Vittoria's Married Life—Pescara goes where Glory Waits Him—The Rout of Ravenna—Pescara in Prison turns Penman—His "Dialogo di amore"—Vittoria's Poetical Epistle to her Husband—Vittoria and the Marchese del Vasto—Three Cart-loads of Ladies, and three Mule-loads of Sweetmeats—Character of Pescara—His Cruelty—Anecdote in Proof of it.
The two years which followed, Vittoria always looked back on as the only truly happy portion of her life, and many are the passages of her poems which recall their tranquil and unbroken felicity, a sweet dream, from which she was too soon to be awakened to the ordinary vicissitudes of sixteenth century life. The happiest years of individuals, as of nations, afford least materials for history, and of Vittoria's two years of honeymoon in Ischia, the whole record is that she was happy; and she wrote no poetry.
Early in 1512 came the waking from this pleasant dream. Pescara was, of course, to be a soldier. In his position not to have begun to fight, as soon as his beard was fairly grown, would have been little short of infamy. So he set forth to join the army in Lombardy, in company with his father-in-law, Fabrizio. Of course there was an army in Lombardy, where towns were being besieged, fields laid waste, and glory to be had for the winning. There always was, in those good old times of course. French, Swiss, Spanish, German, Venetian, Papal, and Milanese troops were fighting each other, with changes of alliances and sides almost as frequent and as confusing as the changing of partners in a cotillion. It is troublesome and not of much consequence to understand who were just then friends and who foes, and what were the exact objects all the different parties had in cutting each other's throats. And it will be quite sufficient to say that the Duchy of Milan was at that moment the chief bone of contention,—that the principal pretenders to the glory of "annexing" it were the King of France and the King of Spain, who was now also King of Naples—that the Pope was just then allied with Spain, and the Venetians with France, and that Italy generally was preparing for the destiny she has worked out for herself, by the constant endeavour to avail herself of the destroying presence of these foreign troops, and their rivalries, for the prosecution of her internal quarrels, and the attainment of equally low and yet more unjustifiable, because fratricidal aims.
Pescara, as a Neapolitan subject of the King of Spain, joined the army opposed to the French, under the walls of Ravenna. Vittoria, though her subsequent writings prove how much the parting cost her, showed how thoroughly she was a soldier's daughter and a soldier's wife. There had been some suggestion, it seems, that the marquis, as the sole surviving scion of an ancient and noble name, might fairly consider it his duty not to subject it to the risk of extinction by exposing his life in the field. The young soldier, however, wholly refused to listen to such counsels; and his wife strongly supported his view of the course honour counselled him to follow, by advice, which a young and beautiful wife, who was to remain surrounded by a brilliant circle of wits and poets, would scarcely have ventured on offering, had she not felt a perfect security from all danger of being misinterpreted, equally creditable to wife and husband.
So the young soldier took for a motto on his shield, the well-known "With this, or on this;" and having expended, we are told, much care and cash on a magnificent equipment, was at once appointed to the command of the light cavalry. The knowledge and experience necessary for such a position comes by nature, it must be supposed, to the descendant of a long line of noble knights, as surely as pointing does to the scion of a race of pointers. But the young warrior's episcopal[168] biographer cursorily mentions, that certain old and trusty veterans, who had obtained their military science by experience, and not by right of birth, were attached to his person.
The general of light cavalry arrived at the camp at an unfortunate moment. The total defeat of the United Spanish and Papal army by the French before Ravenna on the 9th of April, 1512, immediately followed. Fabrizio Colonna and his son-in-law were both made prisoners. The latter had been left for dead on the field, covered with wounds, which subsequently gave occasion to Isabella of Aragon, Duchess of Milan, to say, "I would fain be a man, Signor Marchese, if it were only to receive such wounds as yours in the face, that I might see if they would become me as they do you."[169]
Pescara, when picked up from the field, was carried a prisoner to Milan, where, by means of the good offices and powerful influence of Trivulzio, who had married Beatrice d'Avalos, Pescara's aunt, and was now a general in the service of France, his detention was rendered as little disagreeable as possible, and he was, as soon as his wounds were healed, permitted to ransom himself for six thousand ducats.[170]
During his short confinement he amused his leisure by composing a "Dialogo d'Amore," which he inscribed and sent to his wife. The Bishop of Como, his biographer, testifies that this work was exceedingly pleasant reading—"summæ jucunditatis"—and full of grave and witty conceits and thoughts. The world, however, has seen fit to allow this treasury of wit to perish, notwithstanding the episcopal criticism. And in all probability the world was in the right. If, indeed, the literary general of light horse had written his own real thoughts and speculations on love, there might have been some interest in seeing a sixteenth century soldier's views on that ever interesting subject. But we may be quite certain, that the Dialogo, "stuffed full," as Giovio says, "of grave sentiments and exquisite conceits," contained only a reproduction of the classic banalities, and ingenious absurdities, which were current in the fashionable literature of the day. Yet it must be admitted, that the employment of his leisure in any such manner, and still more, the dedication of his labours on such a subject to his wife, are indications of an amount of cultivation and right feeling, which would hardly have been found, either one or the other, among many of the preux chevaliers, his brothers-in-arms.
Meanwhile, Vittoria, on her part, wrote a poetical epistle to her husband in prison, which is the first production of her pen that has reached us. It is written in Dante's "terza rima," and consists of 112 lines. Both Italian and French critics have expressed highly favourable judgments of this little poem. And it may be admitted that the lines are elegant, classical, well-turned, and ingenious. But those who seek something more than all this in poetry—who look for passion, high and noble thoughts, happy illustration or deep analysis of human feeling, will find nothing of the sort. That Vittoria did feel acutely her husband's misfortune, and bitterly regret his absence from her, there is every reason to believe. But she is unable to express these sentiments naturally or forcibly. She, in all probability made no attempt to do so, judging from the models on which she had been taught to form her style, that when she sat down to make poetry, the aim to be kept in view was a very different one. Hence we have talk of Hector and Achilles, Eolus, Sirens, and marine deities, Pompey, Cornelia, Cato, Martia, and Mithridates—a parade of all the treasures of the schoolroom. The pangs of the wife left lonely in her home are in neatly antithetical phrase contrasted with the dangers and toils of the husband in the field. Then we have a punning allusion to her own name:—
"Se Vittoria volevi, io t'era appresso;
Ma tu, lasciando me, lasciasti lei."
"If victory was thy desire, I was by thy side; but in leaving me, thou didst leave also her."
The best, because the simplest and most natural lines are the following:—
"Seguir si deve il sposo e dentro e fora;
E, s'egli pate affanno, ella patisca;
Se lieto, lieta; e se vi more, mora.
A quel che arrisca l'un, l'altro s'arrisca;
Eguali in vita, eguali siano in morte;
E ciò che avviene a lui, a lei sortisca."
"At home or abroad the wife should follow her husband; and if he suffers distress, she should suffer; should be joyful if he is joyful, and should die if he dies. The danger confronted by the one should be confronted by the other; equals in life, they should be equal in death; and that which happens to him should be her lot also,"—a mere farrago of rhetorical prettinesses, as cold as a school-boy's prize verses, and unanimated by a spark of genuine feeling; although the writer was as truly affectionate a wife as ever man had.
But, although all that Vittoria wrote, and all that the vast number of the poets and poetesses, her contemporaries, wrote, was obnoxious to the same remarks; still it will be seen, that in the maturity of her powers she could do better than this. Her religious poetry may be said, generally, to be much superior to her love verses; either because they were composed when her mind had grown to its full stature, or, as seems probable, because, model wife as she was, the subject took a deeper hold of her mind, and stirred the depths of her heart more powerfully.
Very shortly after the despatch of her poetical epistle, Vittoria was overjoyed by the unexpected return of her husband. And again for a brief interval she considered herself the happiest of women.
One circumstance indeed there was to mar the entirety of her contentment. She was still childless. And it seems, that the science of that day, ignorantly dogmatical, undertook to assert, that she would continue to be so. Both husband and wife seem to have submitted to the award undoubtingly; and the dictum, however rashly uttered, was justified by the event.
Under these circumstances, Vittoria undertook the education of Alphonso d'Avalos, Marchese del Vasto, a young cousin of her husband's. The task was a sufficiently arduous one;[171] for the boy, beautiful, it is recorded, as an angel, and endowed with excellent capabilities of all sorts, was so wholly unbroken, and of so violent and ungovernable a disposition, that he had been the despair and terror of all who had hitherto attempted to educate him. Vittoria thought that she saw in the wild and passionate boy the materials of a worthy man. The event fully justified her judgment, and proved the really superior powers of mind she must have brought to the accomplishment of it. Alphonso became a soldier of renown, not untinctured by those literary tastes which so remarkably distinguished his gentle preceptress. A strong and lasting affection grew between them; and Vittoria, proud with good reason of her work, was often wont to say, that the reproach of being childless ought not to be deemed applicable to her whose moral nature might well be said to have brought forth that of her pupil.
Pescara's visit to Naples was a very short one. Early in 1513, we find him again with the armies in Lombardy, taking part in most of the mischief and glory going.
Under the date of July the 4th in that year, the gossiping Naples weaver, who rarely fails to note the doings of the Neapolitan General of light horse with infinite pride and admiration, has preserved for us a rather picturesque little bit of Ariosto-flavoured camp life. The Spanish army, under Don Raymond di Cardona, who, on Consalvo's death had succeeded him as Viceroy of Naples, was on its march from Peshiera to Verona, when a messenger from the beautiful young Marchioness of Mantua came to the General-in-chief to say that she wished to see those celebrated Spanish troops, who were marching under his banners, and was then waiting their passage in the vineyards of the Castle of Villafranca. "A certain gentle lady of Mantua, named the Signora Laura, with whom Don Raymond was in love," writes the weaver, was with the Marchioness; and much pleased was he at the message. So word was passed to the various captains; and when the column reached the spot, where the Marchioness with a great number of ladies and cavaliers of Mantua were reposing in the shade of the vines, "Don Ferrante d'Alarcone, as Chief Marshal, with his bâton in his hand made all the troops halt, and place themselves in order of battle; and the Signor Marchese di Pescara marched at the head of the infantry, with a pair of breeches cut after the Swiss fashion, and a plume on his head, and a two-handed sword in his hand, and all the standards were unfurled." And when the Marchioness from among the vines looking down through the chequered shade on to the road saw that all was in order, she and her ladies got into three carts, so that there came out of the vineyard, says Passeri, three cartsful of ladies surrounded by the cavaliers of Mantua on horseback. There they came very slowly jolting over the cultivated ground, those three heavy bullock carts, with their primitive wheels of one solid circular piece of wood, and their huge cream-coloured oxen with enormous horned heads gaily decorated, as Leopold Robert shows them to us, and the brilliant tinted dresses of the laughing bevy drawn by them, glancing gaudily in the sunlight among the soberer colouring of the vineyards in their summer pride of green. Then Don Raymond and Pescara advanced to the carts, and handed from them the Marchioness and Donna Laura, who mounted on handsomely equipped jennets prepared for them. It does not appear that this attention was extended to any of the other ladies, who must therefore be supposed to have remained sitting in the carts, while the Marchioness and the favoured Donna Laura rode through the ranks "con multa festa et gloria." And when she had seen all, with much pleasure and admiration, on a given signal three mules loaded with sweetmeats were led forward, with which the gay Marchioness "regaled all the captains." Then all the company with much content,—excepting, it is to be feared, the soldiers, who had to stand at arms under the July sun, while their officers were eating sugar-plums, and Don Raymond and Donna Laura were saying and swallowing sweet things,—took leave of each other, the army pursuing its march towards Verona, and the Marchioness and her ladies returning in their carts to Mantua.[172]
The other scattered notices of Pescara's doings during his campaign are of a less festive character. They show him to have been a hard and cruel man, reckless of human suffering, and eminent even among his fellow captains for the ferocity, and often wantonness of the ravages and wide-spread misery he wrought. On more than one occasion, Passeri winds up his narrative of some destruction of a town, or desolation of a fertile and cultivated district, by the remark, that the cruelty committed was worse than Turks would have been guilty of. Yet this same Passeri, an artisan, belonging to a class which had all to suffer and nothing to gain from such atrocities, writes, when chronicling this same Pescara's[173] death, that "on that day died, I would have you know, gentle readers, the most glorious and honoured captain that the world has seen for the last hundred years." It is curious to observe how wholly the popular mind was enslaved to the prejudices and conventional absurdities of the ruling classes; how entirely the feelings of the masses were in unison with those of the caste which oppressed them; how little reason they conceived they had to complain under the most intolerable treatment, and how little hope of progressive amelioration there was from the action of native-bred public opinion.
Bishop Giovio, the biographer and panegyrist of Pescara admits, that he was a stern and cruelly-severe disciplinarian; and mentions an anecdote in proof of it. A soldier was brought before him for having entered a house en route for the purpose of plundering. The General ordered that his ears should be cut off. The culprit remonstrated; and begged, with many entreaties, to be spared so dishonouring and ignominious a punishment, saying in his distress that death itself would have been more tolerable.
"The grace demanded is granted," rejoined Pescara instantly, with grim pleasantry. "Take this soldier, who is so careful of his honour, and hang him to that tree!"
In vain did the wretch beg not to be taken at his word so cruelly, no entreaties sufficed to change the savage decree.
It will be well that we should bear in mind these indications of the essential nature of this great and glorious captain, who had studied those ingenuous arts which soften the character, and do not suffer men to be ferocious, as the poet assures us, and who could write dialogues on love, when we come to consider the curious phenomenon of Vittoria's unmeasured love for her husband.
Society in Ischia.—Bernardo Tasso's sonnet thereon.—How a wedding was celebrated at Naples in 1517.—A Sixteenth Century trousseau.—Sack of Genoa.—The Battle of Pavia.—Italian conspiracy against Charles V.—Character of Pescara.—Honour in 1525.—Pescara's treason.—Vittoria's sentiments on the occasion.—Pescara's infamy.—Patriotism unknown in Italy in the Sixteenth Century.—No such sentiment to be found in the writings of Vittoria.—Evil influence of her husband's character on her mind.—Death of Pescara.
Meanwhile, Vittoria continued her peaceful and quiet life in Ischia, lonely indeed, as far as the dearest affections of her heart were concerned, but cheered and improved by the society of that select knot of poets and men of learning, whom Costanza di Francavilla, not unassisted by the presence of Vittoria, attracted to her little island court. We find Musefilo, Filocalo, Giovio, Minturno, Cariteo, Rota, Sanazzaro, and Bernardo Tasso, among those who helped to make this remote rock celebrated throughout Europe at that day, as one of the best loved haunts of Apollo and the Muses,—to speak in the phraseology of the time.
Many among them have left passages recording the happy days spent on that fortunate island. The social circle was doubtless a charming and brilliant one, and the more so, as contrasted with the general tone and habits of the society of the period. But the style of the following sonnet by Bernardo Tasso, selected by Visconti as a specimen of the various effusions by members of the select circle upon the subject, while it accurately illustrates the prevailing modes of thought and diction of that period, will hardly fail to suggest the idea of a comparison—mutatis mutandis—between this company of sixteenth century choice spirits, and that which assembled, and provoked so severe a lashing in the memorable Hôtel de Rambouillet, more than an hundred years afterwards. But an Italian Molière is as wholly impossible in the nature of things, as a French Dante. And the sixteenth century swarm of Petrarchists and Classicists have, unlike true prophets, found honour in their own country.
Gentle Bernardo celebrates in this wise these famed Ischia meetings:—
"Superbo scoglio, altero e bel ricetto
Di tanti chiari eroi, d'imperadori,
Onde raggi di gloria escono fuori,
Ch'ogni altro lume fan scuro e negletto;
Se per vera virtute al ben perfetto
Salir si puote ed agli eterni onori,
Queste più d'altre degne alme e migliori
V'andran, che chiudi nel petroso petto.
Il lume e in te dell'armi; in te s'asconde
Casta beltà, valore e cortesia,
Quanta mai vide il tempo, o diede il cielo.
Ti sian secondi i fati, e il vento e l'onde
Rendanti onore, e l'aria tua natia
Abbia sempre temprato il caldo e il gelo!"
Which may be thus "done into English," for the sake of giving those unacquainted with the language of the original, some tolerably accurate idea of Messer Bernardo's euphuisms.
"Proud rock! the loved retreat of such a band
Of earth's best, noblest, greatest, that their light
Pales other glories to the dazzled sight,
And like a beacon shines throughout the land,
If truest worth can reach the perfect state,
And man may hope to merit heavenly rest,
Those whom thou harbourest in thy rocky breast,
First in the race will reach the heavenly gate.
Glory of martial deeds is thine. In thee,
Brightest the world e'er saw, or heaven gave,
Dwell chastest beauty, worth, and courtesy!
Well be it with thee! May both wind and sea
Respect thee: and thy native air and wave
Be temper'd ever by a genial sky!"
Such is the poetry of one of the brightest stars of the Ischian galaxy; and the incredulous reader is assured that it would be easy to find much worse sonnets by the ream, among the extant productions of the crowd, who were afflicted with the prevalent Petrarch mania of that epoch. The statistical returns of the ravages of this malady, given by the poetical registrar-general Crescimbeni, would astonish even Paternoster Row at the present day. But Vittoria Colonna, though a great number of her sonnets do not rise above the level of Bernardo Tasso in the foregoing specimen, could occasionally, especially in her later years, reach a much higher tone, as will, it is hoped, be shown in a future chapter.
It has been suggested, that the religious feelings which inspired her latter poetry, were, though not more genuine, yet more absorbing than the conjugal love, which is almost exclusively the theme of her earlier efforts. And it is at all events certain, that the former so engrossed her whole mind, as to sever her in a great measure from the world. This the so fervently sung pangs of separation from her husband do not appear to have effected.
Besides the constant society of the select few, of whom mention has been made, there were occasionally gayer doings in Ischia; as when in February, 1517, a brilliant festival was held there on occasion of the marriage[174] of Don Alfonso Piccolomini with Costanza d'Avalos, the sister of Vittoria's pupil, the Marchese del Vasto. And occasionally the gentle poetess, necessitated probably by the exigences of her social position, would leave her beloved Ischia for brilliant and noisy Naples. And when these necessities did occur, it is recorded, that the magnificence and pomp, with which the beautiful young wife made her appearance among her fellow nobles, was such, as few of them could equal, and none surpass.
One of these occasions is worth specially noting, for the sake of the detailed account, which has been preserved of it by that humble and observant chronicler, our friend the weaver. For it contains traits and indications, curiously and amusingly illustrative of the life and manners of that time in Naples.
It was December 6, 1517, and high festival was to be held for the marriage of the King of Poland with Donna Bona Sforza. The guests comprised the whole nobility of Naples; and worthy Passeri begins his account with an accurate Morning-Post-like statement of the costume of each in the order of their arrival at the church. Doubtless the eager weaver, a shrewd judge of such matters, had pushed himself into a good place in the front row of the crowd, who lined the roadway of the noble guests, and might have been seen with tablets in hand, taking notes with busy excitement to be transferred to his journal at night. One after another the high-sounding titles, very many of them Spanish, are set forth, as they swept by, brilliant with gold and every brightest tint of costly fabric, and are swallowed up by the dark nave of the huge church.
It is not necessary to attempt a translation of all the changes Master Passeri rings on velvet, satin, gold, brocade, and costly furs. Merely noting that the bride's dress is estimated to be worth seven thousand ducats, we let them all pass on till "The illustrious lady the Signora Vittoria, Marchioness of Pescara," arrives. She is mounted on a black and white jennet, with housings of crimson velvet, fringed with gold. She is accompanied by six ladies in waiting, uniformly clad in azure damask, and attended by six grooms on foot, with cloaks and jerkins of blue and yellow satin. The lady herself wears a robe of brocaded crimson velvet, with large branches of beaten gold on it. She has a crimson satin cap, with a head-dress of wrought gold above it; and around her waist is a girdle of beaten gold.
Some of the assembled company, one might think, would require their girdles to be of some more yielding material. For, on quitting the church, they sat down to table at six in the evening, "and began to eat," says Passeri, "and left off at five in the morning!" The order and materials of this more than Homeric feast, are handed down to posterity with scrupulous accuracy by our chronicler. But the stupendous menu, in its entirety, would be almost as intolerable to the reader, as having to sit out the eleven hours orgy in person. A few particulars culled here and there, partly because they are curious, and partly because the meaning of the words is more intelligible than is the case in many instances, even to a Neapolitan of the present day, will amply suffice.
There were twenty-seven courses. Then the quantity of sugar used, was made, as we have noticed on a former occasion at Rome, a special subject of glorification. There was "putaggio Ungarese," Hungary soup, stuffed peacocks, quince pies, and thrushes served with bergamottes, which were not pears, as an English reader might perhaps suppose, but small highly scented citrons, of the kind, from which the perfume of that name is, or is supposed, to be made. With the "bianco mangiare," our familiarity with "blanc-mange," seems at first sight to make us more at home. But we are thrown out by finding, that it was eaten in 1517, "con mostarda." The dishes of pastry seem according to our habits, much out of proportion to the rest. Sweet preparations also, whether of animal or vegetable composition, seem greatly to preponderate. At the queen's own table, a fountain gave forth odoriferous waters. But, to all the guests, perfumed water for the hands was served at the removal of the first tables.
"And thus having passed this first day with infinite delight," the whole party passed a second, and a third, in the same manner!
That eleven hours should have been spent in eating and drinking is of course simply impossible. Large interludes must be supposed to have been occupied by music, and very likely by recitations of poetry. On the first day a considerable time must have been taken up by a part of the ceremonial, which was doubtless far more interesting to the fairer half of the assembly than the endless gormandising. This was a display, article by article, of the bride's trousseau, which took place while the guests were still sitting at table. Passeri minutely catalogues the whole exhibition. The list begins with twenty pairs of sheets, all embroidered with different coloured silks; and seven pairs of sheets, "d'olanda," of Dutch linen, fringed with gold. Then come an hundred and five shirts of Dutch linen, all embroidered with silk of divers colours; and seventeen shirts of cambric, "cambraia," with a selvage of gold, as a present for the royal bridegroom. There were twelve head-dresses, and six ditto, ornamented with gold and coloured silk, for his majesty; an hundred and twenty handkerchiefs, embroidered with gold cord; ninety-six caps, ornamented with gold and silk, of which thirty-six were for the king. There were eighteen counterpanes of silk, one of which was wrought "alla moresca;" forty-eight sets of stamped leather hangings, thirty-six others "of the ostrich egg pattern," sixteen "of the artichoke pattern," and thirty-six of silk tapestry. Beside all these hundred sets, there were eight large pieces of Flanders arras, "con seta assai." They represented the seven works of mercy, and were valued at a thousand golden ducats. There was a litter, carved and gilt, with its four mattrasses of blue embroidered satin. Passing on to the plate department, we have a silver waiter, two large pitchers wrought in relief, three basins, an ewer, and six large cups, twelve large plates, twelve ditto of second size, and twenty-four soup-plates made "alla franzese," a massive salt-cellar, a box of napkins, spoons, and jugs, four large candlesticks, two large flasks, a silver pail, and a cup of gold worth two hundred ducats for the king's use. Then for the chapel, a furniture for the altar, with the history of the three kings embroidered in gold on black velvet; a missal on parchment, with illuminated miniatures, bound in velvet ornamented with silver clasps and bosses; and a complete set of requisites for the service in silver. Then, returning to the personal department, came twenty-one gowns, each minutely described, and one of blue satin spangled with bees in solid gold, particularly specified as being worth four thousand ducats.
When all this and much more had been duly admired, there were brought forward an empty casket and fifteen trays, in which were an hundred thousand ducats of gold, which were put into the casket "before all the Signori." But our chronicler is compelled by his love of truth to add reluctantly that there were several false ducats among them.[175]
It is evident from the nature of many of the articles in the above list, that this "trousseau" was not merely a bride's fitting out purchased for the occasion, but was a collection of all the Lady Bona's chattel property, and represented, as was then usually the case with all wealthy persons, a very large, if not the principal part, of her worldly goods.
It may well be imagined, that Vittoria was not sorry to return to the quiet and intellectual society of Ischia after these tremendous three days at Naples. There she was cheered from time to time by three or four short visits from her husband; and by continual tidings of his increasing reputation and advancement in dignity and wealth; a prosperity which she considered dearly purchased by his almost continual absence. The death of her father Fabrizio in March, 1520, and that of her mother in 1522, made her feel more poignantly this loneliness of heart.
In October of 1522, Pescara made a flying visit to his wife and home. He was with her three days only, and then hastened back to the army. It was the last time she ever saw him. His career with the army meantime was very glorious. In May, 1522, he took and sacked Genoa; "con la maggior crodelitate de lo mundo," writes admiring Passeri. The plundering lasted a day and a half; and "da che lo mundo fo mundo," never was seen a sacking of so great riches, "for there was not a single soldier who did not at the least get a thousand ducats." Then, with the year 1525 came, on the 24th of February, the memorable day of Pavia, which was so glorious that, as Passeri writes, the desolation inflicted by it on the country around was such, that neither house, tree, nor vine was to be seen for miles. All was burned. Few living creatures were to be met with, and those subsisting miserably on roots.
The result of that "field of honour" is sufficiently well known. Pescara, who received three wounds, though none of them serious, in the battle, considered that he was ill-used, when the royal captive Francis was taken out of his hands to Spain, and made complaints on the subject to his master Charles V., who had succeeded Ferdinand on the thrones of Spain and Naples in 1516. He was now, however, at the age of thirty-five, general-in-chief for that monarch in Lombardy, and enjoyed his perfect confidence, when circumstances arose calculated to try his fidelity severely. Whether that, almost the only virtue recognised, honoured, and professed by his own class at that day, remained altogether intact and unblemished is doubtful. But it is certain, that in any view of the case, his conduct was such as would consign him to utter infamy in any somewhat more morally enlightened age than his own, and such as any noble-hearted man, however untaught, would have instinctively shrunk from even then.
The circumstances briefly were as follows:—
Clement VII., who had succeeded to the Popedom in 1523, had, after much trimming and vacillation between Francis I. and Charles V., become, like the rest of Italy, exceedingly alarmed at the preponderating power of Charles, after the discomfiture of the French at Pavia. Now the discontent of Pescara, mentioned above, being notorious, the Pope and his counsellors, especially Giberti, Bishop of Verona, and Morone, Chancellor and Prime Minister of the Duke of Milan, thought that it might not be impossible to induce him to turn traitor to Charles, and make use of the army under his command to crush once and for ever the Spanish power in Italy. The prime mover and agent in this conspiracy was Morone, who had the reputation of being one of the profoundest and most far-sighted statesmen of his day. Guicciardini[176] has recorded, that he (the historian) had often heard Morone declare, that there did not exist a worse or more faithless man in all Italy than Pescara. The conspiring Chancellor, therefore, being empowered by the Pope to promise the malcontent general the throne of Naples as the price of his treason, thought that he might well venture to make the proposal.
Pescara received his overtures favourably, saying, that if he could be satisfied that what was proposed to him could be done without injury to his honour, he would willingly undertake it, and accept the reward offered to him.[177] Upon this reply being communicated to the Pope, a couple of cardinals forthwith wrote to the Marchese, assuring him that the treason required of him was, "according to the dispositions and ordinances of the laws, civil as well as canon,"[178] perfectly consistent with the nicest honour. Meanwhile, however, it chanced, that one Messer Gismondo Santi, who had been sent by the conspirators with letters on the subject into France or Switzerland, was murdered for the purpose of robbery by an innkeeper with whom he lodged at Bergamo, and was buried under the staircase, as was discovered some years afterwards. And as no tidings were heard of this messenger, all engaged in the plot, and Pescara among them, suspected that he had been waylaid for the sake of his dispatches, and that thus all was probably made known to Charles. Thereupon Pescara immediately wrote to the Emperor, revealing the whole conspiracy, and declaring that he had given ear to their proposals only for the purpose of obtaining full information of the conspirators' designs.
Such is the version of the story given by Varchi, probably the most trustworthy of all the numerous contemporary historians. He adds, "it is not unknown to me, that many say, and perhaps think, that the Marchese, acting loyally from the beginning, had all along given the emperor true information of everything; all which I, for my part, knowing nothing further than what I have said, will not undertake to deny. It would, indeed, be agreeable to me to believe that it was so, rather than that the character of so great a soldier should be stained with so foul a blot. Though, indeed, I know not what sort of loyalty or sincerity that may be, which consists in having deceived and betrayed by vile trickery and fraud a Pope, who, if nothing else, was at least very friendly to him, a republic such as that of Venice, and many other personages, for the sake of acquiring favour with his master. This I know well, that the lady Vittoria Colonna, his wife, a woman of the highest character, and abounding in all the virtues which can adorn her sex, had no sooner heard of the intrigue on foot, than, wholly untempted by the brilliant hope hung out to her, she with infinite sorrow and anxiety wrote most warmly to her husband, urging him to bethink him of his hitherto unstained character, and to weigh well what he was about, assuring him that as far as she was concerned, she had no wish to be the wife of a king, but only of a loyal and upright man."
This letter from Vittoria, urging her husband not to be seduced to swerve from the path of honour and duty, is recorded by most of the writers; and Visconti asserts, that it was the means of inducing Pescara to abandon the idea of betraying his sovereign. At all events, the existence of such a letter is very strong evidence that Pescara had not from the first informed Charles of the plot, but had at least hesitated whether he should not join in it, inasmuch as his communications to her upon the subject had given her reason to fear lest he should do so.
On the other hand, it is fair to observe, that several of those concerned in the intrigue saw reason to suspect the possibility of Pescara's having from the first listened to their overtures only to betray them; as is proved by extant letters from one to another of them.[179]
Perhaps this, too, was consistent with the nicest honour, as defined "by the ordinances of canon and civil law." But whether he were a traitor to his king or not, he was determined to shrink from no depth of treachery towards his dupes, that could serve to ingratiate him with his master. While still feigning to accede to their proposals, he sent to Morone to come to him at Novara, that all might be arranged between them. Morone, against the advice of many of his friends, and, as Guicciardini thought,[180] with a degree of imprudence astonishing in so practised and experienced a man, went to the meeting. He was received in the most cordial manner by Pescara, who, as soon as they were alone together, led him to speak of all the details of the proposed plan. The trap was complete; for behind the hangings of the room in which they were sitting, he had hidden Antonio da Leyva, one of the generals of the Spanish army, who arrested him as he was quitting the house, and took him to the prison of Novara, where Pescara the next day had the brazen audacity to examine as a judge the man whom a few hours previously he had talked with as an accomplice.[181]
Surely, whichever version of the story may be believed, as to Pescara's original intentions, there is enough here in evidence to go far towards justifying Chancellor Morone's opinion, that he was one of the worst and most faithless men in Italy. Some modern Italian writers, with little moral, and less historical knowledge, have rested the gravamen of the charge against him on his want of patriotic Italian feeling on the occasion. In the first place, no such motive, however laudable in itself, could have justified him in being guilty of the treason proposed to him. In the second place, the class of ideas in question can hardly be found to have had any existence at that period, although distinct traces of such may be met with in Italian history 200 years earlier. Certainly the Venetian Senate were not actuated by any such; and still more absurd would it be to attribute them to Pope Clement. It is possible that Morone, and perhaps still more, Giberti, may not have been untinctured by them.
But Pescara was one of the last men, even had he been as high-minded as we find him to have been the reverse, in whom to look for Italian "fuori i barbari" enthusiasm. Of noble Spanish blood, his family had always been the counsellors, friends, and close adherents of a Spanish dynasty at Naples, and the man himself was especially Spanish in all his sympathies and ideas. "He adopted,"[182] says Giovio, "in all his costume the Spanish fashion, and always preferred to speak in that language to such a degree, that with Italians, and even with Vittoria his wife, he talked Spanish." And elsewhere he is said to have been in the habit of expressing his regret that he was not born a Spaniard.
Such habits and sentiments would have been painful enough to a wife, a Roman and a Colonna, if Vittoria had been sufficiently in advance of her age to have conceived patriotic ideas of Italian nationality. But though her pursuits and studies were infinitely more likely to have led her mind to such thoughts, than were those of the actors in the political drama of the time to generate any such notions in them, yet no trace of any sentiment of the kind is to be found in her writings. Considering the extent of the field over which her mind had travelled, her acquaintance with classical literature, and with the history of her own country, it may seem surprising that a nature, certainly capable of high and noble aspirations, should have remained untouched by one of the noblest. That it was so is a striking proof of the utter insensibility of the age to any feelings of the sort. It is possible too, that the tendencies and modes of thought of her husband on the subject of Italy may have exercised a repressing influence in this respect on Vittoria's mind; for who does not know how powerfully a woman's intelligence and heart may be elevated or degraded by the nature of the object of her affections; and, doubtless, to Vittoria as to so many another of every age do the admirable lines of the poet address themselves:—
"Thou shalt lower to his level day by day,
What is fine within thee growing coarse to sympathise with clay.
As the husband is, the wife is; thou art mated with a clown,
And the grossness of his nature will have weight to drag thee down."
When we come to examine the tone of sentiment prevailing in Vittoria's poetry, other indications of this deteriorating influence will be perceptible, and if much of nobleness, purity, high aspiration be nevertheless still found in her, this partial immunity from the evil influence must be attributed to the trifling duration of that portion of her life passed in her husband's company.
Pescara was not unrewarded for the infamy with which he covered himself in the service of his master. He obtained the rank of Generalissimo of the imperial forces in Italy. But he enjoyed the gratification for a very little while. In the latter end of that year, he fell into a state of health which seems to have been not well accounted for by the medical science of that day. The wounds he had received at Pavia in the previous February are specially described by Passeri as having been very slight. Some writers have supposed that either shame for the part he had acted in the Morone affair, or, with greater probability, misgiving as to the possibility of the emperor's discovering the real truth of the facts (for the fate of Gismondo Santi and his papers was not known yet), was the real cause of his illness. It seems clearly to have been of the nature of a sudden and premature decay of all the vital forces.
Towards the end of the year he abandoned all hope of recovery, and sent to his wife to desire her to come to him with all speed. He was then at Milan. She set out instantly on her painful journey, and had reached Viterbo on her way northwards, when she was met by the news of his death.
It took place on the 25th of November, 1525. He was buried on the 30th of that month, says Giovio, at Milan; but the body was shortly afterwards transported with great pomp and magnificence to Naples.
Vittoria, a Widow, with the Nuns of San Silvestro.—Returns to Ischia.—Her Poetry divisible into two classes.—Specimens of her Sonnets.—They rapidly attain celebrity throughout Italy.—Vittoria's sentiments towards her Husband.—Her unblemished Character.—Platonic Love.—The Love Poetry of the Sixteenth Century.
Vittoria became thus a widow in the thirty-sixth year of her age. She was still in the full pride of her beauty, as contemporary writers assert, and as two extant medals, struck at Milan shortly before her husband's death, attest. One of them presents the bust of Pescara on the obverse, and that of Vittoria on the reverse; the other has the same portrait of her on the obverse, and a military trophy on the reverse. The face represented is a very beautiful one, and seen thus in profile is perhaps more pleasing than the portrait, which has been spoken of in a previous chapter. She was moreover even now probably the most celebrated woman in Italy, although she had done little as yet to achieve that immense reputation which awaited her a few years later. Very few probably of her sonnets were written before the death of her husband.
But the exalted rank and prominent position of her own family, the high military grade and reputation of her husband, the wide-spread hopes and fears of which he had recently been the centre in the affair of the conspiracy, joined to the fame of her talents, learning, and virtues, which had been made the subject of enthusiastic praise by nearly all the Ischia knot of poets and wits, rendered her a very conspicuous person in the eyes of all Italy. Her husband's premature and unexpected death added a source of interest of yet another kind to her person. A young, beautiful, and very wealthy widow, gave rise to quite as many hopes, speculations, and designs in the sixteenth century as in any other.
But Vittoria's first feeling, on receiving that fatal message at Viterbo, was, that she could never again face that world, which was so ready to open its arms to her. Escape from the world, solitude, a cell, whose walls should resemble, as nearly as might be, those of the grave, since that asylum was denied to her, was her only wish. And she hastened, stunned by her great grief, to Rome, with the intention of throwing herself into a cloister. The convent of San Silvestro in Capite—so called from the supposed possession by the community of the Baptist's head—had always been a special object of veneration to the Colonna family; and there she sought a retreat. Her many friends, well knowing the desperation of her affliction, feared, that acting under the spur of its first violence, she would take the irrevocable step of pronouncing the vows. That a Vittoria Colonna should be so lost to the world was not to be thought of. So, Jacopo Sadoleto, Bishop of Carpentras, and afterwards made a cardinal by Pope Paul III., one of the most learned men of his day, himself a poet, and an intimate friend of Vittoria, hastened to Pope Clement, whose secretary he was at the time, and obtained from him a brief addressed to the abbess and nuns of San Silvestro, enjoining them to receive into their house, and console to the best of their ability the Marchesana di Pescara, "omnibus spiritualibus et temporalibus consolationibus," but forbidding them, under pain of the greater excommunication, to permit her to take the veil, "impetu potius sui doloris, quam maturo consilio circa mutationem vestium vidualium in monasticas."
This brief is dated the 7th December, 1525.
She remained with the sisters of San Silvestro till the autumn of the following year; and would have further deferred returning into a world which the conditions of the times made less than ever tempting to her, had not her brother Ascanio, now her only remaining natural protector, taken her from the convent to Marino, in consequence of the Colonna clan being once again at war with the Pope, as partisans of the Emperor.
On the 20th of September, 1526, this ever turbulent family raised a tumult in Rome to the cry of "Imperio! Imperio! Libertà! Libertà! Colonna! Colonna!" and sacked the Vatican, and every house belonging to the Orsini;[183] the old clan hatred showing itself as usual on every pretext and opportunity.
The result was a papal decree, depriving Cardinal Colonna of his hat; and declaring confiscated all the estates of the family. Deeply grieved by all these excesses, both by the lawless violence of her kinsmen, and by the punishment incurred by them, she left Marino, and once more returned to the retirement of Ischia in the beginning of 1527. It was well for her that she had decided on not remaining in or near Rome during that fatal year. While the eternal city and its neighbourhood were exposed to the untold horrors and atrocities committed by the soldiers of the Most Catholic King, Vittoria was safe in her island home, torn indeed to the heart by the tidings which reached her of the ruin and dispersion of many valued friends, but at least tranquil and secure.
And now, if not perhaps while she was still with the nuns of San Silvestro, began her life as a poetess. She had hitherto written but little, and occasionally only. Henceforward, poetical composition seems to have made the great occupation of her life. Visconti, the latest, and by far the best editor of her works, has divided them into two portions. With two or three unimportant exceptions, of which the letter to her husband already noticed is the most considerable, they consist entirely of sonnets. The first of Signor Visconti's divisions, comprising 134 sonnets, includes those inspired almost entirely by her grief for the loss of her husband. They form a nearly uninterrupted series "In Memoriam," in which the changes are rung with infinite ingenuity on a very limited number of ideas, all turning on the glory and high qualities of him whom she had lost, and her own undiminished and hopeless misery.
"I only write to vent that inward pain,
On which my heart doth feed itself, nor wills
Aught other nourishment,"
begins the first of these elegiac sonnets; in which she goes on to disclaim any idea of increasing her husband's glory,—"non per giunger lume al mio bel sole;" which is the phrase she uses invariably to designate him. This fancy of alluding to Pescara always by the same not very happily chosen metaphor, contributes an additional element of monotony to verses still further deprived of variety by the identity of their highly artificial form.
This form, it is hardly necessary to remark, more than any other mode of the lyre, needs and exhibits the beauties of accurate finish and neat polish. Shut out, as it is, by its exceeding artificiality and difficult construction from many of the higher beauties of more spontaneous poetical utterance, the sonnet, "totus, teres atque rotundus," is nothing if not elaborated to gem-like perfection.
Yet Vittoria writes as follows:—
"Se in man prender non soglio unqua la lima
Del buon giudicio, e ricercando intorno
Con occhio disdegnoso, io non adorno
Nè tergo la mia rozza incolta rima,
Nasce perchè non è mia cura prima
Procacciar di ciò lode, o fuggir scorno;
Nè che dopo il mio lieto al ciel ritorno
Viva ella al mondo in più onorata stima.
Ma dal foco divin, che 'l mio intelletto
Sua mercè infiamma, convien che escan fuore
Mal mio grado talor queste faville.
E se alcuna di loro un gentil core
Avvien che scaldi, mille volte e mille
Ringraziar debbo il mio felice errore."
Which may be thus Englished with tolerable accuracy of meaning, if not with much poetical elegance.[184]
"If in these rude and artless songs of mine
I never take the file in hand, nor try
With curious care, and nice fastidious eye,
To deck and polish each uncultured line,
'Tis that it makes small portion of my aim
To merit praise, or 'scape scorn's blighting breath;
Or that my verse, when I have welcomed death,
May live rewarded with the meed of fame.
But it must be that Heaven's own gracious gift,
Which with its breath divine inspires my soul,
Strike forth these sparks, unbidden by my will.
And should one such but haply serve to lift
One gentle heart, I thankful reach my goal,
And, faulty tho' the strain, my every wish fulfil."
Again, in another sonnet, of which the first eight lines are perhaps as favourable a specimen of a really poetical image as can be found throughout her writings, she repeats the same profession of "pouring an unpremeditated lay."
"Qual digiuno augellin, che vede ed ode
Batter l'ali alla madre intorno, quando
Gli reca il nutrimento; ond egli amando
Il cibo e quella, si rallegra e gode,
E dentro al nido suo si strugge e rode
Per desio di seguirla anch'ei volando,
E la ringrazia in tal modo cantando,
Che par ch'oltre 'l poter la lingua snode;
Tal'io qualor il caldo raggio e vivo
Del divin sole, onde nutrisco il core
Più del usato lucido lampeggia,
Muovo la penna, spinta dall'amore
Interno; e senza ch'io stessa m'avveggia
Di quel ch'io dico le sue lodi scrivo."
Which in English runs pretty exactly as follows:—
"Like to a hungry nestling bird, that hears
And sees the fluttering of his mother's wings
Bearing him food, whence, loving what she brings
And her no less, a joyful mien he wears,
And struggles in the nest, and vainly stirs,
Wishful to follow her free wanderings,
And thanks her in such fashion, while he sings,
That the free voice beyond his strength appears;
So I, whene'er the warm and living glow
Of him my sun divine, that feeds my heart,
Shine's brighter than its wont, take up the pen,
Urged by the force of my deep love; and so
Unconscious of the words unkempt by art
I write his praises o'er and o'er again."
The reader conversant with Italian poetry will have already seen enough to make him aware, that the Colonna's compositions are by no means, unkempt, unpolished, or spontaneous. The merit of them consists in the high degree, to which they are exactly the reverse of all this. They are ingenious, neat, highly studied, elegant, and elaborate. It may be true, indeed, that much thought was not expended on the subject matter; but it was not spared on the diction, versification, and form. So much so, that many of her sonnets were retouched, altered, improved, and finally left to posterity, in a form very different from that in which they were first handed round the literary world of Italy.[185] The file in truth was constantly in hand; though the nice fastidious care bestowed in dressing out with curious conceits a jejune or trite thought, which won the enthusiastic applause of her contemporaries, does not to the modern reader compensate for the absence of passion, earnestness, and reality.
Then, again, the declaration of the songstress of these would-be "wood notes wild," that they make no pretension to the meed of praise, nor care to escape contempt, nor are inspired by any hope of a life of fame after the author's death, leads us to contrast with such professions the destiny that really did,—surely not altogether unsought,—await these grief-inspired utterances of a breaking heart during the author's lifetime.
No sooner was each memory-born pang illustrated by an ingenious metaphor, or pretty simile packed neatly in its regulation case of fourteen lines with their complexity of twofold rhymes all right, than it was handed all over Italy. Copies were as eagerly sought for as the novel of the season at a nineteenth-century circulating library. Cardinals, bishops, poets, wits, diplomatists, passed them from one to another, made them the subject of their correspondence with each other, and with the fair mourner; and eagerly looked out for the next poetical bonne bouche which her undying grief and constancy to her "bel sole" should send them.
The enthusiasm created by these tuneful wailings of a young widow as lovely as inconsolable, as irreproachable as noble, learned enough to correspond with the most learned men of the day on their own subjects, and with all this a Colonna, was intense. Vittoria became speedily the most famous woman of her day, was termed by universal consent "the divine," and lived to see three editions of the grief-cries, which escaped from her "without her will."
Here is a sonnet, which was probably written at the time of her return to Ischia in 1527; when the sight of all the well-loved scenery of the home of her happy years must have brought to her mind Dante's—
"Nessun maggior dolore
Che ricordarsi del tempo felice
Nella miseria!"
Vittoria looks back on the happy time as follows:—
"Oh! che tranquillo mar, oh che chiare onde
Solcava già la mia spalmata barca,
Di ricca e nobil merce adorna e carca,
Con l'aer puro, e con l'aure seconde,
Il ciel, ch'ora i bei vaghi lumi asconde
Porgea serena luce e d'ombra scarca;
Ahi! quanto ha da temer chi lieto varca!
Chè non sempre al principio il fin risponde.
Ecco l'empia e volubile fortuna
Scoperse poi l'irata iniqua fronte,
Dal cui furor sì gran procella insorge.
Venti, pioggia, saette insieme aduna,
E fiere intorno a divorarmi pronte;
Ma l'alma ancor la fida Stella scorge."
In English, thus:—
"On what smooth seas, on what clear waves did sail
My fresh careenèd bark! what costly freight
Of noble merchandise adorn'd its state!
How pure the breeze, how favouring the gale!
And Heaven, which now its beauteous rays doth veil,
Shone then serene and shadowless. But fate
For the too happy voyager lies in wait.
Oft fair beginnings in their endings fail.
And now doth impious changeful fortune bare
Her angry ruthless brow, whose threat'ning power
Rouses the tempest, and lets loose its war!
But though rains, winds, and lightnings fill the air,
And wild beasts seek to rend me and devour,
Still shines o'er my true soul its faithful star."
Bearing in mind what we have seen of Pescara, it would seem evident, that some monstrous illusion with respect to him must have obscured Vittoria's mind and judgment. It might have been expected that she would have been found attributing to him high and noble qualities, which existed only in her own imagination. But it is remarkable that, though in general terms she speaks of him as all that was noblest and greatest, yet in describing his merits, she confines herself to the few which he really had. This highly cultured, devout, thoughtful, intellectual woman, seems really to have believed, that a mercenary swordsman's calling was the noblest occupation earth could offer, and the successful following of it the best preparation and surest title to immortal happiness hereafter.
The following sonnet is one of many expressing the same sentiments.
"Alle Vittorie tue, mio lume eterno,
Non diede il tempo o la stagion favore;
La spada, la virtù, l'invitto core
Fur li ministri tuoi la state e' verno.
Col prudente occhio, e col saggio governo
L'altrui forze spezzasti in si brev'ore,
Che 'l modo all'alte imprese accrebbe onore
Non men che l'opre al tuo valore interno.
Non tardaro il tuo corso animi altieri,
O fiumi, o monti; e le maggior cittadi
Per cortesia od ardir rimaser vinte.
Salisti al mondo i più pregiati gradi;
Or godi in ciel d'altri trionfi e veri,
D'altre frondi le tempie ornate e cinte."
Which may be Englished as follows:—
"To thy great victories, my eternal light,
Nor time, nor seasons, lent their favouring aid;
Thy sword, thy might, thy courage undismay'd,
Summer and winter serv'd thy will aright.
By thy wise governance and eagle sight,
Thou didst so rout the foe with headlong speed,
The manner of the doing crown'd the deed,
No less than did the deed display thy might.
Mountains and streams, and haughty souls in vain
Would check thy course. By force of courtesy
Or valour vanquish'd, cities of name were won.
Earth's highest honours did thy worth attain;
Now truer triumphs Heaven reserves for thee,
And nobler garlands do thy temples crown."
Often her wishes for death are checked by the consideration, that haply her virtue may not suffice to enable her to rejoin her husband in the mansions of the blest. Take the following example:—
"Quando del suo tormento il cor si duole
Si ch'io bramo il mio fin, timor m'assale,
E dice; il morir tosto a che ti vale
Si forse lungi vai dal tuo bel sole?
Da questa fredda tema nascer suole
Un caldo ardir, che pon d'intorno l'ale
All alma; onde disgombra il mio mortale
Quanto ella può, da quel ch e 'l mondo vuole.
Così lo spirto mio s'asconde e copre
Qui dal piacer uman, non già per fama
O van grido, o pregiar troppo se stesso;
Ma sente 'l lume suo, che ognor lo chiama,
E vede il volto, ovunque mira, impresso,
Che gli misura i passi e scorge l'opre."
Thus done into English:—
"When of its pangs my heart doth sore complain,
So that I long to die, fear falls on me,
And saith, what boots such early death to thee,
If far from thy bright sun thou should'st remain.
Then oft from this cold fear is born again
A fervent boldness, which doth presently
Lend my soul wings, so that mortality
Strives to put off its worldly wishes vain.
For this, my spirit here herself enfolds,
And hides from human joys; and not for fame,
Nor empty praise, nor overblown conceit;
But that she hears her sun still call her name,
And still, where'er she looks, his face doth meet,
Who measures all her steps, and all her deeds beholds."
A similar cast of thought, both as regards her own disgust of life and the halo of sanctity, which by some mysterious process of mind she was able to throw around her husband's memory, is found again in this, the last of the sonnets, selected to illustrate this phase of our poetess's mind, and exemplify the first division of her writings.
"Cara union, che in si mirabil modo
Fosti ordinata dal signor del cielo,
Che lo spirto divino, e l'uman velo
Legò con dolce ed amoroso nodo,
Io, benchi lui di si bell'opra lodo,
Pur cerco, e ad altri il mio pensier non celo,
Sciorre il tuo laccio; ni più a caldo o gelo
Serbarti; poi che qui di te non godo.
Che l'alma chiusa in questo carcer rio
Come nemico l'odia; onde smarrita
Ne vive qui, nè vola ove desia.
Quando sarà con suo gran sole unita,
Felice giorno! allor contenta fia;
Che sol nel viver suo conobbe vita."
Of which the subjoined rendering, prosaic and crabbed as it is, is perhaps hardly more so than the original.
"Sweet bond, that wast ordain'd so wondrous well
By the Almighty ruler of the sky,
Who did unite in one sweet loving tie
The godlike spirit and its fleshy shell,
I, while I praise his loving work, yet try—
Nor wish my thought from others to withhold—
To loose thy knot; nor more, through heat or cold,
Preserve thee, since in thee no joy have I.
Therefore my soul, shut in this dungeon stern,
Detests it as a foe; whence, all astray,
She lives not here, nor flies where she would go.
When to her glorious sun she shall return,
Ah! then content shall come with that blest day,
For she, but while he liv'd, a sense of life could know."
In considering the collection of 117 sonnets, from which the above specimens have been selected, and which were probably the product of about seven or eight years, from 1526 to 1533–4 (in one she laments that the seventh year from her husband's death should have brought with it no alleviation of her grief); the most interesting question that suggests itself, is,—whether we are to suppose the sentiments expressed in them to be genuine outpourings of the heart, or rather to consider them all as part of the professional equipment of a poet, earnest only in the work of achieving a high and brilliant poetical reputation? The question is a prominent one, as regards the concrete notion to be formed of the sixteenth-century woman, Vittoria Colonna; and is not without interest as bearing on the great subject of woman's nature.
Vittoria's moral conduct, both as a wife and as a widow, was wholly irreproachable. A mass of concurrent contemporary testimony seems to leave no doubt whatever on this point. More than one of the poets of her day professed themselves her ardent admirers, devoted slaves, and despairing lovers, according to the most approved poetical and Platonic fashion of the time; and she received their inflated bombast not unpleased with the incense, and answered them with other bombast, all en règle and in character. The "carte de tendre" was then laid down on the Platonic projection; and the sixteenth century fashion in this respect was made a convenient screen, for those to whom a screen was needful, quite as frequently as the less classical whimsies of a later period. But Platonic love to Vittoria was merely an occasion for indulging in the spiritualistic pedantries, by which the classicists of that day sought to link the infant metaphysical speculations then beginning to grow out of questions of church doctrine, with the ever-interesting subject of romantic love.
A recent French writer,[186] having translated into prose Vittoria's poetical epistle to her husband, adds that she has been "obliged to veil and soften certain passages which might damage the writer's poetical character in the eyes of her fair readers, by exhibiting her as more woman than poet in the ardent and 'positive' manner, in which she speaks of her love." Never was there a more calumnious insinuation. It is true indeed that the Frenchwoman omits, or slurs over some passages of the original, but as they are wholly void of the shadow of offence, it can only be supposed that the translator did not understand the meaning of them.
There is no word in Vittoria's poetry which can lead to any other conclusion on this point, than that she was, in her position and social rank, an example, rare at that period, not only of perfect regularity of conduct, but of great purity and considerable elevation of mind. Such other indications as we have of her moral nature are all favourable. We find her, uninfluenced by the bitter hereditary hatreds of her family, striving to act as peacemaker between hostile factions, and weeping over the mischiefs occasioned by their struggles. We find her the constant correspondent and valued friend of almost every good and great man of her day. And if her scheme of moral doctrine, as gatherable from that portion of her poems which we have not yet examined, be narrow,—as how should it be otherwise,—yet it is expressive of a mind habitually under the influence of virtuous aspiration, and is more humanising in its tendencies, than that generally prevalent around her.
Such was Vittoria Colonna. It has been seen what her husband Pescara was. And the question arises,—how far can it be imagined possible that she should not only have lavished on him to the last while living, all the treasures of an almost idolatrous affection; not only have looked back on his memory after his death with fondness and charitable, even blindly charitable, indulgence; but should absolutely have so canonised him in her imagination as to have doubted of her own fitness to consort hereafter with a soul so holy! It may be said, that Vittoria did not know her husband as we know him; that the few years they had passed together had no doubt shown her only the better phases of his character. But she knew that he had at least doubted whether he should not be false to his sovereign, and had been most infamously so to his accomplices or dupes. She knew at least all that Giovio's narrative could tell her; for the bishop presented it to her, and received a sonnet in return.
But it is one of the most beautiful properties of woman's nature, some men say, that their love has power to blind their judgment. Novelists and poets are fond of representing women whose affections remain unalterably fixed on their object, despite the manifest unworthiness of it; and set such examples before us, as something high, noble, admirable, "beautiful;" to the considerable demoralisation of their confiding students of either sex. There is a tendency in woman to refuse at all risks the dethroning of the sovereign she has placed on her heart's throne. The pain of deposing him is so great, that she is tempted to abase her own soul to escape it; for it is only at that cost that it can be escaped. And the spectacle of a fine nature "dragged down to sympathise with clay," is not "beautiful," but exceedingly the reverse. Men do not usually set forth as worthy of admiration—though a certain school of writers do even this, in the trash talked of love at first sight—that kind of love between the sexes, which arises from causes wholly independent of the higher part of our nature. Yet it is that love alone which can survive esteem. And it is highly important to the destinies of woman, that she should understand and be thoroughly persuaded, that she cannot love that which does not merit love, without degrading her own nature; that under whatsoever circumstances love should cease when respect, approbation, and esteem have come to an end; and that those who find poetry and beauty in the love which no moral change in its object can kill, are simply teaching her to attribute a fatally debasing supremacy to those lower instincts of our nature, on whose due subordination to the diviner portion of our being all nobleness, all moral purity and spiritual progress depends.
Vittoria Colonna was not one whose intellectual and moral self had thus abdicated its sceptre. The texture of her mind and its habits of thought forbid the supposition; and, bearing this in mind, it becomes wholly impossible to accept the glorification of her "bel sole," which makes the staple of the first half of her poems, as the sincere expression of genuine feeling and opinion.
She was probably about as much in earnest as was her great model and master, Petrarch, in his adoration of Laura. The poetical mode of the day was almost exclusively Petrarchist; and the abounding Castalian fount of that half century in "the land of song" played from its thousand jets little else than Petrarch and water in different degrees of dilution. Vittoria has no claim to be excepted from the "servum pecus," though her imitation has more of self-derived vigour to support it. And this assumption of a mighty, undying, exalted and hopeless passion, was a necessary part of the poet's professional appurtenances. Where could a young and beautiful widow, of unblemished conduct, who had no intention of changing her condition, and no desire to risk misconstruction by the world, find this needful part of her outfit as a poet, so unobjectionably as in the memory of her husband, sanctified and exalted by the imagination to the point proper for the purpose.
For want of a deeper spiritual insight, and a larger comprehension of the finer affections of the human heart and the manifestations of them, with the Italian poets of the "rénaissance," love-poetry was little else than the expression of passion in the most restricted sense of the term. But they were often desirous of elevating, purifying, and spiritualising their theme. And how was this to be accomplished? The gratification of passion, such as they painted, would, they felt, have led them quite in a different direction from that they were seeking. A hopeless passion therefore, one whose wishes the reader was perfectly to understand were never destined to be gratified—better still, one by the nature of things impossible to be gratified—this was the contrivance by which love was to be poetised and moralised.
The passion-poetry, which addressed itself to the memory of one no more, met the requirements of the case exactly; and Vittoria's ten years despair and lamentations, her apotheosis of the late cavalry captain, and longing to rejoin him, must be regarded as poetical properties brought out for use, when she sat down to make poetry for the perfectly self-conscious, though very laudable purpose of acquiring for herself a poet's reputation.
But it must not be supposed that anything in the nature of hypocrisy was involved in the assumption of the poetical rôle of inconsolable widow. Everybody understood that the poetess was only making poetry, and saying the usual and proper things for that purpose. She was no more attempting to impose on anybody than was a poet when on entering some "academia" he termed himself Tyrtæus or Lycidas, instead of the name inherited from his father.
And from this prevailing absence of all real and genuine feeling, arises the utter coldness and shallow insipidity of the poets of that time and school. Literature has probably few more unreadable departments than the productions of the Petrarchists of the beginning of the sixteenth century.
Vittoria, when she began to write on religious subjects, was more in earnest; and the result, as we shall see, is accordingly improved.