ELISABETTA SIRANI.
(1638–1665.)
HER LIFE.
In the vast and magnificent church of the Dominicans at Bologna, in the handsome chapel dedicated to Our Lady of the Rosary, there is a modest sepulchre belonging to the ancient Guidotti family, which attracts as large a share of the art–loving pilgrim's notice, as even the world–famous shrine of the founder of the order with its statues and bas–reliefs by Niccolò di Pisa, Afonso Lombardo, and Michael Angelo. For there beneath the same stone were laid the bodies of Guido Reni and Elisabetta Sirani; he full of years and honours, at the ripe age of sixty–seven; she cut off untimely in the morning of her working day at twenty–six. She was no "favourite pupil" of his, as has been written,[227] for Guido died, when Sirani was four years old; but her works are interesting to the art–student, as far more accurate embodiments of the traditions of his school, than the pictures of most of those who were his immediate pupils; and her short career is especially worthy of the notice of such as are interested in observing female capabilities for winning a right to a place on the roll of the world's worthies.
The art–critics assure us that her works are stamped with a vigour, and bold free precision of outline, which have been rarely attained by female artists. "It is indeed a wonderful thing," writes Lanzi,[228] "that a young girl, who lived only six–and–twenty years, should have painted the vast number of pictures recorded by Malvasia[229]; still more so, that she should have perfected them with a care and finish of the highest order; and most wonderful of all, that she should have reached this perfection in historical pieces of large size, in a style free from that timidity, which La Fontana, and other painters of her sex, never got rid of."
It would be easy to multiply citations from the best authorities on art, to prove the high degree of excellence in her vocation attained by this girl, at an age when most of her competitors of the stronger sex were climbing the first steps of the ladder. But taking this for granted, and leaving the critical appreciation of her works to those whose studies lead them specially in that direction, it will be more interesting for us to endeavour to make out for ourselves some tolerably life–like representation of the young worker as she lived and laboured a couple of hundred years ago in her home at Bologna.
The picture ought to be, if presented aright, a singularly pleasing one, healthy in its tone, invigorating in its suggestions, and addressing itself vividly to the sympathies of every admirer of honest energetic labour. Of all the types of female character and life gathered in these volumes from various social conditions, differing every one of them so widely from our own, this artist figure seems to claim the closest kin to some living phases of the life around us, and to be the most readily and advantageously transplantable into our own social system.
The story of Elisabetta Sirani's untimely death has added a sort of melodramatic interest to her name, which was not needed to make her life a noticeable one. Every one who has heard her mentioned has heard that she died by poison. Her contemporaries suspected that she might have been poisoned; the following generation said and wrote, that she probably had been thus destroyed; and Lanzi, and after him the manuals, and other common sources of information, content themselves with simply stating that she was poisoned, without expressing any doubt on the subject. The reader of the following pages will see that there is every reason to think that she died from natural causes. The circumstances of her death, however, and the judicial investigations to which they gave rise, will furnish some of those little traits of the artist–family's home and mode of life, which, far too trifling ever to have been recorded as such by contemporaries, are yet in every case more precious in their suggestiveness than facts of greater importance to those who, at a distance of a couple of centuries, seek to catch a glimpse of any life as it passed amid its ordinary every–day environment.
The records of the judicial proceedings to which Elisabetta's death gave rise, were for many years sought for in vain by various writers on subjects connected with Bolognese art–history. The name of the person accused of the crime was unknown. And for want of this indication it was, it seems, impossible, without searching the entire mass of the archives in question, to find the required papers. At last, however, in 1833, Signor Mazzoni Toselli had the good fortune to light on them, and published the result of his discovery in a small pamphlet printed at Bologna in that year. Since that time another fortunate discovery has brought to light the "conclusions" submitted to the court by the advocate employed for the prosecution, as we should say. This document was not found in company with the records discovered by Signor Toselli; but was put before the world by Signor Ulisse Guidi, in a pamphlet printed at Bologna in 1854. So that, besides obtaining from the evidence of the witnesses examined, those little hints above alluded to of the manner of life led in the "Casa Sirani," we have now the means of forming a tolerably well–grounded opinion as to the real cause of the young artist's death.
The house of Giovanni Andrea Sirani in the Via Urbana at Bologna, was the home of a family of artists. The father was himself at the head of a considerable school, in which Guido's second manner was the standard of excellence aimed at, and by the master himself and some of his scholars attained with very respectable success. He had a son who became a physician. But he was the only deserter from the family profession. The three daughters, Elisabetta, Barbara, and Anna Maria were all artists. The name of the elder has cast that of her sisters and even of her father, into the shade. But his works are still well esteemed in his own city; and there are pictures by Barbara and Anna Maria Sirani in the churches of Bologna.
Giovanni's wife Margherita, and his sister, who cooked for the family, together with a female servant, were the other members of his household. We are told also, that Bartolommeo Zanichelli, Antonio Donzelli, and Giulio Banzi, his pupils, lived with him upon the footing of members of his family. The first had "frequented his school" for fifteen years.
The house in the Via Urbana, which accommodated this numerous family, and gave the seven painters, out of the ten persons who occupied it, room to work in, must have been a good sized one. It consisted, we hear, of two stories, with some large rooms above "for the school."
The sort of industry that prevailed in this hive of workers may be estimated from the list of Elisabetta's works extant in her own handwriting. Her rapidity, it is true, was marvellous, and the sureness of her hand was only equalled by the overflowing abundance of her thought. We must not, therefore, imagine that all the members of this busy art–factory contributed to the general production in a similar degree. Making due allowance for this, however, and remembering that Elisabetta's works were always highly finished, her methodical and business–like list will give us some idea of the family produce.
In the year 1655, which is the first that figures on her catalogue,—and she was then only seventeen,—she painted two pictures, one for the Marchese Spada, and one for the Municipality of Trassano. In the year 1656, five pictures. In 1657, seven pictures. In 1658, twelve pictures. In 1659, ten pictures. In 1660, fourteen pictures. In 1661, fourteen pictures, of which one ordered by the nuns of St. Catherine contained half figures of the size of life of the twelve Apostles. In 1662, forty–nine pictures! Either by an error of the pen these forty–nine works were the product of two years' labour, which is probable, or the year 1663 from some unexplained cause, produced nothing. In the year 1664, we find twenty–eight pictures registered. And in the first half of 1665, the year of her death, she had completed nine works. In the nine years and a half, from the seventeenth to the twenty–sixth of her age, she had thus produced a hundred and fifty pictures,[230] many of them of large size, and all of them carefully finished! Besides this, she etched occasionally; and many works of this class from her hand are known to, and much sought by collectors. A record of work honestly and conscientiously done, as Lanzi may well say, truly wonderful!
Her rapidity of execution, and especially of throwing with a sure unerring hand her first ideas upon the canvas, was so remarkable, that to see Elisabetta paint was considered one of the sights at Bologna most worthy of the attention of strangers. And we find that few personages of distinction passed through the city without paying a visit to the artist family in the Via Urbana.
"On the 13th of May, 1664," she records in the list of works, which seems also to have served as a sort of journal, "His Serene Highness Cosmo, crown prince of Tuscany, came to our house to see me paint, and I worked at a picture of the Prince Leopold his uncle in his presence. Alluding to the three special virtues of that great family"—(Poor Elisabetta!)—"of Justice, Charity, and Prudence, I introduced figures of them into the picture, sketching in the infant whom Charity is nursing, very quickly, while the prince stood by. On leaving me, he ordered a Holy Virgin for himself, which I executed in time for him to take with him, when he returned to Florence. It is in an oval, with the child in the mother's lap, who with his left hand is caressing her, while the right, with an olive–branch in it, rests on the world; my intention being to allude to the peace, which, by the negotiations of his Most Serene father, is preserved to Italy!"
The Duchess of Brunswick, who "came to our house to see me paint, on the 3rd of January, 1665," was treated, however, it would seem, with a sly bit of satire, instead of the usual dose of flattery expected by most personages when they condescend to stand by artists' easels. The lady, it appears, had the reputation of being possessed by a somewhat inordinate spirit of self–love. So "I painted her a Cupid, a year old, looking at himself in the glass, and wounding himself with his own arrow." And Malvasia, the historian of Bolognese art, who was intimate with the family, recounts, that while painting this allegorical device, the young artist kept repeating, "Let those comprehend that can. I know my own meaning!"
It does not appear that the Duchess left any commission.
Then a visit from the Duca di Mirandola is mentioned; and another from the Principe di Messerano. And then, "all the Princes and Princesses who have passed through Bologna this spring, have come to look at my pictures and to see me work."
We find mention of commissions from the Empress Leonora, from Prince Leopold of Tuscany, who rewards the artist with a cross set with fifty–six diamonds,—the most liberal recompense she had ever received;—from the Duchess of Bavaria, who sends an order for another picture the following year; from Cardinal Farnese; from the Legate; and from the "Padre Inquisitore," who orders a Cupid crowned with laurel, with a sceptre in his hand.
All the cash payments earned by this untiring industry, were handed over to her father to go towards the general maintenance of the family. But the presents which she received in jewellery and other such matters were considered her private property, kept in a cupboard sacred to them, and shown by her mother Margherita to her gossips and the friends of the family on high days and holidays, with infinite pride and reverence.
It seems reasonable to suppose, that in a family of six persons,—leaving the medical son, of whom we find no further mention, out of the question,—in which four of the members are bread–winners, and that by industry so energetic, a considerable ease of circumstances ought to have been found. And perhaps the extreme simplicity of life, indicated by a few of the circumstances which happen to have been recorded, is to be attributed rather to the prevailing habits of frugality of the time, than to poverty. Thus we find that the master's sister occupied the position of cook in the family. The one other servant received four pauls, about two francs, a month for wages. And the family dinner, of which all the members of the household partook in company, consisted, on one occasion,—recorded not for any special reason, but accidentally, and therefore affording a sample of the ordinary fare,—of toasted bread and a little fish. There is a trifling circumstance also, which may be thought to indicate that it was not always convenient to disburse cash for this lenten meal. For in the list of Elisabetta's works, among the pictures executed for churches, princes, and prelates, occurs one of "Saint Margaret, leading a dragon with an azure ribband, painted for the fisherman who supplies our house."
Her music–master also,—for Elisabetta was extremely fond of music, and a creditable performer,—was, we find, paid by a yearly present of a picture.
Possibly the father Giovanni Andrea may have been touched with the very common Italian vice of money–loving, and have been more niggardly in his disbursements than he ought to have been. For we find that now and then Elisabetta would sell some unimportant work of hers privately, in order to supply some little unacknowledged expenses of her mother.
This poor Donna Margherita, who, while her husband and daughters were at their busy easels, had nothing to do but to "rule her house," seems to have been the principal cause of any little roughness which ruffled from time to time the tranquil and cheerful course of successful and appreciated labour in the industrious artist home. Donna Margherita, it is to be feared, was afflicted with a sharp tongue; and there are very unmistakeable symptoms of poor Lucia, the maid, not having earned her annual four–and–twenty francs too easily.
Again and again she had been on the point of throwing up all the advantages of her position under the provocation of her mistress's continual fault–finding. The daily reproach, that she was not worth her keep, was difficult to bear. Then she was accused of dressing her hair when there was no due occasion for such display; the immutable rule of Dame Margherita's house being that the maid was allowed to appear with her head dressed only when visitors of distinction were expected to see the Signorina Elisabetta at her easel. Then again, the unreasonable Lucia wanted to go out occasionally,—gadding about the town, forsooth; and in Bologna too, of all places in the world, swarming from morn to night with idle university scholars! Dame Margherita would have no such doings. Besides, she wished to know what was the reason Lucia was always so anxious to go down herself and shut the ground–floor shutters that looked into the street, at night. Idle enough in other matters, why was she so anxious to perform this duty?
But when these provocations became more than she could bear, and the poor girl had made up her mind to go, Elisabetta would soothe and comfort her, with "Come, come, Lucia, don't leave us! Take time to think of it. Sleep on it this night, and make up your mind in the morning!" And as Lucia, like every one else in the house, was very fond of the Signorina Elisabetta, she would be persuaded to think better of it, and try to put up with Dame Margherita's tongue.
But all these reproaches of seeking occasion to go to the window at nightfall, anxiety to go out into the town, and untimely indulgences of hair–decking, were only grounds of suspicion, that Lucia was guilty of the heinous offence (not even yet in these improved times wholly extirpated from the race of Abigails)—of possessing a lover;—which however permissible, under proper regulations, for young persons inhabiting drawing–rooms, is, as every respectable person knows, most abominable in those living in kitchens. Still there was nothing stronger against Lucia than mere suspicion.
But then came one unlucky day a terrible discovery. There passed down the Via Urbana a tinker in the exercise of his calling. Whereupon this wicked girl,—who could have thought there had been such deepness in her! as Dame Margherita (we may be quite sure) said,—bringing her mistress an old kettle out of the cellar, asked whether it would not be well to call in the tinker and have it mended. The tinker accordingly was summoned, and sent under escort of this false serving–maid to do his duty in such cellar, or outhouse, as may have been adapted to the business in hand. But Dame Margherita "had her suspicions;" and despatched two of her younger children to watch secretly the interview between Lucia and the tinker. The result was a confirmation of the mistress's worst fears. The first words overheard between them proved that the tinker was an old love of Lucia's, who had known her when in her mother's house.
Here was a scope for Mistress Margherita's eloquence! When it was exhausted, the good man Giovanni Andrea was called on to "speak as he ought" on the occasion. And he accordingly, we are told, "said some severe words." Even Elisabetta laughed at poor Lucia, and asked "how she could be so silly as to look after such a sorry knave?"
Now, to poor Lucia this seems to have been the last drop in the cup; and she finally made up her mind to leave her place. Thereupon her master, who was just then confined to his bed by a fit of the gout, which interrupted his work at the easel from time to time, called her into his room and remonstrated with her. "Don't you see, ungrateful girl that you are," he said, "in what a condition you are leaving us? Here am I unable to leave my bed. Margherita is unwell. Barbara has the fever. And we have no one to help us." Lucia was inflexible. "Will you not wait till we have found another servant?"
"No, Signor, I cannot!" was the provoked girl's answer.
"Go, then," rejoined her angry master, "wherever God may lead you!"
But Giovanni Sirani could not reconcile it to his conscience to let the girl go forth unprotected into the city wholly left to her own devices. And the steps he took to prevent this are curiously illustrative of the manners of the time. He sent for two men, who were related to the girl; and privately arranged with them, that they should tell her they had found her an excellent place with a worthy family, to which they would at once conduct her. The unsuspecting Lucia departed accordingly; and was led by them to "the Hospital of St. Gregory, called the Beggar's Home," where she was forthwith shut up a prisoner! So that it should seem a master had the power to cause a girl guilty of nothing but having no home, to be thus imprisoned for her own protection: and yet that it was necessary to use a ruse to get her there!
The Sirani family were a good deal surprised at Lucia's determination to leave them just at the time she did. For it wanted only a few days of the annual fair held on the 24th of August. And a considerable item in the value of her place consisted in the presents which it was the custom to give her on this occasion. In the first year of her service Dame Margherita had given her a muff, and Elisabetta a couple of pauls. The next year the mistress had given her a shift, and the Signorina a paul. And now, in the third year, she lost her fairings by abruptly going away just before the time when they were due.
This was the uncomfortable state of matters in the Sirani family in August 1665. Elisabetta herself had been for some time past out of her usual health. But with her ordinary invincible industry, she stuck to her work. With her father disabled by the gout, her sister Barbara also down with fever, and unable to earn anything, it was more than ever necessary that Elisabetta should take the labouring oar. And fortunately a fresh order for a picture from the Empress Eleonora had recently been received. And the young artist, answering her mother's anxious inquiries about a pain, from which she had been suffering, by saying that "the best way not to feel it was not to think of it," bravely set her canvas before her, and bent her mind to the composition of the new picture.
HER DEATH.
Elisabetta, who had been all her life previously in the enjoyment of sound and even robust health, had been feeling more or less unwell ever since the Lent of that year 1665. She suffered from slight pain in the stomach; and though she could with difficulty be got to speak on the subject, her loss of colour and of flesh showed unmistakeably that she was out of health. She was nevertheless as assiduous as ever at her easel; and in the first days of August was just setting to work on the picture ordered, as has been said, for the Empress Eleonora. On the 12th or 13th of that month, the pain from which she suffered became worse. And as Signor Gallerati, the medical man who attended the family, called that day to see her sister Barbara, who was ill with fever, Elisabetta spoke to him about herself. The learned doctor told her that no medicine could be taken for the present, as the sun was in the sign of the Lion; that her pain was caused by a cold; and that she might take a little syrup of vinegar.
On the 24th she was able to go with her mother to see the fair.
But on the 27th, as she was working in an upper room at her picture, the pain became so violent, that she with difficulty went down stairs to the room where Barbara was ill in bed, and sitting down on the edge of it, said, "Oh! sister, I have so dreadful a pain in my stomach, that I feel as if I were dying!"
Barbara seeing the sudden changes in her colour, and contortions of her features, feared that she really was about to die; and hurriedly called their mother, who was in the next room. The mother immediately got her into bed; and a succession of fainting fits, accompanied by profuse cold perspirations followed. A messenger sent in haste to Dr. Gallerati, not finding him at home, brought a Doctor Mattaselani, who was, it appears, one of the leading physicians of the city. This gentleman ordered her purgatives, and ointment for exterior use.
Her mother in the meantime had given her a dose of "Theriaca," that time–honoured Venetian medicine, which was then celebrated all over Europe. It is a very thick oily substance, compounded of some fifty different ingredients, the receipt for which is said, with much probability, to have been brought from the East by the Venetians at a very early period. It was a specific adapted to the then state of medical science, no doubt. But it is a curious fact worth noticing, that this "triaca" as the Lombards call it, is still manufactured at Venice from the old recipe, is still prepared by the principal—perhaps only—manufacturer annually on the same fixed day set apart for generations for this purpose; and quainter still, that on that day the persons employed in the process, dress themselves in fifteenth century costume, and thus accoutred make their fire, bring out their cauldrons, and concoct their medicament on one of the open "campi" of Venice, amid a concourse of people assembled to watch the annual ceremony. Theriaca now–a–days hardly finds its way beyond Venice and the neighbouring parts of Lombardy. But within those limits hardly a peasant's cottage would be found without its bottle of the drug, in which their ancestors placed their faith for so many generations.
The Theriaca, however, as may be supposed, availed nothing to our poor Elisabetta; and the treatment of Dr. Mattaselani as little. The fainting–fits and cold–sweats continued the whole night. In the morning of the 28th came Dr. Gallerati, and ordered more purgatives, more ointment, and the application of the diaphragm of a sheep to the stomach! And when no advantage was found to result from this, he gave the patient the celebrated poison antidote "Bezoar," and the "Olio del Granduca;"—the Grand–duke's oil;—an antidote prepared, it should seem, in that Medicean laboratory of poisons in the Uffizi at Florence, which may well be believed to have been more successful in the preparation of them than in its providing antidotes against them.
When the Bezoar and the Grand–duke's oil failed to produce any abatement in the symptoms, the parish priest was sent for! And thus the young artist life, so rich in promise, and in dreams of beauty yet to be embodied, of long years of labour, and praise to be won, was cut short in its spring.
Elisabetta, intent only on her art, and habituated to a wholly objective frame of mind, had made so little account of the symptoms of malady that had manifested themselves during the last four or five months of her life, that her death struck her bereaved family as a wholly sudden and inexplicable calamity. Poison was the first thing that occurred to them. Indeed the idea had already presented itself to the physicians, as is evident from the treatment. The practice of poisoning was so common in Italy in those ages, and the perpetration of it was rendered so little hazardous by the prevailing ignorance of pathological anatomy, that every death arising from causes not understood, was immediately attributed to this crime. And as a medical decision to that effect was a very convenient screen for medical ignorance, the faculty were by no means backward in encouraging and increasing the popular suspiciousness on the subject.
Poor Giovanni, therefore, was readily convinced that his daughter had died by poison; and ordered a post–mortem examination of her body, as the first step towards a judicial investigation. So the body was opened by the hospital barber, the recognised operator on such occasions, in the presence of Doctors Gallerati and Mattaselani, and other four of the first practitioners of Bologna.
Gallerati, the family medical man, who had already, it is to be observed, treated her case as one of poisoning, reported to the father, as the result of the examination, that a hole was found in the lower part of the stomach, large enough for a pea to pass, that around the hole there was a livid circle appearing as if burned with a hot iron, that the bowels were much inflamed, the diaphragm corroded, and that these appearances could only have been produced by the action of a corrosive poison. But on Sirani further questioning him on the nature of the poison, he answered, that it was certainly corrosive, "but whether administered to her, or generated naturally, was not a matter to speak with him—the father—on, as he had already given his opinion in the consultation of physicians."
The subject of "veleno ingenito," poison developing itself from natural causes within the organisation, was one much agitated in the medical world at that time; formed an admirable occasion for the exhibition of erudition; and was just in that state of partisan debateability least favourable to the attainment of truth, and most conducive to obstinate adhesion to foregone conclusions.
It having been thus decided, that poor Elisabetta had been poisoned; of course the next question that arose was, who was the poisoner?
The Sirani family had no enemies, and many friends; and the number of persons who could have had access to her or to the food she had taken, was very small. The members of her own family were plunged in grief at their bereavement. The three pupils had been sincerely attached to Elisabetta, and were scarcely less so. There was an old woman, who, on the day before she had been taken seriously ill, had been employed by Giovanni to carry a picture to a patron in the city. Fearing that the messenger might be long detained, he had desired that she might have some food given her in the house, before she started on her errand. Lucia had given her some soup from the pot preparing for the family. The old woman said, that it was insipid. Whereupon, Lucia, who was that same day, it will be remembered, about to leave her place, took, as the old woman swore, a paper of powder from her bosom, and shook some of its contents into the soup, saying "There! take a little cinnamon with it!" She further deposed that the powder was reddish, but did not taste like cinnamon; that she ate only a few spoonsful of the soup because she felt something gritty between her teeth; and, finally, that she was afterwards taken so ill, as to be obliged to go to the hospital. The last fact was indubitably true; but it was equally so that she came out cured, without it ever having occurred to the hospital doctors to treat her for poison.
Under these circumstances it was decided, that Lucia must be the poisoner. But she had always been particularly fond of the deceased. Ah! but then she had a love affair with the tinker, which looked very bad. She had obstinately determined to leave her place just before fairing time. That was very suspicious. She had to all appearance poisoned the old woman also; though nobody seems to have dreamed of asking for what possible motive she should have committed this second crime. Then, to clinch all, the reverend Dr. Masi, the Archbishop's fiscal (a friend of the Sirani family), swore, that on his visiting Lucia in prison, in order to examine her as to the state of her soul, she said, "If you mean to hang me, do it at once. At all events, I have given my soul to the devil!"
So that it was clear, that Lucia was the poisoner. She was arrested, and the judicial investigations were commenced. Two of the medical men, who had been present at the post mortem examination, Gallerati and another, were examined; and, after giving a detailed account of the appearances they had observed, declared it certain that Elisabetta had died by poison, either administered to her or "naturally developed," but with strong probability in favour of the former hypothesis.
But at this point of the proceeding a curious and characteristic incident occurred. The ecclesiastical authorities interposed a claim, that the prisoner should be given up to them, as having been arrested in a place subjected to ecclesiastical immunities; which was the case with respect to the poor–house, to which Lucia was taken, as has been seen, when she left the Sirani house. The claim was admitted; Lucia was transferred to the hands of the Archbishop's officers, and by them set at liberty.
According to the ordinary course of proceeding in such cases, had it not been for this interposition on the part of the Church, Lucia would have been put to the torture, to extract from her a confession of her guilt. And it would seem that she was saved from this barbarity only by that fortunate interference. But it appears, that all that had taken place in the matter formed no bar to a new arrest, if the accused could be caught on unprivileged ground. No further steps however were taken in the business, till the following April, 1666; when Lucia, who does not appear to have made any attempt at escape, either by flight or by remaining in sanctuary, was arrested afresh, as she was walking in the main street of the city.
The first question put to her was, whether she had any idea of the cause of her arrest. She answered at once, "The death of La Sirani."
"Are you aware that any painter or other person had any feeling of envy or hatred against the deceased?"
"I neither know, nor did I ever hear of any body hating the Signora Elisabetta, from professional jealousy or any other cause."
"What was your reason for so suddenly leaving the family a few days before the fair?"
"Because I was weary of hearing continual fault–finding."
"Were you then not treated well in the Sirani family?"
"By the gentlemen[231] of the family, I was always well treated; and especially by the Signora Elisabetta. And if it had not been for her kindness, I should certainly have left the house long before, so insupportable were the annoyances of the Signora Margherita. But I remained for love of the Signora Elisabetta, who was very fond of me."
She was then questioned about the tinker; although her conduct with respect to him does not appear to have the slightest bearing on the case. She admitted, that he had been an old sweetheart of hers, when she lived with her mother, and he had been a lodger in the same house.
Then came the circumstance of the old woman, and the soup, and the red powder. The woman, by this time, quite recovered from her illness, swore positively that Lucia had taken the powder from her bosom, and that it was red, and that she had said that it was cinnamon. Lucia, confronted with her, swore that she took the powder from a box on a shelf, that it was pepper, and she put it into the soup in presence of Giacoma, Sirani's sister, who, as we have seen, was the family cook.
Now, according to the regular practice of the criminal courts, this contradictory swearing required that the accused should be tortured. Moreover, Giacoma ought to have been called as a witness. But neither of these things was done. It seems however, that the judge had conferred privately with Doctor Mattaselani, and had been satisfied by him that the old woman had never been poisoned at all.
Lucia was sent back to prison, and ordered to produce her defence in three days. At the end of that time an advocate presented himself on her behalf, and showed without difficulty, as may be judged from what has been related of the accusation, that there was no tittle of evidence against the prisoner; and he especially demanded that the other medical men, who had made the post–mortem examination, should be called to give their evidence. For two only, Gallerati, the family doctor, and another, had hitherto been examined.
This was done. And Doctor Mattaselani and another, describing the appearance of the body exactly as the others had done, gave it as their decided opinion, that the death had been caused by an inflammatory ulcer arising from natural causes; as any medical man of the present day would, from the symptoms detailed above, conclude to have been in all probability the truth.
It having thus become tolerably clear that there was no case whatever against Lucia Tolomelli, for that was the unlucky girl's name, she was not condemned as a poisoner, but banished from the Legation.
The Sirani family themselves, however, as well as the judicial authorities, seem to have on reflection come to the conclusion, that Lucia was certainly innocent, and her exile unjust. For there is extant, an instance, signed by Giovanni Sirani, and dated 3rd January, 1668, wherein he formally declares, that he has no complaint to make against her, and no opposition to offer to the remission of her sentence of exile.
The amount of public feeling excited in Bologna by Elisabetta Sirani's untimely death, was extraordinarily great. As usual in similar cases, the popular regret took the form of indignation, and demanded an expiatory victim. As usual, also, theories more or less melodramatic, were invented to account for and adorn the misfortune. It was hardly to be supposed that Lucia could have had any spite of her own against her kind young mistress. She must have acted then at the instigation of another; some powerful person no doubt; some great man, whom the young artist had offended probably, by the rejection of amatory advances, said some, or by a satirical use of her pencil, as others supposed. This explained all the irregularity observed in the process. This was why Lucia was not tortured, as by good right she ought to have been. This made it clear why she was set at liberty for a while, till by practising on the doctors, they could be induced to give such testimony as would hush the matter up, with a verdict of death from natural causes. This also, finally, accounted for Lucia's removal for awhile by exile, till the excitement and curiosity of the public should have passed.
And as such a theory comfortably explained much which the citizens were at a loss to comprehend, as it supplied abundant food for gossip, and under–breath speculations and guesses, and wise looks, as to the concealed author of all this wickedness, and especially as it made a good story to tell and to write, this became the accredited version, till now it is stated, as a simple fact in artistic manuals and guide–books, that Elisabetta Sirani was poisoned.
The real truth is, that there is not a tittle of evidence in favour of such a supposition, to be opposed to all the insuperable difficulties in the way of convicting Lucia, the only person whom it was found possible to suspect. The only fragment of foundation to the entire fiction consists in Dr. Gallerati's ignorant and learned trash about administered poisons, and inborn poisons. Even he only ventured to incline in favour of the probability of the former in this case. And the direct testimony of Dr. Mattaselani and one of his colleagues, agreeing as it does with the view which any modern medical man would take of the case as reported, viz., that the deceased died of inflamed ulcer in the stomach, may be rightly held to be conclusive on the subject.
Some letters from persons at Bologna, including two from Giovanni Sirani, written immediately after Elisabetta's death, to correspondents at Florence, have recently been published in the "Rivista di Firenze." The editor thinks that "no doubt remains at the present day, that her (Elisabetta's) death was caused by poison given her by the maid, Lucia Tolomelli, the instrument either of the despised love, or of the offended pride of some powerful personage." To the present writer, however, the opinion expressed above, which is also that of Signor Toselli, to whom we are indebted for the discovery and publication of the records of the trial, appears equally "undoubted."
One of the letters, six in number, is from the physician Gallerati, in which he details the result of the post–mortem examination as we have it in his evidence.
Another is from Count Annibale Ranuzzi to the Cardinal Leopoldo de' Medici, in which he says, "The poor girl was poisoned according to the unanimous opinion of the medical men, who to the number of seven or eight were present at the examination of the body." This, as we have seen, was not true.
A third letter is from Giovanni Sirani to the same Cardinal, in which he says that his "daughter Elisabetta had been removed from the world by poison, through envy."
A fourth letter from the same to the Cardinal, says, that he thinks he shall be obliged "to quit his clime of Bologna, and go where justice is not suffocated; for this enormous crime has been concealed under pretext of ecclesiastical immunities."
We knew before that such were the opinions prevalent at Bologna at the time. But we know also that Giovanni Sirani changed his opinion on the subject. And it must be borne in mind, that criminal proceedings were kept strictly secret in the Papal States; and that the public therefore had not those means of enlightening its judgment on the subject, which Signor Toselli's pamphlet has supplied to us.
The sorrow for the young artist's untimely death was general in Bologna, and the manifestations of it may seem to us excessive. But in that day, when art, though on the decline from its culminating period, was all that retained any real life in Italy, the artist held a place in the esteem and interest of his fellow citizens, which, however honoured, he cannot hope to do in communities where his art is only one of a hundred manifestations of intellectual life and energy. In losing her young and rising artist, Bologna lost an important element of her claim to take rank among her rival municipalities in the scale of civilisation and renown.
Still this hardly seems to be sufficient to account for the outburst of wailing and enthusiastic apotheosising which followed Elisabetta's death. Greater artists died, were mourned, and celebrated with far less universality of lamentation and eulogistic commemoration. And on looking over the threnodic expression of Bologna's regret for "La Sirani," it seems clear that the woman had captivated the affection of her contemporaries, as much as the artist had excited their admiration.
Judging from the picture in the Ercolani gallery at Bologna, which represents her in the act of painting a portrait of her father, and which has been engraved for Signor Toselli's pamphlet, she must have been very pretty. And it is recorded that her figure was tall and elegant. She was a good musician, and her conversation is said to have been witty and sprightly. Yet one of the innumerable sonnets on her death begins:
"Fui donna in terra, e non conobbi amore."
"A woman while on earth, I yet knew nought of love."
And indeed it may be supposed that she had resolutely determined to devote herself and her life and energies wholly and exclusively to her art. For in Italy few marriages are made by women after the twenty–sixth year.
Her funeral may be said to have been a public one, so extensive were the absurdities of funeral pomp, and so general the participation in the ceremony of all classes of the citizens. Malvasia, the historian of Bolognese art, who was intimate with her and her family, has written what he calls her life, in his "Felsina Pittrice," really in the tone of a man beside himself. He is furious that Lucia was not tortured to make her discoverer the instigator of her supposed crime; he regrets that "being a Christian and a Priest," he cannot with propriety curse all persons guilty of her death, as violently as he should like to do; and altogether has written some score of pages in a style of monstrous bombast, which seems a caricature of the well–known absurdities of the Italian style of that epoch.
Finally, there is a volume, entitled, "Il Pennello lagrimato," published at Bologna in the year of her death, which consists of a great variety of orations, odes, sonnets, anagrams, funeral conundrums, and epitaphs, in Latin and Italian, by all the literary and learned men of the city, proving the high place poor Elisabetta had held in the affections and esteem of her contemporaries, and the extremity of bad taste, puerility, and abasement, into which a century or so of "orderly" despotism had plunged the nation.
LA CORILLA.
(1740–1800.)
THE APPRENTICESHIP TO THE LAUREL.
In the Via della Forca, at Florence, the eye of an observant traveller may remark a marble slab let into the front of an otherwise undistinguished house, and bearing the inscription "Here lived La Corilla in the eighteenth century." The laconic stone vouchsafes no further word of enlightenment; those who placed it where it stands, for the information of future generations, having evidently imagined that nothing more would be necessary, and that posterity, on seeing the brief announcement, would gaze on the dirty plaster–coloured tenement with enthusiasm, while it exclaimed, "Ha! 'twas within these walls, then, that the bright poet–spirit, the marvel of her age, the divine Corilla, lived while she was in the flesh!" &c., &c. But posterity unfortunately has already in the century next after the one so illustrated begun to exclaim instead, "Corilla lived here! And who the deuce was Corilla?" And then posterity, it is to be feared, would think nothing more about the matter.
And yet the question is worth answering. For "La Corilla," forgotten as she is, and in nowise worthy of being remembered on any other ground, was the quintessential product and expression of the literary life of her time and country. And, what is more important, that literature, and those literary tastes and habits, which may be said to have culminated in La Corilla, were the normal product, evolved according to certain unchanging and ascertainable laws, of the general social system then prevailing in Italy. And this again was with perfect regularity of cause and effect brought about in due course of historical development; so that from Dante, who was exiled, to La Corilla, who was crowned at the Capitol, the march of Italy across the centuries may be traced almost as surely in the history of its literature, as in that of its material life and political changes.
Yes. The lady who lived in the Via della Forca in the eighteenth century was crowned at the Capitol in Rome in the year 1776. This is the principal fact of her story, tellable in very few words. But for the reasons stated above, it is worth while to spend a few minutes in examining what that crowning at the Capitol was and meant, and how La Corilla came to deserve that remarkable distinction.
We find that she had three predecessors on that throne in the Roman Campidoglio: Petrarch, Tasso, and "Perfetti." Petrarch and Tasso the world knows, though it knows little of their Roman crowning. And diligent Dryasdust researches will discover "Perfetti" to be the name of a man—and a cavalier—who in that same eighteenth century was similarly operated on, and whom not even Dryasdust could have dug out from the underlying strata, had he not been so treated.
And here we are struck by the remarkable fact of the long abeyance of the laurel crown. From Tasso in the sixteenth, to Perfetti and Corilla in the eighteenth century, it should seem, none were found crownable in Italy. Are we to consider that these recent crowned heads take rank in their country's Pantheon next after the author of the "Gerusalemme"? Or must it be supposed that the significance of Campidoglio crowning became changed yet more rapidly than the national literature, fast as it moved in the same direction, could follow it; so that the knight Perfetti and the lady Corilla were the first who overtook the standard of the crown conferrers, and came up to the modern mark?
Let us see whether any explanation of these puzzling circumstances can be obtained from an examination of La Corilla's titles to her high honour.
In the vulgar unpoetical world of baptismal registers, milliners' bills, and such matter–of–fact trivialities, "La Corilla" was known as Maria Maddalena Morelli. It was only "in Arcadia" that she was "La Corilla Olympica;" for such was her full Arcadian style and title.
Maria Maddalena Morelli, then, in plain prose, was born of humble parents at Pistoja, a Tuscan city some twenty miles from Florence, in the year 1740, and was educated in a better manner than the means of her parents could have commanded, by the kindness of a noble lady of that city. When she was only ten years old, her lively gracious manners and pleasing appearance obtained for her another and more important patroness. This was the Princess Pallavicini, who took the engaging child with her to Rome, and there completed her education according to the best and most perfect literary methods known to an age and people, who deemed Metastasio "the Prince of Poets."
While still at Rome she began to be favourably known to "the shepherds and shepherdesses, who owned the gentle sway of the blond–haired god of the silver bow," in that city for the quickness of her parts, and inclination towards poetry. And there a third patroness took her by the hand—the Princess Columbrano—who carried the blossoming muse with her to Naples, there to rhyme "amore," "a tutte le ore," for the amusement and admiration of the polite drawing–rooms, whose serene and illustrious inmates were unable to perform such feats of intellect for themselves.
Her success in this occupation was great, and was attended by a rapidly increasing and extending reputation. Amid these early triumphs the youthful poetess was wooed and won by Fernando Fernandez, a Spanish gentleman, whose entire biography, so far as recoverable from the greedy maw of dull oblivion, is narrated in the above words. Having given the "Zitella" Maddalena Morelli the social status of "La Signora Fernandez," he retires behind the side–scene, and is no more heard of.
It may be as well to state at once, however, to prevent misconception, that, notwithstanding the social circumstances which called Don Fernando to live in the shade, while his wife pursued her calling in the sunshine, there is no reason to doubt that La Signora Fernandez was a very good wife to her husband, and devoted herself to her domestic duties whenever she could get out of "Arcadia" for a season.
As for Don Fernando, the one sole fact of his biography will probably authorise us to conclude that he was a shrewd gentleman, with a good eye for the main chance; for in truth the marriage with "La Corilla" was a very good speculation. And the great Mr. Barnum, had he lived in those days, would assuredly have put himself into communication with her, and made arrangements for working the Arcadian farm to their mutual profit. However inferior to so great a master, Don Fernando was no doubt awake to the Arcadian yield. And we may picture him to ourselves as occupied in haunting the antechambers of princes and cardinals with "programmes" in his pocket, signing and issuing tickets, bargaining with fiddlers for their accompaniment to the Muse's improvisation, and doing any other such Arcadian bottle–holding as might assist in keeping his own and the Muse's pot boiling for the comfort of their ex–Arcadian existence.
It is evident that Corilla's business was a very profitable one. The highnesses, serenities, eminences, and other minor grandees were condemned to dreadfully dull lives in those days, and were delighted with any stimulant of a sufficiently mild nature and thoroughly safe quality. The world's rulers had long since learned that it was good to "patronise literature." It was in those days more than ever the fashion to do so. But literature had of late been exhibiting symptoms very disquieting to its courtly friends, who found it more than ever necessary to take precautions for having their literature of the right sort.
The "difficulty" between literature and princes is one of old date; and, truth to tell, the connection between them has rarely been creditable to either party. If Francis I. showed his paternal regard for learning by limiting the printing–presses in all France to twelve licensed machines, literature, even as represented by such men as the historian Robertson, has been flunky enough to extol him as "the father of letters!" How often has the clause—"but he protected literature and loved learned men"—been accepted in a historian's summing–up of the character of some royal scourge of humanity, as a set–off against a host of abominations wholly incompatible with any real appreciation of the value of human intellect! It is quite time that the historic claims of many princely "fathers of literature" to the lenient consideration of the world on this ground, should be more rightly appreciated. And the dealings of several of the Italian princes during the last three hundred years with those "dangerous classes" of their subjects, the men of the pen, form a very instructive manual of the royal art of patronising literature.
Cosmo I., Duke of Florence, by the grace of Charles V., was a most able practitioner in this line. He founded the Florentine Academy, and regulated its studies and duties in accordance with the great discovery, that the exercise of men's minds on words might be quite safe and harmless, if carefully disjoined from any application of their thoughts to things; nay, might even not only be harmless, but positively useful in promoting all those qualities which make men good subjects. And it is quite curious to observe with what unity of aim, means, and success, the policy so inaugurated by him has been carried out by those who came after him. Hence the innumerable "academies" which swarmed in every city of Italy, vieing with each other in the absurdity of their appellations and the frivolity of their pursuits. Hence the production of a literature which from generation to generation grew ever safer and safer, till it culminated in Arcadian shepherds and shepherdesses, and gave birth to a Corilla, who could be warranted to produce, in whatever heat of poetical estro and fervid flow of extempore song, only such strains as were fitted for noble ears to hear, and were calculated to "encourage the best sentiments in the masses."
The literature thus produced to meet the special requirements of enlightened princely protectors, and perfectionated by the dwindling intellect of successive generations to a pitch of imbecility scarcely credible, instructively illustrates its own birth, descent, antecedents, and functions, by the consistent and intense falsity which saturates and gives its character to the entire mass of it. The exterior and avowed fictions, which turned companies of sober middle–aged gentlemen, nobles, magistrates, lawyers, physicians, and divines, into Arcadian shepherds, calling each other by such absurd aliases as "Parmenio Dirceo," "Prasilio Dedaleo," "Dorillo Dafneio," and a thousand such, were but the fitting corporeal manifestation of a spirit as fictitious. The essence of "Arcadian" citizenship was to think false thoughts, to speak no word which should be a representation of any real thing, to cut off with jealous care all possible communication between the world of "Arcady" and the world of reality, and to take good heed that no stray tone of the voice of literature should by chance address itself to any one genuine feeling of the heart of man, evoke a sincere thought, or appeal to a real interest. It is easy to see how admirably such a literature was adapted to fulfil the objects of the princely founders and patrons of "Academies."
Our Olympic Corilla's business therefore throve, as every business does that produces wares in demand. Shortly after her marriage, the now celebrated Improvisatrice made a professional tour through Italy, and was listened to with delight in the patrician saloons of Bologna, Modena, Parma, Venice, &c. Fresh triumphs, we are told, everywhere awaited her; and her readiness, nimbleness of wit and tongue, and facility, became the admiration of all Italy.
The land of the "dolce favella" still brings forth "improvisatori" and "improvisatrice;" and those who have had an opportunity of hearing performances of the sort will readily appreciate the quality and amount of talent needed for the production of them. A dull, unimpressionable or unimaginative mind would of course entirely fail at any such exercise. But it is extremely probable, that a profound and suggestive intellect richly laden with stores of thought, and habitually critical in the marshalling and effective presentment of those stores, would be found equally unsuccessful. A light nimble wit of exclusively objective tendency, unburdened by deep views of things, and unimpeded by habits of examination and reflection; a ready and copious memory, well furnished with common–places, a good command of the language and its inexhaustible rhyming capabilities—that mellifluous language, of which it may be said, that every child born to the use of it, "lisps in numbers, for the numbers come" naturally to its attempts to talk;—and finally, perhaps the most essential qualification of all for the exercise of the art, a practised dexterity in avoiding any such treatment of a given subject as might lead to difficulty, a competent degree of skill in keeping to generals, and in finding some thread of connection, by virtue of which matter that can be easily said and sung from the cut and dried assortment of common places in store, is forced by a gentle compulsion to serve the purpose of more or less pertinently illustrating the topic in hand;—these are the qualifications which form the equipment of the "improvisatore." Practice will of course infinitely increase the performer's capabilities. Of course, too, a clever and bright professor of the art will string his rhymes with more play of fancy, and a greater approach to some novelty of poetical thought, than a stupid one. But it is difficult to believe that anything worth even the value of the hour spent in hearing him was ever produced by a practitioner of improvisation. And the habit of encouraging and admiring such performances is doubtless, to a certain degree, pernicious to a people who need every possible incitement to lower their estimate of the value of words as opposed to that of things, instead of additional temptations to accept mere verbiage in the place of thought.
But among the "distinguished circles" which patronised our Corilla, this was exactly the article wanted. Accordingly, when Pietro Leopoldo was to be married to Maria Luisa of Bourbon in 1765, Corilla was invited by the great Maria Theresa to go to Innspruck "to celebrate the nuptials." And we can well understand that she did so, eminently to the satisfaction of her imperial patrons. On returning well remunerated to Florence, she was appointed court poetess, and received a pension. And now her reputation had become clearly European in its extent, as far at least as that could be conferred by the courts of Europe. For Catherine the Second, thinking that she too would do the royal thing in civilised style, and patronise literature, sent an invitation to the poetess to come from Arcady to Russia, and be court poetess there,—not, it is to be hoped, to sing the "res gestæ" of the sovereign! But Corilla preferred to be a ducal poetess in "la bella Firenze," rather than an imperial one in Russia. And Catherine, though refused, nevertheless marked her appreciation of the claims of literature by conferring a pension on its court representative. Another invitation came to the happy shepherdess from Joseph the Second, who, radical reformer as he was, yet was quite monarchical enough to admire and approve Arcadian literature. Joseph was also refused; and he too sent magnificent presents to the recalcitrant Muse.