and rash, they tasted many things without due care and succeeded in poisoning themselves on a number of occasions, they caught the fevers of the country and only for the presence of Dr. Chanca it is very probable that most of them would have perished. Columbus, who thought that he owed him his life, praises him highly in a letter to the Sovereigns, asking permission to pay him special fees in addition to the salary and rations which he was allowed as scrivener in the Indies. His letter and the estimation in which he was held at the time is the best possible evidence of the standard of attainments of the Spanish physicians of Columbus' Century.
One of the memorable products of American scholarship during Columbus' Century, that must not be passed over without mention here, is Garcilaso de la Vega, the historian of Peru, born in our period, though he did his work afterwards. He was the son of a daughter of the Incas, the reigning family in Peru when the Spaniards came, and owed to his mother the suggestion of writing a history of his ancestors and their land. He travelled over the country consulting the old inhabitants, the principal among whom were relatives through his mother and his father was the Spanish Governor of Cuzco, one of the few Spanish governors, be it said, who did not die a violent death. Garcilaso was then in an {286} excellent position to gather all the details of the story, yet without prejudice against the Spaniards. As he spent his life after the age of twenty mainly in Europe, his opportunities for thorough understanding of all the conditions were complete. His work is of a great historic value, and indeed is the foundation of all that we know of old Peru. It has been translated into all the modern languages.
Besides this attention to the higher education and to the education of the Indians, popular education was cared for sedulously and, above all, the Indians were instructed in the use of their hands, in the arts and crafts, and in every way that would make them useful, happy citizens. The contrast between English America and Spanish America in this matter is rather striking and has been emphasized by Professor Bourne in the chapter of his book to which we have already referred. He said:
"Both the crown and the Church were solicitous for education in the colonies, and provisions were made for its promotion on a far greater scale than was possible or even attempted in the English colonies. The early Franciscan missionaries built a school beside each Church and in their teaching abundant use was made of signs, drawings and paintings. The native languages were reduced to writing, and in a few years Indians were learning to read and write. Pedro de Gante, a Flemish lay brother and a relative of Charles V, founded and conducted in the Indian quarter in Mexico a great school, attended by over a thousand Indian boys, which combined instruction in elementary and higher branches, the mechanical and fine arts. In its workshops the boys were taught to be tailors, carpenters, blacksmiths, shoemakers and painters." (Italics ours.)
Almost needless to say it is only in quite recent years that we have awakened to the necessity for such teaching for our Indians and, may it be added, for the poorer classes of our population generally.
HOSPITAL, MEXICO (FOUNDED BEFORE 1524)
HOSPITAL, MEXICO (ANOTHER VIEW)
The printing press early found its home in America, and even during Columbus' Century quite a number of books were published in the Spanish-American countries. It is often said that the first book printed in America was the {287} Massachusetts Bay Psalm Book, issued, I believe, in 1638, but of course this was long anticipated in Mexico and in South America. In this, as in many other of the details of Spanish-American culture. Professor Bourne has given authoritative information. He said:
"The early promoters of education and missions did not rely upon the distant European presses for the publication of their manuals. The printing press was introduced into the New World probably as early as 1536, and it seems likely that the first book, an elementary Christian doctrine called 'La Escala Espiritual' (the ladder of the spirit), was issued in 1537. No copy of it, however, is known to exist. Seven different printers plied their craft in New Spain in the sixteenth century. Among the notable issues of these presses, besides the religious works and church service works, were dictionaries and grammars of the Mexican languages, Pufa's 'Cedulario' in 1563, a compilation of royal ordinances, Farfan's 'Tractado de Medicina.'"
An enduring and very striking monument of the humanitarian progress made in Spanish America at this time in medicine is a hospital that still stands in the City of Mexico. It was built originally by Cortes and endowed by him, and his descendants still appoint the superintendent and have much to do with the support of the hospital. It was erected in 1524, and it might well be thought that at any such early date as this it would be a very rude structure and the surprise would be that it is still standing. Miss Nutting and Miss Dock, however, in their "History of Nursing," have given two pictures of it, both of which we reproduce here, and which show that it was a beautiful hospital building and quite worthy of the great beginnings that were made in other ways in Mexican educational and humanitarian progress. The pretty courtyard and porticoes were eminently suitable for the changeable climate of Mexico, and the whole building is a monument of Spanish culture as well as Spanish charity. [Footnote 25]
[Footnote 25: The surprise inevitable for many at finding that such a handsome hospital was erected at this time will be tempered by recalling that this is the period when some of the most beautiful hospitals in the world were erected. (See the chapter on Social Work and Workers.) Besides they began very early to erect beautiful buildings in Mexico City. The University Buildings, the Cathedral and other public buildings were worthy of the fine traditions of architecture prevalent in Europe and especially in Spain at this time.]
Champlain, the French navigator, having visited the City of Mexico before the end of the sixteenth century, said of it: "But all the contentment I felt at the sight of things so agreeable (the beautiful natural scenery) was but little in comparison with that which I experienced when I beheld the beautiful City of Mexico, which I did not suppose had such superb buildings with splendid ample palaces and fine houses and the streets well laid and where are seen the large and handsome shops of the merchants full of all sorts of every kind of merchandise."
Nor must it be thought that Mexico was the only progressive part of Spanish America so early in our history. Indeed, so much had been accomplished in the Panama region by the end of Columbus' Century that, when Sir Francis Drake raided the place some twenty years later, the bank of the Chagres River was lined with warehouses, there was a handsome monastery and beautiful church, and there were many houses of stone decorated with carvings of many kinds, the residences of the Governor and the royal officials. When the flow of the Chagres was arrested in order to make the Gatun dam for the Panama Canal, all vestiges of this disappeared, though the church was practically the only building of any importance then standing. It showed by the charm of its architecture and its interesting carvings how high had been the culture and how good the taste of the builders almost a century before there was any permanent settlement in English America. The rise of the waters of the dam did not cover as important records of human progress as when the great irrigation dam at Assuan submerged the ruins of the ancient Temple of Philae in Egypt, nor cover up such interesting works of art, but it did obliterate some of the evidence for a stage of civilization in America that in English-speaking countries at least has been wantonly minimized or sadly misunderstood.
There are many remains in Panama that give some idea {289} of how much the Spaniards did during Columbus' Century and how permanent were many of their constructions. There is an old bridge from the early part of the sixteenth century which, though built without a keystone, has its main arch still standing. There is the famous flat arch which demonstrates so clearly that this region must have been very little disturbed by earthquakes ever since, because it seems almost incredible that a structure should stand with so slight curvature for any length of time, even in an absolutely undisturbed country, yet this has been in place for nearly four centuries in Panama. There was a magnificent paved road across the isthmus, the King's Highway, remains of which are still to be found in excellent preservation. Some portions of it were used during the course of the construction of the Panama Canal and proved very serviceable. When we realize what would have happened to one of our roads in a century, much less four hundred years, a good idea of their permanency of construction is reached. The old tower of St. Jerome, still standing, shows how solidly and yet how ornately the Spaniards built, and there was evidently a magnificent set of monumental constructions for religious and civil purposes on the isthmus almost a century before the pilgrims landed on Plymouth Rock. The story of these early days in American history has not yet been told in its entirety, but even the details that are available show us how well the Spaniards labored for permanency of their foundations in America.
Probably what must be considered the most interesting chapter in the history of Columbus' Century for our generation is that which tells the story of the women of the time who accomplished purposes that make their names forever memorable. Great as were the men, the women were in every way worthy of them, and these women of the Renaissance have attracted attention ever since, though never more so than now, when we are beginning to take seriously once more the problem of giving to women the amplest opportunities for intellectual development and achievement that they may desire. The Italian ladies of the Renaissance have been the subject of particular attention, sometimes indeed to the almost total eclipse of their equally as interesting sisters of the other nationalities, for in every country in Europe the Renaissance brought a magnificent development of feminine intellectual incentive and accomplishment and brought out a fine demonstration of women's powers.
CRIVELLI, MADONNA ENTHRONED
It would be quite impossible to give any adequate idea of the large numbers of women who at this period manifested intellectual ability of a high order. All that can be done is to select from the various countries of Europe those women who at this time did work of such high order that their names will never willingly be let die and whose careers will have an enduring interest for mankind so long as our present form of civilization continues. They not only merit a place beside the men of the time, but some of them indeed must be classed as surpassing all but the very highest geniuses of the period. The variety of their achievement is quite as interesting as its quality. Above all, the women of Columbus' Century demonstrated their ability to administer government, to organize particularly charitable purposes, to secure the building of fine {291} hospitals and proper care for the ailing poor, and to direct the decoration of their homes and the beauty of home surroundings, so that Renaissance interior decoration and gardens have been the special subject of imitation whenever in the after-time the beautifying of the home has come to occupy the position that it should.
The first woman to be considered in Columbus' Century should naturally be Isabella of Castile, to whom so much of the possibility of Columbus' achievement is due. Fortunately in recent years her life and career have come to be much better known and we have reached a more fitting appreciation of her wonderful administrative ability and profound influence on her time. There is probably no woman in history who so deeply influenced her own nation and generation as Isabella. In a time of very great women she was the greatest. Withal, she was charmingly feminine and did much to lift the position of her sex in Spain up to the height of Renaissance achievements.
There is scarcely any mode of activity on which Isabella has not left traces of her genius. Her power of inspiring men was very great. She led her armies in person, and undoubtedly to her more than anyone else is due the success of the Spaniards against the Moors at this time. Her genius for peace as well as for war is evidenced by the formation of a constabulary force in Spain, the Santa Hermandad, intended for the protection of persons and property against injustice of any kind, though particularly against the violence of the nobles. She found Spain anarchic, without any power over disorders and with so many elements of disaffection that it seemed hopeless to think of making it a unified powerful country. She left it peaceful and prosperous, and when she died she was the ruler of a greater domain than the Roman Empire ever possessed. Some of this was undoubtedly her good fortune, but the happy accidents of history occur, as a rule, only to those who are able to take advantage of them. She encouraged education and, above all, obtained a fine education for herself. Her Castilian has been ranked as the standard of the language by the Spanish Royal Academy. When a mother, she took up the study of Latin so as to share her {292} children's education, and learned to know it well. She was extremely solicitous for the education of her children and, in order to secure the best possible mental training for them, she established a palace school, where some of the most scholarly men of the time were invited to teach.
As a rule, all that most of us know about Isabella is that she recalled Columbus to her presence with the words: "I will assume the undertaking for my own crown of Castile and am ready to pawn my jewels to defray the expenses of it if the funds in the treasury should be found inadequate." It was a woman's intuition surpassing in its insight all the knowledge of those around her. There is perhaps one other fact that a great many people know, and that is, that during the siege of Granada she declared that she would not change her shift until the town had been taken. Told of her in praise at the beginning, the story has come in more refined times to seem a little ridiculous. But for anyone who knows the strenuous life, most of which was passed in the saddle, encouraging, cajoling, threatening, urging, leading, inspiring the men of her time until what was the most disturbed and unhappy country in Europe became a firmly consolidated nation, where prosperity and happiness went hand in hand, the spirit of the woman will be better revealed in that expression than in anything else.
There is perhaps no greater woman ruler in all the history of the world. What she was capable of physically in her long rides on horseback would seem almost incredible, and yet with all that she was eminently womanly, a fond mother to her children, noted for her care of her household and, strangest of all perhaps, a great needlewoman. Many a church in Spain was proud to display an altar cloth that was worked by her hands, and the historical traditions that traced them to her actual hand labor are well authenticated.
Her daughters as well as her sons received the benefit of the best education, though, with their mother's example and encouragement, they devoted themselves to needlework and even to the arts of spinning and weaving. It is said that Ferdinand the Catholic, her husband, could declare, as Charlemagne had done, that he used no article of clothing that {293} had not been made for him by his wife or his daughters. When she was married to Ferdinand they were so poor that they had to borrow the money to make the presents to the servants that were customary on such occasions. It is said that she mended one doublet for her husband, the King, as often as seven times. Her deep piety, her firm character, her habits of industry and thrift, and yet her ability to recognize what was likely to be good for her kingdom and her people and to spend money freely on it, made an admirable example for the time. Above all, she discouraged the idle extravagance of the nobility and succeeded in greatly lessening the immorality at court. She made a magnificent collection of books, fostered learning at the universities, encouraged it among the women of the time, and it is no wonder that historians have spoken so much in praise of her. With all this she was extremely unhappy in her children--she saw her son die in the promise of youth, her daughter went mad, other daughters, including Queen Catherine of England, were destined, in spite of felicitous auguries in early life, to the most poignant unhappiness--and mother had to be the source of consolation for them all.
HOLBEIN, QUEEN CATHERINE OF ARAGON
The spirit of Isabella in the matter of the rights of her subjects will perhaps be best appreciated from the famous expression which she used on hearing that Columbus had offered some of the Indians whom he brought home with him to some of the Spanish nobility as gifts. The Queen indignantly demanded when she heard of it, "Who gave permission to Columbus to parcel out my vassals to anyone?" Having learned that some of the Indians were being held as slaves in Spain she issued a decree that they should be returned to their native country at the expense of the person in whose possession they were found.
Prescott has drawn a striking contrast between the character of Isabella and of Elizabeth. The two names are in origin the same and there are many details of their careers that tempt to the making of a comparison. Because Elizabeth is really a product of Columbus' Century, seventeen years of age before the century closed, Prescott's comparison is a document of special value for us here, for it tells the {294} story of two great women of the time, though the work of one of them was accomplished after the close of our period. He says (p. 188, Vol. III):
"Both succeeded in establishing themselves on the throne after the
most precarious vicissitudes. Each conducted her kingdom, through a
long and triumphant reign, to a height of glory to which it had
never before reached. Both lived to see the vanity of all earthly
grandeur, and to fall the victims of an inconsolable melancholy; and
both left behind an illustrious name, unrivalled in the subsequent
annals of their country.
"But with these few circumstances of their history, the resemblance
ceases. Their characters afford scarcely a point of contact.
Elizabeth, inheriting a large share of the bold and bluff King
Harry's temperament, was haughty, arrogant, coarse and irascible;
while with these fiercer qualities she mingled deep dissimulation
and strange irresolution. Isabella, on the other hand, tempered the
dignity of royal station with the most bland and courteous manners.
Once resolved, she was constant in her purposes, and her conduct in
public and private life was characterized by candour and integrity.
Both may be said to have shown that magnanimity which is implied by
the accomplishment of great objects in the face of great obstacles.
But Elizabeth was desperately selfish; she was incapable of
forgiving, not merely a real injury, but the slightest affront to
her vanity; and she was merciless in exacting retribution. Isabella,
on the other hand, lived only for others,--was ready at all times to
sacrifice self to considerations of public duty; and, far from
personal resentments, showed the greatest condescension and kindness
to those who had most sensibly injured her; while her benevolent
heart sought every means to mitigate the authorized severities of
the law, even towards the guilty. . . .
"To estimate this (contrast) aright, we must contemplate the results
of their respective reigns. Elizabeth found all the materials of
prosperity at hand, and availed herself of them most ably to build
up a solid fabric of national grandeur. Isabella created these
materials. She saw the faculties of her people locked up in a
death-like lethargy, and she breathed {295} into them the breath of
life for those great and heroic enterprises which terminated in such
glorious consequences to the monarchy. It is when viewed from the
depressed position of her early days, that the achievements of her
reign seem scarcely less than miraculous."
Prescott has declared that her heart was filled with benevolence to all mankind. In the most fiery heat of war she was engaged in devising means for mitigating its horror. She is said to have been the first to introduce the benevolent institution of camp hospitals and her lively solicitude to spare the effusion of blood even of her enemies is often told. Her establishment of the Inquisition and the exile of the Jews are often set over against this, but Prescott did not hesitate to say, "It will be difficult to condemn her indeed without condemning her age; for these acts are not only excused, but extolled by her contemporaries as constituting her constant claims to renown and to the gratitude of her country." Spaniards of much more modern time have not scrupled to pronounce the Inquisition "the great evidence of her prudence and piety; whose uncommon utility not only Spain but all Christendom freely acknowledged." Undoubtedly it saved Spain from some of the troubles which devastated Germany during the Hundred Years' War after the Reformation, when religious divisions so embittered the struggle and made it impossible for national affairs to prosper or for men to be brought to any common understanding with regard to anything for the good of the commonwealth. The difference between the position of Spain and of Germany in this regard is highly instructive.
There are so many distinguished women of this period in Italy that a choice indeed is embarrassing. Probably, however, the general consensus of opinion would be that the typical great intellectual woman of this time is Vittoria Colonna, the daughter of the great Roman family of that name, who became the wife of the Marquis of Pescara. The Colonnas were at this time in exile at Naples, where her father was the Grand Constable. Her mother was Agnesina de Montefeltro of the Ducal house of Urbino and she was brought up after the age of ten by her prospective sister-in-law, the Duchess {296} Costanza, in the Island of Ischia. She was intimately related, then, to many of the important noble families of Italy and her career may be taken as a type of the possibilities of education and intellectual influence in her class at this time. Her husband became distinguished as a military leader and finally at scarcely more than thirty years of age was made the General of the Imperial forces when the Pope and the Emperor Charles V made an alliance and drove the French from Milan in 1528. He had been the commander of the Imperial Army at the battle of Pavia in 1525, after which Francis I, badly beaten and taken prisoner, sent his mother the famous despatch from his captive cell in the Certosa near Pavia, "All is lost save honor."
Francis was too important a prisoner to be left to the fortunes of war in Italy, so Charles V had him transferred by ship to Madrid. Emissaries of the French, who tried to win the Marquis of Pescara from his allegiance to the Emperor, represented this action to him as something of an insult or at least a lack of trust. They offered him the throne of Naples if he should abandon the Emperor and come over to the French. The Marquis had been wounded and was just recovering when these offers were made. He wrote to his wife, Vittoria, with whom he was on terms of the most charming affection, telling her of the offer and asking her advice. With a crown dangling before her and the added temptation, the subtlest there could be for a woman, of going back as Queen where she had been only a lady-in-waiting at Court, Vittoria wrote the famous letter which has deservedly so often been quoted:
"Consider well what you are doing, mindful of the fame and estimation which you have always enjoyed; and in truth, for my part, I care not to be the wife of a king, but rather to be joined to a faithful and loyal man; for it is not riches, titles, and kingdoms which can give true glory, infinite praise, and perpetual renown to noble spirits desirous of eternal fame; but faith, sincerity, and other virtues of the soul; and with these man may rise higher than the highest kings, not only in war, but in peace."
TITIAN, PRESENTATION OF VIRGIN
Not long afterwards her husband died as a consequence of his wounds and Vittoria was broken-hearted. The letters which they had written to each other show how much of a love match this was and all the sixteen years of married life there seems to have been nothing to disturb it. Vittoria's only consolation now was in religion, and she thought of entering a convent, but it was felt that she could accomplish much more good in the world and a special Papal brief was issued permitting her to spend as much time as she wished in convents, but forbidding superiors to allow her to take the veil until the poignancy of her grief subsided and she might be able to make up her mind without being too much overborne by her sense of loss. Most of the rest of her life was spent in convents or in almost conventual seclusion. She wrote a series of poems, many of which are religious. A long series constitutes a sort of In Memoriam for her dead husband. They are written in very charming Italian verse and a well-known critic and writer on Italian literature has described these poems "as penetrated with genuine feeling. They have that dignity and sweetness which belong to the spontaneous utterances of a noble heart." During the last fifteen years of her life she lived very retired in Rome and exercised her profound influence over many of the great men of the Renaissance and particularly over Michelangelo.
Some idea of the place that she held in the cultured society of Italy at this time may be gathered from the fact that in 1528 Castiglione submitted his "Il Cortigiano" to her in manuscript for her approval and criticism. She kept it for a considerable time, read portions of it to her friends, submitted others to them and then returned it with the highest praise. She declared that she was quite jealous of the persons that are quoted in the book, even though they were dead. A writer who knew this period very thoroughly and who had studied particularly the lives of the women of the Renaissance declared:
"Vittoria Colonna was indeed a woman to be proud of: untouched by scandal, unspoiled by praise, incapable of any ungenerous action, unconvicted of one uncharitable word. Long in the midst of such religious and political dissensions {298} as divided and uprooted families, she yet preserved in all the relations of life that jewel of perfect loyalty which does not ask to be justified."
Only too often it seems to be the impression that Vittoria Colonna stands almost alone in her supreme nobility of character, but that is only due to the fact that she has been deservedly much talked of. There are, however, many rivals in all that is best among the women of Italy at this time. The charm of certain of these women of the Renaissance can be best understood from the expressions of praise with regard to them that we have from the distinguished literary men of the time. One of them, Elizabeth Gonzaga, had some of the most beautiful things said with regard to her by men whose judgment and critical faculty commend them to the after world as great scholarly writers. In the prefatory epistle to his "Cortigiano" Castiglione says in allusion to the death of this peerless lady, "but that which cannot be spoken without tears is that the Duchess, also, is dead. And if my mind be troubled also with the loss of so many friends that have left me in this life as it were in a wilderness full of sorrow, yet with how much more grief do I bear the affliction of my dear lady's death than of all the rest; since she was more worthy than all and I more bounden to her." Indeed Catiglione's great work was partly written as a memorial to her. Pietro Bembo, recalling the happy days he had spent at her court, says, "I have seen many excellent and noble women and have heard of some who are as illustrious for certain qualities, but in her alone among women all virtues were united and brought together. I have never seen nor heard of anyone who was her equal and know very few who have even come near her."
Every city in Italy possessed some of these noble women at this time. Prominent among those who are not known as well as they deserve is Donna Catarina Fiesco or Adorno of Genoa, one of the saintly women of the time, who, in forgetfulness of self knew how to be so helpful to others in a wise and womanly way that she has been given the title of St. Catharine of Genoa. She was the daughter of one of the noble Genoese ruling families, the Fieschi, the daughter {299} of Conte Giacomo Fiesco, who was Viceroy of Naples and Papal Chamberlain during the first half of the fifteenth century. Catarina was born July 10, 1447, the third of seven daughters whose mother also came from an ancient house of Genoa enrolled in the first Libro d'Oro. Very early she chose to be a religious, but Giuliano Adorno, a son of Doge Antoniotto Adorno, fell in love with her and though his reputation was that of a young blade and sport, he was good-looking and handsome of figure, and Donna Catarina, having seen him several times at mass, fell in love with him. Political considerations helped on the match and indeed seemed to have been most powerful, for after Catarina had been told of Giuliano's wild ways she refused to marry him and finally was married in black, positively declining to don the customary red velvet robe and lavish ornaments of gold and jewels of Genoese brides. Their marriage, as Catarina evidently had dreaded, was not happy and after five years Catarina betook herself to a convent. After her departure her husband went from bad to worse, and finally, cast off by his indulgent father, was reduced to abject poverty and despair. His wife sought him out, lifted him up and together they took a house near the Spedale Maggiore where they received and cared for poor incurables. Five years later her husband died, "his death having paid all debts," and Catarina was elected prioress of the women's department of the hospital. She organized the nursing, reorganized the hospital service, especially as regards the poor, and took her official duties as prioress very seriously. She found time, however, to compose a number of little books for persons in distress of mind and of body, and some of them have been translated into French and Spanish. Her "Treatise on Purgatory," setting forth the strength of Christian piety in the face of death, was published in 1502 and had a wide popularity in the Latin countries of Europe. She wrote a series of dialogues that became very popular and were widely used by the parish clergy in dramatic form in the churches. The two characters in the dialogues were Good and Evil, and from rival pulpits these presented their various claims. The custom of having this dialogic form of church instruction is still extant in {300} Genoa. In 1509 she died, leaving all of her property and possessions to the hospital, and her body, miraculously preserved, reposes in a superb crystal casket within the chapel of the hospital. Of her, as Edgcumbe Staley says in his "Heroines of Genoa," the well-known Italian proverb has been quoted: Vera felicitá senza Dio non si da--True happiness without God there is none.
Another of these distinguished intellectual women of the Renaissance in Italy was the venerable Battistina Vernazza, whose parents were famous for their benevolence and had a high place in the Libro d'Oro de' Benemeriti of Genoa. She was born in 1497. Early in life she showed remarkable talents as a student of Latin and a writer of verses in Latin and in the vernacular. She entered the Convento delle Grazie but declined to take the veil until both her parents gave their consent, and though her father was willing her mother refused to permit her to be separated from her. After her mother's early death she entered the convent and there became noted for her piety and learning. Her writings are mainly controversial and were very famous in her time. Letters of hers to well-known leaders of the Protestantizing party are extant. At the death of her father, her father's considerable fortune came to her. She applied it all to works of charity, and especially in the direction of the rescue of young girls from evil associations. She lived to be ninety years of age and her memory is still so green among the Genoese because of all that she did for the good of the people that in the quarter of the city where she was born the Municipal School for Girls bears her name of Battistina Vernazza.
Even the smaller towns gave birth to great women, and one of the most distinguished women of the Century whose name is very little known, mainly because her modesty would have it so, is Angela of Merici, the distinguished founder of a religious order for the education of girls of all classes, whose work has endured down to our time and whose religious daughters are literally all over the world at the present day. It is probable that the work of no woman of the Renaissance has had so far-reaching an effect as that of this humble village maiden whose one asset in life was her thought for {301} others and for duty. An all too brief abstract of her story will be found in the chapter on Feminine Education.
An important phase of the careers of the women of the Renaissance is the manliness and independence of spirit which became manifest. It was at this time that the word virago was first used but employed not as now as a mark of disrespect, but on the contrary as a high compliment. Catherine of Sforza, whose manly defence of her castle is well known and whose life exhibited a series of thoroughly courageous incidents, was known as the Virago of Forli, though at the same time she was hailed as "the best gentlewoman of Italy." Isabella Gonzaga manifests something of this same heroic vein and Clarice de Medici, the wife of Filippo Strozzi, is in the same group. These women stand out as remarkable, and yet many of the women of the Renaissance exhibited an independence of character which is usually thought to be of much later development.
There are many educated people who are quite convinced that while the Renaissance possessed distinguished women deservedly famous for their unselfish character and their fine moral influence, it possessed an even greater proportion of women whose vices made them a scandal for all time and whose influence was far-reaching for evil. Indeed for many the name of Lucretia Borgia, which has become a byword for everything worst in human life, is supposed to be a better symbol of the Renaissance than that of Vittoria Colonna. Probably the best way--apart from the actual facts in the lives of women already cited--to show the absolute untruth of this very prevalent impression is to take the life of Lucretia Borgia herself, for it makes clear not only how absolutely lacking in historical confirmation are the ordinary traditions with regard to her, but on the contrary how well she deserves to be classed among the great good women of the Renaissance, all the scurrilous abuse of her that has accumulated to the contrary notwithstanding. There is probably nothing that shows how little of trust can be placed in contemporary documents unless these are critically considered, than the complete change of view with regard to the Borgia family, particularly Lucretia, which has taken place in the last few years, as a consequence {302} of the more careful scientific scholarly historical research of recent years.
The facts in Lucretia's life are comparatively few and rather easy to understand. Its first part is shrouded in the calumnies so common with regard to the Borgias. They were Spaniards making their way in Italy and nothing was too bad to say of them. Her later life was all in the limelight of publicity and should be the basis of any judgment of her. When she was about twenty-four after two sad matrimonial experiences she was married by political arrangement to Alfonso, the son of Ercole, Duke of Ferrara. Before that marriage careful investigation as to her character was made and a special envoy sent for that purpose wrote that "there was nothing at all out of the way with Lucretia herself. She was sensible, discreet, of good and loving nature and her manners full of modesty and decorum; a good Christian filled with the fear of God. ... In truth such are her good qualities that I rest assured there is nothing to fear from her or rather everything to hope from her." After her marriage Lucretia lived for nearly twenty years at Ferrara. When she died in early middle life her funeral was followed to the tomb by all the people of the city, who revered her as a saint and looked up to her as one who had done everything that she could to make life happier for her people. She was buried in the Convent of the Sisters of the Corpus Christi, in the same tomb as the Mother of Alfonso, the Duchess Leonora, of whose goodness we have spoken, and her praises were on every tongue.
Whatever there is defamatory that is said about Lucretia concerns the years before this marriage while she was living at Rome up to the age of twenty-three. A knowledge of that fact alone is quite sufficient to make the stories with regard to her unexampled viciousness very dubious. Gregorovius has recently re-examined all the documents and has completely vindicated her. She was merely the victim of the violent political hatreds of the time. To take the one item of poisoning with regard to which her name has been so infamous and her reputation so notorious, Garnett, in the "Cambridge Modern History," declares that there is only one case in which the Borgias are supposed to have used poison for which there is {303} any evidence, and that is very dubious. With that one Lucretia had nothing to do. In discussing her divorce from Sforza, he says: "The transaction also served to discredit in some measure the charges against the Borgias of secret poisoning, which would have been more easily and conveniently employed than the disagreeable and scandalous method of a legal process."
Some of the tributes to Lucretia Borgia from her contemporaries are highly laudatory. Among her friends were some of the best people of the time. Aldus Manutius praises her to the skies, lauds her benevolence to the poor, her care for the afflicted and her ability as a ruler. There is no doubt at all that she was one of these wonderful women of the Renaissance whose administrative ability must be admired more than any other quality. During the absence of her husband she ruled the State with wonderful prudence, and yet with a justice tempered always with mercy. It was through her that a law was passed, protecting the Jews of Ferrara, that became a model for other similar legislation in the cities of Italy.
It is interesting to trace the change of attitude of mind toward her on the part of those who either did not care for her or were actually bitterly opposed to her. Her sister-in-law, Isabella D'Este, became a real friend, as her letters attest, though at first she did not like at all the idea of the union of the house of D'Este with that of the Borgias, and it required all her father's force of will and all his political astuteness besides to secure her presence at the marriage. The letters of ten years later reveal a most intimate friendship between these two women. Within a year after her marriage she had completely won her husband, who was altogether indifferent at the beginning and who married her because of his father's insistence and entirely for political reasons. When her first baby died at birth her husband was most solicitous for her, anxious about her health and made a vow that he would go on a pilgrimage to Loretto for her recovery, a vow which he fulfilled just as soon as her convalescence was assured.
The biographer of Bayard, the famous French Chevalier of the time, sans peur et sans reproche, declared apropos of the visit of Bayard to Madonna Lucretia at Ferrara: "I venture {304} to say that neither in her time nor for many years before has there been such a glorious princess. For she is beautiful and good, gentle and amiable to everyone." Gregorovius declares in his "Lucretia Borgia, According to Original Documents and Correspondence of Her Day": [Footnote 26] "Lucretia had won universal esteem and affection; she had become the mother of her people. She lent a ready ear to the suffering and helped all who were in need. She put aside, as Jovius, a contemporary, said, 'the pomps and vanities of the world to which she had been accustomed from childhood and gave herself up to pious works and founded and endowed convents and hospitals.'" She died at the early age of forty, so that the nearly twenty years of service for others represent not the aftermath of a long stormy life, when human passions had burnt themselves out, but the ripe years of maturity and highest vitality.
[Footnote 26: Translated by Garner, Appleton, 1913, New York.]
Caviceo even ventured when he wished to praise the famous Isabella Gonzaga to say that she approached the perfection of Lucretia. He adds, and Gregorovius has emphasized this opinion, "she redeemed the name of Borgia, which now was always mentioned with respect." Indeed there are few women who ever lived of whom such marvellous encomiums have been given by men who knew her well personally and who were themselves often among those in a period of great men and women whose memory the world will not willingly let die. Whatever of evil is said of her is said by writers of scandal and littleness in her own time, Italian enemies of the Spanish house of Borgia, which had come into Italy and had a great success. These vile traditions, the kitchen stories of the Renaissance, were gathered together and preserved because so many people are interested in what is evil rather than good. At a time when the greatness of the period in which she lived was ill appreciated and when religious motives tempted to credulity they came to be generally reported until Victor Hugo gathered them all together for his characterization of her and with Donizetti's opera popularized the idea that Lucretia was probably the worst woman who had ever lived. It has taken much writing of real history to modify this popular notion, which is not yet corrected, and nothing illustrates {305} better the fallibility of popular historical information than this Lucretia story.