Vittoria in Rome in 1530.—Antiquarian rambles.—Pyramus and Thisbe medal.—Contemporary commentary on Vittoria's poems.—Paul the Third.—Rome again in 1536.—Visit to Lucca.—To Ferrara.—Protestant tendencies.—Invitation from Giberto.—Return to Rome.
The noble rivalry of Francis I. and Charles V. was again, in 1530, making Naples a field of glory in such sort, that outraged nature appeared also on the scene with pestilence in her hand. The first infliction had driven most of the literary society in Naples to take refuge in the comparative security of Ischia. The latter calamity had reached even that retreat; and Vittoria some time in that year again visited Rome.
Life was beginning there to return to its usual conditions after the tremendous catastrophe of 1527. Pestilence had there also, as usual, followed in the train of war and military license. And many in all classes had been its victims. Great numbers fled from the city, and among these were probably most of such as were honoured by Vittoria's personal friendship. Now they were venturing back to their old haunts on the Pincian, the Quirinal, or those favourite Colonna gardens, still ornamented by the ruins of Aurelian's Temple to the Sun. The tide of modern Goths, who had threatened to make the eternal city's name a mockery, had been swept back at the word of that second and "most Catholic" Alaric, Charles V. Cardinals, poetasters, wits, Ciceronian bishops, statesmen, ambassadors, and artists, busy in the achievement of immortality, were once more forming a society, which gave the Rome of that day a fair title to be considered, in some points of view, the capital of the world. The golden Roman sunlight was still glowing over aqueduct, arch and temple; and Rome the Eternal was herself again.
By this varied and distinguished society Vittoria was received with open arms. The Colonna family had become reconciled to Pope Clement, and had had their fiefs restored to them; so that there was no cloud on the political horizon to prevent the celebrated Marchesana from receiving the homage of all parties. The Marchese del Vasto, Vittoria's former pupil, for whom she never ceased to feel the warmest affection, was also then at Rome.[187] In his company, and that of some others of the gifted knot around her, Vittoria visited the ruins and vestiges of ancient Rome with all the enthusiasm of one deeply versed in classic lore, and thoroughly imbued with the then prevailing admiration for the works and memorials of Pagan antiquity. Vittoria's sister-in-law, Donna Giovanna d'Aragona, the beautiful and accomplished wife of her brother Ascanio, in whose house she seems to have been living during this visit to Rome, was doubtless one of the party on these occasions. The poet Molza has chronicled his presence among them in more than one sonnet. His muse would seem to have "made increment of anything." For no less than four sonnets[188] were the result of the exclamation from Vittoria, "Ah happy they"—the ancients, "who lived in days so full of beauty!" Of course, various pretty things were obtainable out of this. Among others, we have the gallant Pagans responding to the lady's ejaculation, that on the contrary their time was less fortunate than the present, in that it was not blessed by the sight of her.
It would have been preferable to have had preserved for us some further scraps from the lips of Vittoria, while the little party gazed at sunset over that matchless view of the aqueduct-bestridden Campagna from the terrace at the western front of the Lateran, looked up at the Colosseum, ghostly in the moonlight, from the arch of Titus, or discoursed on the marvellous proportions of the Pantheon.
But history rarely guesses aright what the after-ages she works for would most thank her for handing down to them. And we must be content to construct for ourselves, as best we may, from the stray hints we have, the singularly pleasing picture of these sixteenth century rambles among the ruins of Rome by as remarkable a company of pilgrims as any of the thousands who have since trodden in their steps.
Vittoria's visit to Rome upon this occasion was a short one. It was probably early in the following year that she returned to Ischia. Signor Visconti attributes this journey to the restlessness arising from a heart ill at ease, vainly hoping to find relief from its misery by change of place. He assumes all the expressions of despair to be found in her sonnets of this period, to be so many reliable autobiographical documents, and builds his narrative upon them accordingly. To this period he attributes the sonnet, translated in a previous chapter, in which the poetess declares that she has no wish to conceal from the world the temptation to suicide which assails her. And in commemoration of this mood of mind, he adds, in further proof of the sad truth, a medal was struck upon this occasion, in Rome, of which he gives an engraving. It represents, on one side, the inconsolable lady as a handsome, well nourished, comfortable-looking widow, in mourning weeds, more aged in appearance, certainly, since the striking of the former medal spoken of, than the lapse of seven years would seem sufficient to account for. And, on the reverse, is a representation of the melancholy story of Pyramus and Thisbe, the former lying dead at the feet of the typical paragon, who is pointing towards her breast a sword, grasped in both hands, half-way down the blade, in a manner sure to have cut her fingers. The two sides of the medal, seen at one glance, as in Signor Visconti's engraving, are, it must be admitted, calculated to give rise to ideas the reverse of pathetic.
To this period too belongs the sonnet, also previously alluded to, in which Vittoria speaks of the seventh year of her bereavement having arrived, without bringing with it any mitigation of her woe. Signor Visconti takes this for simple autobiographical material. It is curious, as a specimen of the modes of thought at the time, to see how the same passage is handled by Vittoria's first editor and commentator, Rinaldo Corsi, who published her works for the second time at Venice in 1558. His commentary begins as follows:—"On this sonnet, it remains for me to speak of the number Seven as I have done already of the number Four. But since Varro, Macrobius, and Aulus Gellius, together with many others, have treated largely of the subject, I will only add this,—which, perhaps, Ladies, may appear to you somewhat strange; that, according to Hippocrates, the number four enters twice into the number seven; and I find it stated by most credible authors as a certain fact, and proved by the testimony of their own observation, that a male child of seven years old has been known to cure persons afflicted by the infirmity called scrofula by no other means than by the hidden virtue of that number seven," &c., &c., &c.
In this sort, Messer Rinaldo Corso composed, and the literary ladies, to whom throughout, as in the above passage, his labours are especially dedicated, must be supposed to have read more than five hundred close-printed pages of commentary on the works of the celebrated poetess, who, in all probability, when she penned the sonnet in question, had no more intention of setting forth the reasons for her return to Ischia, than she had of alluding to the occult properties of the mysterious number seven. The natural supposition is, that as she had been driven from her home by the pestilence, she returned to it when that reason for absence was at an end.
There she seems to have remained tranquilly employed on her favourite pursuits, increasing her already great reputation, and corresponding assiduously with all the best and most distinguished men of Italy, whether laymen or ecclesiastics, till the year 1536.
In that year she again visited Rome, and resided during her stay there with Donna Giovanna d'Aragona, her sister-in-law. Paul III., Farnese, had in 1534 succeeded Clement in the chair of St. Peter; and though Paul was on many accounts very far from being a good Pope or a good priest, yet the Farnese was an improvement on the Medici. As ever, Rome began to show signs of improvement when danger to her system from without began to make itself felt. Paul seems very soon to have become convinced that the general council, which had been so haunting a dread to Clement during the whole of his pontificate, could no longer be avoided. But it was still hoped in the council chambers of the Vatican that the doctrinal difficulties of the German reformers, which threatened the Church with so fatal a schism, might be got over by conciliation and dexterous theological diplomacy. As soon as it became evident that this hope was vain, fear began to influence the papal policy, and at its bidding the ferocious persecuting bigotry of Paul IV. was contrasted with the shameless profligacy of Alexander, the epicurean indifferentism of Leo, and the pettifogging worldliness of Clement.
Between these two periods came Paul III., and the illusory hopes that the crisis might be tided over by finding some arrangement of terminology, which should satisfy the reformers, while Rome should abandon no particle of doctrine on which any vital portion of her system of temporal power was based. To meet the exigencies of this period, Paul III. signalised his accession by raising to the purple a number of the most earnest, most learned, and truly devout men in Italy. Contarini, the Venetian; Caraffa, from Naples; Sadoleto, Bishop of Carpentras; Pole, then a fugitive from England; Giberti, Bishop of Verona; and Fregoso, Archbishop of Salerno, were men chosen solely on account of their eminent merit.
With most, if not all of these, Vittoria was connected by the bonds of intimate friendship. With Contarini, Sadoleto, and Pole, especially, she corresponded; and the esteem felt for her by such men is the most undeniable testimony to the genuine worth of her character. It is easy to imagine, therefore, how warm a reception awaited her arrival on this occasion in Rome, and how delightful must have been her stay there. She had now reached the full measure of her reputation. The religious and doctrinal topics which were now occupying the best minds in Italy, and on which her thoughts were frequently busied in her correspondence with such men as those named above, had recently begun to form the subject-matter of her poems. And their superiority in vigour and earnestness to her earlier works must have been perfectly apparent to her reverend and learned friends.
Accordingly we are told that her stay in Rome on this occasion was a continued ovation; and Signor Visconti informs us, on the authority of the Neapolitan historian Gregorio Rosso, that Charles V. being then in Rome "condescended to visit in their own house the ladies Giovanna di Aragona, wife of Ascanio Colonna, and Vittoria Colonna, Marchesa di Pescara."
The following year, 1537 that is, she went, Visconti says, to Lucca, from which city she passed to Ferrara, arriving there on the 8th of April "in humble guise, with six waiting women only."[189] Ercole d'Este, the second of the name, was then the reigning duke, having succeeded to his father Alphonso in 1534. And the court of Ferrara, which had been for several years preeminent among the principalities of Italy for its love of literature and its patronage of literary men, became yet more notably so in consequence of the marriage of Hercules II. with Renée of France, the daughter of Louis XII. The Protestant tendencies and sympathies of this Princess had rendered Ferrara also the resort, and in some instances the refuge, of many professors and favourers of the new ideas which were beginning to stir the mind of Italy. And though Vittoria's orthodox Catholic biographers are above all things anxious to clear her from all suspicion of having ever held opinions eventually condemned by the Church, there is every reason to believe that her journey to Ferrara was prompted by the wish to exchange ideas upon these subjects with some of those leading minds which were known to have imbibed Protestant tendencies, if not to have acquired fully formed Protestant convictions. It is abundantly clear, from the character of her friendships, from her correspondence, and from the tone of her poetry at this period, and during the remainder of her life, that her mind was absorbingly occupied with topics of this nature. And the short examination of the latter division of her works, which it is proposed to attempt in the next chapter, will probably convince such as have no partisan Catholic feelings on the subject, that Vittoria's mind had made very considerable progress in the Protestant direction.
No reason is assigned for her stay at Lucca. Visconti, with unusual brevity and dryness, merely states that she visited that city.[190] And it is probable that he has not been able to discover any documents directly accounting for the motives of her visit. But he forbears to mention that the new opinions had gained so much ground there that that Republic was very near declaring Protestantism the religion of their state. After her totally unaccounted-for visit to the heresy-stricken city, she proceeds to another almost equally tainted with suspicion.
It is no doubt perfectly true that Duke Hercules and his court received her with every possible distinction on the score of her poetical celebrity, and deemed his city honoured by her presence. He invited, we are told, the most distinguished poets and men of letters of Venice and Lombardy to meet her at Ferrara. And so much was her visit prized that when Cardinal Giberto sent thither his secretary, Francesco della Torre, to persuade her to visit his episcopal city Verona, that ambassador wrote to his friend Bembo, at Venice, that he "had like to have been banished by the Duke, and stoned by the people for coming there with the intention of robbing Ferrara of its most precious treasure, for the purpose of enriching Verona." Vittoria, however, seems to have held out some hope that she might be induced to visit Verona. For the secretary, continuing his letter to the literary Venetian cardinal, says, "Who knows but what we may succeed in making reprisal on them? And if that should come to pass, I should hope to see your Lordship more frequently in Verona, as I should see Verona the most honoured as well as the most envied city in Italy."[191]
It is impossible to have more striking testimony to the fame our poetess had achieved by her pen; and it is a feature of the age and clime well worth noting, that a number of small states, divided by hostilities and torn by warfare, should have, nevertheless, possessed among them a republic of letters capable of conferring a celebrity so cordially acknowledged throughout the whole extent of Italy.
From a letter[192] written by Vittoria to Giangiorgio Trissino of Vicenza, the author of an almost forgotten epic, entitled "Italia liberata da Goti," bearing date the 10th of January (1537), we learn that she found the climate of Ferrara "unfavourable to her indisposition;" which would seem to imply a continuance of ill-health. Yet it was at this time that she conceived the idea of undertaking a journey to the Holy Land.[193] Her old pupil, and nearly life-long friend, the Marchese del Vasto, came from Milan to Ferrara, to dissuade her from the project. And with this view, as well as to remove her from the air of Ferrara, he induced her to return to Rome, where her arrival was again made a matter of almost public rejoicing.
The date of this journey was probably about the end of 1537. The society of the Eternal City, especially of that particular section of it which made the the world of Vittoria, was in a happy and hopeful mood. The excellent Contarini had not yet departed[194] thence on his mission of conciliation to the Conference, which had been arranged with the Protestant leaders at Ratisbon. The brightest and most cheering hopes were based on a total misconception of the nature, or rather on an entire ignorance of the existence of that under current of social change, which, to the north of the Alps, made the reformatory movement something infinitely greater, more fruitful of vast results, and more inevitable, than any scholastic dispute on points of theologic doctrine. And at the time of Vittoria's arrival, that little band of pure, amiable, and high-minded, but not large-minded men, who fondly hoped that, by the amendment of some practical abuses, and a mutually forbearing give-and-take arrangement of some nice questions of metaphysical theology, peace on earth and good-will among men, might be yet made compatible with the undiminished pretensions and theory of an universal and infallible Church, were still lapped in the happiness of their day-dream. Of this knot of excellent men, which comprised all that was best, most amiable, and most learned in Italy, Vittoria was the disciple, the friend, and the inspired Muse. The short examination of her religious poetry, therefore, which will be the subject of the next chapter, will not only open to us the deepest and most earnest part of her own mind, but will, in a measure, illustrate the extent and nature of the Protestantising tendencies then manifesting themselves in Italy.
Oratory of Divine Love.—Italian reformers.—Their tenets.—Consequence of the doctrine of justification by faith.—Fear of schism in Italy.—Orthodoxy of Vittoria questioned.—Proofs of her Protestantism from her writings.—Calvinism of her sonnets.—Remarkable passage against auricular confession.—Controversial and religious sonnets.—Absence from the sonnets of moral topics.—Specimen of her poetical power.—Romanist ideas.—Absence from the sonnets of all patriotic feeling.
The extreme corruption of the Italian church, and in some degree also the influence of German thought, had even as early as the Pontificate of Leo X., led several of the better minds in Italy to desire ardently some means of religious reform. A contemporary writer cited by Ranke,[195] tells us that in Leo's time some fifty or sixty earnest and pious men formed themselves into a society at Rome, which they called the "Oratory of Divine Love," and strove by example and preaching to stem as much as in them lay the tide of profligacy and infidelity. Among these men were Contarini, the learned and saint-like Venetian, Sadolet, Giberto, Caraffa (a man, who however earnest in his piety, showed himself at a later period, when he became pope as Paul IV., to be animated with a very different spirit from that of most of his fellow religionists), Gaetano, Thiene, who was afterwards canonised, etc. But in almost every part of Italy, not less than in Rome, there were men of the same stamp, who carried the new ideas to greater or lesser lengths, were the objects of more or less ecclesiastical censure and persecution; and who died, some reconciled to, and some excommunicated by the Church they so vainly strove to amend.
In Naples, Juan Valdez, a Spaniard, Secretary to the Viceroy, warmly embraced the new doctrines; and being a man much beloved, and of great influence, he drew many converts to the cause. It was a pupil and friend of his, whose name it has been vainly sought to ascertain, who composed the celebrated treatise, "On the Benefits of the Death of Christ," which was circulated in immense numbers over the whole of Italy, and exercised a very powerful influence. A little later, when the time of inquisitorial persecution came, this book was so vigorously proscribed, sought out and destroyed, that despite the vast number of copies which must have existed in every corner of Italy, it has utterly disappeared, and not one is known to be in existence.[196] It is impossible to have a more striking proof of the violent and searching nature of the persecution under Paul IV. Another friend of Valdez, who was also intimate with Vittoria, was Marco Flaminio, who revised the treatise "On the Benefits of Christ's Death."
In Modena, the Bishop Morone, the intimate friend of Pole and Contarini, and his chaplain, Don Girolamo de Modena, supported and taught the same opinions.
In Venice, Gregorio Cortese, Abbot of San Giorgio Maggiore, Luigi Priuli, a patrician, and the Benedictine Marco, of Padua, formed a society mainly occupied in discussing the subtle questions which formed the "symbolum" of the new party.
"If we enquire," says Ranke,[197] "what was the faith which chiefly inspired these men, we shall find that the main article of it was that same doctrine of justification, which, as preached by Luther, had given rise to the whole Protestant movement."
The reader fortunate enough to be wholly unread in controversial divinity, will yet probably not have escaped hearing of the utterly interminable disputes on justification, free-will, election, faith, good works, prevenient grace, original sin, absolute decrees, and predestination, which, with much of evil, and as yet little good consequence, have occupied the most acute intellects, and most learning-stored brains of Europe for the last three centuries. Without any accurate knowledge of the manner in which the doctrines represented by these familiar terms are dependent on, and necessitated by each other, and of the precise points on which the opposing creeds have fought this eternal battle, he will be aware that the system popularly known as Calvinism, represents the side of the question taken by the reformers of the sixteenth century, while the opposite theory of justification by good works was that held by the orthodox Catholic Church, or unreforming party. And with merely these general ideas to guide him, it will appear strangely unaccountable to find all the best, noblest and purest minds adopting a system which in its simplest logical development inevitably leads to the most debasing demonolatry, and lays the axe to the root of all morality and noble action; while the corrupt, the worldly, the ambitious, the unspiritual, the unintellectual natures that formed the dominant party, held the opposite opinion apparently so favourable to virtue.
An explanation of this phenomenon by a partisan of either school would probably be long and somewhat intricate. But the matter becomes intelligible enough, and the true key to the wishes and conduct of both parties is found, if, without regarding the moral or theological results of either scheme, or troubling ourselves with the subtleties by which either side sought to meet the objections of the other, we consider simply the bearings of the new doctrines on that ecclesiastical system, which the orthodox and dominant party were determined at all cost to support. If it were admitted that man is justifiable by faith alone, that his election is a matter to be certified to his own heart by the immediate operation of the divine spirit, it would follow that the whole question of his religious condition and future hopes might be, or rather must be, settled between him and his creator alone. And then what would become of ecclesiastical authority and priestly interference? If the only knowledge possible to be attained of any individual's standing before God, were locked in his own breast, what hold can the Church have on him? It is absolutely necessary to any system of spiritual tyranny, that no doctrine should be admitted by virtue of which a layman may tell a priest that despite the opinion he, the priest, may form upon the subject, he, the layman, has the assurance of acceptation before God, by means of evidence of a nature inscrutable to the priest. Once admit this, and the whole foundation of ecclesiastical domination is sapped. Nay, by a very logical and short route, sure to be soon travelled by those who have made good this first fundamental pretension, they would arrive at the negation and abolition of all priesthood. Preachers and teachers might still have place under such a system, but not priests, or priestly power. To this an externally ascertainable religion is so vitally necessary, that the theory of justification by good works was far from sufficient for the purposes of the Catholic priesthood, as long as good works could be understood to mean a general course of not very accurately measurable virtuous living. This was not sufficient, because though visible not sufficiently tangible, countable, and tariffable. Hence the good works most urgently prescribed, became reduced to that mass of formal practices so well known as the material of Romanist piety, among which, the most valuable for the end in view, are of course those which can only be performed by the intervention of a priest.
But it must not be supposed that all this was as plainly discerned by the combatants in that confused strife as it may be by lookers back on it from a vantage ground three centuries high. The innovators were in all probability few, if any of them, conscious of the extent and importance of the principle they were fighting for. And, on the other hand, there is no reason to attribute an evil consciousness of motives, such as those nakedly set forth above, to the conservative party. The fact that a doctrine would tend to abridge Church power and endanger Church unity, would doubtless have appeared to many a good and conscientious man a sufficient proof of its unsoundness and falsity.
Indeed, even among the reformers in Italy the fear of schism was so great, and the value attached to Church unity so high, that these considerations probably did as much towards checking and finally extinguishing Protestantism in Italy as did the strong hand of persecution. From the first, many of the most earnest advocates of the new doctrines were by no means prepared to sever themselves from the Church for the sake of their opinions. Some were ready to face such schism and martyrdom also in the cause; as, for instance, Bernardino Ochino, the General of the Capuchins, and the most powerful preacher of his day, who fled from Italy and became a professed Protestant, and Carnesecchi, the Florentine, who was put to death for his heresy at Rome.
But it had not yet become clear how far the new doctrines might be held compatibly with perfect community with the Church of Rome at the time when Vittoria arrived in that city from Ferrara. The conference with the German Protestants, by means of which it was hoped to effect a reconciliation, was then being arranged, and the hopes of Vittoria's friends ran high. When these hopes proved delusive, and when Rome pronounced herself decisively on the doctrines held by the Italian reformers, the most conspicuous friends of Vittoria did not quit the Church. She herself writes ever as its submissive and faithful daughter. But as to her having held opinions which were afterwards declared heretical, and for which others suffered, much of her poetry, written probably about this time, affords evidence so clear that it is wonderful Tiraboschi and her biographers can deem it possible to maintain her orthodoxy.
Take, for example, the following sonnet:
"Quand'io riguardo il nobil raggio ardente
Della grazia divina, e quel valore
Ch'illustra 'l intelletto, infiamma il core
Con virtù sopr'umana, alta, e possente,
L'alma le voglie allor fisse ed intente
Raccoglie tutte insieme a fargli onore;
Ma tanto ha di poter, quant'è 'l favore
Che dal lume e dal foco intende e sente.
Ond ella può ben far certa efficace
L'alta sua elezion, ma insino al segno
Ch'all autor d'ogni ben, sua mercè, piace.
Non sprona il corso nostro industria o ingegno;
Quel corre più sicuro e più vivace,
C'ha dal favor del ciel maggior sostegno."
Thus rendered into English blank verse, with a greater closeness to the sense of the original than might perhaps have been attained in a translation hampered by the necessity of rhyming:
"When I reflect on that bright noble ray
Of grace divine, and on that mighty power,
Which clears the intellect, inflames the heart
With virtue, strong with more than human strength,
My soul then gathers up her will, intent
To render to that Power the honour due;
But only so much can she, as free grace
Gives her to feel and know th'inspiring fire.
Thus can the soul her high election make
Fruitful and sure; but only to such point
As, in his goodness, wills the Fount of good.
Nor art nor industry can speed her course;
He most securely and alertly runs
Who most by Heaven's free favour is upheld."
The leading points of Calvinistic doctrine could hardly be in the limits of a sonnet more clearly and comprehensively stated. Devotional meditation inclines the heart to God; but the soul is powerless even to worship, except in such measure as she is enabled to do so by freely-given grace. By this means only can man make sure his election. To strive after virtue is useless to the non-elect, seeing that man can safely run his course only in proportion as he has received the favour of God.
Again, in the following sonnet will be remarked a tone of thought and style of phrase perfectly congenial to modern devotional feeling of what is termed the evangelical school; while it is assuredly not such as would meet the approval of orthodox members of either the Roman Catholic or Anglo-Catholic churches:
"Quando dal lume, il cui vivo splendore
Rende il petto fedel lieto e sicuro,
Si dissolve per grazia il ghiaccio duro,
Che sovente si gela intorno al core,
Sento ai bei lampi del possente ardore
Cader delle mie colpe il manto oscuro,
E vestirmi in quel punto il chiaro e puro
Della prima innocenza e primo amore.
E sebben con serrata e fida chiave
Serro quel raggio; egli è scivo e sottile,
Si ch'un basso pensier lo scaccia e sdegna.
Ond'ei ratto sen vola; io mesta e grave
Rimango, e 'l prego che d'ogni ombra vile
Mi spogli, acciò più presto a me sen vegna."
Which may be thus, with tolerable accuracy, rendered into English:
"When by the light, whose living ray both peace
And joy to faithful bosoms doth impart,
The indurated ice, around the heart
So often gather'd, is dissolved through grace,
Beneath that blessed radiance from above
Falls from me the dark mantle of my sin;
Sudden I stand forth pure and radiant in
The garb of primal innocence and love.
And though I strive with lock and trusty key
To keep that ray, so subtle 'tis and coy,
By one low thought 'tis scared and put to flight.
So flies it from me. I in sorrowing plight
Remain, and pray, that he from base alloy
May purge me, so the light come sooner back to me."
Here, in addition to the "points of doctrine" laid down in the previous sonnet, we have that of sudden and instantaneous conversion and sanctification; and that without any aid from sacrament, altar, or priest.
Similar thoughts are again expressed in the next sonnet selected, which in Signor Visconti's edition immediately follows the preceding:
"Spiego per voi, mia luce, indarno l'ale,
Prima che 'l caldo vostro interno vento
M'apra l'ere d'ntorno, ora ch'io sento
Vincer da nuovo ardir l'antico male;
Chè giunga all'infinito opra mortale
Opra vostra è, Signor, che in un momento
La può far degna; ch'io da me pavento
Di cader col pensier quand'ei più sale.
Bramo quell'invisibil chiaro lume,
Che fuga densa nebbia; e quell'accesa
Secreta fiamma, ch'ogni gel consuma.
Onde poi, sgombra dal terren costume,
Tutta al divino amor l'anima intesa
Si mova al volo altero in altra piuma."
Thus done into English:
"Feeling new force to conquer primal sin,
Yet all in vain I spread my wings to thee,
My light, until the air around shall be
Made clear for me by thy warm breath within.
That mortal works should reach the infinite
Is thy work, Lord! For in a moment thou
Canst give them worth. Left to myself I know
My thought would fall, when at its utmost height.
I long for that clear radiance from above
That puts to flight all cloud; and that bright flame
Which secret burning warms the frozen soul;
So that set free from every mortal aim,
And all intent alone on heavenly love,
She flies with stronger pinion t'wards her goal."
In the following lines, which form the conclusion of a sonnet, in which she has been saying that God does not permit that any pure heart should be concealed from His all-seeing eye "by the fraud or force of others," we have a very remarkable bit of such heresy on the vital point of the confessional, as has been sufficient to consign more than one victim to the stake:
"Securi del suo dolce e giusto impero,
Non come il primo padre e la sua donna,
Dobbiam del nostro error biasimare altrui;
Ma con la speme accesa e dolor vero
Aprir dentro, passando oltra la gonna
I falli nostri a solo a sol con lui".
The underlined words, "passando oltra la gonna," literally, "passing beyond the gown," though the sense appears to be unmistakable, are yet sufficiently obscure and unobvious, and the phrase sufficiently far-fetched, to lead to the suspicion of a wish on the part of the writer in some degree to veil her meaning. "That in the captain's but a choleric word, which in the soldier is foul blasphemy." And the high-born Colonna lady, the intimate friend of cardinals and princes, might write much with impunity which would have been perilous to less lofty heads. But the sentiment in this very remarkable passage implies an attack on one of Rome's tenderest and sorest points. In English the lines run thus:
"Confiding in His just and gentle sway
We should not dare, like Adam and his wife,
On other's backs our proper blame to lay;
But with new-kindled hope and unfeigned grief,
Passing by priestly robes, lay bare within
To him alone the secret of our sin."
Again, in the conclusion of another sonnet, in which she has been speaking of the benefits of Christ's death, and of the necessity of a "soprannatural divina fede" for the receiving of them, she writes in language very similar to that of many a modern advocate of "free inspiration," and which must have been distasteful to the erudite clergy of the dominant hierarchy, as follow:
"Que' ch'avrà sol in lui le luci fisse,
Non que' ch'intese meglio, o che più lesse
Volumi in terra, in ciel sarà beato.
In carta questa legge non si scrisse;
Ma con la stampa sua nel cor purgato
Col foco dell'amor Gesù l'impresse."
In English:
"He who hath fixed on Christ alone his eyes,
Not he who best hath understood, or read
Most earthly volumes, shall Heaven's bliss attain.
For not on paper did He write His law,
But printed it on expurgated hearts
Stamped with the fire of Jesus' holy love."
In another remarkable sonnet, she gives expression to the prevailing feeling of the pressing necessity for Church reform, joined to a marked declaration of belief in the doctrine of Papal infallibility; a doctrine, which by its tenacious hold on the Italian mind, contributed mainly to extinguish the sudden straw-blaze of reforming tendencies throughout Italy. The lines run as follows:—
"Veggio d'alga e di fango omai sì carca,
Pietro, la rete tua, che se qualche onda
Di fuor l'assale o intorno circonda,
Potria spezzarsi, e a rischio andar la barca;
La qual, non come suol leggiera e scarca,
Sovra 'l turbato mar corre a seconda,
Ma in poppa e 'n prora, all'una e all'altra sponda
E' grave sì ch'a gran periglio varca.
Il tuo buon successor, ch'alta cagione
Direttamente elesse, e cor e mano
Move sovente per condurla a porto.
Ma contra il voler suo ratto s'oppone
L'altrui malizia; onde ciascun s'è accorto,
Ch'egli senza 'l tuo aiuto adopra in vano."
Which may be thus read in English blank verse, giving not very poetically, but with tolerable fidelity, the sense of the original:—
"With mud and weedy growth so foul I see
Thy net, O Peter, that should any wave
Assail it from without or trouble it,
It might be rended, and so risk the ship.
For now thy bark, no more, as erst, skims light
With favoring breezes o'er the troubled sea;
But labours burthen'd so from stem to stern,
That danger menaces the course it steers.
Thy good successor, by direct decree
Of providence elect, with heart and hand
Assiduous strives to bring it to the port.
But spite his striving his intent is foiled
By other's evil. So that all have seen
That without aid from thee, he strives in vain."
The lofty pretensions of the Bishop of Rome, which our poetess, with all her reforming aspirations, goes out of her way to declare and maintain in the phrase of the above sonnet marked by Italics, were dear to the hearts of Italians. It may be, that an antagonistic bias, arising from feelings equally beyond the limits of the religious question, helped to add acrimony to the attacks of the transalpine reformers. But there can be no doubt, that Italian self-love was active in rendering distasteful to Italians a doctrine, whose effect would be to pull down Rome from her position as capital of the Christian world, and no longer permit an Italian eclesiastic to issue his lofty decrees "Urbi et Orbi." And those best acquainted with the Italian mind of that period, as evidenced by its literature, and illustrated by its still-existing tendencies and prejudices, will most appreciate the extent to which such feelings unquestionably operated in preventing the reformation from taking root, and bearing fruit in Italy.
The readers of the foregoing sonnets, even those who are familiar with the language of the original, will probably have wondered at the greatness of the poetical reputation, which was built out of such materials. It is but fair, however, to the poetess to state, that the citations have been selected, rather with the view of decisively proving these Protestant leanings of Vittoria, which have been so eagerly denied, and of illustrating the tone of Italian Protestant feeling at that period, than of presenting the most favourable specimens of her poetry. However fitly devotional feeling may be clothed in poetry of the highest order, controversial divinity is not a happy subject for verse. And Vittoria, on the comparatively rare occasions, when she permits herself to escape from the consideration of disputed dogma, can make a nearer approach to true poetry of thought and expression.
In the following sonnet, it is curious to observe how the expression of the grand and simple sentiment of perfect trust in the will and intentions of the omnipotent Creator, which, in the first eight lines, rises into something like poetry, becomes flattened and debased into the most prosaic doggrel, as soon as the author, recollecting the controversies raging round her on the subject, bethinks her of the necessity of duly defining the theological virtue of "Faith," as being of that sort fit for the production of works.
"Deh! mandi oggi, Signor, novello e chiaro
Raggio al mio cor di quella ardente fede,
Ch'opra sol per amor, non per mercede,
Onde ugualmente il tuo voler gli è caro!
Dal dolce fonte tuo pensa che amaro
Nascer non possa, anzi riceve e crede
Per buon quant'ode, e per bel quanto vede,
Per largo il ciel, quand'ei si mostra avaro.
Se chieder grazia all'umil servo lice,
Questa fede vorrei, che illustra, accende,
E pasce l'alma sol di lume vero.
Con questa in parte il gran valor s'intende,
Che pianta e ferma in noi l'alta radice,
Qual rende i frutti a lui tutti d'amore."
Which may be thus rendered:—
"Grant to my heart a pure fresh ray, O Lord,
Of that bright ardent faith, which makes thy will
Its best-loved law, and seeks it to fulfil
For love alone, not looking for reward;—
That faith, which deems no ill can come from thee,
But humbly trusts, that, rightly understood
All that meets eye or ear is fair and good,
And Heaven's love oft in prayers refused can see.
And if thy handmaid might prefer a suit,
I would that faith possess that fires the heart,
And feeds the soul with the true light alone;
I mean hereby, that mighty power in part,
Which plants and strengthens in us the deep root,
From which all fruits of love for him are grown."
In the following sonnet, which is one of several dictated by the same mood of feeling, the more subjective tone of her thought affords us an autobiographical glimpse of her state of mind on religious subjects. We find, that the new tenets which she had imbibed had failed to give her peace of mind. That comfortable security, and undoubting satisfied tranquillity, procured for the mass of her orthodox contemporaries, by the due performance of their fasts, vigils, penitences, &c., was not attained for Vittoria by a creed, which required her, as she here tells us, to stifle the suggestions of her reason.
"Se con l'armi celesti avess'io vinto
Me stessa, i sensi, e la ragione umana,
Andrei con altro spirto alta e lontana
Dal mondo, e dal suo onor falso dipinto.
Sull'ali della fede il pensier cinto
Di speme, omai non più caduca e vana,
Sarebbe fuor di questa valle insana
Da verace virtute alzato e spinto.
Ben ho già, fermo l'occhio al miglior fine
Dei nostro corso; ma non volo ancora
Per lo destro sentier salda e leggiera.
Veggio i segni del sol, scorgo l'aurora;
Ma per li sacri giri alle divine
Stanze non entro in quella luce vera."
Englished as follows:—
"Had I with heavenly arms 'gainst self and sense
And human reason waged successful war,
Then with a different spirit soaring far
I'd fly the world's vain glory and pretence.
Then soaring thought on wings of faith might rise
Armed by a hope no longer vain or frail
Far from the madness of this earthly vale,
Led by true virtue towards its native skies.
That better aim is ever in my sight,
Of man's existence; but not yet 'tis mine
To speed sure-footed on the happy way.
Signs of the rising sun and coming day
I see; but enter not the courts divine
Whose holy portals lead to perfect light."
A touch of similar feeling may be observed also in the following sonnet, united with more of poetical feeling and expression. Indeed, this sonnet may be offered as a specimen of the author's happiest efforts.—
"Fra gelo e nebbia corro a Dio sovente
Per foco e lume, onde i ghiacci disciolti
Sieno, e gli ombrosi veli aperti e tolti
Dalla divina luce e fiamma ardente.
E se fredda ed oscura è ancor la mente,
Pur son tutti i pensieri al ciel rivolti;
E par che dentro in gran silenzio ascolti
Un suon, che sol nell'anima si sente;
E dice; Non temer, chè venne al mondo
Gesù d'eterno ben largo ampio mare,
Per far leggiero ogni gravoso pondo.
Sempre son l'onde sue più dolci e chiare
A chi con umil barca in quel gran fondo
Dell'alta sua bontà si lascia andare."
If the reader, who is able to form a judgment of the poetical merit of this sonnet only from the subjoined translation, should fail to find in it anything to justify the opinion that has been expressed of it, he is entreated to believe that the fault is that of the translator, who can promise only that the sense has been faithfully rendered:—
"Ofttimes to God through frost and cloud I go
For light and warmth to break my icy chain,
And pierce and rend my veils of doubt in twain
With his divinest love, and radiant glow.
And if my soul sit cold and dark below
Yet all her longings fixed on heaven remain;
And seems she 'mid deep silence to a strain
To listen, which the soul alone can know,—
Saying, Fear nought! for Jesus came on earth,—
Jesus of endless joys the wide deep sea,
To ease each heavy load of mortal birth.
His waters ever clearest, sweetest be
To him, who in a lonely bark drifts forth,
On his great deeps of goodness trustfully."
It will probably be admitted, that the foregoing extracts from Vittoria Colonna's poetry, if they do not suffice to give the outline of the entire fabric of her religious faith, yet abundantly prove, that she must be classed among the Protestant and reforming party of her age and country, rather than among the orthodox Catholics, their opponents. The passages quoted all bear, more or less directly, on a few special points of doctrine, as do also the great bulk of her religious poems. But these points are precisely those on which the reforming movement was based, the cardinal points of difference between the parties. They involve exactly those doctrines which Rome, on mature examination and reflection, rightly found to be fatally incompatible with her system. For the dominant party at Trent were assuredly wiser in their generation than such children of light, as the good Contarini, who dreamed that a purified Papacy was possible, and that Rome might still be Rome, after its creed had been thus modified. Caraffa and Ghislieri, Popes Paul IV. and Pius V., and their inquisitors knew very clearly better.
It is, of course, natural enough, that the points of doctrine then new and disputed, the points respecting which the poetess differed from the majority of the world around her, and which must have been the subject of her special meditation, should occupy also the most prominent position in her writings. Yet it is remarkable, that in so large a mass of poetry on exclusively religious themes, there should be found hardly a thought or sentiment on topics of practical morality. The title of "Rime sacre e morali," prefixed by Visconti to this portion of Vittoria's writings, is wholly a misnomer. If these sonnets furnish the materials for forming a tolerably accurate notion of her scheme of theology, our estimate of her views of morality must be sought elsewhere.
There is every reason to feel satisfied, both from such records as we have of her life, and from the perfectly agreeing testimony of her contemporaries, that the tenour of her own life and conduct was not only blameless, but marked by the consistent exercise of many noble virtues. But, much as we hear from the lamentations of preachers of the habitual tendency of human conduct to fall short of human professions, the opposite phenomena exhibited by men, whose intuitive moral sense is superior to the teaching derivable from their creed, is perhaps quite as common. That band of eminent men, who were especially known as the maintainers and defenders of the peculiar tenets held by Vittoria, were unquestionably in all respects the best and noblest of their age and country. Yet their creed was assuredly an immoral one. And in the rare passages of our poetess's writings, in which a glimpse of moral theory can be discerned, the low and unenlightened nature of it is such, as to prove, that the heaven-taught heart reached purer heights than the creed-taught intelligence could attain.
What could be worse, for instance, than the morality of the following conclusion of a sonnet, in which she has been lamenting the blindness of those who sacrifice eternal bliss for the sake of worldly pleasures.
She writes:—
"Poichè 'l mal per natura non gli annoia,
E del ben per ragion piacer non hanno,
Abbian almen di Dio giusto timore."
In English:—
"Since evil by its nature pains them not,
Nor good for its own proper sake delights,
Let them at least have righteous fear of God."
She appears incapable of understanding, that no fear of God could in any wise avail to improve or profit him, who has no aversion from evil, and no love for good. She does not perceive, that to inculcate so godless a fear of God, is to make the Creator a mere bugbear for police purposes; and that a theory of Deity constructed on this basis would become a degrading demonolatry!
Vittoria Colonna has survived in men's memory as a poetess. But she is far more interesting to the historical student, who would obtain a full understanding of that wonderful sixteenth century, as a Protestant. Her highly gifted and richly cultivated intelligence, her great social position, and above all, her close intimacy with the eminent men who strove to set on foot an Italian reformation which should not be incompatible with the Papacy, make the illustration of her religious opinions a matter of no slight historical interest. And the bulk of the citations from her works has accordingly been selected with this view. But it is fair to her reputation to give one sonnet at least, chosen for no other reason than its merit.
The following, written apparently on the anniversary of our Saviour's crucifixion, is certainly one of the best, if not the best in the collection:
"Gli angeli eletti al gran bene infinito
Braman oggi soffrir penosa morte,
Acciò nella celeste empirea corte
Non sia più il servo, che il signor, gradito.
Piange l'antica madre il gusto ardito
Ch'a' figli suoi del ciel chiuse le porte;
E che due man piagate or sieno scorte
Da ridurne al cammin per lei smarrito.
Asconde il sol la sua fulgente chioma;
Spezzansi i sassi vivi; apronsi i monti;
Trema la terra e 'l ciel; turbansi l'acque;
Piangon gli spirti, al nostro mal si pronti,
Delle catene lor l'aggiunta soma.
L'uomo non piange, e pur piangendo nacque!"
Of which the following is an inadequate but tolerably faithful translation:
"The angels to eternal bliss preferred,
Long on this day a painful death to die,
Lest in the heavenly mansions of the sky
The servant be more favoured than his Lord.
Man's ancient mother weeps the deed, this day
That shut the gates of heaven against her race,
Weeps the two piercèd hands, whose work of grace,
Refinds the path, from which she made man stray.
The sun his ever-burning ray doth veil;
Earth and sky tremble; ocean quakes amain,
And mountains gape, and living rocks are torn.
The fiends, on watch for human evil, wail
The added weight of their restraining chain.
Man only weeps not; yet was weeping born."
As the previous extracts from the works of Vittoria have been, as has been stated, selected principally with a view to prove her Protestantism, it is fair to observe, that there are several sonnets addressed to the Virgin Mary, and some to various Saints, from which (though they are wholly free from any allusion to the grosser superstitions that Rome encourages her faithful disciples to connect with these personages), it is yet clear that the writer believed in the value of saintly intercession at the throne of grace. It is also worth remarking, that she nowhere betrays the smallest consciousness that she is differing in opinion from the recognised tenets of the Church, unless it be found, as was before suggested, in an occasional obscurity of phrase, which seems open to the suspicion of having been intentional. The great majority of these poems, however, were in all probability composed before the Church had entered on her new career of persecution. And as regards the ever-recurring leading point of "justification by grace," it was impossible to say exactly how far it was orthodox to go in the statement of this tenet, until Rome had finally decided her doctrine by the decrees of the Council of Trent.
One other remark, which will hardly fail to suggest itself to the modern reader of Vittoria's poetry, may be added respecting these once celebrated and enthusiastically received works. There is not to be discovered throughout the whole of them one spark of Italian, or patriotic feeling. The absence of any such, must, undoubtedly, be regarded only as a confirmation of the fact asserted in a previous chapter, that no sentiment of the kind was then known in Italy. In that earlier portion of her works, which is occupied almost exclusively with her husband's praises, it is hardly possible that the expression of such feelings should have found no place, had they existed in her mind. But it is a curious instance of the degree to which even the better intellects of an age are blinded by, and made subservient to, the tone of feeling and habits of thought prevalent around them, that it never occurs to this pure and lofty-minded Vittoria, in celebrating the prowess of her hero, to give a thought to the cause for which he was drawing the sword. To prevail, to be the stronger, "to take great cities," "to rout the foe," appears to be all that her beau ideal of heroism required.
Wrong is done, and the strong-handed doer of it admired, the moral sense is blunted by the cowardly worship of success, and might takes from right the suffrages of the feeble, in the nineteenth as in the sixteenth century. But the contemplation of the total absence from such a mind as that of Vittoria Colonna, of all recognition of a right and a wrong in such matters, furnishes highly instructive evidence of the reality of the moral progress mankind has achieved.